Microsoft Bing Gains Respect - So Why Will It Fail?

You have to love the different opinions on whether the latest search effort by Microsoft known as Bing will succeed or not. Over at the N.Y. York Times they say that Bing has gained respect for Microsoft. They also state in an article that:

“They have achieved a degree of respect they haven’t had,” said Danny Sullivan, a veteran search analyst and editor of the industry news site SearchEngineLand. With a tone that suggested surprise, Mr. Sullivan added: “They’ve rolled out a product that is good. When people spend time on it, they do like it.”

Anna Patterson, who helped design and build some of the foundations of Google’s search engine and later co-founded Cuil, a search start-up that has yet to attract much of an audience, said: “I think they put together something that is really compelling. They made significant progress.”

That is music to the ears of Microsoft’s long-maligned search team, which has watched the company’s market share in search fall by half, to about 8 percent in May, since it introduced its first search engine in 2005.

But not everyone shares this optimistic outlook for Bing. Some in Silicon Valley have already buried Bing and have labeled it a failure. But over at the Silicon Valley Insider they have an article that has a different opinion of Bing:

First, there isn’t a search war between Google and Microsoft.  Google won what little skirmish there was about 5 years ago, and Microsoft has been gradually surrendering its last remaining territory ever since.

Second, of course traffic to Bing has increased!  People are naturally curious, especially given the $80-$100 million ad campaign.  Why wouldn’t people check it out?

Third, yes, Bing has added some cool innovations, but nothing that Google can’t and won’t copy immediately.

I believe that the third observation applies to both Google and Microsoft. There is only so much either can do to make search any better than it currently is. In fact I believe that both Google search and Bing are of equal value. But I’m a Google fan so I will continue to use Google.

But what do you think? Google or Bing?

New York Times source

Silicon Valley Insider source