Microsoft Corp is set launch its revamped search engine. The revamping is thought to counter the dominance of Google in the Web search and advertising business.

Microsoft has been testing its search engine internally in the name Kumo. The search engine will be introduced re-christened as “Bing,” within next few days (a full launch is due on next Wednesday). Check it at http://www.bing.com.

According to a report from Advertising Age Microsoft would use a budget of $80 million to $100 million in an ad campaign to promote Bing.

“We’ll have what I would call a big budget — big enough that I had to gulp when I approved the budget,” said Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer.

But Microsoft has lots of things to do. According to lat month’s statistics from comScore,  Google has 64.2 percent of U.S. Internet searches (it handled 9.5 billion searches out of a total of 14.8 billion), Yahoo in the second place with 20.4 percent and  Microsoft third with 8.2 percent.

NEW FEATURES
As both Google and Yahoo introduced new features in their respective search engines, it has become harder for Microsoft.

Microsoft labels this new search engine as a “decision engine.” It promises to make few things such as buying a digital camera, searching for a restaurant, booking a flight etc. easier with showing results based on similar previous searches.

When you search for a car, Bing will show clickable categories on the left-hand sidebar, like ‘problems,’ ‘reviews’ and ‘dealers’ as Microsoft thinks these are the most likely places where a user will go from their initial search.

Bing has a Farecast service in its flight booking section which will help users by predicting about rise or fall of fares.

With one mouse click, you will find out directions.

Just hover over a search result for more information without opening it.

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