June 08, 2009

Microsoft is banking on Bing being next. At the turn of the century, Microsoft seemed on a path to dominate your desktop and, through that, the world. But Yahoo was champion of Web searching, a fresh technology that made sense of the quickly expanding Internet and suggested another way to grab hold of your mouse.

Then, with countless clicks that cranked out Web links quicker than the blink of an eye, Google had climbed to the top of search business and from its perch posed yet a new threat to Microsoft.

Enter Bing.com, Microsoft’s latest effort to ratchet up the search engine wars. Critics give it high marks. It turns up results comparable to those of Google, with a few extras.

Should Google be scared? That’s a query all its own. “The game is never over,” said Andy Miedler, technology analyst at Edward Jones & Co. “Google definitely has a dominant position. But this is a great step for Microsoft.”

The latest escalation in the search engine arms race could determine the health of the world’s two strongest technology companies. For those of us on the sidelines, it might lead to better ways to shop for a camera, to learn how best to help Grandpa with his Alzheimer’s, or to score a cheaper flight to Vegas.