DETROIT (AFP)--Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) chief Steve Ballmer on
Wednesday downplayed expectations for the success of the newly
launched Bing search engine, but said the company was committed to
challenge Google Inc. (GOOG)over the long-term.
"When you're sitting there as we are in the search base, you've
got 8% market share and there's a kind of a big dog competitor out
there in the market place, you can do very big things," Ballmer
said.
The initial response to Bing has been "very good" Ballmer said,
but it won't displace Google anytime soon.
"I don't want to overset expectations. We're going to have to be
tenacious and keep up the pace of innovation over a long period of
time," Ballmer told an economic summit in Detroit, Michigan.
"We may be successful, we may not, but we can't be successful
without being committed to changing things, changing the approach,
changing the business model and you can't give up in six months, or
a year or two years."
Microsoft said Bing, unveiled at the end of May, is designed to
intuitively understand what people are seeking on the Internet and
challenge online king Google.
The U.S. software colossus described Bing as a "Decision Engine"
aimed at helping people make buying decisions, plan trips, research
health matters or find local businesses.
Bing's launch came in the wake of Google and Yahoo! Inc.
(YHOO)announcing refinements to their search services and the
launch of a Wolfram Alpha query engine that delivers answers
instead of lists of Web sites.
Bing replaces MSN Live Search, which has languished in a distant
third place behind market-leading Google and second-place
Yahoo.
Bing relies predominately on algorithms and key words to provide
results for online searches but has infused some semantic
technology that deduces intended meanings of phrases, according to
Microsoft.
Ballmer declined to comment on what Bing's launch meant for
Microsoft's attempt to acquire Yahoo.
Online tracking firm comScore Inc. (SCOR) said Wednesday that
Microsoft saw its share of search result pages in the U.S. continue
to climb during the second week of Bing's introduction.
Microsoft Sites' share of search result pages in the U.S.
increased to 12.1% June 8 to 12, up three percentage points from
the May 25 to 29 period prior to Bing's introduction, comScore
said.
Microsoft's average daily penetration among U.S. searchers also
increased by three percentage points to 16.7% during the work week
of June 8 to 12, comScore found.
ComScore on Wednesday also released U.S. search engine rankings
for May, before Bing's introduction.
Google grabbed 65% of the U.S. search market for the month
followed by Yahoo with 20.1% and Microsoft with 8%.