Kara Swisher

Recent Posts by Kara Swisher

Forget "The Conquistador": When Is Microsoft Going to Drop the Other Shoe on Its Conquering Web Strategy?

There will be a lot of different reactions to the first of Microsoft’s newest series of commercials, featuring Founder Bill Gates playing straight man to comic Jerry Seinfeld.

Set up as a discount shoe-buying skit, Seinfeld helps Gates purchase a pair called “The Conquistador,” and for some Seinfeldesque reason, it’s churros all around.

Actually, it feels a lot like the frequent and excellent Microsoft internal spoof videos Gates does with various celebs.

I have always liked them a lot and I like this one too, as it is quirkily charming (or is it charmingly quirky?).

But I am not sure the Gates-Seinfeld kibitzing will really get a lot of people talking about Microsoft (MSFT) products, as is the marketing goal.

And they surely are no where near as spot-on as Apple’s famed PC-Mac guys commercials, which are memorable and witty and deliver the message that Apple (AAPL) products are better.

What might be more effective, of course, at least in the Internet arena, is for Microsoft to get off the stick and lay out its next Web strategy clearly, especially in the wake of its failed attempt to acquire Yahoo (YHOO), and name the digital chief it said it planned to.

Several sources with knowledge of the situation expect an internal choice to helm the part of the business that was run by former Microsoft exec Kevin Johnson, who left after the software giant’s bid for Yahoo failed.

Although an external star coming in would be CEO Steve Ballmer’s top choice, I would guess, top internal contenders are Brian McAndrews, who came to the company via its $6 billion aQuantive acquisition, and longtime exec Yusuf Mehdi, who was Johnson’s strategy guy.

(BoomTown votes for a combination of both to make it extra complex!)

In any case, if it is serious about taking on rival Google (GOOG) in the online ad space and becoming at least the No. 2 player in the market, Microsoft has to move sooner than later and definitely much faster and it has a lot of options.

With Yahoo’s stock circling the drain, closing yesterday at $17.75, will Microsoft think about another bid for even a part of the Internet company?

Or will it try, as it claims, to get truly serious about building its business organically with programs like Live Search cashback, a deeper focus on vertical search improvements in places like video, images and mapping, and more content on its MSN sites?

Or should it be aggressively looking around for other properties to purchase to bolster its Web assets, such as the company that owns the Ciao price comparison and online shopping sites in Europe, for which it just forked over $500 million?

Of course, Microsoft will likely keep trying all of these, although I hope not in the muddling way it has behaved for far too long.

Johnson was entirely right in his internally controversial concept that being one of the top players on the Web is key to Microsoft’s future, even more than its lucrative Windows software hegemony.

(If you want to read an interesting take as to why, don’t miss New York Times columnist Joe Nocera’s “Does Windows Still Matter?” post yesterday).

And with Google’s new foray into the browser business this week, Microsoft surely has to be certain that it does not lose in the one place it does dominate.

In other words, Microsoft has a lot of work ahead of it, well beyond amusing us with Gates doing a thankfully hands-free adjustment of his boxer shorts.

In any case, you should see that, so here’s the first Gates-Seinfeld commercial:

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Nobody was excited about paying top dollar for a movie about WikiLeaks. A film about the origins of Pets.com would have done better.

— Gitesh Pandya of BoxOfficeGuru.com comments on the dreadful opening weekend box office numbers for “The Fifth Estate.”