May 28, 2009 2:36PM  |
It’s official — Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has announced that Bing is the new search engine that will replace Windows Live Search. When Bing is fully ready, it will be a “decision engine” to help searchers use information. With Bing, Microsoft will try to gain more search-market share from rivals Google and Yahoo.
 Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer put days of speculation to rest Thursday by announcing the software giant’s new search engine, named Bing as expected. The engine will replace Windows Live Search as it begins rolling out in the next few days, with full deployment by June 3.Ballmer made the announcement at the D: All Things Digital conference. When it fully launches, users will be able to go to www.bing.com, type in a search word and use tools to narrow the focus in four areas — purchase decisions, trip planning, researching a health condition, or finding a local business.“Today, search engines do a decent job of helping people navigate the Web and find information, but they don’t do a very good job of enabling people to use the information they find,” Ballmer said. “When we set out to build Bing, we grounded ourselves in a deep understanding of how people really want to use the Web.” He added that Bing is the first step in a long-term effort to help people find information more quickly and use that information. How It Works To emphasize problems with current search engines, Microsoft pointed to a report by Ipsos Mendelsohn that found 66 percent of Internet visitors use searches to make complex choices. Another report by comScore showed 30 percent of searches are abandoned without a satisfactory result. These problems led Microsoft to focus on a “decision engine.” Bing uses features such as Best Match to find the best answer for a search, Deep Links to give searchers information on what a Web site offers, and Quick Preview, an additional window that expands over a search caption to give users more information about the site’s relevancy. The search engine also incorporates Instant Answers, a feature designed to provide information within the body of the search-results page. Internet search giant Google has for years dominated the search market, and Microsoft wants to improve its distant third-place ranking. So the question on many minds is whether Bing can pull market share from Google. Some Things Are Better “Bing represents a substantial importance in a number of things,” said Allen Weiner, vice president of research at Gartner. “The algorithms are better, it has a better user interface and better user experience, and they have made key categories for better decision making to create a differentiation.” This is the first time Microsoft has offered a branded search product. “In previous carnations [search] has been part of Live,” Weiner said. “But now it’s a product like Xbox — while it is associated with Microsoft, it has its own identity.” Microsoft is now on par with competitors Google and Yahoo, but Weiner said Bing is probably not a technological leap forward. “They will be competitors against Google and Yahoo, but all that does is get them caught up,” he added. “Let’s say Bing puts Microsoft on an equal footing with Google and Yahoo considering the fact that players will continue to innovate; how quickly can Microsoft add more cool bells and whistles so it not only stays competitive but finds a way to inch ahead and come up with some element it can use to further (itself) in the market?” Microsoft will have to do a lot of soliciting through marketing and will have to prove in that marketing that users are missing something in their search experience, he said. |
