Bing Bunk

Hey Microsoft? Ever considered that maybe, just maybe, we're not looking for what you're providing?

I speak of the news that Microsoft is going to overhaul its search engine. Going to call it "Bing." Because Microsoft wants its search engine to do comedy routines with Bob Hope? Because this new search engine will sing? Because Microsoft supports child abuse? Sorry, that last one wasn't fair.

Bing? Really?

Bing has a much softer, less clinical feel than previous Microsoft search engines and rivals, with a daily changing backdrop image.

Right. Okay, so when I go for search, I go for soft. And changing background images. Wake up, Microsoft. I don't care if your search engine offers me products for free, so I sure as hell don't care if it's softer and offers a changing background image. Frankly, you're not winning any awards in the background image department anyway. Who doesn't love the eye-candy that makes up the Microsoft Wallpaper package?

"Google haven't been able to innovate a lot of the UI (user interface) because they have to display their ads as that's how they make their revenue. We can try things a bit differently," said Mr Stoddart.

Or not. Because the Google UI may have its own issues, but it really has very little to do with the ads. Google has changed the way they display ads, but their UI hasn't changed. QED. That was too simple. Google's UI is deliberately the way it is, not based on ads. I can't prove it, but Google certainly goes out of its way to make its UI the way it does, and it doesn't mention ads much. I often forget they're there.

The bottom line: Microsoft is, in this quote, acknowledging that search is, to them, a loss leader. In other words, it's free candy they give out to get you into the store. Google, on the other hand, makes a business out of search, ads or no. On the one hand, we have a company that is eating what is no doubt a huge loss (remember those free products they were giving out to get people to use the search engine) just to try to capture a market (and one wonders why it wants to capture that market, since until recently it wasn't in that market). On the other, we have a company that's doing well because it does what it sells well.

I may be sounding like a sniveling Google fan boy, and rest assured, I'm not. I like Google, I use Google, but I don't love Google. Nor do I hate Microsoft. I just think that the idiocy level of changing backgrounds and names is pretty high. I'm sure it will work, because people are dumb on the Internet, but really, you're going to flock to Microsoft because of a pretty picture and a strange name?

I guess the real bottom line is that Microsoft apparently wants to be all things to all people, and sometimes I wonder if that's because it wants money, or control, or simply because it wants it. There may be no good reason. And that's not good. When all Microsoft did was make certain types of software, they weren't perfect, and they're spreading themselves ever thinner.