[cygwin98]

I would prefer a strong Microsoft that keeps improving Bing and its web/mobile advertisement branch, which can counter-balance GOOG on web/mobile sphere. A GOOG with almost infinite cash flow from Ads would be as bad as MSFT in 90s. It's already the case that nowadays GOOG has become increasingly more arrogant.

[mathattack]

I think Bing is a lost battle. The real question is what can they do on Azure, and can they move people to a cloud-based Office suite.

On arrogance - this comes with size. The larger a company gets, the more internal stakeholders they have. What was once a simple, "Of course we'll change that" turns into "Who else is impacted to this change?" to "Let's only change what we need to, and not get distracted by everything else."

My inclination is the more competitors, the better. But we don't necessarily need more standards. Creating another service provider for cloud based computing is great. Creating another browser that everyone needs to optimize their websites for separately - not so great.

[cygwin98]

I think Bing is a lost battle. The real question is what can they do on Azure, and can they move people to a cloud-based Office suite.

Bing is actually doing surprisingly well, considering the team competes with probably the most successful department and the foundation of GOOG. IMHO it's likely one of very few successful strategic moves of MSFT in competitive markets. Without Bing, GOOG would pretty much print money and pour money on whatever futuristic projects they feel like. Oh, well, they're already doing these stunts, it would only get worse without Bing. Azure and Office-in-the-cloud alone cannot compete with freebies backed by big pockets.

Creating another browser that everyone needs to optimize their websites for separately - not so great.

I agree on the pains caused by browser fragmentation, but I do think it's still a good thing to have IE especially the new versions around. The recent move of GOOG pushing for Dart is a dangerous sign that GOOG is starting to flex its muscle and do whatever they want. Mozilla alone stands no chance in such a challenge, in a same sense they couldn't in a battle against MSFT about 2 decades ago.

[skalkin]

"Without Bing, GOOG would pretty much print money and pour money on whatever futuristic projects they feel like. "

You say it like Google's futuristic projects are bad things; if anything, we need more of them!

[tcheard]

Exactly, I don't see a downside in Google pouring money at futuristic projects. This is a good thing, their research and development only helps the computing industry. I guess people are just stuck in the mindframe that everything Google does is bad. Sure they seem to do some sketchy stuff sometimes with personal information, but that doesn't mean everything they do is a bad thing.

[gress]

They are bad things if they empower an ever more powerful monopoly.

[bduerst]

Nitpick: Not all monopolies are bad (utilities, transportation, etc.)

The term you're thinking of is conglomerate, because Google has at least one competitor in every one of it's markets, which isn't a monopoly.

[gress]

Nitpick: legally a monopoly doesn't require zero competitors.

[klipt]

> freebies backed by big pockets

That also describes Bing.

> The recent move of GOOG pushing for Dart is a dangerous sign that GOOG is starting to flex its muscle and do whatever they want.

How exactly is Dart dangerous? It's open source, unlike C#.

[cygwin98]

How exactly is Dart dangerous? It's open source, unlike C#.

One nit to pick here: C# is open sourced, though the .NET framework is not. Anyway, let's focus our discussion on Dart.

Somehow I had an impression that GOOG might have a plan B that would push Dart to replace JS on the web and Java on the mobile and a walled-garden that unifies current ChromeAppStore and PlayStore. JS would be totally marginalized and obsoleted. I'm not a fan of JS, but throwing away the enormous efforts done for the past decade is too much a churn and waste for me to swallow. I could hopefully be totally wrong though.

[klipt]

Tons of Google's client side code is in javascript ... I don't know why you think they'd obsolete their own code.

[encoderer]

Bing has 1/3 of search volume if you include Yahoo, which it serves.

Hardly lost.

[umeshunni]

In the US. In desktop. Globally, and once you count mobile, it's negligible. After 9 years on the market, including multiple rebrandings, it's a lost cause.

[encoderer]

Bing was more than just a "rebranding" of Live search. And another thing, it shook Google from complacency. Do you remember the spate of improvements that came on the heels of Bing, some copied directly from Bing like infinite scroll on the image search?

We are all better off with a Bing than without. I can comprehend literally zero harm caused by Bing. It's not like you can make a "but IE hurts developers" argument here.

Moreover, if 1/3 of desktop US traffic is of nominal value in your opinion, I think possibly you're jaded.

[zequel]

Yep, google was complacent until Bing showed up. Then google released instant results, improved its images and video results. Bing had a better version of initially). Competition is good.

[mooreds]

Here's some numbers--Google has > 85% worldwide market share as of Oct 2013:

http://www.statista.com/statistics/216573/worldwide-market-s...

[encoderer]

And Bing has 33% of domestic share.

[mathattack]

Maybe it's just a bias on my part, but I don't see anyone using "Binging" as a word to look something up. I would like to see the #s more in depth. (How much of it is directed from Yahoo, and IE, etc)

[maxerickson]

I occasionally do that ironically. On the other hand, I find 'Googling' increasingly awkward and tend to just say search.