The rise of Bing
Jinfo Blog

6th July 2009

By Diana Nutting

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According to the Financial Times (http://digbig.com/5baapn) Microsoft has lost a cumulative $7bn in its online business over the past decade, but the launch of Bing (http://www.bing.com) is designed to turn that around. Microsoft is positioning Bing not just as a search site, but as a so-called "decision engine." Bing includes features that allow users to book travel and engage in other e-commerce transactions with just a few clicks. And it has added a feature to Bing that allows the search engine to query the Internet for so-called real-time data, including postings from Twitter users. And it seems clear that Bing is aimed at the home user rather than the information professional. Most of the informed comment about the usefulness of Bing has been less than positive, but Microsoft has indicated that it is willing to allocate 5-10% of the group’s operating income into the battle to gain search share over the next five years. According to Net Applications (http://digbig.com/5baapp) , Bing so far has a very small market share Its figures for June show Google with 81.22%, Yahoo with 9.21%, Bing with 5.31%, AOL with 1.74% and Ask with 0.84%. Bing’s share peaked in the first week of June, shortly after launch, when it accounted for more than 9 per cent of search traffic. Other web metrics companies show slightly different figures but it is clear that Bing has an uphill struggle if it is to eat into Google’s market share. Google has become a generic word for internet search, and it would take a great deal to eat into its dominance. What is more likely is that Bing will take share from Yahoo, AOL and Ask, perhaps ultimately forcing them out of the market completely.

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