Filed under: International markets, Deals, Industry, Competitive strategy, Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), Yahoo! (YHOO)

Yahoo!’s (NASDAQ:YHOO) huge footprint in Asia could be a significant benefit to Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) as it tries to gain market share from Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) in the region. Yahoo! owns big pieces of Yahoo! Japan and China e-commerce firm Alibaba. A takeover from Microsoft would give the world’s largest software maker access to all of that.

According to Reuters, “If the deal goes through, Microsoft stands to gain a leg up over Google from cooperation with Alibaba’s on the internet software and Yahoo Japan’s on the web customer base.”

The theory might be based on soft reasoning. Yahoo! has been operating in the region for a decade and Google, which entered the market much later, has done fine. In Japan, Google is No.2 in audience behind Yahoo!, according to comScore. Google recently signed a deal to be the default search engine for NTT Docomo (NYSE:DCM) handsets. Docomo is the dominate cellular provider in Japan.

Microsoft might pick up relationships with web properties in Asia, but if its search product does not measure up to Google’s that might not matter. Being superior is the best way to get larger. Buying in won’t guarantee success.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, March 16th, 2008 at 3:12 pm and is filed under Industry News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.