RIM to make Bing the default for search and maps | Hacker News Reader

RIM to make Bing the default for search and maps

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15 pointsanderzole19 comments

This reminds me of the old couple who held hands while they waited for the Titanic to sink.

AFAIK, BB users are pretty attached to their platform. The lack of innovation may have driven them to other products but I wouldn't bet this is going to last forever. Seen the new Bold Touch?

And rbanffy's tweet: "Because we all know two bricks float better than one."

Microsoft is sinking? They've just announced a very good quarter.

This is more like consolidation than anything else.

Define "very good". Didn't the stock have one of it's biggest single day drops in a long time?

yes but they still had a 31% increase in earnings http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110429/ap_on_hi_te/us_earns_mic...

This is why RIM is sinking. They only make poor decisions.

Interesting analysis: http://mobileopportunity.blogspot.com/2010/10/whats-really-w...

It could be a ploy to get money from Microsoft to keep the company afloat while they try to dig themselves out of the hole they are in. At least, it buys them more time.

Pulling a Nokia, as it were?

Still strikes me as mostly meaningless and somewhat desperate.

Verizon already switched the default search to Bing for its Blackberry users back in 2009[1] (which included pushing the Bing app to people's phones), and there was some uproar from folks, but it seemed to die down quickly.

This is a good deal for Microsoft, probably a good deal for RIM, but I doubt if it will have any noticeable effect on Blackberry usage.

[1] http://gigaom.com/mobile/verizon-bing-make-google-go-boom-on...

How can you say whether it's a good deal without knowing how much they're paying? Historically Microsoft has grossly overpaid for search eyeballs, at least compared to the revenue each search gets them. They do seem to operate Bing on the "losing money on ever sale, but making it up on volume" principle.

I can say it's a good deal because it coincides with Microsoft's search strategy. That strategy doesn't seem to require that their decisions be fiscally rewarding (I assume they're going after a really long tail).

Money isn't something Microsoft really has to sweat. They have decided that they want to have a go of having a search product. They fully realize that to do this will require them to spend a lot of money (essentially buying market position).

There will be a load of Blackberrys which will have Bing installed (even if Blackberry market share declines).

Therefore, I think this is a "good deal" for Microsoft. Whatever they're paying, they seem to be happy about it.

I wonder how much that cost them?

It probably cost them a little, but not a huge amount.

It actually is a smart deal for BB too. Who is BB's big competitor right now? It's not MS. It's Google. Why give Google revenue when Bing is, by most measures, just as good?

So MS comes to BB and says, "You really need to be fighting this front against Google. They're eating up your mobile sales. Bing is a great way to fight against them. Your customers will have an experience that's just as good, although admittedly some will be unhappy with the brand.

And sure WP7 might be competition in the future. But frankly, its a longshot, and you have your lunch being eaten today.

And lastly, do you want Google to screw you over in services in the future if it came to that? With both MS and Google battling it out, you'll always find one provider that will give you a fair deal."

Would anyone be surprised if Apple did the same, for the same reasons? It's already a built-in option for Mobile Safari.

But if Apple did it, I think the response would be different.

I think you are being mislead. For Microsoft, especially in their current position, consolidating their "automatic" user adoption strategy is both vital for the company and essential for preventing more users to use concurrent services. This is definitely something they would pay for; which one sentences highlights: « Moreover, Ballmer explained that Microsoft will “invest uniquely in the BlackBerry platform.” ».

Also: Bing to make Google the default for search.

Oh wait, they already did that.

http://searchengineland.com/google-bing-is-cheating-copying-...

Bing bar seems to be looking at the search query and associating it with the clicked link of the user, not the rankings on Google. So it's not really making Google the default for search.

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