On June 4th, Microsoft had what it thought was a victory in the search engine arena. They topped Yahoo and became the 2nd most widely used search engine (for a day).

Source: StatCounter Global Stats - Search Engine Market Share

We still don’t know if this is evidence that Bing is on its way to overtaking Yahoo completely, but surely the Yahoo execs are not keen on this development. Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz is claiming that Bing is just a fad, and will have no lasting impression on the search landscape, but we beg to differ. In our opinion, the failed attempt at a merger between Microsoft and Yahoo ended up being better for Microsoft - they have almost accomplished the same goals without the cost or anti-trust issues.

‘Microsoft plans to remove Internet Explorer from the versions of Windows 7 that it ships in Europe … Reacting to antitrust concerns expressed by European regulators, Microsoft plans to offer a version in Europe that has the browser removed. Computer makers would then have the option to add the browser back in, ship another browser or ship multiple browsers, according to a confidential memo that was sent to PC makers…” - CNET.com

Could this be the beginning of the end for Microsoft’s bundled applications?

Unlikely - but it does spell a major shift in the dynamic of the internet browser market. It can only lead us to believe that Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, and Opera will be giving IE a run for its money in the near future.

Whilst great news for many European anti-trust activists, this probably does not bode well for the Bing.com development team. A large contributor of traffic for the old MSN.com was its privilege as being the default search engine for IE.

It appears that Microsoft is struggling to maintain its strength as a software conglomerate, but is making up for this with emerging technology in the field of web development (i.e. Bing.com)

While many people scoff at the idea of a Google killer, Microsoft is not laughing. Their new Bing.com search engine is no joking matter. Not only does it cover almost all of the same ground as Google, it offers superior search technology.

Our favorite feature is their video search. It allows users to search the entire web for a video, but also plays the videos when moused-over.

An interesting side-note: when we went to view the videos in the Firefox browser, we were given a JS error and crashed to the desktop…Yet, the videos played just find in IE. We’re thinking it’s just coincidence, but wouldn’t be surprised if Microsoft has another Firefox bashing trick up its sleeve.

Check it out at Bing.com