Microsoft’s Windows is debatably the most popular operating system worldwide. Based on this premise, the assumption would be that the tech giant makes money hand over fist from the service. However, in a recent episode of the BG2Pod with Brad Gerstner and Bill Gurley podcast, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella surprisingly indicated:
“Google makes more money on Windows than all of Microsoft. Literally. Wow, this is the best news for Microsoft shareholders that we lost so badly, that we can now go contest it and win back some share.”
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The executive also discussed the search war between Microsoft and Google. Nadella admitted that despite having a distribution advantage over Google with Windows, Google continues to dominate the search landscape.
He also indicated that the same goes for AI since Windows is an open system. Rival AI tools like Gemini, ChatGPT, Anthropic’s Claude, and more get an equal chance for discovery and adoption by Windows users despite Microsoft having its homegrown AI tool, Copilot.
In the past, Microsoft has tried to secure a deal with Apple to make Bing its default search engine. The CEO indicated the deal would be “a game-changing opportunity” for Microsoft, and the company was willing to part with up to $15 billion annually to attract a similar deal with Apple.
During Google’s antitrust hearing last year, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella indicated Google doesn’t play fair with Bing, further citing that its exclusive deal with Apple negatively impacts Bing’s growth and reach.
Google reportedly pays Apple large sums of money to be the default search engine in Safari. The company has been accused of breaking antitrust laws after allegedly paying approximately $15 billion to secure its search engine dominance. In 2021, the company paid a jaw-dropping $26 billion to maintain its search engine as the default across Apple devices.
In 2021, Apple almost acquired Bing from Microsoft, but the iPhone maker abruptly dropped the plans, citing critical search quality issues. More recently, Apple seemingly busted Microsoft’s bubble of being Safari’s default search engine during Google’s antitrust case that deemed it an illegal monopoly in search:
“I don’t believe there’s a price in the world that Microsoft could offer us. They offered to give us Bing for free. They could give us the whole company.”
However, with the rapid emergence of generative AI, the search landscape could be headed toward a paradigm shift. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella expressed his deal when Apple got into a deal with OpenAI to bring ChatGPT across its tech stack. “I’ve been trying to get an Apple search deal for like 10 years, and so when Tim finally did a deal with Sam, I was the most thrilled person,” stated Nadella. “It’s better to have ChatGPT get that deal than anybody else because we have both a commercial and investor relationship with OpenAI.”
Aside from being deemed by the court an illegal monopoly in the search landscape, Google may have bigger fish to fry with emerging AI-powered search engines like OpenAI’s SearchGPT and recently launched ChatGPT Search, according to a former Google engineer.