Bing UK Launched by Microsoft

Sunday 15 November 2009 | By Heidi Scott, Gosh! Media Copywriter

Despite rumours – reported last week by Marketing magazine – that Bing's UK launch would be delayed until next year, Telegraph.co.uk has revealed that Bing has now been rolled out to Internet users in the UK, allowing them to get localised results that are more relevant to their search.

Launched stateside back in May, Bing is Microsoft's challenge to Google's dominant status in on-line search. Until now, web users in the UK have only been able to access a US version of the website, which has meant that search results have often not been that relevant. As Bing's US operation explained on its community page on 12 November:

"When you search for Football, what kind of answers do you expect to find? Well, I guess it depends on where you are doing the asking, if you are in the UK you probably don't want to see NFL schedules. You probably mean what we in the US call soccer. Well today, millions of searchers in the UK can rest assured that Bing knows what they are talking about. We are excited to announce today that Bing in the UK is shedding its beta tag."

Bing UK will have the same features as the US version, including real-time Twitter updates and the tie-in with the computational search specialist, Wolfram Alpha. The site's tools include 'hover' mode – which allows users to preview web pages before they click on them – and Visual Search, which enables people to narrow results by flicking through images

Bing's UK Search Page

Bing UK Homepage

Let's face it, Bing is going to have to be pretty good to get off the ground. Right now, Microsoft has a mere three per cent share of the UK search market, compared to Google's 80 per cent stake. Since Bing's launch in May, Microsoft's share of the global search market has increased by 1.5 per cent – small beer, maybe, but it's a start.

According to Ashley Highfield, Managing Director of Microsoft's consumer and on-line divisions in the UK, the Bing team is determined to be innovative in search. "This is a serious, long-term commitment from Microsoft to put a differentiated search product in to the market place," he said. "We have not just used the US version of Bing. We've had a UK team focusing on what will work particularly well over here."

Highfield went on to say that he felt there was a "growing dissatisfaction" with the list of blue links returned by engines such as Google. "About two-thirds of web users now use the Internet to make decisions, and half of those searches now last for at least half an hour," Highfield explained. "With traditional search, there's a lot of endless clicking in to a website, realising it's not what you want, and clicking back out again. Bing aggregates information for you so that by the time you click in to a website, you're pretty convinced that's the information you want."

Bing is realistic about its growth and recognises that tempting people away from Google will be far from easy. According to Highfield, "My objective is to get Bing up to a 10 per cent share of the search market. I'm not expecting to take Google's pre-eminent position overnight, though obviously, that's a long-term ambition."

He continued, "I think as soon as people become aware of Bing, and start using, initially probably in unison with Google, people will realise it's better. That's all we really want people to do – give it a go and make up their own minds."

In order to convince users to give Bing a try, Microsoft is planning a comprehensive radio and digital marketing campaign. It will certainly be interesting over the course of next year to see what inroads Microsoft can make into the UK search market – watch this space!

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