According to a report in the Business Insider, the search scene is showing some unexpected changes.

  • Yahoo! up for six consecutive months. The former leader is now carrying about 21% of all US searches.
  • Google down half a point to 63% of US searches in December. 
  • MSN up two-tenths of a point to 8.5% of US searches in December.

No word on whether MSN's numbers include Microsoft-owned Live.com.

Over the past year, a number of people had written Yahoo! off, claiming that the company had no future apart from Microsoft. And yet, those who watch Microsoft are calling for the company to dump its failing search businesses and open source Windows. After pouring billions of dollars into search, tying its market-leading Internet Explorer browser to MSN/Live search, and even paying users to search on their sites, the company is still not even garnering 10% of domestic searches. Yahoo! is getting double that quantity, without the subsidies, the legally-questionable product-tying, or the bribes.

One would have to be a complete moron to believe that merging Microsoft's MSN/Live unit with any part of Yahoo! will result in anything other than complete dominance (possibly over 90% share) for Google. The same incompetents who couldn't make it with the backing of one of the richest companies in the world are supposed to suddenly marry a completely different culture, a completely different set of technologies, and a completely different set of search techniques into their failed company without chasing away the bright minds at Yahoo! that make it what it is? Utter foolishness, I say.

Hat tip: Jim Robertson.