Microsoft considering 'super app' to fight Apple & Google mobile dominance
Microsoft may build an all-in-one "super app" to combine various services and fight the mobile search partnership between Apple and Google.
Microsoft
According to a report on Tuesday, the company has considered building an app that combines shopping, messaging, web search, news, and other services.
Microsoft executives see the app as a way to boost its advertising business and increase the foothold of Bing search. The company hopes to emulate companies such as Tencent, which has all-in-one apps, including WeChat.
Whether Microsoft will ever launch such an app is still being determined. Still, sources say CEO Satya Nadella is laying the groundwork by pushing Bing to work better with Microsoft's other mobile products.
Bing is at a disadvantage on mobile platforms compared to Google. Google has a billion-dollar contract with Apple to have its search engine be the default on iOS as it is on Android.
Microsoft doesn't have its own mobile app store either, forcing it to rely on competitors to attract and retain users. And competitors have rules, such as when Microsoft tried to get a mobile gaming store onto the App Store.
According to a former employee, Microsoft has periodically bid on Apple's contract, but Google has won every time. However, regulators have been eyeing the partnership between Apple and Google.
The Department of Justice is seeking an injunction in its pending antitrust lawsuit against Google to prevent renewal of the agreement, saying it unfairly stifles competition. However, a deal between Apple and Microsoft may not command the same level of scrutiny since Bing has a much lower share of the web search market than Google.
Apple has also been focused on developing web search features across its services, but its efforts are slowed. Due to its privacy stance, the company has fewer data to work with than Google or Microsoft.
Rumors of an Apple search engine reappeared earlier in 2022, with analyst Robert Scoble claiming the company will unveil it in January 2023.
Read on AppleInsider
Microsoft
According to a report on Tuesday, the company has considered building an app that combines shopping, messaging, web search, news, and other services.
Microsoft executives see the app as a way to boost its advertising business and increase the foothold of Bing search. The company hopes to emulate companies such as Tencent, which has all-in-one apps, including WeChat.
Whether Microsoft will ever launch such an app is still being determined. Still, sources say CEO Satya Nadella is laying the groundwork by pushing Bing to work better with Microsoft's other mobile products.
Bing is at a disadvantage on mobile platforms compared to Google. Google has a billion-dollar contract with Apple to have its search engine be the default on iOS as it is on Android.
Microsoft doesn't have its own mobile app store either, forcing it to rely on competitors to attract and retain users. And competitors have rules, such as when Microsoft tried to get a mobile gaming store onto the App Store.
According to a former employee, Microsoft has periodically bid on Apple's contract, but Google has won every time. However, regulators have been eyeing the partnership between Apple and Google.
The Department of Justice is seeking an injunction in its pending antitrust lawsuit against Google to prevent renewal of the agreement, saying it unfairly stifles competition. However, a deal between Apple and Microsoft may not command the same level of scrutiny since Bing has a much lower share of the web search market than Google.
Apple has also been focused on developing web search features across its services, but its efforts are slowed. Due to its privacy stance, the company has fewer data to work with than Google or Microsoft.
Rumors of an Apple search engine reappeared earlier in 2022, with analyst Robert Scoble claiming the company will unveil it in January 2023.
Read on AppleInsider
Comments
(Apologies to JRR Tolkein)
(kudos to @DAalseth )
inwould think Microsoft’s plans would have more of an impact on search engines like DDG than it would on Google.
I could see my workplace, which is everything Microsoft, doing this. They just closed off Apple Mail and Calendar access in favour of Outlook only. For mobile devices, having to go into one app and then click again to get to the calendar sucks.
iPad Pro copying Surface Pro
Apple Music copying Spotify
Apple TV+ copying Netflix
HomePod copy Amazon Echo
Apple Arcade copying Xbox GamePass
Apple Airtags copying Tile
"I'm sure it will be a smashing success. People love everything crammed into one space. It's why I find the Windows taskbar on my work computer so useful! I love when it randomly shows me the S&P average, then an animated icon for rain. But wait..when you click it (even right click!) it gets so much better. Then it expands to news stories, weather, sports and more! It's always responsive and never intrudes on my workflow. Plus that little circle icon on the left is clear and helps me launch MS's superior voice assistant that I use every day."
---said no one, ever.
"I'm sure it will be a smashing success. People love everything crammed into one space. It's why I find the Windows taskbar on my work computer so useful! I love when it randomly shows me the S&P average, then an animated icon for rain. But wait..when you click it (even right click!) it gets so much better. Then it expands to news stories, weather, sports and more! It's always responsive and never intrudes on my workflow. Plus that little circle icon on the left is clear and helps me launch MS's superior voice assistant that I use every day."
---said no one, ever.
Of course this all explains the primary reason why a company like Microsoft wants to sell you their super app. Microsoft wants to keep you confined within and dependent upon their super app for all of the bundled capabilities, like the super app is a mini-OS inside the real OS. This makes sense for them, but eliminates choice, interoperability, and extensibility for users who care about those things. The same applies to IT folks within a corporate environment as well because they want to limit the number of scope of what they have to support, especially for business critical functions. Microsoft and corporate IT want to shrink the computing world down as much as possible for end users, which makes perfect sense for them. As long end users are okay with that model, no big deal.
End users who want more, like a better version of an app or capability that is bundled in a super app, are far less enthralled. In my experience the bundled capabilities in the super apps that I came to loath just kept getting worse and worse over time. Oftentimes the whole super app turned into a hot mess for end users, but because they were part of a big corporate IT investment or the only available option, the badness never went away despite the user base revolting against being stuck with having to slog through the hot mess. The upgrade cycles on some of the worst super apps was absolutely glacial.
Hopefully the super apps of today have overcome the hot mess problems that they developed during the formative years of personal computing. But for personal use and when I have control, I’ll stick to the flexibility of being able to assemble best-of-breed functionality on my own and use the OS provide interoperability mechanisms to keep everything running smoothly.