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Bing To Become Default iPhone Search?
snydeq writes "BusinessWeek reports ongoing talks between Apple and Microsoft to make Bing the default search engine for the iPhone. The discussions reflect an accelerating rivalry between Apple and Google, one that some believe will be the most important rivalry in tech in the years to come. 'Apple and Google know the other is their primary enemy,' says one person familiar with Apple's thinking. 'Microsoft is now a pawn in that battle.'"
I like competition as much as the next guy.
However, I am really suspicious of Bing's marketshare numbers. Has no-one else noticed that many of those demonic hoverover underline word links pull up Bing now? How much of the increase is because people lingered a little too long over a word on a web page?
Furthermore, anything with a small marketshare can easily post impressive percentage gains quickly...
Bing's results are as you say pretty decent, however I really don't like the super-heavy home page with the ginormous image. It's cool once but I just can't have that for a page I pull up so often... even if cached, the image is just too annoying over time. Goolge has the simplicity aspect right.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"Apple is also working on ways to manage ad placement on its mobile devices"
What the hell is that line about. Apple better not be spamming the fuck out fo me when i'm paying for their fucking devices and software AND cell service.
FUCK YOU APPLE.. Dont even try it.
I know what you mean.
I hate this one person who works for subway (just a nasty personality). The thought of her preparing my food makes me ill.
I once went in and saw that she was working and walked right out.
That's how I feel about bing. (she would be microsoft)
MS has actually made their search engine better than Google (the different categories and combining them together shows this, and it's greatly improved over Live search).
Citation needed. Live search was crap, being better than crap doesn't make something great. And I've compared the search results, 80% of the time I prefer Google's results (there was this site that compared Bing/Google/Yahoo and had you pick your favorite and then told you what it was, don't know the URL at the time)
And now Bing keeps gaining marketshare faster than ever before.
And I would imagine that most of that growth is caused by people using the default IE search option which uses Bing.
It is actually a good product,
Again, Citation needed. Is there really anything that Bing does better than Google for the general user?
and actually something MS has left alone from their other marketing efforts (for example, they use flash instead of silverlight, because flash is installed on so many machines, and do not try to promote silverlight on cost of their search engine).
Isn't that how -all- Microsoft's products start? First as nice, good projects with open standards, etc. Then they release that one program that breaks the standard and suddenly that becomes the new standard and then close it off to non-MS products.
Google pulls out from China market.
Um, not exactly sure what you meant by this statement, but assuming its anti-Google, I don't really see your point. Basically Google said that they are sick of being the pawns of the Chinese government which is a -good thing-, I really don't think Microsoft would have the guts to say that.
This shows competition is good. It surely leads to innovations.
Competition is good, but corrupt competition is not. Both Microsoft and Google use software patents to discourage competition, both don't care about privacy, and both are willing to be tossed along and won't fight for their user's rights.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
I'm pretty positive that Steve hates Microsoft, what it stands for, and the way it does its business. Pretty much like many Linux folks do
Apple and Microsoft have had a mutually profitable - symbiotic - relationship for thirty years.
Apple sells an upscale urban lifestyle.
Microsoft solid middle class value.
Both have a very clear notion of how to profitably leverage the other's platform. Windows gets iTunes. The Mac gets MS Office.
Hate makes good theater - but rarely good business - and the geek needs to remember when he is watching a show.
the thought of using bing makes me cringe
What happened to judging products on their merits? Has Microsoft really damaged you so much that whatever they do meets so much resistance that the sheer *thought* of using a product would make you cringe? And on a related note, what should Microsoft do to regain your respect?
On a social analogy, is a thief always a thief, even when he shows remorse and changed his ways?
-- The Internet is a too slow way of doing things, you'd never do without it.
Yes...
Microsoft have done a huge amount of damage to their customers and the industry as a whole...
They have stifled innovation for years (for an example see IE6 - allowed to totally stagnate once it had a dominant marketshare, only updated again once its share was threatened several years later).
They have locked thousands of individuals and businesses into their products, removing those peoples freedom to choose the best product for the job. Even worse is that the lockin extends to those who aren't their customers, it's common to send proprietary microsoft format files around and people are expected to open them.
In many markets we are unable to judge products in their merits precisely because of microsoft. A competing product may be cheaper (or free), do everything you need better, but lacks compatibility with some proprietary microsoft technology therefore ruling it out.
To regain any level of respect, they need to undo all of the underhanded anti-consumer actions they have taken, and start competing purely based on the merits of their products in all the markets they operate in.
As it stands, although they may be trying to compete on merit right now, history has shown that once they gain sufficient market share they revert to their usual underhanded practices of locking people in and allowing the product to stagnate and/or using one product to forcibly push another. Don't forget all the "embrace, extend, extinguish" stuff from a few years back...
To give an example, the vast majority of MS products are tied to windows (forcibly pushing)..
By contrast, google simply promote their products, if you use their sites from some non-chrome browsers you will see advertisements for chrome, but the sites will not refuse to work in other browsers and aren't tied to chrome-os etc... This is promotion as opposed to forcibly pushing.
So that's what MS can do, give us the ability to judge all their products on merit and we will be more likely to judge them all that way.
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