Has Microsoft's Bing gained marketshare from Google?

Microsoft Corp's Bing search engine won more market share from rivals last week, according to new industry data, but still trails Google Inc and Yahoo Inc considerably.

Challenging market leader Google -- which in turn is looking to break into Microsoft's core software market -- is a long-term project, said Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer.

"We have had some very good initial response," Ballmer said at a conference in Detroit. "I don't want to over-set expectations. We are going to have to be tenacious and keep up the pace of innovation over a long period of time."

Microsoft grabbed 12.1 percent of U.S. Internet searches for the work week June 8-12, according to data released by industry tracker comScore earlier on Wednesday.

That is up from 11.3 percent in the June 1-5 period -- the week in which Bing was launched -- and up from 9.1 percent the week before that.

For comparison, Google got 65 percent of U.S. searches in May, the last full month for which figures are available, followed by Yahoo with 20.1 percent and Microsoft with 8 percent.

Analysts and investors are keenly awaiting data for all of June to see if Microsoft can hold onto early gains.

Ballmer acknowledged the tough task of beating Google, which he referred to as "a big dog competitor".

The world's largest software company has long been determined to play a major role in the lucrative Web search market after watching upstart Google take a stranglehold.

At the same time, Google is looking to take advantage of its popularity to launch software that competes with Microsoft's, which has created a new source of tension between the two companies.

Microsoft ratcheted up that tension on Wednesday by claiming that Google's new Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook software -- which allows users to share data between their Outlook e-mail and Google's online offerings -- disables a key function in Outlook.

"The installation of the Google Apps Sync plugin disables Outlook's ability to search any and all of your Outlook data," Outlook product manager Dev Balasubramanian wrote on a Microsoft blog. "It is also important to note that uninstalling the plugin may not fix the issue."

The problem, though relatively unimportant to users, represents a crucial struggle between Microsoft and Google for e-mail customers.

Google's new product allows business users to continue using Outlook for email and other tasks, but the back-end functionality and data storage moves to Google, instead of residing on a company's internal servers running Microsoft software.

Google did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

Microsoft shares closed up just less than 1 percent at $23.68, while Google's fell 0.2 percent to $415.16, both on Nasdaq.

Agencies

Microsoft's Bing to take on Google

Microsoft has unveiled a new search engine named Bing, renewing its efforts to challenge the dominance of Google in the Internet search market.

The company said the new service will begin to roll out over the coming days and will be fully deployed worldwide June 3.

"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," Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's chief executive officer, said in a statement.

"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," he added.

Microsoft said the Bing service, billed by the company as a Decision Engine, will initially focus on shopping, travel, local business and information, and health-related research - areas in which people want more assistance in making key decisions.

The software giant still has a long way to go to increase its share in the search market.

According to latest analysis by market research firm comScore, in April this year, Google led the US search market with 64.2 per cent of the searches conducted, followed by Yahoo with 20.4 per cent, with Microsoft a distant third with 8.2 per cent.

CXOtoday

Technology can pull US out of crisis, says Bill Gates

Technology can pull the United States out of recession and help the world's ailing financial markets work better, Microsoft Corp
Bill Gates Chairman Bill Gates told a high-level business summit at the company he co-founded.

"The drug companies will get back in high productivity mode. The software, IT revolution -- we're just at the start of that," said Gates at Microsoft's annual CEO Summit at the company's campus near Seattle.

"What we can do for education, communication, and what that looks like for the efficiencies of world markets, we are just at the beginning of that."

Gates, who focuses on health and education issues at his Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation since giving up his day-to-day role at the world's largest software company last year, made the remarks at the private event.

"The opportunities for innovation are stronger today than ever," Gates told the audience, which included billionaire investor Warren Buffett -- the world's second richest man behind Gates himself -- alongside News Corp Chairman Rupert Murdoch and Amazon.com Inc Chief Executive Jeff Bezos.

Despite the fact that Microsoft is laying off 5,000 employees, Chief Executive Steve Ballmer also struck an optimistic note, saying the business world is only "coming into halftime" of the Internet revolution.

He downplayed fears that the recession would choke off investment in technology start-ups from venture capital (VC) firms. "The VCs are pulling back," said Ballmer. "The seventh, eighth, and ninth copy of the idea won't get funded today, but most good propositions are still going to get funded. There's plenty of venture capital out there, relative to ideas."

He said research and development spending was also strong. "I don't know anybody in our industry actually who's cutting their R&D budget," said Ballmer. "I know people who are doing a lot of different things, but most people are not slashing their R&D budget."

Microsoft's research chief Craig Mundie said in February the company was not cutting back on its $9 billion R&D budget this fiscal year.

Agencies