In: Operations Management
Most critical weakness of Microsoft
The most critical weakness of Microsoft is not having leading position in search engine market. Google dominates this market. Microsoft is started well before Google Company but cannot capitalize the search engine market. Microsoft introduces a search engine called Bing but it has to travel a long way to become formidable brand as Google search engine is. Bing does not have a good track record as it is accused of providing child pornography and racist imagery. These issues are addressed but it does not help to gain popularity for Bing search engine among customers. When people search for information, Bing provides older data compared to Google that provides relevant and latest data. User interface of Google is more attractive than Bing. More user friendly appetence of Google is not found in Bing search engine. The search engine of Microsoft is a critical weakness for the company because it continuously loses money. These information reveal that microsoft is losing its competitiveness in the market.
The response from Microsoft reveals that it believes that it is a long term game for Bing. In its response, Microsoft states that Bing is focused to enhance experience of users. It is revealed by market share statistics in USA where Bing has enhances its market share. The company introduces new features in Bing search engine such as offering points to users while searching on Bing. Microsoft also introduces an Edge browser but Microsoft has to improve the Bing user interface and provide latest content to make it popular among users. Adopting these features in Bing search engine can address this critical weakness of Microsoft. Thus, this is the most critical weakness found in Microsoft.