July 29, 2010 – Ignoring Yahoo Inc.’s choice of Microsoft, Yahoo Japan selects Google’s search engine and together, they will control almost all of the search market in the word’s second-biggest economy.
This story was brought to our attention by Reuters in their article, “UPDATE 4-Yahoo Japan to switch to Google’s search engine”. According to Yahoo Japan President Masahiro Inoue, Microsoft’s search technology was not strong enough for their needs, citing Japanese language search capabilities as one example. Microsoft said the deal would give Google the upper hand in the search market and stifle competition, but does not appear to be challenging it legally. Yahoo Inc. signed a 10-year deal with Microsoft last year to save hundreds of millions of dollars a year in expenses by shifting Web indexing chores while Yahoo focuses on improving searching. It is interesting to see their affiliate go in a different direction.
Melody K. Smith
Sponsored by Data Harmony, a unit of Access Innovations, the world leader in indexing and making content findable.
