Myquestions

The search-engine market seems pretty saturated. Google has an overwhelming 53.6% market share, Yahoo! has 19.9%, and Microsoft’s Live Search has only 12.9%. It may seem suprising, then, that the software giant, Microsoft, is throwing so much money at a seemingly unwinnable battle. But when you really think about it, it makes sense…

While Mozilla’s Firefox web browser has secured a large part of the market, have you ever wondered why Internet Explorer, despite all the negative press, still enjoys a majority? You see, Internet Explorer ships with Microsoft Windows. And since average users have no idea about the imperfections of Internet Explorer, most find it easier to just use the included browser.

Enter bing; Microsoft’s new, re-branded search engine. Many of the “new” features are already available from other search engines such as Google, but bing is marketing them as “improved”. In addition, bing is adding the Windows-like look-and-feel to the interface, which should help users feel at home.

But the kicker, for me, is that Microsoft will likely provide a gadget for Windows Sidebar so that users can quickly and easily access bing’s search functionality. Users like ease of use, and opening a browser and pointing it to Google just adds an extra layer of effort.

So the question on all of your minds: Will bing compete with the search-giant, Google? Yes and no. I think this is a great move from Microsoft, because product integration causes a vendor lock-in, whereby people have very little choice but to use Microsoft products.  The problem is that around the world, young and old, tech-savvy or not, people have already come to know Google. And as we said before, People like familiarity.

Thus, while I think bing will provide a lot of nice features and competition for Google, it doesn’t have much chance of overtaking the king of search.

bing has entered its beta-testing phase, and you can try it out at http://www.bing.com