Will Bing soon be looking for a new parent?

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Businessweek reported that the potential Microsoft CEO candidate, Stephan Elop,

“…would consider ending Microsoft’s costly effort to take on Google with its Bing search engine, and would also consider selling healthy businesses such as the Xbox game console if he determined they weren’t critical to the company’s strategy,..”

 

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Maybe just a Test Balloon?

At this point this could just be second guessing, based on the opinions of some people who are said to be familiar with Elop's thinking. Search experts, however, were quick to analyze such a move. +Greg Sterling  made some great arguments here.

One obvious speculation was to whom Microsoft could sell Bing to!

+Danny Sullivan, of Search Engine Land held the view that Bing is too strategic for Microsoft to “just walk away” from the search engine. Bing is deeply integrated with the Windows Phone and other Microsoft products.  In his view it would be too disruptive for Microsoft to disengage from Bing. 

Yahoo and Apple are the two names being bandied about. 

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Possibility of search engines overseas, like Alibaba, Baidu and Yandex  acquiring Bing is being mentioned. This does make some sense, since the next (and potentially explosive) round of growth in Internet will come from Asia (and Africa). Along with more people accessing Internet, demand will rise for search engines that are better customized to the regional needs (my earlier post).

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But Competition also spawns Innovation

Competition is another reason why Bing needs to exist. Healthy rivalry does not let players sit on their hunches. It spurs the urge to innovate and to do better. Blackberry learned that lesson too late.  Microsoft’s Web Based Office 365 (and recently announced real-time collaboration), are two current examples.

 Note the differences between how Bing and Google describe Bing

 The problem that is generally associated with Bing, is that it continued, for far too long, into “me too” mode, trying to grow by doing the similar things as Google. It did not create much deeper differentiation.

Bing found it difficult to shake off those colors!

 Where search engines have not gone before

Search is one of the fundamental processes of discovery. But it is, by no means, need to be uni-dimensional.   

Facebook is proving this by building their Graph Search. By thinking differently, Bing could grow into other, less explored frontiers in searching, area that will be as natural as Googling something today.   

It is not that Bing lacks the brainpower to step into the unchartered waters. It is their managers that lacked the will (or vision) to venture forth.