Mary-Jo Foley explains why Microsoft won't dump Bing

I wish Bing was giving me some capability I didn't have before. I don't see how it's going to be this awesomely critical fantastic compelling service if it doesn't.<p>Example: Google wanted to make driving directions better. But they couldn't get any of the companies with driving data to give them a license that let them do what they wanted. So they drove vans all over the freaking world to get the data to replace the existing systems. And now I can get directions to somewhere on my phone, spoken to me, for free, with a photo of my destination at the end of the trip so I can find the right spot, and much higher quality searching and path selection than my previous stand-alone dedicated GPS device. It's awesome, and makes me happy to be alive today every time I use it.<p>Google wanted to make voice search better. So they ran a voice version of Google to gather data for a while, and now my phone's keyboard has a microphone button and it feels like magic.<p>Microsoft wants to... make search better? So they give me a search engine that works like Google's, but with a slightly worse algorithm?<p>I just don't see what new things Bing lets me do that I couldn't do before. Is there anything it can do that will make me jealous of somebody with a windows phone? That's how they can convince me to buy one - make me want something awesome in my life. I haven't seen it yet. Until they find something, it just seems like a money pit.

Foley hits on a key point of integration.<p>The other key factor for Microsoft is the company's history and view of perseverance. Windows took 3 versions to get right. Word was an underdog to Word Perfect for years. Excel lagged behind Lotus. Outlook/Exchange struggled to catch up to Lotus Notes for ages. Windows Server and SQL Server were laughed at when the company tried to enter the enterprise market. It took a whole generation of consoles for xbox to start beating Playstation. All of them are major cash cows today, and execs know it's because they outlasted the competition and finally found a way to win. Ignoring naysayers is a badge of honor for these guys.

"Microsoft sees Bing as more than a standalone Web search engine -- it's a key selling point for the Windows Phone 7 platform."<p>kenjackson made a similar point in our conversation a few days ago at <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2794209" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2794209</a>

I use Bing as my primary search engine. At some point, I decided that today's Microsoft somehow seemed like a nicer company than Google. And I was hardcore anti-Microsoft for over a decade.<p>Also, the pretty pictures every morning are nice and the search engine performs well.

For those who may not know her, Mary-Jo Foley's reports about Microsoft are typically <i>very</i> well sourced.

Too bad I don't think users see bing as the value add that MSFT does.<p>Look at it this way, iPhone doesn't have massive search integration that is world beating like Android does and users don't seem to mind.<p>Search is a useful function, but it is not the function you buy a device for.<p>Phones are primarily communication devices, so making a killer communication device seems like a good idea. Sometimes you want to track down content - via search in a browser, ok fine bing is useful there.<p>I just don't think anyone buying a phone even thinks about search integration unless they are a nerd. Search is a feature on a phone, not a de facto reason to buy.