Microsoft’s anti-Google weapon: Open-source Bing

Google continues to punish Microsoft in search, taking some 70% of the market. Worse, Google is offering lots of free Web services, like Google Docs, that undermine Microsoft’s lucrative Windows and Office monopolies.

How can Microsoft fight back? By turning its search engine, Bing, into an open-source platform. Think of it. If Bing were open source, it could become the global laboratory for innovation in search…

Google continues to punish Microsoft in search, taking some 70% of the market. Worse, Google is offering lots of free Web services, like Google Docs, that undermine Microsoft’s lucrative Windows and Office monopolies.

How can Microsoft fight back? By turning its search engine, Bing, into an open-source platform. Think of it. If Bing were open source, it could become the global laboratory for innovation in search. As I see it, it’s the only hope for Microsoft to surpass Google in search. And if they pull it off, they hit Google where it lives and makes money.

To me, it makes all the sense in the world. IBM and others have been using open-source to mount challenges to Microsoft’s business. Why shouldn’t Microsoft do the same thing to Google?

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