Microsoft to Re-Badge Live Search?

By Greg McNevin

June 10, 2008: With its surprise bid to snatch Yahoo! now in the can, Microsoft’s search team is looking for ways to improve its image and make it more competitive.

Always a flowergirl and never a bridesmaid, let alone bride, Mircosoft’s Live Search appears to be suffering from somewhat of an identity crisis. Its namesake has been tacked on to a range of products, and there has been no great surge in traffic numbers to put it on track to challenge the mighty overlord of search: Google.

According to Kevin Johnson, president of Microsoft's platforms and services division, the company is working to “fix” its brand image to entice more surfers, and fixing could include a complete change of branding.

Johnson has told the Associated Press that the company could switch back to the previous MSN search brand, or align itself closer with the company’s own branding and go with Microsoft Search.

Either way, if it wants to even hope of achieving anything remotely close to the popularity Google’s search enjoys, it’s going to have to pull something special out of the hat now if it isn’t prepared to pony up the dough for Yahoo!

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