June 2009: No sex, please, you are Asians, is the message that Microsoft seems to be telling surfers in Singapore, India, China or the Middle East.

The company has just launched yet another Search engine, Bing (known as Kumo in the research phase), which it says is easy to remember, completely inoffensive to anyone of any culture (hence, search words like “sex” return nothing in Asia) and sure to gobble up Google’s market share.

For now, just assume that Bing means “But It’s Not Google”, says one blogger.

To ensure everyone knows Bing is here, Microsoft launches a US$100 million, four-month advertising campaign in the US.

The first Bing commercial starts with bleeps and blips and a montage of Web-video trivia. Over footage of the current economic recession, a narrator says, "While everyone was searching, there was bailing. While everyone was lost in the links, there was collapsing."

The footage then gives way to rock music and shots of children happily using electronic gadgets and adults making calculations, rehabilitating injuries and going places. "It's time to Bing," the narrator concludes.

Bing doesn’t boost your ego

Getting all excited, I tried an ego bing of my personal Bystander Web site but received nothing – not a squeak! Then I tried search on Yahoo! and got my site listed on Page 1. On Google, I got it on Page 2. Phew! it was a relief to know that the two Search giants are still aware that I exist online.

Microsoft claims that Bing provides fancy categorisations of your search results, so you can make decisions immediately. Bing is thus not a search tool but a “decisioning” (a horrid, imaginary term) platform. However, on several attempts using Bing, I got nothing but a single-column of text results.

According to several tech bloggers in the US, they were more than happy with the results they got from Bing, although the general comment is that it offers only incremental improvements from the current Microsoft Windows Live search. Time will tell if Bing is more than a blip. – Francis Chin

Microsoft has the cure for today’s economic woes, according to CEO Steve Ballmer in Hyderabad, India, on May 13, during a keynote address. He says Microsoft’s technologies enable IT professionals and developers to help their organisations save money and improve efficiency in difficult economic times. – AFP Photo