Microsoft Betting on Bing for Mobile Search

msmoriarty writes "Bing is a still a money loser for Microsoft, and the calls for the company to sell it off are growing. But according to long-time Microsoft watcher Mary-Jo Foley, dumping Bing is just not going to happen. 'While the world sees Bing as a distant No. 2 search engine, Microsoft brass and bean counters see Bing as a reusable component and asset that will be built into more and more products. Those who think Microsoft will discard Bing or sell it to the highest bidder are dead wrong — that won't happen now or any time soon.'"

Comments

Google Monopoly

[Anonymous Coward]

Google needs to be broken up.

Re:Google Monopoly

[AvitarX]

Monopolies are legal in the US.

You need to demonstrate their strong-arming or abuse, or the harm to the consumer.

The fact that we got easy access to a new search engine recently demonstrates that the consumer isn't harmed.

Re:Google Monopoly

[TheNinjaroach]

The fact that we got easy access to a new search engine recently demonstrates that Google isn't a monopoly.

Re:Google Monopoly

[91degrees]

But we're not really the customers. The customers are the companies with websites who want to be visited on the internet and they have to do what Google demands.

Re:Google Monopoly

[AvitarX]

Or they can use bing.

Re:Google Monopoly

[interkin3tic]

Counterpoint: no it doesn't.

Making statements with no supporting arguments is a much more efficient way of arguing on the internet. The next step is trading ad homenim attacks (I'm going to call you stupid probably, just a heads up, nothing personal it's just what I do) and then one of us is going to Godwin and we'll both win.

Re:Google Monopoly

[hey!]

Well, I don't think that works, or is particularly necessary.

There really aren't any significant *market* barriers to entry in the areas Google plays in. It's not like you have to agree to go through Google to get customers for your web site, the way music companies have to go through Apple if they want a significant audience in the mobile music market. Nor do you have to target APIs or formats that only Google understands in order to target web users, the way you' have to if you want to complete against MS Office on Windows. Google is a company built on standards and well documented APIs.

To compete with Google in an area like web email or on-line mapping, what you need to do is invest a ton of dough on data infrastructure. The huge, fast, distributed infrastructure makes it easy for Google to bring up new, huge web products. Breaking Google up wouldn't make it any cheaper for a competitor to enter the market. It would make it more costly for Google to enter new markets because its existing resources would be balkanized.

Re:Google Monopoly

[91degrees]

And have market penetration fall from 72% to 27%. Hardly a trivial change as a result of changing suppliers is it?

Re:Google Monopoly

[AvitarX]

Price is per click, or per impression, the market:$ ratio willl be the same, 72% is hardly a monopoly anyway.

Yes, to use google's screen realestate, you have to do business with them, but there are alternatives (I see plenty of non-google ads at sites).

If advertising is the market, it's less of a monopoly than search.

Re:Google Monopoly

[m2vq]

That is just stupid. The reason why Google can serve better results than Bing is because they get to know a lot of long-tail keyword data from their visitors that Bing just cannot get because of their lower market share and user count. That is why they also have extensive user tracking and usage information gathering services. It's something that you only get if you're a leader in search services, and you only get there if you can get that kind of data better than competitors, which again means Google will stay where it is no matter what competitors do. It's just completely absurd to say that Google is leading only because they have better infrastructure.

Re:Google Monopoly

[afidel]

No, the ADVERTISERS are the customer and WE are the product. The fact that Google allows us to find a website is just an interesting side effect from a business perspective.

Re:Google Monopoly

[bahface]

If a company or individual provides the best product at the best price and lots of people like it and decide to voluntarily purchase that product and you call it a monopoly then I am happy with that monopoly. If the monopoly is not voluntary, that is, force or coercion is used to enforce that monopoly then I am not happy. Do you suppose that Google uses force or other coercion to enforce their (supposed monopoly)? Or is it that they just provide a product that lots and lots of people like to use and do so voluntarily? Are you free to use other search engines, or is Google the only one you can use? If someone comes up with a better search engine alternative will they be permitted to choose to purchase that product?

Re:Google Monopoly

[hey!]

I'm not sure how this relates to splitting off Google's other services from search. They'd still be the leader in search even if they were split apart.

Re:Google Monopoly

[PaladinAlpha]

Yeah, I mean, search is a trivial problem, with no room for innovation or research, so the only way to compete is to be the largest player. That makes sense, since there was never a search before Google; they clearly strong-armed all the potential competitors out of the way before they could develop.

Or maybe you're just blowing smoke and bending over for Microsoft, and there have been plenty of competitors in the search market, including the market as a whole before Google rose to a leadership position through a superior product.

Re:Google Monopoly

[AmberBlackCat]

How about people who feel that their "content" is being copied and redistributed by Google but they can't do anything about it because Google has too much power as a search engine?

Re:Google Monopoly

[AvitarX]

They can robots.txt, to work google needs a copy, if they don't approve they'd a solution.

Re:Google Monopoly

[dryeo]

and there have been plenty of competitors in the search market, including the market as a whole before Google rose to a leadership position through a superior product.

This is the key. I started using Google because it was superiour, unlike Microsoft where they stole hundreds of dollars from me before I figured out how to avoid them. This meant basically building your own computer because 15-20 years ago you couldn't avoid paying them easily and even though their product was crap it had mind share. Even a dozen years ago the Internet was becoming unusable if you didn't run Microsoft software.
I can block everything to do with Google and my internet experience is pretty well the same, little well my desktop experience.

Re:Google Monopoly

[Anonymous Coward]

OMFG.... that is teh EVAL!

Also, to your local free newspaper, Advertisers are the customers. Your attention is the product. The three-way market is a very old business model. The fact that the free newspaper allows you to find an apartment is just an interesting side effect from a business perspective.

With just a 27% share of the U.S. search market

[hardtofindanick]

I don't really understand why owning 27% of the search market is being shown as a failure. It may be below expectations, but it is still considerable. The search results are more decent then ever and at least google felt threatened enough to honeypot it. BTW I still use Google.

Re:With just a 27% share of the U.S. search market

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't really understand why owning 27% of the search market is being shown as a failure. It may be below expectations, but it is still considerable

I imagine the general idea is that Microsoft could get 27% of any market if they can successfully bundle their offering with Windows. I'm sure they consider that to be minimally acceptable, at best.

Re:With just a 27% share of the U.S. search market

[Anonymous Coward]

Calls to not sell Bing means they're trying to raise bids. They'll sell it to Zuckerberg before FB goes belly-up like myfriendster.

Re:With just a 27% share of the U.S. search market

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

It's the "losing money" part that shareholders tend not to like... Market share certainly has its uses; but it isn't an end in itself. Some investors are more patient than others; but sooner or later they will demand that either the division stop losing money, demonstrate how its utility to other divisions that aren't losing money makes up for its costs, or be scrapped.

If anything, the fact that Microsoft is the #2 search player, commands almost a third of the market, and still isn't making money at it probably makes people more nervous about them. Losing money temporarily in order to gain enough marketshare for some sort of economies of scale/mindshare breakthrough/whatever pixie dust is floating around is practically a comforting tradition for tech market types. Being an established player and still dragging out each year in the red just makes you unpopular...

Re:With just a 27% share of the U.S. search market

[m2vq]

What I found stupid about the whole thing was the sentence

While the world sees Bing as a distant No. 2 search engine

Yeah yeah, slashdot has the FAQ point about it being US-centric site. But including the word "world"? That maybe true for US, but it varies by country. For example Yandex is the largest search engine in Russia and Baidu is in China, and they both lead Google by miles.

Re:With just a 27% share of the U.S. search market

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that even though they may have (an estimated) 27% of the market, they're just not making it profitable in the many years they had it (used to be MSN Search) and thus shareholders are calling for it to be sold off. This does not mean that a search engine can't be profitable with a low market share, many other companies are doing it (usually with a specific market in mind), it's just Microsoft can't pull it off probably because of bad management and historical cruft making the engine a lot heavier than it is supposed to be. Just compare how fast Google is and how little bandwidth it uses compared to Bing that seems to need a lot of bling but can't give any better results.

Re:With just a 27% share of the U.S. search market

[Hope Thelps]

I don't really understand why owning 27% of the search market is being shown as a failure.

Perhaps because they don't "own" 27% of the search market, or anywhere close to it?

Google has 83.62%, Yahoo 6.21% (not "owned" by Microsoft but I suppose you could see it as rented) and Bing 3.57%.

They may have a larger share local to you but that isn't enough to avoid losing billions of dollars on an ongoing basis. To get anywhere close to Google's market share (and thus hopefully reduce their losses) would take massive gains over what they have now.

Re:With just a 27% share of the U.S. search market

[NeutronCowboy]

Because the one-time income generated by a sale could generate more dividends for shareholders than keeping Bing for the next quarter. After all, the only metric that matters is the profit generated next quarter. Quick, MSFT! Sell your XBox division! It's been a net loss so far, too.

For the sarcasm impaired: the above was sarcasm. Please refrain from pointing out the idiocy of the advocated actions, as that is implied.

Re:With just a 27% share of the U.S. search market

[UnknowingFool]

That combined with almost many of the products that MS has launched in the last decade under Ballmer haven't been very profitable makes investors unhappy. With the exception of Office and OS, they haven't made a lot of money elsewhere. Xbox is finally turning a profit these days but still in the red overall. It is understandable that after 10 years, investors want MS to focus on launching products that produce profits.

Re:With just a 27% share of the U.S. search market

[m2vq]

You're linking to global stats. not U.S. stats. Google isn't doing so great in countries like Russia or China either, and US is the most profitable market (and the GP is also referring to it in the post, see title)

Re:With just a 27% share of the U.S. search market

[MightyMartian]

If you've thrown as much money as Microsoft has over the last fifteen years to try to buy itself the predominant web portal, I'd say that if all it bought you was 27% to 30%, with no real likelihood that you'll ever get an even split, I'd call it an abject failure.

Re:With just a 27% share of the U.S. search market

[Hope Thelps]

You're linking to global stats. not U.S. stats. Google isn't doing so great in countries like Russia or China either, and US is the most profitable market (and the GP is also referring to it in the post, see title)

He referred to it in his title, but in his post he asked why having 27% market share is seen as failure. It's a global market. Saying "yeah, but they have 100% in my house/town/city/country" doesn't cut it when people are comparing them to Google who have over 80% worldwide. Maybe you're right that the US is the most profitable market for web search (cite?) for Google or others but it doesn't seem to be profitable for Microsoft - or are all the losses for their search business arising in other countries?

Re:With just a 27% share of the U.S. search market

[Riceballsan]

In the end market share means little for the company, and it hurts. Bing is bleeding money, from top to bottom they are pooring more and more into it, spending massive money on advertisements, bundling deals etc... development, and at the end of the day what they have using their service just isn't paying the bills. Just a hypothetical scenerio, lets say out of the blue microsoft instantly and magically came up with a technology or push that all of a sudden 75% of the US was using bing, but the cost to run bing are still greater then the money they make, bing now costs microsoft 3.5 billion a year, and makes back 3.1 billion a year. Meanwhile google being cut to 25% market share is now reduced to making 500 million a year,but is spending only 300 million a year to keep things moving. In the end google would be able to stay alive, and rapidly make money, while microsoft would have dominance in the search market, while accomplishing nothing more then harming themselves.

Re:With just a 27% share of the U.S. search market

[Dunbal]

I don't really understand why owning 27% of the search market is being shown as a failure.

Success, failure - these are highly subjective terms. If Microsoft set itself the goal of being the #1 search engine by now then yeah, they have failed. If they wanted over a quarter of the market, then they have succeeded. However a pretty objective measure of failure is the fact that they are not making money with this project, regardless of what their "share" is.

Re:With just a 27% share of the U.S. search market

[GameboyRMH]

Yep this is the only way to increase Bing's market share: make it the default search provider for a browser and hope that most people won't bother to switch. And with a bunch of WP7 devices coming out, they have another opportunity to improve Bing's "popularity."

Re:With just a 27% share of the U.S. search market

[Johnny O]

They launched Office and the OS under Ballmer?

Re:With just a 27% share of the U.S. search market

[PCM2]

Yep this is the only way to increase Bing's market share: make it the default search provider for a browser and hope that most people won't bother to switch. And with a bunch of WP7 devices coming out, they have another opportunity to improve Bing's "popularity."

And this is wrong because...?

Re:With just a 27% share of the U.S. search market

[Kozar_The_Malignant]

Yeah yeah, slashdot has the FAQ point about it being US-centric site. But including the word "world"? That maybe true for US, but it varies by country. For example Yandex is the largest search engine in Russia and Baidu is in China, and they both lead Google by miles.

Is that lead measured in number of users or revenue? In business, the latter is usually seen as more important.

Re:With just a 27% share of the U.S. search market

[orasio]

How do you measure revenue? In US dollars?
In US business, US dollars are important.
For a Chinese business, chinese eyeballs might be more important than US dollars, strategically.

Re:With just a 27% share of the U.S. search market

[UnknowingFool]

Several versions of each although some people consider Win 7 as a service pack to Vista.

Re:With just a 27% share of the U.S. search market

[realityimpaired]

If it's revenue, then Yahoo would be the second in the US... they're actually profitable.

That said, I'm surprised it isn't Yahoo in the first place. When I think of search engines that get used to actually find stuff in North America, Google is first, Yahoo is second....

Re:With just a 27% share of the U.S. search market

[realityimpaired]

I don't think you grasp the way the money works... Google makes most of its money off advertising. Part of the reason it's able to make so much on advertising is because they have such a large share of the market. If their market share dropped, their advertising revenues would drop significantly as well.

Also, I don't think you understand how the scalability of something like a search portal works. Compared against the advertising revenue increase that they could get by increasing their market share, their margins would improve greatly.

Re:With just a 27% share of the U.S. search market

[krups gusto]

Was anybody else severely irritated when verizon forced all their blackberry users to use bing for search and gave no other options?

Re:With just a 27% share of the U.S. search market

[shutdown -p now]

WP7 devices have search provider defined by their manufacturer (or cell operator that sells them). Some of those that are on sale today have it set to Google.

Re:With just a 27% share of the U.S. search market

[m2vq]

Seriously, the amount of stupid unknowning comments on this (and most other Microsoft articles on slashdot) is mindblowing again. Just because Xbox was first sold at a loss to gain marketshare doesn't mean the same is true today. They also have many other profitable ventures, but I guess you can't just see that behind all the hate.

Re:With just a 27% share of the U.S. search market

[m2vq]

No it's not. Yahoo will change to use Bing in 2012. It haven't been changed yet.

Re:With just a 27% share of the U.S. search market

[UnknowingFool]

If "at first" you meant the first 6 years of existence, then you are right. When dealing with the business world, people tend to judge profit as a measure of success. While Xbox is now profitable, it has to make enough profit to pay back for those initial years of loss to break even before being considered profitable. As for other profitable ventures, can you name a few. I'm not aware that MS makes profits outside OS and Office and now Xbox at least not according to their own financial statements.

Re:With just a 27% share of the U.S. search market

[Lehk228]

because the composition of that 27% fall into three categories (people who do not care / know better, employees of companies with IT policies set to prevent changing the default search, and microsoft employees who do not wish to get in trouble for using google at work

Re:With just a 27% share of the U.S. search market

[Lehk228]

they still see bing as a "number two"

Re:With just a 27% share of the U.S. search market

[NoOneInParticular]

Eyeballs are not worth the paper they're printed on. That's what 2001 should have taught you.

Re:With just a 27% share of the U.S. search market

[Doodlesmcpooh]

I wonder if there's a way they could tie in Bing search to the search feature in the start menu of Windows 7 without being pulled up for antitrust. Even just a sneaky "Powered by Bing Search" might be enough to get people to go and try it.

Re:With just a 27% share of the U.S. search market

[GameboyRMH]

Not really wrong, just pathetic.

Re:With just a 27% share of the U.S. search market

[QuasiSteve]

Providing Microsoft Bing on Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 devices is pathetic? you're absolutely right.

By the way, would you like to install Google Chrome and make it your default browser when you install Google Earth?
http://www.google.com/earth/download/ge/agree.html

How about installing Google Chrome when you install Adobe Flash?
http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/

Perhaps installing Google Chrome when you install Piriform CCleaner?
http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/download/standard

I don't think there's anything particularly 'pathetic' about it. They could have made it possible (without dev unlocking and mucking about) to change the default search engine when pressing the hardware search button within the IE environment, though, I agree. Then again, there's plenty of Android devices that are locked to Google / Bing / Yahoo and also can't be changed as the cell provider locked that down.

On the up side, all of the devices let you put a shortcut to Google right on the home screen, and Google even made a WP7 google search app that does pretty much the same thing but provides a nicer icon - just as Microsoft offer a Bing search app for Android.

Re:With just a 27% share of the U.S. search market

[Archangel Michael]

"I still use Google."

Of course you do.

Bing
Is
Not
Google

Re:With just a 27% share of the U.S. search market

[exomondo]

That combined with almost many of the products that MS has launched in the last decade under Ballmer haven't been very profitable makes investors unhappy.

I don't think investors are going to be unhappy with MS given they have just release record-breaking financial numbers even with the current economic crisis.

With the exception of Office and OS, they haven't made a lot of money elsewhere.

Kinect has done very well.

Re:With just a 27% share of the U.S. search market

[UnknowingFool]

I don't think investors are going to be unhappy with MS given they have just release record-breaking financial numbers even with the current economic crisis.

And yet in 10 years under Ballmer the stock price which investors care about has barely moved. Also if you actually read the quarterly reports, it reiterated what I said in the next line, only Office, Windows, and Xbox makes profit. No other product divisions make money.

Kinect has done very well.

Kinect has sold a lot of units however MS only made $32M in profit last quarter in the XBox division so selling a lot of Kinect units hasn't translated into a lot of profits. That's not a typo. $32M.

Re:With just a 27% share of the U.S. search market

[Aydsman]

No it's not. Yahoo will change to use Bing in 2012. It haven't been changed yet.

I'm pretty sure the Powered by Bing text at the bottom of a Yahoo! search page disagrees with you.

Re:With just a 27% share of the U.S. search market

[AmberBlackCat]

So do we complain about corporations (doing what makes money now, with no long-term strategy) or do we complain about (corporations holding on to something that loses money with a plan to profit from it in the future)?

Re:With just a 27% share of the U.S. search market

[exomondo]

And yet in 10 years under Ballmer the stock price which investors care about has barely moved.

Actually i think you'll find investors care a hell of a lot about dividends.

Also if you actually read the quarterly reports, it reiterated what I said in the next line, only Office, Windows, and Xbox makes profit. No other product divisions make money.

The only division that made a loss is the Online Services division. Every other division, Server & Tools, Business, Windows & Windows Live and Entertainment Devices divisions made a profit.

Kinect has sold a lot of units however MS only made $32M in profit last quarter in the XBox division so selling a lot of Kinect units hasn't translated into a lot of profits.

A $32M profit contribution to that Entertainment and devices division (there is no XBox division) is quite good.

Re:With just a 27% share of the U.S. search market

[UnknowingFool]

Actually i think you'll find investors care a hell of a lot about dividends.

You do understand what inflation is right and that dividends at their best don't even match inflation? With record profits investors only got $0.16 per share this quarter. Projected over the course of a year that is $0.64. That's less than 2%. Historically the dividend has been far less. Over the course of 10 years, that less than 2% is barely worth investors caring when the price of stock hasn't moved.

A $32M profit contribution to that Entertainment and devices division (there is no XBox division) is quite good.

You do understand how the E&D division had revenue of $1.485B yet only made $32M. That's 2% profit. By any measure that's pathetic. You keep trying to spin what is clearly bad news into good news.

Re:With just a 27% share of the U.S. search market

[exomondo]

Over the course of 10 years, that less than 2% is barely worth investors caring when the price of stock hasn't moved.

So you're trying to tell me that investors don't care about dividends then? Anyway the point is that investors aren't going to be disappointed when a company posts a record profit when the country is in such dire financial times.

You do understand how the E&D division had revenue of $1.485B yet only made $32M. That's 2% profit. By any measure that's pathetic. You keep trying to spin what is clearly bad news into good news.

Since when is a profit bad news? And why do you keep trying to spin it as though only a handful of their products made a profit when the truth is actually it's the opposite? Every division except the Online Services made a profit.

Re:With just a 27% share of the U.S. search market

[dryeo]

I thought they made money selling rebranded mice.

Re:With just a 27% share of the U.S. search market

[UnknowingFool]

So you're trying to tell me that investors don't care about dividends then? Anyway the point is that investors aren't going to be disappointed when a company posts a record profit when the country is in such dire financial times.

No read what I said. I said MS is giving such small dividends that it doesn't make up for the lack of price stagnation. Investors want big dividends. Do you know why investors buy stocks at all? The first is to make money as in growth stocks or keep the value of money as in value stocks. MS hasn't grown in price at all and should be considered a value stock. However since the dividends are quite small and neither the dividends nor the price increase barely beats inflation, it's been a poor value stock.

Since when is a profit bad news? And why do you keep trying to spin it as though only a handful of their products made a profit when the truth is actually it's the opposite? Every division except the Online Services made a profit.

It's bad news that (1) Kinect sold a lot of units but didn't make a lot of money, (2) the division is in the hole to the tune of billions since the Xbox and it is uncertain if it will break even ever, and (3) it reiterates the simple fact that MS doesn't make money on anything other than OS and Office. Look at the contents of each division. As an investor, I would wonder why MS is continuing to throw money at unprofitable products.

Re:With just a 27% share of the U.S. search market

[orasio]

I didn't say they were worth the paper they are printed on. I just said they were worth more than US dollars.

Re:With just a 27% share of the U.S. search market

[UnknowingFool]

I don't know if the mice were rebranded or merely outsourced manufacturing (ie Foxconn) but it is probably a profitable product albeit they are in the same division as the XBox. MS however doesn't trumpet the numbers of this area directly so it's hard to know if it makes profit and how much.

Re:With just a 27% share of the U.S. search market

[exomondo]

I said MS is giving such small dividends that it doesn't make up for the lack of price stagnation. Investors want big dividends.

MS's dividends are industry standard anyway.

it's been a poor value stock.

I'm not saying it hasn't, but a stellar earnings report isn't bad news and MS can't exactly set their own stock price, what would you have them do?

It's bad news that (1) Kinect sold a lot of units but didn't make a lot of money, (2) the division is in the hole to the tune of billions since the Xbox and it is uncertain if it will break even ever

Rubbish, no-one is going to suggest that a company that posts an earnings report showing record profits and 4/5 profitable divisions is bad news. If you think that's bad news then what would you suggest would be good news at an earnings report?

(3) it reiterates the simple fact that MS doesn't make money on anything other than OS and Office. Look at the contents of each division.

It's not a fact, what about Commerce, Dynamics, SQL, Exchange, MSDN (VS, etc...), etc, etc...?

Your original point was just that the only products that make MS money are XBox, Windows and Office, that is false. MS has many many products that all contribute to their respective divisions.

Re:With just a 27% share of the U.S. search market

[UnknowingFool]

MS's dividends are industry standard anyway.

What is "industry standard" mean? That's rather meaningless because there is no industry standard as each stock is different and not all companies even offer dividends. There are stocks with low dividends and stocks with high dividends. There is no "industry standard".

Rubbish, no-one is going to suggest that a company that posts an earnings report showing record profits and 4/5 profitable divisions is bad news. If you think that's bad news then what would you suggest would be good news at an earnings report?

If you read anything above (which I suspect you didn't), the concern is that MS isn't making money in anything other than Office and OS.

It's not a fact, what about Commerce, Dynamics, SQL, Exchange, MSDN (VS, etc...), etc, etc...?

Where in the entire quarterly earnings does MS mention how much money they are making in these products? MS never mentions those profits at all in the entire press release. They could be not profitable or insanely profitable. If they were insanely profitable, you'd think MS would have mentioned it instead of one line mentioning revenue growth for the entire division.

Your original point was just that the only products that make MS money are XBox, Windows and Office, that is false. MS has many many products that all contribute to their respective divisions.

Again read above. Besides OS, Office, and Xbox MS doesn't make a whole lot of money on anything else especially anything that launched under Ballmer. Of course I could be wrong about that seeing how MS is so proud of their profits on their other products, they never mention them.

Re:With just a 27% share of the U.S. search market

[exomondo]

What is "industry standard" mean?

About average if you prefer, perhaps i should have written that instead.

If you read anything above (which I suspect you didn't), the concern is that MS isn't making money in anything other than Office and OS.

Just because a product isn't mentioned in an earnings report doesn't mean that it didn't make any money, which is exactly what you're assuming.

Where in the entire quarterly earnings does MS mention how much money they are making in these products? MS never mentions those profits at all in the entire press release.

It doesn't, which is exactly the point, it doesn't say the contrary either, but you're assuming that. You're the one saying they aren't making much of a profit, but of course you don't know that at all because you have absolutely no idea whatsoever how much they make.

They could be not profitable or insanely profitable.

So now anything not mentioned in the earnings report could not be profitable, that's just plain false.

If they were insanely profitable, you'd think MS would have mentioned it instead of one line mentioning revenue growth for the entire division.

So now you're fixated only on things that are 'insanely profitable'? You've gone from not making a lot of money to isn't making any money to now only what is 'insanely profitable'. You can't even keep the yardstick in one place!

Again read above. Besides OS, Office, and Xbox MS doesn't make a whole lot of money on anything else especially anything that launched under Ballmer.

Your only evidence of that is a lack of mention in the earnings report, you don't actually know that at all.

Of course I could be wrong about that seeing how MS is so proud of their profits on their other products, they never mention them.

Yeah because every company gives details about every product that made them a decent profit, are we to assume the products apple didn't mention in their earnings report didn't really make any money?


And where were you on this one?

You do understand how the E&D division had revenue of $1.485B yet only made $32M. That's 2% profit. By any measure that's pathetic. You keep trying to spin what is clearly bad news into good news.

Since when is a profit bad news? And why do you keep trying to spin it as though only a handful of their products made a profit when the truth is actually it's the opposite? Every division except the Online Services made a profit.

Re:With just a 27% share of the U.S. search market

[NoOneInParticular]

Thanks. Well played.

At around 30% marketshare

[PickyH3D]

What incentive does Microsoft have to ceding search (and search related ads) to Google? It has nearly 30% US marketshare and it's growing (combined with Yahoo, which uses Bing for its backend).

When Bing first launched, Bing scared Google and forced them to start innovating again. Competition is good after all. Even if Bing dies off, I see no advantage, as a consumer, to have Bing disappear. I also see no advantage, for (not as) an investor to cede that entire domain to one of their two biggest competitors. Throw away the entire investment that has signs of paying off in the future, and give a major investor even more money to play with to cut into your market? That's really the best idea?

Having some competition certainly helps spur production and innovation. After all, Windows Vista took so long because they had no serious competition until OS X started seriously stealing the spotlight. Apple gave them a good reason to produce faster, and at a higher quality (Windows 7).

Re:At around 30% marketshare

[Anonymous Coward]

At a cost of 2.6 billion a year, that's plenty of reason to sell it. That's 2.6 billion lost despite having a 30% market share. MS probably has a much higher overhead cost compared to Google where search is their core product. That means even if they dominate the search market, their profit will be low.

Quite simply, search to MS is no different than IE. It brings no value to the company other then as a possible tie-in or branding. And unlike IE, search being a tie-in is relatively weak due to ease of switching.

That said, pissing money like this really doesn't mean much to the company so it might be worth it to the company despite it's low value.

Re:At around 30% marketshare

[MightyMartian]

Vista took so long because they had to keep turfing Longhorn functionality because all those teams had produced virtually nothing that was ready for market. Vista was about as much evidence as anyone needed that Microsoft had lost its edge. Even now, Windows XP is still newer versions of Windows worst competition.

As to Bing, Microsoft has thrown so much money at it and basically bought the penetration they would have gotten if they had just left up msn.com or live.com as the default page. It has been an extraordinary waste of money, costing well in excess of the vast and largely pointless investment in building THE web portal that Microsoft has been trying since Windows 95.

Bing's big victory so far? Why, Yahoo, as it sinks into the forgettable soup of yesterday's companies, started using it as its engine.

Re:At around 30% marketshare

[UnknowingFool]

After all, Windows Vista took so long because they had no serious competition until OS X started seriously stealing the spotlight. Apple gave them a good reason to produce faster, and at a higher quality (Windows 7).

That's not how I remember it. Vista took so long because it was badly managed. Now you could say the goals of Vista were too lofty and unreachable as well. The only factor OS X had was that it embarrassed the hell out of MS that Apple at a fraction of their size and once considered to be dying was able to release new versions every 2 years or so while changing the hardware architecture twice.

Re:At around 30% marketshare

[Anonymous Coward]

What incentive does Microsoft have to ceding search (and search related ads) to Google?

2.6 billion in losses per year.

Re:At around 30% marketshare

[PickyH3D]

That's not how I remember it. Vista took so long because it was badly managed. Now you could say the goals of Vista were too lofty and unreachable as well.

But you don't think the two issues are related?

After XP, without competition, Microsoft had no reason to spend a ton of money and quickly release a new version. They had too much time to sit back and collect their money while developing Vista at an exceptionally slow and mismanaged pace because there was nothing breathing down their necks. Once competition reared its head, Microsoft got its act together and fixed many of its management problems.

At the time, the embarrassment to Microsoft was both deserved and damning. The somewhat sad thing is that I see Apple falling into the exact same position as Microsoft following XP, as Microsoft readies Windows 8, and with Apple having just released Lion, which offers only a few features of merit (Mission Control being the top pick even though it's just an improved version of existing features).

Re:At around 30% marketshare

[Anonymous Coward]

Not quite. Vista took so long because all development was halted for a period of time in order to work on security changes for Windows XP SP2 and Windows Server 2003 SP1. By the time work continued on it enough time had passed for a major release and they didn't have that amount of work to justify it, so the project managers took a couple of other projects which were far enough long to be product-ized and forced them into the equation to provide the appearance of a major release. So there was bad management in play, but mostly in trying to fix the perception of the amount of work to the amount of time elapsed.

The sad thing is that the failure of Vista is largely a matter of perception and not of reality. The differences between Vista and Windows 7 are exceedingly minimal, the biggest difference being the amount of time that hardware manufacturers had to get the kinks worked out of the drivers.

Re:At around 30% marketshare

[spire3661]

The reality that MS allowed the hardware vendors to release a ton of sub spec machines at launch shaped that perception more then anything else. If they had retained tighter control over the OEMs it would have gone a long way in shaping a more positive perception of Vista.

Re:At around 30% marketshare

[Animats]

Bing's market share isn't all that bad, for only two years into the market. Microsoft has lost money entering a market before; the original XBox was a money drain from start to finish. A decade later, Sega is out of consoles, Sony is in trouble, and Microsoft is finally #1 in console sales, having passed Nintendo this year. Microsoft is finally profitable in games, although it's not clear if they've made up all the early losses yet.

Microsoft's online services division is losing about US$2bn a year, but that group includes more than Bing. Microsoft has a whole range of online services, many part of "Windows Live", mimicking many of the services Google gives away to annoy Microsoft. The search engine itself probably generates enough ad revenue to support itself.

Microsoft went at online from the opposite direction as Google. They did the money-losers, like free email, first, then the search engine with ads, which makes all the money. Microsoft, like Google, has recently been dumping some of the less successful freebie products. That can't hurt.

Bing has a brain drain. They've been losing key technical people and execs to Facebook, eBay, and even AOL. I'm not even sure who's running Bing right now. (Does anybody know who the top 3 people are at Bing right now? Let me know.) They're hiring, if you want to work in search.

Bing could potentially do a better job at search than Google. Google gets 30% of their ad revenue from AdSense sites, and has been hesitant to bring the hammer down on made-for Adsense junk sites. Bing could do better just by penalizing sites with ads, content farms, and related junk, like Blekko does. Google is vulnerable there.

Re:At around 30% marketshare

[Anonymous Coward]

The somewhat sad thing is that I see Apple falling into the exact same position as Microsoft following XP, as Microsoft readies Windows 8, and with Apple having just released Lion, which offers only a few features of merit (Mission Control being the top pick even though it's just an improved version of existing features).

You can argue about whether Lion was a positive step in the development of OS X, but you can't really argue that it represents Apple resting on their laurels and not trying to add to their OS. Stuff like Mission Control is just eye candy, but there's a lot of substantive changes. Adding what amounts to version control hooks to the OS and implementing it in all of Apple's suite of apps is a hell of a lot more of a top pick some pretty animations to help you manage your desktop. But the biggest push in Lion is towards iCloud. Again, you can argue about the benefit of iCloud to OS X users, but it's not really arguable that that was a major effort on their part.

Basically, to use a car analogy (since everyone around here likes them so much), you can argue that Apple is steering the car in the wrong direction, but you can't really argue that Apple is letting up on the gas because they feel they're ahead.

Re:At around 30% marketshare

[tuffy]

At the time, the embarrassment to Microsoft was both deserved and damning. The somewhat sad thing is that I see Apple falling into the exact same position as Microsoft following XP, as Microsoft readies Windows 8, and with Apple having just released Lion, which offers only a few features of merit (Mission Control being the top pick even though it's just an improved version of existing features).

The problem Microsoft has with XP is that by letting it sit and fester for so long, it became very entrenched. Vista and 7 now have to compete with it. And, due to lack of updated software/drivers, some organizations are going to be stuck with it for a long time to come because the migration is painful.

By contrast, Apple's consistently made relatively minor updates to its OS every 18 months or so. Having more predictable OS churn means each release isn't so entrenched, people tend to upgrade relatively quickly and with fewer hassles. A bit like a lot of Linux distros.

So in that respect, I don't think they're in the same position at all.

Re:At around 30% marketshare

[UnknowingFool]

Um MS dictated what hardware was considered Vista compatible but very late into the game modified it to include Intel GMA video when it could only run the basic version of Vista at the request of Intel who wouldnhave had millions chipsets that were not Vista compatible. HP was one of the OEM companies furious at the change. So MS was completely to blame here.

Re:At around 30% marketshare

[IICV]

A decade later, Sega is out of consoles, Sony is in trouble, and Microsoft is finally #1 in console sales, having passed Nintendo this year.

They might be #1 in sales, but that's only because everyone who's ever entertained more than a passing desire for a Wii has one already. And I bet you anything that this is Xbox 360 sales including things like the current promotion where if you get a Windows computer worth at least $700 you get a "free" Xbox - something Nintnedo never did.

I'm on my phone right now so I won't look it up, but I bet you that the Wii still has the Xbox 360 beat on number of units sold over the product's lifetime - and even more, I bet it still will when both consoles are retired.

Re:At around 30% marketshare

[m2vq]

Yahoo doesn't use Bing yet. The announcement was made in 2009, but they will transition it in 2012. Long time to do it, I know.

Re:At around 30% marketshare

[Derek Pomery]

I'm confused. The link you provided (pcmag) lists 14.4% marketshare for Bing in the United States according to one stat service, and 14.64% in the United States according to a completely different service.

I don't see how you could get 30% from that unless you added the two together - that means if you find another two or 3 stat services you could get 110%. Whoopee! :)

In fact, seems that Bing as at 14-15% in the US - and this despite massive ad campaigns on all media, and setting it as the default browser in Internet Explorer, and in other browsers when running certain software installers.

And worldwide, the link shows it has fallen off even more, and is at around three and a half percent.

Re:At around 30% marketshare

[Anonymous Coward]

What incentive does Microsoft have to ceding search (and search related ads) to Google? It has nearly 30% US marketshare and it's growing [pcmag.com] (combined with Yahoo, which uses Bing for its backend).

So with Bing using Google results and Yahoo using Bing results, that means that Google actually has almost 100% of the market...

Re:At around 30% marketshare

[afidel]

Huh, Wii has sold 80M units worldwide, XBOX 360 55M, and PS3 50M. How is MS #1?

Re:At around 30% marketshare

[Anonymous Coward]

Bing supplies all of the results for Yahoo.

After Yahoo rejected Microsoft's takeover attempt, Microsoft fell back to option number two, which was to pay (I believe?) $500 million and take over Yahoo's search business. I am not sure why Yahoo went for it, but they did. Google also tried to do this (as they do with AOL).

Re:At around 30% marketshare

[PickyH3D]

Search for something on Yahoo and scroll to the bottom. It says "Powered By Bing."

Re:At around 30% marketshare

[fwarren]

I call bullshit. Microsoft spent from 2001 to 2004 working on Longhorn and then tossed out 100% of the code they wrote. At that point they took the Windows Server code base and started working on Vista.

To Quote Jim Allchin, Micorosfts architect of Vista.
http://help.lockergnome.com/linux/News-Jim-Allchin-Longhorn-Vista-Pig-Rise-Linux-Challenge--ftopict386763.html

"I must tell you everything in my soul tells me that we should do what I called plan (b) yesterday. We need a simple fast storage system. LH [Longhorn] is a pig and I don't see any solution to this problem. If we are to rise to the challenge of Linux and Apple, we need to start taking the lessons of 'scenario, simple, fast' to heart. Jim"

Microsoft lost 3 years on Vista because they had to start over from scratch.

Re:At around 30% marketshare

[Anonymous Coward]

You're proving GP's point.

Microsoft took that long working on Vista because they had all the time in the world. They were lacking in focus and urgency because the competition was light-years behind when XP lauched and Vista planning started (circa 2001).

Same thing would happen with Google in a world without Bing. Their pace of improvements and new features definitely picked up after Bing launched. They're still in denial over security and privacy issues but some healthy competition should fix that too, eventually.

Re:At around 30% marketshare

[MightyMartian]

The only thing Vista is an example of is why it's bad to let your marketing department shoot their mouths off about tentative or highly alpha features.

Re:At around 30% marketshare

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't see how that counts as Bing results though.
Isn't like they'd keep all those people if they tried migrating 'em to Bing proper.

Better to say Microsoft's combined search properties, Bing and Yahoo!, amount to 30% of the market.

Re:At around 30% marketshare

[mjwx]

That's not how I remember it. Vista took so long because it was badly managed.

That and the fact that XP was good enough for everyone's needs.

OS X has never been and still isn't a competitor to Windows. To this day the main competitor to Windows Vista/7 is Windows XP. MS doesn't give a crap about OS X, it's XP they are intent on killing.

Sad

[recoiledsnake]

Sad that Google has all the data that maps from keyword searches to clicked links that make Google far better than any search engine that is less used. This is the lifeblood of any search engine. Thinking of which, doesn't that data actually belong to all us who generate it? Maybe the DoJ should get involved and get Google to reveal this data to other search engines before Google becomes an abusing monopoly(if it hasn't already happened, see lawsuits). Bing got panned on here and elsewhere for trying to get a little of this data after getting permission from people who installed the Bing bar.

Also, how is it not monopoly abuse that Google Maps, Finance, etc. etc. get heavy promotion(not even an ad) on Google search engine which leads to smaller players like Yahoo Maps and MapQuest getting killed off? How is this different from IE vs. Netscape? http://searchengineland.com/the-problems-with-googles-house-ads-48325

  Monopoly abuse happens to all companies, monopolies eventually suck, atleast Bing is trying.

Re:Sad

[Fantom42]

Why does that data belong to you, or anyone who generated it? You aren't the ones that paid to collected, index, and stored this information. The information belongs to Google.

Re:Sad

[lgarner]

Sad that Google has all the data that maps from keyword searches to clicked links that make Google far better than any search engine that is less used. This is the lifeblood of any search engine. Thinking of which, doesn't that data actually belong to all us who generate it? Maybe the DoJ should get involved and get Google to reveal this data to other search engines before Google becomes an abusing monopoly ...

Sure, and every website that you visit should be required to turn over its access logs or make them public.

Re:Sad

[recoiledsnake]

This is kind of similar to the Office file formats. MS paid millions or tens of millions of dollars to design, develop those but was still forced to open them up to competitors by the EU courts because of public interest. An analog in the real word is eminent domain in the US etc. And Google can still charge competitors the cost incurred to transfer the data i.e bandwidth, labor etc.

Also, another analogue is telephone directory, it was ruled that the data belongs to the public and thus can be copied even if the owners of White Pages compiled it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_v._Rural

Re:Sad

[orient]

Feel free to give your data to Bing, by searching with Bing.

Re:Sad

[Dog-Cow]

It's nothing at all like Office file formats.

And data is not copyrightable, which is why the data in the phone book is (legally) copyable. It is true that the data Google collects is also not copyrightable, but that doesn't mean Google has to give it to anyone. (The phone book is distributed to subscribers.)

Re:Sad

[Anonymous Coward]

You are the most pathetically transparent MS fanbot on this site next to westlake and Cgeys. Please kill yourself.

Re:Sad

[mjwx]

Also, how is it not monopoly abuse that Google Maps,

This has to be one of the mist uninformed posts I've read in a while.

Google Maps is nowhere near a mapping monopoly. I've worked in GIS companies and still have good friends in the field. Yahoo has always been a complete joke, you cant blame Google for that. Bing Maps has several deals with high profile web sites (facebook) despite also being a joke in terms of accuracy.

But Google is also a minor player in GIS. they've done nothing to unseat the incumbent IMS/WMS(Internet Mapping Service/Web Mapping Service) monopoly ESRI, ArcGIS is still the dominant mapping platform. MapInfo has a higher market share then Google.

Also, Finance, a drop in the bucket to MYOB, Qicken et al. Finance competes on the same level as Microsoft Excel does.

Re:Sad

[recoiledsnake]

Huh, who said that Google Maps is a monopoly? The monopoly is the search, and the new market is maps. IE never had a monopoly when MS bundled it.

The argument was that MS was unfairly using it monopoly in OSes to drive adoption of IE in the browser market. i.e OS market distorting browser market by bundling.

So, there *can* be an argument made that Google is using space on their search engine site that's not available to anyone to promote other services hence people find it easier to click on that for maps while searching for info on a place on Google. Finding actual damages to Mapquest, etc. is a different story as you said in your post.

2.6 Billion In Losses Just This Past Year

[AddisonW]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/25/business/bing-becomes-a-costly-distraction-for-microsoft-breakingviews.html

I don't know how anyone could possibly suggest anyone would ever dream of wanting to buy Microsoft's failed search engine.

Re:2.6 Billion In Losses Just This Past Year

[blair1q]

How do you lose $2.6 billion on a web-crawler?

Did they try to replicate Google all at once?

Re:2.6 Billion In Losses Just This Past Year

[Missing.Matter]

I feel this view is very myopic. Obviously a product has more worth than the exactly dollar value it brings into the company. Bing is obviously core to Microsoft's overall strategy, and it has the potential to generate incredible revenue in the future. They could be very willing to nurse it through infancy and incur years of losses. Other companies who might purchase it potentially do not have the cash hoard to do this. The author mentions Facebook as a potential buyer. Does he seriously think Facebook has the cash and clout to take on Google in the search arena?

Further, we don't know precisely how much Bing is losing Microsoft. Microsoft reported $2.6 billion in losses in their Online Services, which is composed of much more than Bing: MSN, Windows Live Mail, Windows Live Messenger, Exchange, SharePoint, Live Meeting, Office Communicator, etc. Obviously Microsoft has a lot more information than us about exactly how well Bing is doing, and they're keeping it.

Re:2.6 Billion In Losses Just This Past Year

[Anonymous Coward]

Bing has quite a bit of valuable IP surrounding it. TFA suggests that the problem is not the technology, but a packaging surrounding the tech that does not inherently draw traffic. Yes, it is the default on IE, but Google pays companies like Mozzilla which make more popular browsers to have Google as the default search engine (and the homepage), along with most mobile browsers. This is a disadvantage not inherent to the technology, but to Microsoft as a company without strong online services branding.

TFA suggests that a company like Facebook, which already has high-traffic and a greater online mindshare, could use that IP better than Microsoft in a way that advertisers would take to. I am inclined to agree with TFA, but MS execs apparently feel that Bing is valuable enough as an R&D project with future potential, if not an immediately monetizable investment. Or maybe MS wants some of Googles online mindshare to build the brand. Hard to say.

Re:2.6 Billion In Losses Just This Past Year

[NoNonAlphaCharsHere]

That's because $2.4 billion was for TV commercials for Bing.

Re:2.6 Billion In Losses Just This Past Year

[Anonymous Coward]

They bought their data storage from EMC... j/k.

Re:2.6 Billion In Losses Just This Past Year

[MightyMartian]

MS execs have been telling themselves that for fifteen years. Microsoft's web strategy has always been "throw enough shit at the wall, and surely something will kill Webcrawler/Altavista/Lycos/Yahoo/Google/Whatever-comes-next."

Microsoft has been profoundly inept at marketing its web offerings. I'd say sell it to Zuckerberg, but with some sort of licensing agreement if the tech is all that impressive. At least Facebook might be able to do something with it, because Microsoft has little enough hope.

Re:2.6 Billion In Losses Just This Past Year

[artor3]

How much of those costs are amortizing NRE expenses? It's hard to imagine that they're spending billions on server maintenance.

Re:2.6 Billion In Losses Just This Past Year

[im_thatoneguy]

Apple might even be interested, given its growing online ambitions, evidenced by its consideration of a bid for Hulu.

And with quotes like that you really have to question the author's credibility.

Apple has growing *media* ambitions as evidenced by its bid for hulu. Apple is the ipod company. Of course they would bid on a streaming media company.

Re:2.6 Billion In Losses Just This Past Year

[seven of five]

How do you lose $2.6 billion on a web-crawler?

Here's one way.

Re:2.6 Billion In Losses Just This Past Year

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe it fails BECAUSE it's Microsoft. There's definitely a psychological component to Bing, where since I am already on a Microsoft Computer, using a Microsoft browser, the last thing I want is biased Microsoft advertising promoting the idea that I should spend more money on Microsoft products (*ahem!* "search results" *cough!*).

People can detect that conflict of interest, even if on a subliminal level. It's innately repellant to have Microsoft involved in so much of your online experience.

I don't doubt that a vast number of people want a solid competitor to Google. This demand is borne out of mistrust of Google. Mistrust of Microsoft will assure that Bing does not supplant Google's supremacy.

Yet another millstone

[rubypossum]

I've tried Bing again and again hoping that it would replace Google for me. I keep wishing that someone, even if it's evil MS, will provide some serious competition in the search market. I'll keep trying Bing every year and probably keep going back to Google. Let's hope they really decide to up the ante and do something completely new and original. It's uncharacteristic of MS, but maybe they'll acquire a start-up that has something new?

Re:Yet another millstone

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see why it's uncharacteristic for them to acquire startups; for instance, related to search, they bought Powerset.

Whatever

[SethThresher]

As far as I'm concerned, Bing works just fine on my WP7, is actually just slightly better at getting me relevant results that I've happened to want while I was on the road away from my desktop, and looks marvelous either way. I'm happy with it.

Incidentally, a search for the Team Fortress 2 official wiki on Bing brings you just that as its first result, whereas on Google you get an old, defunct fake version of the real thing, which I suspect stays at the #1 spot due to SEO abuse. Just throwing that out there.

Re:Whatever

[Anonymous Coward]

On the mobile side it's very nice, I have no qualms. Still not fond of it desktop side(eventhough it should use the same backend), but maybe that's just habit.

Re:Whatever

[recoiledsnake]

Google uses hundreds of variables(location, search history, etc. etc.) to determine search ranking. So it's not surprising to see different results for different people.

Re:Whatever

[SethThresher]

Yeah the mobile side I think is strangely better than the desktop version. It's hard to put my finger on it, but it just seems to work better.

Re:Whatever

[SethThresher]

Well Anonymous Coward, I apologize for not seeing your comment before answering a nearly identical one below yours, so let me just copy paste my response to theirs since it merits the same exact response:

I was going for just a general search of "TF2 wiki", my bad for implying the search was for the official one. Look up that one and see what I mean. Look, I'll even give you the url for that very search: http://www.google.com/search?q=tf2+wiki

As for the windows phone remarks, I say with confidence that I don't like either the iOS or Android interfaces, and the Metro interface is a very attractive design alternative to me. The UI is intuitive, and the keyboard works great with my enormous, manly hands. It does exactly what I want it to, with no extra crap and clutter. I waited until the full NoDo update to pick it up, so I didn't even have to "suffer" through the travesty of not having copy+paste. To me, a smartphone is a smartphone, they all do the same basic functions at this point. The only distinctions are the trappings, and my history with the two main schools of thought leave a bad taste in my mouth. Why should I care the masses want me to buy one phone over the other when I know exactly what I want?

In short, I love my phone, so deal with it.

Re:Whatever

[SpinyManiac]

Bing maps is useless on my Android phone. It's damn near impossible to tap the icons without the map panning instead.

I want to use Bing maps for one reason. You get Ordnance Survey maps in the UK. Google maps can't compete with the national mapping agency.

The interface makes it a win for Google, at least until Microsoft release the Bing app in the UK.

Who would buy Bing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Search engine - barely used.

Re:Who would buy Bing?

[TheViffer]

Search engine - never used.

Re:Who would buy Bing?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure Oracle would snap it up just to see if they can sue Google for search patent claims.

Fail. Microsoft's Search Engine Only Has 14%

[Anonymous Coward]

Gotta love the desperate Microsoft fanboy 'math'.

Re:Fail. Microsoft's Search Engine Only Has 14%

[PickyH3D]

See quote from my original post, which you responded to:

(combined with Yahoo, which uses Bing for its backend)

It even has a reference link.

Oops. Guess math works.

Re:Fail. Microsoft's Search Engine Only Has 14%

[WolfgangPG]

There is a reason they login as Anonymous Cowards.

Bing

[the eric conspiracy]

Microsoft brass and bean counters see Bing as a reusable component and asset that will be built into more and more products. Those who think Microsoft will discard Bing or sell it to the highest bidder are dead wrong â" that won't happen now or any time soon.'"

This is the sort of reasoning that led me to sell all of my Microsoft stock years ago. Glad to see that I made the correct decision. Clearly none of the brass and bean counters have ever pruned a tree.

Startpage.com ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Whatever happened to Startpage.com ? Aren't people already saying "Just startpage the answer?"

Why Microsoft keeps Bing around

[Anonymous Coward]

I worked in Bing for a several years as an SDE until leaving recently. The Online Services Division in which Bing resides is losing money at an alarming rate. In the last fiscal year ending June 2011, OSD lost $2.5 billion.

Why is Microsoft in this space? I heard it from Bill Gates himself at a team function last year. If Microsoft does not put up a fight in online search, Google will continue to encroach on Microsoft's cashcows, Windows and Office, with their product offerings. I don't think anyone in Microsoft really is driven to make an honest-to-goodness better search experience; Bing is just Microsoft's 70%-Achieved beachhead in online search just to keep Google honest.

Re:Why Microsoft keeps Bing around

[Anonymous Coward]

Says pretty much all you need to know about Microsoft these days. They only care about reacting to what Google is doing and make all their business plans in regards to their competition.

BING 411 vs GOOG 411

[neurocutie]

I never use Bing, except that ever since GOOG 411 was decommissioned, I have been "using" BING 411. And I can say it is also about 14% as good as GOOG 411. It is really a shame that GOOG 411 was shutdown because it was really great. BING 411 is a pale, pale imitation that about 70-86% of the time is near useless, it returns wrong results, it doesn't understand what is being asked, the UI is crap, getting into virtual endless loops of user frustration, etc.

Re:BING 411 vs GOOG 411

[Anonymous Coward]

Call me when BING420 comes out

alternative?

[Anonymous Coward]

You could try duckduckgo

Re:Your Own Link Shows 4% And Shrinking

[PickyH3D]

My own "damn link" literally says, quote:

30% US marketshare and it's growing

[emphasis mine]

And frankly, the only thing that prevents me from using Bing is it's code searching. It really does not handle queries related to code well at all. Everything else seems pretty much even with Google. Unfortunately for Microsoft, I use Google as my default because of that limitation.

Bing just not as good search engine

[gubers33]

Bing just isn't very good compared to Google. I find that Google consistently gives me better search results that more relevant to what I want. For example I have been looking up NFL free agency rumors today, Google gives me current results on new articles, Bing is giving me articles from last years free agency and highlight videos. I find that Bing also puts the advertisements more in the middle of they screen and in my face, while Google's are off to the side.

Re:Bing just not as good search engine

[MightyMartian]

Look, the reason that Bing has as big a market share as it does is because new Windows installs still default to it, or to one of Microsoft's older offerings which in turn forward to Bing. Microsoft's secret to 30% success is basically people too lazy to go through Microsoft's absurdly complicated switch search engine functionality for the search bar. A lot of people just stick with MSN as their home page. So their market penetration has more to do with the remnants of fifteen years worth of Windows penetration.

As to Bing being a big deal on their mobile offerings, well whoopdeefuckingdoo. Everyone knows Microsoft will never be more than a bit player, so Microsoft's cut for Bing on Windows phones will be whatever percentage of that tiny percentage who don't bother to change their default search engine.

Microsoft's attempts at being the big web player have been nothing but failures from day one. They dominated the browser world, but for all of that, all they can do is throw obscene amounts of money at whatever-they're-calling-their-search-portal-today and grow with the same rate that they would have if they'd just left some modern standards compliant variant of the old MSN page up.

Re:Bing just not as good search engine

[artor3]

I've found that Bing usually gives me better results than Google. Also, I don't know what Bing you're using, but the Bing I use has ads on the side, not in the middle.

And on top of that, searching for "NFL Free Agency" on Bing right now has the top 8 results all from the past 24 hours, followed by the Wikipedia article explaining what a "Free Agent" is. I suspect that you're just inventing reasons to hate on Microsoft's product.

Re:Bing just not as good search engine

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree and I too only use Bing now. I have found cases where Google search completely fails where Bing succeeds.Mostly I use Bing because I distrust Google more.

Re:Bing just not as good search engine

[gubers33]

I don't need to invent reasons to hate Microsoft products. If I wanted to do that I would just use a single word Vista. That being said I think Windows 7 is a great product. And yes most of the ads are on the side, but you occasionally get on in the middle that is related to your search. I didn't say it sucks and gives you outdated results, but Google gives news articles, rumor sites, blogs and so on. I don't get all that with Bing, thus I perfer using Google. And I am not a Microsoft Hater, I have two computers and one of them runs Windows 7, in terms of IT companies Apple is on top of my hate list for their excessive patent trolling.

Re:Bing just not as good search engine

[Rockoon]

I don't need to invent reasons to hate Microsoft products.

The parent claims that you did invent reasons to hate Bing, not that you "needed" to.

..and after checking up on his claims, it seems that he is right. You did invent a reason to hate Bing. What you claimed simply isnt true for the majority of people, and only actually seems to be true for you.

When I search for "nfl free agency" on Bing I get exactly what he said I would get, which is not at all what you said I would get. You made it up.

Now, I believe you when you say that you do not "need" to invent reasons to hate Microsofts products. The question is, why do you do it even though you don't need to?

Re:Bing just not as good search engine

[GrumblyStuff]

This is probably why they call it a "decision engine" instead. (Or did they give up with that marketing angle?)

Re:Bing just not as good search engine

[gubers33]

Ok, it gave you want you wanted not what I wanted. Are we the same person? No. Also quit saying "nfl free agency" was my search term I never once stated that it was I said that was the topic just like if I searched Philadelphia Eagles or Green Bay Packers the topic would be football, but it doesn't mean I searched for football. I searched for various terms related to free agency, but being I played football for over 10 years and am a die hard fan I am not going search a term that would obviously give me the definition. I never said Bing sucks, I said it is not as good as Google. I like Google's layout and color scheme better and I think it gives me better results on what I am looking for. I feel the ads on Bing are more up front and there are more of them than in my Google Search, which adds more clutter to the page which I am not a fan. (YES THERE ARE MORE ADS. I RAN THE EXACT SAME SEARCH IN BOTH AND COUNTED). And like I said I am not a Microsoft hater, I just prefer products that do a job to best fit my need. I have two Windows machines at my house and I an certified in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008R2. If you like Bing more great good for you, but don't say I am making shit up just to hate. I searched for "eagles rumors" in both searches many of the results were the same, but good gave me more news articles and more blogs where rumors are posted, thus it better fits my need. These are facts that support my opinion thus not making anything up.

Re:Aww! Poor Liddle MS Fanboy

[PickyH3D]

Haha. Throw in logic, and it brings up this. The funny thing is that I am typing this from Google Chrome, with Google as the default search engine.

Boo hoo. I have a brain and can think reasonably. I'm only surprised you didn't use "M$" throughout your post.

Re:Your Own Link Shows 4% And Shrinking

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Very well, your handle has been noted and saved in every patent troll lawyer's database. Now they are going to go after your employers dunning money for "patent infringements" caused by rampant employee code searches and the culture that tolerated, promoted and even demanded it. They would not say clearly what code was searched and what exactly was violated, but they repeatedly hammer, "employees admitting in public fora that they engage in code searches trawling the net for code to plagiarize and they faced no fear of censure".

I don't believe they have 29%

[Anonymous Coward]

How come every time I mistype something in an IE browser I get to bing.com even though I have added www.bing.com as a blocked site.

What an endorsement

[SmallFurryCreature]

There are a lot of phones out there and you picked a windows phone...

About the only advice I would take from you is on what straight jacket to choose. What one did you find hardest to chew through?

Tried your search result, you are wrong.

Re:What an endorsement

[SethThresher]

I was going for just a general search of "TF2 wiki", my bad for implying the search was for the official one. Look up that one and see what I mean. Look, I'll even give you the url for that very search: http://www.google.com/search?q=tf2+wiki

As for the windows phone remarks, I say with confidence that I don't like either the iOS or Android interfaces, and the Metro interface is a very attractive design alternative to me. The UI is intuitive, and the keyboard works great with my enormous, manly hands. It does exactly what I want it to, with no extra crap and clutter. I waited until the full NoDo update to pick it up, so I didn't even have to "suffer" through the travesty of not having copy+paste. To me, a smartphone is a smartphone, they all do the same basic functions at this point. The only distinctions are the trappings, and my history with the two main schools of thought leave a bad taste in my mouth. Why should I care the masses want me to buy one phone over the other when I know exactly what I want?

In short, I love my phone, so deal with it.

Re:What an endorsement

[Anonymous Coward]

AT&T has shit options for hardware side-slider smartphones. There is one Android offering(new Pantech Crossover), but it has a shitty screen and a shitty processor. Best side-slider on AT&T is the LG Quantum(WP7).

And, honestly, WP7 is pretty nice, but I am sad at the complete lack of openness that previous WM versions had. I hope that the Chevron team they hired manages to get some type of free SDK or something released for those of us that want to tweak our shit

Re:Aww! Poor Liddle MS Fanboy

[Missing.Matter]

Don't feed the trolls. Just smile and back away.

Change. The. Name.

[blair1q]

If anything makes me have no respect for Microsoft's search engine, it's the embarassingly stupid name they've given it.

"Google" is fun. "Bing" is childish. And tying it to a trademarked sound is just brand-development masturbation right in the face of your potential customers.

Quit it.

Re:Change. The. Name.

[Anonymous Coward]

If anything makes me have no respect for Microsoft's search engine, it's the embarassingly stupid name they've given it.

"Google" is fun. "Bing" is childish. And tying it to a trademarked sound is just brand-development masturbation right in the face of your potential customers.

Quit it.

Also, it's a known acronym for "But It's Not Google"

Re:Change. The. Name.

[nukenerd]

Agreed. It reminds me of Bing Crosby, a cheesy, corny, Brylcreemed 1940's song-and-dance guy with a joke face and ears like jug handles. Yeuck!

Re:Change. The. Name.

[blair1q]

Even worse. If they had a clue they would know it has to be "Bing is not Google." Clearly we're dealing with overreaching aerosol-cheez marketers.

Re:Change. The. Name.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's just, like, your opinions, man.

To me, Bing sounds less childish than Google. But then it may be because I know the origins of "Googol".

Re:Change. The. Name.

[KritonK]

Disney comic fans are reminded of this!

Bing!?

[Culture20]

I totally forgot that it existed. Maybe they should spend some more money on advertising.

Re:Aww! Poor Liddle MS Fanboy

[H0p313ss]

I'm not sure... in this case I think he actually made the troll cry.

Re:Aww! Poor Liddle MS Fanboy

[Anonymous Coward]

The funny thing is that I am typing this from Google Chrome.... I have a brain and can think reasonably.

Yeah right.

Yawn - Standard MS Fanboy Talking Points

[Anonymous Coward]

What is it with Microsoft fanboys? Every damn time they get caught spewing garbage they resort to the same juvenile 'I am a fan of X competing product/company'.

It's like they think everyone just joined the Internet yesterday.

Dude, give the act a rest. You aren't fooling anyone.

Re:Aww! Poor Liddle MS Fanboy

[H0p313ss]

And now I have a bad 80's tune stuck in my head: "... this is what it sounds like, when tolls cry...."

Re:Your Own Link Shows 4% And Shrinking

[H0p313ss]

Time to up the dosage...

Re:Your Own Link Shows 4% And Shrinking

[PickyH3D]

I think you're joking, but I do want to be clear here: I'm more nervous if you don't do code searches. After all, that particularly includes the Java API, C++ STL, MSDN, and StackOverflow (when looking for software patterns).

More power to you if you have every API that you use memorized, but there are more important things to memorize.

Also, I hate that I slipped in an "it's" when I meant "its" in the post you replied to.

The Xbox Fiasco

[Anonymous Coward]

Gotta love the attempt to use the 8 billion dollar 10 year long Xbox fiasco as some sort of support for Microsoft's equally disastrous failure in search.

Hilarious!

Xbox 360
Six years on the market. Last place in worldwide sales. Built out of the cheapest and shittiest hardware in history. And its real losses hidden by the entire Microsoft E&D Division.

And now with the RRoD plagued Xbox 360 at the end of its sad and pathetic life it will require yet more billions from Microsoft if they are stupid enough to remain in the console market after two straight marketplace failures with the Xbox and Xbox 360.

Gee! With 'amazing' products like Bing,Xbox, and Windows Phone can't imagine why Microsoft's stock price has been dead for over a decade and the computing world calling for Ballmer to be fired...

Re:The Xbox Fiasco

[NeutronCowboy]

Somebody else who doesn't understand the concept of sunk cost or long-term planning. Keep trolling, AC.

Re:The Xbox Fiasco

[UnknowingFool]

Long term planning is one thing but according to their last quarterly report, MS only made $32M profit on the E&D division. How long would it take to pay back the initial losses at that rate? Decades at the least. I'm pretty sure Sony and Nintendo will launch another console by then. It doesn't look like the XBox will make break even in terms of hardware alone.

Re:The Xbox Fiasco

[Trilkin]

What is the color of the sky in your world where the 360 has been even considered close to a failure? Is there a big Sony or Nintendo logo made out of clouds there?

Re:The Xbox Fiasco

[jbengt]

What is the color of the sky in your world where the 360 has been even considered close to a failure?

Green
And the clouds all seem to look like dead presidents.

Re:The Xbox Fiasco

[NeutronCowboy]

Here's the thing: the Xbox is MS' last great hope to expand from the desktop into the living room. Any past costs accrued by the Xbox division are completely irrelevant. The only things that matter are: does MS have an option of not going down that road, and can it pay the costs of establishing the Xbox as the central hub for the living room?

The answers are no, and yes. It's ahead of Nintendo in terms of being an entertainment hub, and Sony completely bungled the current generation. MS has an opportunity to turn a profit in that area - but only if it keeps plugging away. The goal is future profitability and sustainability, not having max revenue for the next quarter.

Re:The Xbox Fiasco

[UnknowingFool]

Here's the thing: the Xbox is MS' last great hope to expand from the desktop into the living room. Any past costs accrued by the Xbox division are completely irrelevant. The only things that matter are: does MS have an option of not going down that road, and can it pay the costs of establishing the Xbox as the central hub for the living room?

I think that making money is relevant to any business. It can sink costs of trying to establish MS in the living room but if they never make any real money going to the living room, what's the point?

MS has an opportunity to turn a profit in that area - but only if it keeps plugging away. The goal is future profitability and sustainability, not having max revenue for the next quarter.

Um, did you read the part that it may take a decade to break even for the XBox that's if things go as they have been. I don't anticipate that suddenly people will start buying XBox if they don't already have one already. That also doesn't take into account that eventually there will be another generation of consoles at which point MS will have to sink money for another generation. And then repeat.

Microsoft can't lose control of search

[WolfgangPG]

Search is part of everything now. The Windows Phone (post Mango) has a Bing button. Search is a very important part of the phone. You use your phone for maps, looking up where to eat, regular searching, phone numbers, identify music, etc...

If they get rid of Bing they have to rely on Google or someone else. This basically would mean Google would be in charge of the Computing world with the #1 Mobile OS and being the only search engine on every other platform. Google would be able to dictate to Microsoft, Apple, etc...

Microsoft cannot afford to let Google be in a position where Microsoft needs to rely on them for a service as important as search.

Re:Microsoft can't lose control of search

[PickyH3D]

Exactly. That $2.6 billion that they lost this past quarter likely took nearly that much away from Google in lost revenue. $2.6 billion that Google can't use to subsidize Chrome OS or Google Docs to beat out Microsoft's alternatives.

Give Google a monopoly, and suddenly there is no major competition for:

Google Search
Google Maps

That is also to say, Google has no reason to improve those services when they can sit back and collect pure profits.

And, similar to NASA having to go through Russia (at least until SpaceX comes around), what do you think Google will do to its competitors when they come begging for search in their mobile OS? They will end up with the iOS implementation of Google Maps: decent, but extremely weak compared to other phone implementations (Turn by Turn anyone? Avoiding traffic?). Good luck getting voice search like that of WP7 when there is only a downside for Google to help WP7 grow.

There's a reason that Apple added support for Bing in iOS. They did not want to send everything to Google, which is currently their biggest competitor followed by Microsoft in the distance (as Apple makes the vast majority of its money on iPhone, and WP7 is currently a small player, but still its major competitor on the computer).

I use Bing

[synapse7]

I continue to use Bing, primarily for IT related searches, to avoid content farms and old outdated articles with inflated SEO rankings.

That's an interesting choice of words...

[Crudely_Indecent]

While the world sees Bing as a distant No. 2 search engine

This is Slashdot, where curse words in posts and comments are allowed. So, it's perfectly OK to say "Bing...shit search engine"

Re:That's an interesting choice of words...

[Anonymous Coward]

While the world sees Bing as a distant No. 2 search engine

This is Slashdot, where curse words in posts and comments are allowed. So, it's perfectly OK to say "Bing...shit search engine"

It is obvious you've never used Bing. Either that or you hold shares in El Goog.

Re:That's an interesting choice of words...

[Crudely_Indecent]

When you need to resort to copying search results from Google, you pretty much lose my support. I'm not a Google shareholder, but I do recognize the current king. Certainly, when something better comes along I will use it. Bing isn't it.

Bada Boom

[NicknamesAreStupid]

Bada Bing! -- bad connotations. I'm sure the Crosby family would agree. They shoulda called it 'Bling' 'cause it's got so much glitter. That's also why it loads so slooooow. It almost seems like you should hafta pay for it and then feel like ya didn't get yer money's worth, ya kno? Ain't prayin', just sayin'.

What did these execs expect?

[Code Yanker]

I'd be curious to find out what Microsoft's initial goals were. Surely the bean counters did not expect breaking Google's stronghold on search would take a mere two years? In most tech markets, a ton of competitors show up, duke it out, and one of them eventually emerges as the clear winner and we all go home. Any companies that show up after that have to either sell niche products or EXTEND the market in some way. It looks like MS tends to take an unusual strategy here on many products, not just Bing. Bing faces Google pretty much head on and any bean counting MBA knows that will be a very expensive and long term investment. Investors certainly care more about the heres-and-nows but execs care about reaching goals. If Microsoft is reaching its goals (anybody see their last quarterly?) I imagine they will continue with their old strategy of showing up late and dumping tons of money into experimental projects that compete directly with established market champions. I'm no business analyst, but it looks like MS loves to have its fingers in every little place where software exists, in some small-but-significant corner of the market, for the infrequent moments when it gains dominance and gets some incremental shread of long-term relevancy.

Re:What did these execs expect?

[deets52]

Thats all MS has ever done. They have only been "on time" to the party twice and that was with Basic and DOS (and DOS was not even new but the market was). Since then they have relied on using their OS market share to drive everyone else out of the market by giving it away free with Windows - Internet Explorer, anyone. Times have changed and they can't do that anymore. I still remember being told, by MS themselves, in regards to several of their products "It's not the best, but it's free".

Last Place In Worldwide Sales

[Anonymous Coward]

Rushed out the door a year early, still ended up in last place in worldwide sales.

Worst console hardware ever created.

Graphically destroyed by the PS3.

Ended up a distant 2nd place last gen. Will end up last place this gen.

Lost some 4 billion dollars on the first Xbox. Lost around the same amount this gen.

High five Microsoft! What a console!

Re:Last Place In Worldwide Sales

[Trilkin]

Rushed out the door a year early, still ended up in last place in worldwide sales.

This is the only point you're actually correct on and that's due to a lot of things that actually have nothing to do with the 360's hardware failure rate. The PS3's hardware failure rate isn't much better. I've personally gone through two of each and that's with moderate play. Between the 360 having no appeal in Japan due to the lack of third-party support from developers they cared about for the longest time and the region-locking scheme they had going on... the PS3 was more attractive to European nations because far fewer things were region locked and in a country where the PAL version of a game might come out after the next apocalypse, this means a lot to them... not to mention the large amount of organizations that bought PS3s for research purpose.

Worst console hardware ever created.

You mean worse than the Wii which is basically just a rebadged Gamecube? Worse than the Jaguar which was a clusterfuck that developers didn't want to be bothered with? Or are you talking about the actual physical qualities of the hardware? Most of their failures were due to poor soldering, not poor quality parts. I hate to tell you, but the hardware in your beloved Wii/PS3 is produced in most of the same factories as the 360's hardware.

Graphically destroyed by the PS3.

Wat? How? I've seen WAY more instances of games chugging on a PS3 or dropping frames than the 360. There isn't a great deal of difference between the Cell and the 360's processor, power wise... you're aware of that, right? You're aware of that scandal with IBM? You actually read that... right? The video cards on either system are also pretty much the same (one is ATI and the other is Nvidia.) The PS3's is clocked 50mhz higher... oh boy! The ONLY advantage the PS3 has over the 360 is the blu-ray drive for larger textures... and go pop in some of your bluray games and check how much they're really taking advantage of it. They CAN'T - the PS3 doesn't have enough memory for textures of that size without some awesome compression schemes going on.

Ended up a distant 2nd place last gen. Will end up last place this gen.

Maybe, but...

Lost some 4 billion dollars on the first Xbox. Lost around the same amount this gen.

You're so wrong it hurts. They started making a profit on the 360 way back in 2006. They've made about $8bil in gross revenue from it so far. That doesn't even count the amount of money they get from any Microsoft Game Studios published game. The Wii has made a larger profit because there was no real R&D involved in actually speccing out the system. The only R&D involved was in the motion control system which cost a great deal less than fully developing a new system entirely. This new Nintendo console coming out will probably show some huge losses at the beginning of its lifespan too - it looks like they're dumping a LOT of money into it. The first Xbox was a loss because it was very unwisely released while the PS2 was at its peak. There was absolutely no incentive for any third party developer to develop for them... until they got their killer app (Halo) anyway. They made it a point to beat Sony and Nintendo to the gate in the current generation and it's paid off tremendously for them.

Only in some fantasy world can anyone say the 360 has failed. It was EXTREMELY profitable and was the basis for several very lucrative franchises and will be the basis for others to come without a doubt.

And I'm not a Microsoft fanboy - I own all three current gen consoles and I own all three previous gen consoles as well. I find myself preferring certain games on the 360 and others on the PS3 (generally games that require disc swapping.) The Wii also has its own appeal and serves as a much better 'party' platform. Has some great games in its own right too. All three consoles were successes for all three companies. Sony had to work a hell of lot harder to get there, but once developers started figuring out how to work with the convoluted system they were given (with very little in the way of documentation initially, no less) good things started coming out of it. No one failed this generation. Sorry.

Buy the numbers

[ShooterMcGavin]

Hey, you know what would improve market share? Buying Yahoo! Wait......

good enough

[Anonymous Coward]

I switched to Bing mobile when the Google app became completely unusable on my aging iPod Touch. They filled a niche.

Booleen, search within results

[Anonymous Coward]

Bing does have Booleen search which Google doesn't, but doesn't have search within results & privacy options to beat google

Did we forget China?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bing still has potential in "emerging" markets that Google is out of, like China. The Baidu deal could be huge for them (http://search.slashdot.org/story/11/07/05/0452257/Microsoft-Partners-With-Baidu-Chinas-Top-Search-Engine)

oh to be an overpaid marketing executive..

[fitteschleiker]

i mean come on. bing? really? how many years on and that name is still fucking retarded. it never had a fighting chance.

Bing already losing mobile market...

[Endophage]

Towards the end of last year I bought a Samsung Fascinate on Verizon. It only had the Bing search widget, no Google search widget, even though it's an Android phone. There were plenty of ways to work around that problem (yes, Bing was a problem for me, no matter what MS do their search engines consistently fail to provide me with relevant results, maybe I'm just difficult) like simply adding google.com as a bookmark in the browser. Couple of extra taps but not impossible.

Around the same time a number of my friends bought the same phone. They had the same complaints about Bing and no Google search widget.

A few months ago, Verizon finally pushed the Android 2.2 update to the Fascinate which included the Google search widget. I now don't know a single person who uses the Bing search widget. Attempting to force people to use your products through deals with various vendors is not the way to build market share.

Re:Bing already losing mobile market...

[Anonymous Coward]

Attempting to force people to use your products through deals with various vendors is not the way to build market share.

That is exactly what Google goes to the hardware makers before it allows them to use the full suite of Google apps.

Still, I agree that locking customers into your tool is not the right way to go. Giving it as an attractive option (defaulted, perhaps) is much more subtle and less egregious.

bing makes them strong

[schlachter]

sell bing? bing is one of the few things these days that make MSFT strong...along with their entertainment business (xbox, etc). they are dragging themselves into the modern age with bing.

strength and weakness

[Tom]

We've seen this pattern before. Repeatedly. MS greates strength and greatest weakness at the same time is their ability and will to stay beyond losses that would've ruined most smaller companies.

Sometimes, this staying power makes them pull through in the end. Sometimes, it means they just burn even more money.

It's the typical MS way. No, they won't sell Bing. They will hang on to it until it either turns a profit, or is so dead that not even the braindead who fall for 419 scams would buy it anymore. Then they will kill it silently, when the press is looking the other way. They don't like to admit failure.

Public Impression

[Vehstijul]

A lot of people might also have a bad impression of Bing since it's forced on them: Verizon routinely shoves Bing down their client's throats. For BlackBerries and wherever else they can regulate it, Bing is the only option for search engines, unless you use the Google App instead of searching through the browser.

It seems they're buying public usage instead of earning it - maybe another reason why they're not profitable yet.

It may be petty of me, but I know I personally dislike Bing for this reason.

Ob: "Google it with Bing" link

[KWTm]

No one's mentioned this so far, so I'll provide this hilarious youtube link to an ad that's purportedly for Bing but slyly hypes Google everywhere.:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYVCk10AzS0

My favourite quote: "So, just google it with Bing. That's 'G-O-O-G-L-E' it with Bing."

anticompetitive behavior?

[kirkb]

IANAL or economist, but if MS is deliberately losing billions in online search and advertising solely so that they can deprive google of revenue in that industry, isn't that illegal? Dumping or bundling or something like that? I know that it's expected that a new business will lose money for years while trying to establish themselves, but if an already-established company dips into the war chest that they've amassed in one industry in order to stomp into an unrelated industry, that doesn't seem right.

In the past 5 years, MS has used revenue from its Windows and Office monopolies to subsidize over EIGHT BILLION dollars in losses for the "online services" (Bing) division.

What Microsoft wants from Bing

[Rob Y.]

At one point, MS may have wanted Bing to be a successful division in its own right, but at this point, all they want is to blunt Google's success enough that Chrome and Google Docs won't eat into the Windows/Office cash cows.

I only use Bing for MSDN searches ...

[SickLittleMonkey]

... and it still sucks at that, though marginally less so than Google.

Re:I only use Bing for MSDN searches ...

[PickyH3D]

Have you tried searching it like this on Google?

xyz site:msdn.microsoft.com

Code-related searches are the entire reason I use Google.

sounds bullish

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Console_wars#Worldwide_sales_figures_5

Worldwide sales figures
Wii – 86.01 million as of 31 March 2011[9]
Xbox 360 – 55 million as of 4 June 2011[31]
PlayStation 3 – 50 million as of 31 March 2011[32]

Isnt the news that PS3 is going to overtake the 360. when that happens developers will be reminded that microsoft has no real love for them, isnt the new strategy for win8 to dump silverlight/.not and do everything with html5+javascript. the brainiacs who push this might think they can keep inveigling html until the singularity, or until they have a real application presence on arm, but the writing is finally on the wall about m$. their money wont help this time, everyone is out to "kill fucking" them, Google, Apple, Sony, even their close partners such as Nvidia are working hard on m$'s undoing. What Tegra2 has begun with incredible 1st gen hardware such as the Asus TF101, Kal'El will accelerate. The transition away from m$ on the desktop, and consolidation of Android in the tablet, portable and smart phone sector, is well underway.

Finally?

[saleenS281]

Xbox has been turning a profit since 2008... more than half of it's life.

Market share

[ikirudennis]

How much of Bing's market share can be attributed to people who, if asked about what search engine they normally use, would not know how to answer correctly? "Search engine? I don't I just go to the internet."