According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, Microsoft once considered launching its own ecommerce marketplace to take on Amazon.com and eBay. Microsoft ended up pulling the plug on this idea, which was codenamed “Brazil.”
“The software giant held discussions with retailers and technology companies about a marketplace, proposing to equip it with an array of merchants, as well as a unified shopping cart and broad shipping options, according to these people. To lure shoppers, Microsoft was considering subsidizing the price of goods on its e-commerce service using a portion of advertising dollars merchants spend on Microsoft’s Bing Web-search engine or elsewhere, said the people,” the WSJ reports.
Microsoft wanted Project Brazil to “enable a more direct commerce model between customers, brands, and merchants” but the software giant ended up not following through this this plan for some unknown reason. “We remain committed to finding new and differentiated ways to enable a richer, more task oriented approach to e-commerce and online advertising,” Microsoft added.
Those in the know also revealed that Microsoft wanted to offer this marketplace as part of Windows, Windows Phone, and Xbox, among other products.
If Microsoft wanted to enter the ecommerce arena to take on Amazon and eBay, the software giant would be way behind the competition considering that both Amazon and eBay have been in the business for years and have millions of retail partners. But never say never.
