YouDesigns

I read that Microsoft is bidding $45 billion for Yahoo. That is at the very least interesting...(see http://money.cnn.com/2008/02/01/technology/microsoft_yahoo/index.htm?cnn=yes )

Leaving aside all other implications - very serious indeed - there is a detail that boggles my mind (or whatever little I have left of it):
Apparently Micrsoft searchers (MSN + Windows (formerly)Live) share only about 9% of the internet search market...!

Think about it: every installation of Windows or IE comes with these search engines as a system default; it is up to the user to actually abandon passivity, jump ship on good ole inertia and change it.

We know in most other respects, users do not like to fiddle around, but I wonder if the search engine has become what the wallpapers/fonts/themes of teenage girls' PC's used to be. (you know, the first thing they "personalized" in their new computers, until the screen was pink, dizzying and illegible, in order to feel "unique")

Maybe being the default setting is actually playing against them... or maybe they just plain suck.