I don't think it's fair to turn the Bing vs Wave previews into this kind of corporate comparison. Bing is being released to try and gain MS a good double digit market in a billion dollar industry. It is little more than a clone because that is all that a search engine can realistically be with current technology.

Sure innovation is great. That's why we're all at HN right?! But the big money (short of creating a whole new industry) is about getting market share in established markets. That is what MS are doing - from Bing to Silverlight to Xbox to most other things they do. Nothing more or less.