[PsychoCoder]

Quote from the article

Quote

In 2003, when Apple said its iTunes music software would work on PCs using the Windows software of its age-old rival, Microsoft, Apple made up posters that read "Hell Froze Over." Hell may be getting frosty again.

Apple (AAPL) is in talks with Microsoft (MSFT) to replace Google (GOOG) as the default search engine on its iPhone, according to two people familiar with the matter. The talks have been under way for weeks, say the people, who asked not to be named because the details have not been made public.

I guess hell has officially frozen over? I think this, if it goes through, would be a good marker on how much Microsoft & Bing has made on the search engine front. Discuss?

[antshockey]

Or is it a marker on how much money and power Microsoft actually has?

[SwiftStriker00]

I think its a waste of money on MS's part. I and many others I know change default search engines on any software I get to my liking. So personally I have a hard time justifying the effort MS is putting forth. However on the large scheme of things, there are probably enough lazy people or those who dont know how or know better, that will leave it as the default.

Though its kinda funny, MS's biggest competition is slowly being absorbed by MS. between this, Office 2008, and apple only software conforming to NTFS. they are kinda loosing their individuality from Windows (slowly)

[borninlyoko]

In my opinion, "Bing" is no better than "Google". In fact, I think it's worse. Google can have a lot of power if you use the right operators, you can find almost anything. Bing's whole advertising campaign was that it would "Eliminate search engine overload", however it has done no such thing, it just offers a bunch of confusing pages with images that have their own little bubble and travel price prediction. NEWSFLASH! Many other sites already offer that stuff.

This post has been edited by borninlyoko: 25 January 2010 - 02:08 PM

[Nykc]

The reason behind this is because Apple & M$ see Google as a threat, especially since the Droid phones are gaining so much ground.

To me I am unaffected as I am a droid user, however if I had an iPhone I would still make sure Google is my default search engine. I seen this coming for a long time, Bing IMO is a lousy search engine. I gave it a go and I still till this day revert right back to Google.

This post has been edited by Nykc: 25 January 2010 - 03:09 PM

[0xFF]

Wow, they're really scared over droid.
And this won't stop anything.

[BeAloud]

I'm expecting a deal about the new tablet too. IMO Bing isn't that bad, image search is better than Google's and Maps have much more features.
SERPs can be quite different too and search quality can be debatable. I have compared Google and Bing last month, searching for "Apple" ( http://www.bealoud.c...le-google-bing/ ), and found some interesting results that showed fresher results on Google, but also different spam vulnerability.

[SpeedisaVirus]

Nykc, on 25 Jan, 2010 - 02:04 PM, said:

The reason behind this is because Apple & M$ see Google as a threat, especially since the Droid phones are gaining so much ground.

This is exactly it. Apple needs a search engine and the last thing they want to do is to help their biggest threat, Google. M$ has phones and phone software but they are not a significant threat to Apple in this market. M$ has their own reasons to see Google as a threat...Bing vs Google, WinMo vs Droid, Xp/7 netbooks vs Droid/ChromeOS netbooks, IE vs Chrome.

An enemy of an enemy can quickly become your friend.

[tmasterslayer]

SpeedisaVirus, on 27 Jan, 2010 - 12:15 PM, said:

This is exactly it. Apple needs a search engine and the last thing they want to do is to help their biggest threat, Google. M$ has phones and phone software but they are not a significant threat to Apple in this market. M$ has their own reasons to see Google as a threat...Bing vs Google, WinMo vs Droid, Xp/7 netbooks vs Droid/ChromeOS netbooks, IE vs Chrome.

An enemy of an enemy can quickly become your friend.

Correct me if I'm wrong but last I checked M$ didn't have their own phones. Just the phone OS. I think once they get a actual device out there they might start to compete with the iPhone and become more of a Google like threat... depending on how good their phone performs that is.

Personally I prefer Google search to Bing. Maybe it's just because I've been using Google this entire time but it just seems so much easier and cleaner than Bing.

[BenignDesign]

I don't care for Bing. It's so cluttered. In addition, sites like MSN - rather than posting news links (which is what I've gone there to read) - will post links to Bing searches. If I wanted to search for the crap, I'd have gone to Google in the first place.

[ts230]

I can only aggree with BenignDesign, Bing's a bad search engine and is way too cluttered. Google is simple, so even a three-year old can use it.

[iPhun]

I agree. I think Google is still the better search engine and the marketing for Bing isn't all that great. Convincing people to change old habits will be difficult.

[Adkins]

I couldn't agree more that Google is a better search engine than Bing. I disagree however on the reasoning behind this very visual partnership between Microsoft and Apple. If you actually look into it, MS and Apple have been working together from the start. Before Office 2008 the Apple office suite was built by Microsoft and sold with proper royalties due, to Apple. That is directly from the start. Apples web browser was also built by Microsoft. Bill Gates is a clever enough business man that there is no way he would just give up on that whole demographic simply because he couldn't put the MS logo on it. I think this partnership is more based on feared legal ramifications. Apple has been going more and more main stream (IN MY OPINION) since the EU and the US State Department came down hard on Microsoft for Anti-Trust. Apple is way deeper into the realm of Anti-Trust litigation than Microsoft ever was, because they not only lump all the software together, but they give you the hardware to go with it. I don't think Apple has much to fear from the Droid because of their overwhelming Fan-Boy (borderline fanatical) marketing base. Now before I get all kinds of hate mail, death threats, and voted down into the -10000 for reputation, I don't think every Mac user is fanatical, but no-one can deny that there is a rather healthy population that is.

I could be wrong about all that, but it is what I think.