The French financial newspaper La Tribune reports that Microsoft’s France subsidiary has put up a redundancy plan to its works council, entailing voluntary redundancy for 30 staff member from its “Advertising and Online” division. ”The market structure of search-related online advertising, dominated by a hegemonic player” are something what the division’s current difficulties, but also of “the transformation of the online advertising market.”
As La Tribune points out, Bing’s market share in France was as low as 3,1% last May, compared to 89,9% for Google. The company employs 1,400 in its French offices, and stated clearly that other divisions won’t be affected. A spokesperson told La Tribune, “The advertising department and people working for Bing are affected, but not the MSN portal and its sizeable editorial teams.”
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