A new player in search, but is Bing the right answer?
It’s official, there’s a new threat out there for Google. But, just how serious that threat is remains to be seen. Having recently unveiled Bing, Microsoft has dubbed its latest entry to the search market a ‘Decision Engine’ and has sets its sights on the number one spot.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer explains: “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…Bing is an important first step forward in our long-term effort to deliver innovations in search that enable people to find information quickly and use the information they’ve found to accomplish tasks and make smart decisions.”
Bing will initially focus on four key areas – making purchase decisions, planning a trip, researching a health condition or finding a local business. Hitwise stats for the UK alone show that Google has an 86.8% market share, compared to Microsoft’s 3.5%. Nevertheless, reports indicate that Ballmer believes Bing can become a “strong second” to Google before eventually overtaking them.
