Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer has made an appearance at BlackBerry World 2011 and gone ahead to confirm Bing as the default search engine. This will clearly help Microsoft in enlarging their search engine market share in the long run, although the thought of them overtaking Google is still far from being realized. This partnership is not meant to be on the surface level only, as it is long and deep, requiring Bing to be integrated at the operating system level – throwing in location based services to boot. Hopefully this means there won’t be any illegal tracking being done for those who are paranoid androids.
Bing will also see action on the BlackBerry Playbook as it ships as the default search experience and map app for said tablet. According to Microsoft’s Bing Director Matt Dahlin, “These new experiences highlight how the mobile landscape is changing. Devices are becoming sensors that can provide real-time access to information to help people quickly complete tasks on the go. We’re going to see a convergence of search, commerce, social and location-centric services where Bing will provide the intelligence and the organizing layer in the cloud that connects a user’s intent with action, helping people be more productive.”
It is interesting to see how Microsoft has carefully chosen their strategic partnerships, with this being (pun not intended) somewhat similar to a deal they made with Nokia earlier in the year with their Windows Phone smartphones.
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