Microsoft: Use our search and we'll pay you

Microsoft is offering to pay corporations if they get their employees to use Live Search at work, the company confirmed on Friday.

How much are they paying? How many employees must there be in a company? I am surprised they don't simply offer money to people if they click the PPC ads lol.

The deal goes like this..Microsoft is providing service or training credits to a select number of enterprise customers based on the number of Web search queries conducted by their employees via Live Search.These customers, in turn, are providing valuable feedback to Microsoft on the use of Web search in an enterprise environment. Microsoft is offering large enterprise customers free service and credits that can be redeemed for products and training if they push Live search inside their companies. Companies can get a $25,000 enrollment credit plus anywhere from $2 to $10 per computer annually, which can add up to a lot for companies with thousands of computers. In an example given on a Powerpoint presentation that Battelle partially republished, a company with 10,000 PCs and high Web searching could earn $120,000 and one with 50,000 PCs and medium Web searching could earn $200,000.

Thanks for clarifying the details karantangri.

ooh seems a good idea, i wanna get payed for searching for things :laugh:

This thread proves to be very informative. And karantangri has given us a great piece of information. It would have created many ways to generate income for the corporates.

actually it is a great idea, if its a small search engine, it has a bigger chance to grow etc. but i doubt the emplyees would stay with it, they'd go on google still probly XD

why are thye targeting employees of companies why not just pay anyone to click their ads? wouldn't that be more profitable?

And illegal!

Heh, I would certainly take the effort to type in "google.com" - much preferred to me. Or just create a favorite and get it in the toolbar, if possible! It would be funny if they began to deny access to competing search engines so employees are forced to use Live