There once when a time when it was a very bad idea for American autoworkers to own foreign vehicles. A lone Toyota in the employee parking lot might, according to some stories, get mysteriously overturned. Fanatical Microsoft employees shouldn’t even think about enforcing a similar rule set, though, because almost half of the corporation’s workers use Google.
Indeed, “almost half” is accurate by Microsoft’s own admission. Ina Fried reported, “Among its full-time U.S. workers, Microsoft says that, for February, Live Search and Google had roughly equal share, at around 48 percent apiece, with little search traffic going to Yahoo or any of the other search players.”
And people who are suspicious of company lines might want to consider an even larger portion.
Either way, though, such a thing can’t be good for morale. This isn’t the same as a McDonald’s worker running over to Arby’s for the occasional snack; this sounds instead like some Microsoft employees are siding with Google on a permanent basis. And even if the majority are just using Google as a backup option, every search would become a sort of symbol of defeat.
Microsoft is going to promote the relaunch of its search brand with a $100 million advertising campaign. Perhaps the company can put some commercials on repeat in all employee lounges.
