Sources say Google is claiming that Microsoft is stealing their search abilities and have had little influence on people’s search habits. It seems while Bing is growing, Yahoo and Google are both down a few percent as you can see in the chart above. Either way, it doesn’t look like many Google users are bothered by any of this because each of the services are still being used.

In today’s published announcement, Bing.com has gone from 10.60% market share in December 2010 up to 12.81% market share in the month of January 2011. That’s a significant increase of 21% month-to-month. Do you think the Android Samsung devices had something to do with that? In the same time Yahoo search was down four points. Overall Bing-powered search (which operates Yahoo! and Bing) was up from 25.77% to 27.44%, a total increase of 6%. In this day and age does this shock you?

Android is huge here in the USA and Google has pumped money out to be a default search partner with Apple, WebOS and of course Android. Do you see people using Bing more than the default search? Keep in mind these stats are from all searches (including desktop).

The Bing search engine is not only being used more but has also recently received a higher success rate in webpage clicks. Basically what this means is that 81% of searches that took place on both Yahoo and Bing resulted in the user actually clicking through to a website completely. Google’s success rate was quite a lot lower at 65%. Why do you think this is the case? Are Android users searching more and not actually clicking through?

Does this make a huge difference to you PPCGeekers? Who does a better job? Do you see Google losing grips on a dear market that they worked hard to conquer? Let’s discuss it down below and see who or what wins. Please keep it clean ok?

Source: neowin.net

Via the official Bing Twitter account, Microsoft has announced that the Bing mobile application for Windows Mobile has been updated to version 5.1.2010. No major changes are apparent in this update. To download the update, go via your mobile browser to m.bing.com/download or going into the application and selecting “Update Available”. Interestingly. this update is only for Window Phones that operate on the Sprint, T-Mobile, and AT&T networks. If you are a Verizon Wireless user, this update appears to not be for you.

An interesting article has been posted by the UK’s newspaper The Guardian hypothesizes that Microsoft could abandon their Mobile OS platform, Windows Mobile, all together and call it quits. They cite that the 3.1 percent drop of their share of the Mobile OS Pie (down from 11 to 7.9%), the increasing support for Android from previous WM-heavy players (HTC, Motorola), and the increasing competition that Android poises (0 to 3.9% market share in 1 year).

I call shenanigans on this happening. Here’s why-

1) Windows Mobile 7

The OS that Microsoft should have released instead of WM 6.5 looks very promising and will come with enhanced touchscreen support. The days of needing a stylus to click on some miniature icon will be gone, instead replaced by a Zune-influenced interface that looks to be equal to or even surpass the iPhone and Android. Why spend hundreds of millions of dollars on creating a new mobile OS and then ditch it a year later?

2) HTC and hardware partners

Yes, 7.9% is but a small sliver of the overall market. However, when that sliver includes millions of devices being sold, then it is a lot. There are 14 OEM licensees of Windows Mobile compared to the second place Symbian operating system at 10. Why would HTC spend millions developing the Sense UI if they were not committed to the Windows Mobile platform for the conceivable future?

3) 3 Screens and a Cloud

3 Screens (PC, the television, and the mobile phone ) and a Cloud. This is the basic strategy behind what Microsoft envisions as the future of computing. The Mobile phone is one of the key tenets in their plan. Ditching their own Mobile OS does not mesh well with this strategy.

The company plans to deliver a set of services that are common across devices, PCs and TVs. One example is the Zune Video service that will work across Zune HD players, Xbox consoles, Windows PCs and Windows Phones. If they are to follow their own self-envisioned plan for the future, why would Microsoft ditch their own Mobile OS?¹

¹Idea comes from this article by Mary Jo Foley.