eWeek has this “fluff” piece on why Microsoft Bing is “gaining” on Google:
10 Reasons Why Microsoft Bing Is Gaining on Google
I don’t usually like to go this far, but frankly it’s pretty shameless pandering.
Bing may or may not be a good search engine, personally the results it pulls just don’t cut it for me, but it’s quality or not has little to do with why it’s gaining market share (if it is in fact doing that – there’s good reason to believe it’s mostly cannibalizing Yahoo!).
No, instead it has one and one reason only for any increasing market share:
Microsoft made it the default browser for Internet Explorer.
Simple as that.
Coming up with 9 other reasons, mostly cobbled from Microsoft PR talking points, is a sad excuse for journalism and eWeek can (and often does) do better.
If Bing wins here, the fact that it’s the better search tool (which is dubious) is ultimately secondary. Just like Microsoft killed Netscape by making IE the default browser, Microsoft aims to do the same to Google via Bing. If Microsoft truly believed in the product, then they wouldn’t make it the default and would let the user decide up front what search engine to use.
Unfortunately, regardless of any positives that Microsoft brings to the industry, this is another example of its anti-competitive, no holds barred, behavior.
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