Live Search to Begin 'Incentive' Enterprise Trial

Microsoft is seeking participants through the end of the month, before starting the trial, which will go on for a year. Participating companies would install an Internet Explorer "browser helper object" for measuring search query traffic through Windows Live Search. Microsoft would offer the credits based on the number of users and volume of search queries.

Searchblog broke news on the search trial program, based on a leaked PowerPoint presentation. This afternoon, Microsoft Watch spoke with Adam Sohn, Microsoft's global sales and marketing PR director, who confirmed the program's existence.

"Our goal is to get 30 corporations in North America, Europe and Japan," to participate, Sohn said. He didn't know the exact number of committed participants, but it is somewhere between "zero and 30."

Microsoft is contacting prospective participants, but enterprises may also ask Microsoft about joining the program. Not every company approached or seeking participation would be able to join the trial.

For one, "It's first come, first served," Sohn said. For another, companies must have a "minimum of 5,000 PCs." Finally, enterprises would have to be able to deploy the browser helper object fairly quickly, which for some businesses also would mean Internet Explorer 7.

"Obviously if a company is going to take 18 months to deploy, they couldn't [join] a year-long trial," Sohn said.

Microsoft has two objectives for the program: Learning more about enterprise search and exposing more businesses and their employees to Windows Live Search.

"It's an experiment about how people are using search and how we can get people to use this product," Sohn said.

At this point, Microsoft only plans to measure the volume of queries, rather than the kind of queries. Such an approach could ease some potential participants' concerns about privacy issues.

Some initial Web buzz about the search program suggests that Microsoft is paying businesses to use Live Search. Based on the limited scope of the program—number of customers and time frame—I would disagree. Additionally, Microsoft is more likely to benefit from the search research than from increasing Live Search usage.

However, matters would change if Microsoft made the program permanent after a year and opened it up to all customers. Under those circumstances, there would be a legitimate position that Microsoft was paying businesses to use Live Search.

Sohn made absolutely clear that for trial participants, "IT guys are still in control."

Their commitment would be to deploy the browser helper object on a certain number of PCs and set Windows Live Search as the default search engine. Search participants could still use other search engines on other PCs or on the same trial systems using other browsers.

That said, "the amount of credits is determined by the number of PCs and search query volume," Sohn said. So, more employees using Live Search would mean more free credits.

Sohn wouldn't discuss the value of the credits, although sources outside Microsoft familiar with the program confirmed that the $2-to-$10 per-computer/year figure cited by Searchblog is accurate. However, as the program is a trial that hasn't started, the figure is at best an estimate. True value could be significantly greater or less. The sources could not confirm the $25,000 enrollment credit reported by Searchblog

Participants could cash in the credits for Microsoft products, services or training offered by the company or its partners.

Microsoft's expectation is that participants will "redeem [the credits] for stuff they're going to do anyway," Sohn said.

It seems to me that a company planning to deploy Office 2007 or Windows Vista during the next year could join the search trial and use the credits for services or training related to the two products.