Bing INC

							Bing                (formerly Live Search, Windows Live Search, and MSN Search) is a web
search engine (advertised as a "decision engine"[1]) from Microsoft. Bing was unveiled by
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer on May 28, 2009 at the All Things Digital conference in San
Diego. It went fully online on June 3, 2009,[2] with a preview version released on June 1, 2009.

Notable changes include the listing of search suggestions as queries are entered and a list of
related searches (called "Explore pane") based on[3] semantic technology from Powerset that
Microsoft purchased in 2008.[4]

On July 29, 2009, Microsoft and Yahoo! announced a deal in which Bing would power Yahoo!
Search.[5] All Yahoo! Search global customers and partners are expected to have made the
transition by early 2012.[6]

In October 2011, Bing announced it is working on new back-end search infrastructure, with the
goal of delivering faster and more relevant search results for users. Known as “Tiger,” the new
index-serving technology is being incorporated into Bing globally starting in August 2011.[7]

MSN Search




MSN Search homepage in 2006

MSN Search was a search engine by Microsoft that consisted of a search engine, index, and web
crawler. MSN Search first launched in the third quarter of 1998 and used search results from
Inktomi. In early 1999, MSN Search launched a version which displayed listings from
Looksmart blended with results from Inktomi except for a short time in 1999 when results from
AltaVista were used instead. Since then Microsoft upgraded MSN Search to provide its own self-
built search engine results, the index of which was updated weekly and sometimes daily. The
upgrade started as a beta program in November 2004, and came out of beta in February 2005.
Image search was powered by a third party, Picsearch. The service also started providing its
search results to other search engine portals in an effort to better compete in the market.

[edit] Windows Live Search
Windows Live Search homepage

The first public beta of Windows Live Search was unveiled on March 8, 2006, with the final
release on September 11, 2006 replacing MSN Search. The new search engine used search tabs
that include Web, news, images, music, desktop, local, and Microsoft Encarta.

In the roll-over from MSN Search to Windows Live Search, Microsoft stopped using Picsearch
as their image search provider and started performing their own image search, fueled by their
own internal image search algorithms.[8]

[edit] Live Search




Live Search homepage

On March 21, 2007, Microsoft announced that it would separate its search developments from
the Windows Live services family, rebranding the service as Live Search. Live Search was
integrated into the Live Search and Ad Platform headed by Satya Nadella, part of Microsoft's
Platform and Systems division. As part of this change, Live Search was merged with Microsoft
adCenter.[9]

A series of reorganisations and consolidations of Microsoft's search offerings were made under
the Live Search branding. On May 23, 2008, Microsoft announced the discontinuation of Live
Search Books and Live Search Academic and integrated all academic and book search results
into regular search, and as a result this also included the closure of Live Search Books Publisher
Program. Soon after, Windows Live Expo was discontinued on July 31, 2008. Live Search
Macros, a service for users to create their own custom search engines or use macros created by
other users, was also discontinued shortly after. On May 15, 2009, Live Product Upload, a
service which allowed merchants to upload products information onto Live Search Products, was
discontinued. The final reorganisation came as Live Search QnA was rebranded as MSN QnA on
February 18, 2009, however, it was subsequently discontinued on May 21, 2009.[10]
Microsoft recognised that there would be a brand issue as long as the word "Live" remained in
the name.[11] As an effort to create a new identity for Microsoft's search services, Live Search
was officially replaced by Bing on June 3, 2009.[12]