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Should Apple launch its own search engine?

Asked at Apple over a year ago

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Product Strategy

Product Strategy

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Platinum PM

May 25, 2020

Should Apple launch its own search engine?

Before entering into the new market, companies need to see the following things

1. The attractiveness of the search engine markets

2. Strength of the product or company in the market based on current or previous experience

The attractiveness of the markets

1. Market growth

2. Market cost

3. Competition Rivalry

4. Buyer Bargain

5. New Entrant Threat

6. Ability to differentiate

7. Threat of substitution

Rate each market based on the parameters

Positive - If factor encourages the companies to enter into the market
Negative - If factors discourage the companies to enter into the market
Neutral - If factors do not affect much to the companies

	Search Engine Market
Market Growth	Neutral	Search engine market is not growing at a faster pace
Market Cost	Negative	Cost to enter into search engine market is very very high
Competition Rivalry	Negative	Already have big competitors in the market like Google, Microsoft
Buyer Bargain	Negative	It is very easy for users to switch from one provider to another search engine provider
New Entrant Threat	Positive	It is not easy for any newbie to enter into the market
Ability to differentiate	Negative	It is a very high tech market and it is hard to differentiate
Threat of substitution	Neutral
	Negative

Portfolio Analysis

Perform the portfolio analysis to understand the previous experience of the company in the search engine market

iPod
Mac
IOS
Safari
iPhone

Search Engine Market Paradigms

Web Search
Image Search
Catalog Search
Video Search

Rate each market based on the parameters

Positive - If a product provides experience to the company in the search engine market
Negative - If a product does not provide any experience to the company in the search engine market
Neutral - If a product provides similar experience to the company in the search engine market

	IPod	IPhone	Mac	Safari
Web Search	Negative	Negative	Negative	Neutral
Image Search	Negative	Positive	Positive	Neutral
Catalog Search	Negative	Negative	Negative	Negative
Video Search	Neutral	Neutral	Negative	Negative
	Negative	Neutral	Negative	Neutral

Recommendation

As you can see, the Search engine market is not attractive and Apple does not have the strength or previous experience ( based on portfolio analysis ) in this domain. So I would recommend, not to enter into the Search Engine Market

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1 Feedback

Platinum PM

Jul 14, 2020

1

productmanager1644

Platinum PM

Feb 8, 2021

CLARIFY:
1. Is the search engine you're imagining similar to Google or Bing? Yes.
2. Is there a specific market in mind? You choose.
3. Is there a goal to keep in mind? You choose.
APPLE BACKGROUND: Apple's mission is to bring the best personal hardware and software products to the world. If it were to enter the search engine market, it would want to create the best search engine possible in line with its mission.
SWOT:
1. Strengths: Apple has significant brand recognition and a loyal customer base. It's known for designing very innovative products that push boundaries. It also has a large customer base which it could pull from. Apple also offers its own browser Safari, so a search engine built into it (similar to Google Chrome) could give it an additional edge.
2. Weaknesses: A search engine is a new area for Apple to venture into. It requires significant data reach and there is already sizeable competition in the market. This type of build requires additional speciality that Apple may not have in its current workface. (More in threats.)
3. Opportunities: Apple devices currently default to using Google search. The opportunity to bring search in house to Apple is in line with Apple's previous builds. We've seen Apple bring similar applications like Music, Fitness, Apple Pay into the iOS and OS ecosystem to keep everything Apple owned. Apple devices could come equipped with default Apple search engines, which gives it an advantage. Also, Apple is known to design premium products / has a strong emphasize on design. Search engines are generally fairly similar. Apple has the opportunity to break this mold and design a better search engine.
4. Threats: Google is the biggest competitor to Apple. It already dominates the search engine field and is by far the superior / most widely used search engine. It has had plenty of opportunity to build its search engine algorithms and expand its capabilities. Apple risks its brand by launching an inferior search engine. For example, when it launched Apple Maps, there were significant issues, which required brand damage. Google Maps still dominates the mapping landscape.
STRATEGIC CHOICES: There are two strategic choices.
1. Launch search engine
2. Don't launch search engine
EVALUATION CRITERIA:
1. Customer Acquisition: The ability to attract additional customers to Apple / expand its base
2. User Experience: How the user will interact with the search engine
3. Engagement: How often will the user interact with the Apple search engine
4. Technical Build: How complex the search engine build will be
5. Hardware: Additional hardware / servers Apple may need to purchase to manage a search engine at scale
6. Resources: Engineers, designers, product teams, etc. to build the search engine. Also includes time and cost of building the search engine.
7. Revenue: Revenue potential from advertisements based on customer data or SEO, etc.
8. Competition: Existing competition in the marketplace (ex. Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.)

EVALUATION:

Evaluation Criteria	Weighting	Reason
Customer Acquisition	Low	Potential to acquire new customers via a browser. If Apple devices default to Apple search, likely the person using the device is already an Apple customer. It will be difficult to pull other non-Apple device users away from Google on browsers like Chrome or Firefox that already have default browser settings that likely are Google for most people.
User Experience	Medium	Apple must launch a significantly powerful search engine to rival Google. It likely will be able to design a better UI potentially given its strength in design.
Engagement	Low	Very difficult to pull people from Google initially. Will have to prove search engine's worth which takes time.
Technical Build	High	Google has had years to develop a superior search engine. Others like Bing have not been able to compete as well. The build will be extremely complex.
Hardware	High	To scale a search engine at the magnitude of Google, etc. will require many servers distributed around the world.
Resources	High	Many resources required to
Revenue	Medium	If Apple can build a successful search engine, there is a lot of data it can use for ads. Apple has taken a strong data privacy stance though, so its stance may hinder it from building an ad business like Google's.
Competition	High	Significant competition from Google

RECOMMENDATION: Given the extent of resources Apple needs to invest in and the serious competition threat from Google, I do not recommend building a search engine at this time. If Apple is interested in going into search, a potential could be to start smaller and build out a smaller search engine that specializes in one area (like music - where Apple already has footing in).

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