Microsoft gets out of the way of Bing
Microsoft has officially named its next big attempt at squashing Google "Bing." CNET's Ina Fried covered Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's commentary on Bing at the D: All Things Digital conference on Thursday, but there's one important thing missing from the discussion and, indeed, from Bing itself:
Microsoft.
As I took a spin through the Bing demo, I was surprised by Microsoft's newfound restraint. Bing is...Bing. It's not branded "Microsoft Live Bing" or "Bing by Microsoft." It's just Bing.
Microsoft has a great brand, but it also has a brand that carries a lot of baggage with it, baggage that its search service (or "decision engine," as it describes Bing) really doesn't need. One of the great failings of Microsoft's past search efforts is that Microsoft tried to tie them into the larger Microsoft experience which, it turned out, wasn't helpful. Microsoft's brand is tied up in the desktop. Search is all about the Web.
Not coincidentally, Microsoft's Xbox has been a huge success in large part because it's a distinct brand with a distinct experience, one that doesn't rely on affiliation with Microsoft's desktop hegemony. Microsoft appears to be learning, perhaps with the U.S. Justice Department as its tutor, that tying products together isn't always the best solution.
So...Bing. It's a good name, and looks to be a great experience, one that makes "search" more of a destination, rather than a launch pad, as highlighted in Ballmer's "D" interview with Walt Mossberg. It's a destination that packages pieces of the Web to present a coherent response to search terms, making Bing more of a portal and less of a search engine.
Yes, in true Microsoft fashion, the maps used are provided by Microsoft and there are ties to other Microsoft products. At first blush, however, this doesn't appear to be heavy-handed. It's certainly no different from how Google prefers its own services to those of competitors.
I gave up on Microsoft Live Search long ago. I just might give Bing an extended fling, however, as it seems content to stand or fall on its own merits, not Microsoft's brand.
Follow me on Twitter @mjasay.
Matt Asay brings a decade of in-the-trenches open-source business and legal experience to The Open Road, with an emphasis on emerging open-source business strategies and opportunities. Matt is vice president of business development at Alfresco, a company that develops open-source software for content management. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. You can follow Matt on Twitter @mjasay. 
It's not geared for public consumption... only for developers. What's out is that thing called Microsoft DNA... I don't see that "brand" mentioned almost anywhere now.
XBOX is a very good brand (I suppose). Zune, the name itself is not so bad... I think the product packaging hence the product itself was bad. Now with Zune HD, we'll see. If it still does not make a dent on the iPod market share then maybe it is now a bad brand. The iPod name itself sounded strange to me when it first released (i didn't like the word "pod" much). But maybe I, it was just me then... look at how popular and how strong the "iPod" brand is now... Even much stronger than iMac, I believe.
Microsoft Network
MSN
.NET
Live
Bing
And now that they've gone through a reworking of all of their lifestyle applications in the Live world, they kill Live search. Are they planning on once again changing the name of the Live apps? Though, they can't even keep things straight with that. They've a number of sync services, Windows Mail, Windows Live Mail, Microsoft Live Mail (formerly Hotmail) - it's a confusing mess of applications and nomenclature.
On the other hand, for those services perceived to be desktop applications they want to bring online, it does make sense to attach "live" to it: Windows Live, Office Live (instead of the overused "online" term, as in "Office Online"?)
The jury is till out on those names if they will catch up.
But we are always faced with the question: "what's in a name?" I believe that most of the time, the product makes the brand and not the other way around. And may times it's not reversible. Once a product gets a bad brand, it's very difficult to make it a good one because of the "baggage" this writer is talking about... so you are forced to start over with a new brand... I think that's what Microsoft is trying to do here as pointed out by Matt.
I think this is a departure from the Microsoft we know long time ago. Microsoft Word and Windows were not that popular... But they improved the product and somehow won over users. I guess being second for a long time isn't so bad... in the case of search, they are a *distant* third for a long time.
Didn't expect a article about Microsoft to come out in such a positive light from you considering everyone is trashing it lol.
A: no
bing is bling
- by Pandora919 December 11, 2009 1:40 PM PST
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