Microsoft is Ready to Take On Google

In search engines, Google's competitors have no chance at all. Microsoft wants to change it with Bing. Will these efforts ended in vain?

With the MSN search engine and their live search, Microsoft never came close to Google. Until June 2009, Microsoft is still in third place after Google (80%) and its competitor Yahoo (10%). Being in the third position, Microsoft promised to do better. Thus explained by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer at the conference "All Things Digital" in California when he introduced a new search engine named Bing.

Bing is not the successor of Live, but a new development of the concept of search. Bing is not a search engine but a decision engine. Currently about 30% of search queries fail because unsatisfactory result. Two third of queries have yet to be specified once again before the user find the desired results. So, there's a lot of potential to be developed for a search engine. The breakthrough of this new engine is expected to help the socialization of this search engine.

Before Bing was launched, Microsoft conducted a series of acquisitions after the failed acquisition of Yahoo, last year it bought Power Set, a software company. This quite promising company is doing research in the field of semantic web search. Currently, Power Set team is creating some concept of semantic web search to be integrated into the Bing. While Google only provides a link from the searched word, Bing even understand the meaning of the word. The experts were impressed with Bing. Bing is a major update compared to Live.com in many aspects, Bing even more user friendly compared to Google. Semantic web search capabilities can be seen from the following example: if a user enters the word "Cancer", Bing will separate the link associated with disease and link associated with astrology. This machine also suggest similar terms, such as skin cancer or lung cancer, this suggestion is shown on the left window of the search results.

In addition, Microsoft also complement Bing with the practical functions, a preview window will provide initial information about the link offered.
Search images and video with Bing gives satisfactory results, more compact compared to Google. With the mouse over, the information will appear, such as image size or source tools, in a small window. If you search for videos, Bing provide a video preview, in addition, users can provide comments on the video and say in which part, the search machine really gives the best results. From these functions, search engine experts believe that other providers will follow Microsoft. Actually, semantic web search integrated into Bing, is already offered by Wolfram Alpha knowledge. This machine can provide answers to specific questions. With no links in search results. This knowledge services can provide a satisfactory answer, although there is also a less satisfying. Mathematical formula such as the sine curve not only processed, but also graphically depicted.

Will Bing beat Google or vice versa ? Unlike its predecessor, Bing is really a search engine that is very useful. Bing still needs a long step to catch Google. But in the United States Bing is slowly reaching the number two position. However, the imitators will not make it last long, they will confirm the name of Bing "But It's Not Google".