Microsoft has hired the CEO of search rival Ask.com to head its MSN Internet business.
Steven Berkowitz, CEO of IAC Search & Media which operates Ask.com for Barry Diller’s InterActive Corp/IAC, will move over to Microsoft in early May to become senior vice president of MSN’s Online Business Group. He will replace David Cole, who is taking a leave of absence from the Redmond WA-based company.
Berkowitz’s post at Ask.com will be filled by IAC Search & Media president Doug Lebda, according to a report in the New York Times.
“The opportunity to work in the online space for a company like Microsoft, with its vision, capabilities and global reach, is truly exciting,” Berkowitz said in a statement late Friday.
“Steven is an accomplished senior executive with a rich skill set, including consumer brand building, media, marketing, operations, people management, finance and technology,” Kevin Johnson, vice president of Microsoft’s platforms & services division, said in a letter to Microsoft employees and quoted in Search Engine Watch. “He also brings a great blend of start-up and high growth business experiences.”
Berkowitz’s move comes at a time when Microsoft is in the middle of a campaign to light a fire under its search division, hoping to drive both usage and ad revenue to catch up to market leader Google, which now commands 42.7% of the U.S. search marketplace, according to March figures from comScore Networks.
That was the eighth consecutive month in which Google has built market share despite the efforts of Yahoo! and MSN to close the gap. Ask.com was the only other engine among the top five to increase its share of search usage last month, although the increase was less than a percentage point. Ask.com now serves 5.9% of U.S. searches.
Berkowitz joined Ask.com five years ago, when it was still an independent search engine known as Ask Jeeves. He came to the company from IDG Publishing, where he was responsible for the “Dummies” product line of reference books. And he presided over a gradual turnaround of Ask, including the important purchase and integration of a robust search technology and a redesign of the site that included a simpler interface and swapping pop-up ads and banners on results pages for pay-per-click ads that would be more relevant to users. IAC purchased Ask Jeeves last year for $1. 85 billion, and Berkowitz moved to head the division for that conglomerate, which owns such other Web properties as LendingTree.com, Match.com and CitySearch.
Earlier this year, Ask accomplished a well-received re-launch that included dropping the Jeeves mascot, adding a wide number of tools to its home page, and mounting a mass-media campaign to attract new users.
