The Microsoft that goes Bing

Microsoft’s unveiled its new baby and it’s a Bing after all. While Google’s still calling itself a “search engine” – and doing pretty well from it – and Wolfram Alpha thinks of itself as a “computational engine,” MS is marketing its latest offering as being a “decision engine.” And, finally, it has announced the launch date for good measure.

While calling it a “decision engine” might be a gimmick, from what we’ve seen Bing appears to be more than just the failed Windows Live search on a witness protection programme. But going from its promotional video, Microsoft is really pushing what differentiates Bing from conventional search engines: like its ability to collate review scores of hotels or restaurants – for when you want “more than one answer.” And you have to hand it to MS: it finally seems to have as much of an idea of where the search market is going as Google does. While the Mountain View company may have beat its Redmond rival to the mark two weeks ago with its new Rich Snippets feature, there’s no way MS could have simply ripped Google off so quickly.

And there does seem to be at least some things that Bing can do that Google hasn’t talked about already. Apparently it’s quite good at gathering flight information, with a “travel” tab giving you access to a flight reservation system where you can book tickets; you can also get tips on where to buy the cheapest seats. The background image on the site will also change every day – we can’t wait.

But perhaps most excitingly of all, we’ve also got an insight into where that name comes from. “We like Bing because it sounds off in our heads when we think about that moment of discovery and decision making – when you resolve those important tasks,” says a statement on the Live Search blog, completely missing out on the opportunity to claim inspiration from Monty Python (thanks to reader grumsta for that one). But more than anything Bing seems to be about disassociation with Live Search: “Frankly, the name needed to … invite you to come back, to re-introduce you to our new and improved service and encourage you to give it a try,” it continues. Even the Microsoft branding appears to have been dropped from Bing.com.

But starting again the MS way must have at least been cheaper than acquiring Yahoo, which appears to have been receptive to a deal – at the right price. “If there’s boatloads of money and the right technology involved, would we do a deal? Sure. It’s that simple,” said Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz earlier this week. Some technology commentators had prophesied that Yahoo would be the effective replacement for Live.com – but they’ll be proven wrong on June 3rd when Bing launches worldwide.

Unusually for the company, Microsoft seems happy to settle for second place – and that’ll come at the expense of its former potential partner in crime. “Second place would be a great place. And once we’re in second place we will go for first place,” said Paul Stoddart, Microsoft’s UK search chief. Maybe we shouldn’t turn our backs on MS yet: as he says “Microsoft has a great tradition of coming from behind.”

Tags: Bartz, Bing, engine, Google, Live, Microsoft, Yahoo