Microsoft rolled out a beta version of Windows
Marketplace, a one-stop online shop for everything from computer mice to
enterprise sever software.
The online store, featuring content and information from CNET Networks,
will be practically unavoidable: Microsoft will place it
in front of its captive audience of Windows XP and Internet Explorer users.
Consumers will be able to access the Marketplace from the XP Start menu, via
“find a partner solution,” while Microsoft plans to add a link to it in its
Internet Explorer browser. The company will promote Windows Marketplace
through a variety of marketing vehicles.
“They’re going to be able to find more than 100,000 products that work
with your Windows PC at launch,” Will Poole, a Microsoft senior vice
president, told attendees of the company’s Worldwide Partner Conference in
July. “They’re going to have advanced searching tools, and browsing,
try-before-you-buy features that are all going to make this process of
finding, sampling, and adopting technologies for your Windows PC possible.”
The Marketplace makes for some odd juxtapositions. For example, a search
for Microsoft’s speech recognition products places Speech Server 2004
Enterprise Edition ($16,773.56) right above the MS Voice Command package for
PDAs ($29.12).
Shoppers can refine their searches by manufacturer, price range, by
compatibility, retailer or whether there’s a free shipping option. Consumers
also can rate products and post comments.
CNET Networks, a San Francisco, Calif.-based online shopping and content
company, will provide Windows Marketplace with pricing and product
information for some 100,000 products. The information will come from CNET’s
existing databases, plus self-serve input from vendors.
Microsoft partners whose products have already received “Designed for
Windows” certification can use Microsoft’s Marketplace Listing Wizard. The
rest can use tools on the CNET site.
“We had a close partnership with CNET and [CNET’s] Download.com to get
content into this,” Poole said.
Neither CNET nor Microsoft executives responded to queries about whether
CNET is actually hosting the Windows Marketplace.
Clicking on the “buy now” link takes shoppers from Microsoft’s site to a
retailer’s; the third-party vendors handle the actual transactions. Neither
company disclosed whether Microsoft will receive a revenue share or referral
fee for sending business to vendors. CNET does receive fees when visitors
click through from its own shopping site to merchants’ sites and when CNET
visitors download software.
“This is a great opportunity for CNET Networks to work with Microsoft to
better serve our shared software developer and merchant customers by
increasing the visibility of their Windows-compatible products before target
consumer audiences,” Barry Briggs, chief operating officer of CNET Networks,
said in a statement.
But Aly
Colón, ethics group leader for the Poynter Institute, a nonprofit,
independent school for journalists, said the deal could harm the
credibility of CNET’s news site. He said a perceived conflict of interest
for journalists reporting on a vendor with whom the publisher has a
commercial relationship could harm credibility. “The best scenario is there
is no relationship, no connection that people will perceive to be beneficial
to either one or both parties,” he said. “If there are some
interrelationships, it’s important to disclose those, so people will not
find out about them in some other way.”
