Microsoft launches Bing search engine

PanARMENIAN.Net - With the June 1 launch of its new search engine, Bing, Microsoft is attempting to claim more market share in the competitive search-engine arena, where it sits in third place behind Google and Yahoo. According to a ComScore report, Microsoft held 8.2 percent of the U.S. core search engine market in April 2009, behind Google with 64.2 percent and Yahoo with 20.4 percent.

In addition to traditional search, with its pages of hyperlinks, Bing also allows users to drill down into specific search categories, such as Videos, Shopping, News, Maps and Travel.

With this step, Microsoft says it wants Bing to provide intuitive tools to help customers make better decisions, with an initial focus on four key vertical areas: making a purchase decision, planning a trip, researching a health condition or finding a local business.

Or to put it another way, Microsoft is hoping that Bing presents such utility to users that the company can increase its search market share and related financials, according to eWEEK.

The internet giant is planning a $100m multimedia advertising push created by JWT to promote the new search engine, in a bid to draw web users away from Google.

As Microsoft Armenia director Grigor Barseghyan told a PanARMENIAN.Net reporter, launch of Armenian version of the search engine is a matter of time.