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

Spammers cash in on financial crisis

While experts predict potential losses of $2.8 trillion as a result of the world financial crisis, the spamming industry could end October on profit

The worldwide financial crisis sparked an increase in spam production following the collapse of some big names in global banking, says BitDefender researchers. As the world's stock markets crashed, spammers deployed a number of scams promoting services that claimed to eliminate or leverage debts, mortgages, and other fiscal or loan obligations.

For example, a large spam wave targeting US residents advertised the services of a company that allegedly offered to help stop home foreclosures. The message speculated the latest bailout plan announced by the US president.

Based on a template used before the recession, additional spam campaigns featuring financial ads gained significant volume during the month of October. Usually limited to a single body or subject line, the messages direct users through web links to various web sites, most of which were pushing phishing schemes.

Other spam waves used the economic crisis as a simple decoy for advertising drugs, pirated software or replicas. Finally, one of the most recent spam attempts relied on a multiple combination of automatically generated and distributed junk e-mails and social networking profiles directing the targeted recipients to web sites where they can "leave debt behind."
Vlad Valceanu, head, BitDefender's Antispam Research, said: "It is extremely important for computer users to be cautious about the emails they receive, as well as the advertisements they chose to click on. Spammers are using the current economic state and computer users' worries to their advantage by targeting spam campaigns towards those looking for not only more information about the recession but also those looking for how to better their current financial status."