Google co-founder decides to take Bing head on
News out of the US has Google co-founder Sergey Brin urgently getting a team of software engineers together to offer upgrades on the Google search engine due to Microsoft’s newest search engine offering, Bing, making a splash.
This must be great news to those at Microsoft, as they have tried and failed on a few occasions to try and take Google marketshare. Usually coming a distant third behind Google and Yahoo, Microsoft’s previous search engine incarnation, MSN, could only grab a single-figure share in the lucrative American and European markets, while Google had up to 90 percent in some places.
Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer tried to buy main rival, Yahoo, last year, but one of the founders of the company, Jerry Yang, didn’t want to know. Yang was much criticised for not accepted an offer from Microsoft of $33 a share, and by November 2008, shares were down to $14 (it now sits at about $16).
With some experts suggesting that Microsoft has spent up to US$100 million of advertising, maybe Brin and co have reason to be worried. Having used Bing on a few occasions, it certainly is up there with Google, and offers a few extras that Google doesn’t have, such as Best Match and Deep Links features. It will be interesting to see what upgrades Brin and his engineers will come up with…watch this space.
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