It’s hard to know how much to read into the gains that Bing has notched up in its first eight weeks, but one thing’s for sure: if it hadn’t shown these early signs of life Microsoft would currently be facing a barrage of criticism and some very difficult decisions.
The latest figures from comScore today show Bing clawing back half a percentage point of the US search market for Microsoft in July. At 8.9 per cent, its share is now up nearly a point from the 8.0 per cent recorded in May.
This shows that Microsoft has at least been able to move the needle. It won’t disclose its internal targets for the new search engine, but as we noted recently, Steve Ballmer has set a (modest-sounding) target of three or four percentage points for the first year.
The important issue for the foreseeable future isn’t whether Microsoft can somehow rise up to challenge to Google: it’s whether it can do enough to prevent itself from being blown off the playing field altogether. There is still a long way to go, but with Bing launched successfully and a Yahoo advertising deal under its belt, there must be some very deep sighs of relief in Redmond.
