Microsoft upgrades Bing to take on Google

In yet another upgrade, Microsoft on Wednesday rolled out pretty useful improvements to its Bing search service like new map enhancements, MSN Videos integration, and Wolfram Alpha search results.

The access to search results from Wolfram Alpha is one of the noteworthy features, claims Microsoft.

Wolfram Alpha is a search engine started in May 2009 by noted scientist Stephen Wolfram that aims at making all systematic knowledge immediately computable and accessible to everyone.

Microsoft illustrates this with a few examples on its Bing blog. Search for nutritional food for instance. Bing will display improved nutrition results in order to help people make more informed choices on their diet.

Users can even ask Bing to display graph plotting a complicated equation like x^3-6x^2+4x+12.

Will Bing dethrone Goggle?
There is no doubt that Microsoft is spending a vast amount of money and resources to build a bigger war chest to challenge Google.

But whether or not Bing will be able to unseat Google is debatable. The fledgling search engine has seen a 7 percent increase in its market share in the month of October, but Bing is still miniscule compared to Google, which controls approximately 70 percent of search market. Further, Google’s market share is unchanged since Bing’s launch.

So what would it take for Microsoft to beat Google? Maybe something radical as Bing has not amazed anyone so far. They need to come up with something interesting that really grabs the imagination.

Not to forget, Google has the determination, money, and resources to maintain its commanding lead on search.

Readers’ reactions
The latest enhancements being rolled out by Bing has stirred many readers online, who are discussing it out on blogs and forums. Many of the users have welcomed the upgrades and are appreciating Bing’s attempt to take on Google.

A reader named Richard Kendall commented on mashable.com, “Bing is certainly making a decent effort of providing some decent new features and at least providing a valid alternative to Google and to a lesser extent Yahoo and Ask. Competition is good and important here.”

Talking on the same lines, another reader named Mike Zachaczewski posted his view on the same forum, “Microsoft is doing a great job with Bing. This further positions them better in the search engine market. Google is still supreme but things like this bring Bing closer and Yahoo much further away.”

“I use both and I still think Google have the edge, good to see Bing is closing on the gap technologically, if they are as good as Google it is just matter of time they will reach critical mass in the search market share,” stated YankeePoodle on cnet news.