Conference notes from Danny Sullivan's keynote conversation with Steve Berkowitz, Windows Live Chief at Search Engine Strategies New York '07.

Steve Berkowitz was CEO of Ask. He describes Microsoft Live as a "much bigger ship". There's a lot of potential at Microsoft - need to unlock the potential. Also need to focus on the basics. Wants to move from "search" to "navigation". Wants to achieve balance between the 'ecosystem' in search (publishers, searchers, advertisers).

Microsoft is deploying a unified search and ad platform. They're based on the same concepts - relevant search. Steve Berkowitz is marketing/sales side, another guy (missed his name) is more product oriented, however Berkowitz does oversee marketing products.

The organization (Live) "wants to drive to critical mass".

"Live" is trying to be a service that's "device agnostic" and extends the presence of Windows more so than MSN. It will offer portable identities. It's an extension of Windows onto the Internet. MSN will be powered by Live. MSN will get much more social content.

First goal for Live is to reach critical mass in advertising. It's not satisfactory to not be number one (audience laughed).

Two sides of Live - 1) live.com as a destination and 2) integrated search in applications. Integrated search is very important to them - leave the user in their "environment". Deliver both structured and unstructured data.

"There's no benefit of owning an operating system today." The OEMs are the ones in the positions of power. Microsoft has to "earn it". Windows, on it's own, is pretty cool, but then there are so many layers on top of it that clutter the product. They're not the fault of Microsoft.

What Microsoft needs to do is more than throwing an icon on a desktop - they need to build destinations.

Ms. Dewey came on stage. Ms. Dewey is the personification of an experimental search interface. Slim, attractive female - "boy the world has changed since Jeeves". She disrupted the question "will Microsoft merge with Yahoo!?"

[L-R] Steve Berkowitz (Microsoft), Ms. Dewey (Live Search), Danny Sullivan (Search Engine Strategies)

Microsoft needs to "crack open the vault" of what it can do and what it develops in its labs. He feels there's so much innovation at Microsoft, but they're not perceived as "cool" because they're not nimble enough to bring cool things to the forefront.

In terms of the ship analogy, there's more than one engine room.

Why not just do search, and do it well? Why do so much integration - it creates problems?
It's not about leveraging Windows - it's about meeting the need of the audience (the users). It's also about extending the paradigm of Windows (sharing folders, etc.)

What puts you ahead of Google and Yahoo!?
"It's not a question of who's ahead or who's behind..." Microsoft does better at "cross-engagement". Search will be much better integrated into other Microsoft offerings. Microsoft is also one of the few companies which has the resources to invest in infrastructure and development to stay current. Microsoft has "maturity" which can be an advantage and a disadvantage - depending.

He uses Live 90% of the time - the other 10% is for comparison.

It's not enough that he took a crazy job at Microsoft - he has a 6 month-old baby and an 18 year-old teenager.

He thinks search will move from text-based to graphically-based. There's going to be a huge change in UI, and UX...

There's a lot of features they don't tout and market well (example of coming into Manhattan, knowing the Lincoln Tunnel was backed up, and then finding a restaurant).

They're only 1/3rd the age of most of the other big search companies (in terms of being in search).

"We'll get there..."

[Additional photos of Steve Berkowitz, Ms. Dewey and Danny Sullivan]

Tags: Danny Sullivan, Microsoft, Ms Dewey, online-advertising, Search Engines, SES-NY, Steve Berkowitz
Categories: MSN/Live