• http://withwindows.com Ricky Shah

  Although, it doesn’t seem to happen in foreseeable future, it would be a huge alliance (bigger than MS and Nokia partnership). Bing is still fancying a chance to gorge significant Google search share so I don’t think this will happen. It would be disastrous step for Microsoft to sell Bing to Facebook in exchange for paltry share.

  Nevertheless, on paper alliance of Facebook and Microsoft in search front seems to titillating. 

• Avatar Roku

  What happens if a few years down the road Facebook decides to stop investing in Internet search and instead focus on Facebook search because they’d rather have their users searching Facebook for content than the Internet? Doesn’t that leave Microsoft dependent upon Google search or back to square one of building a search engine?

  Obviously this wouldn’t go over well with Yahoo either. Yahoo is suing Facebook, but Yahoo represents half of the search traffic for Bing. Yahoo could go back to using Google search.

  Isn’t the whole concept of Facebook to keep people locked inside of their walled garden? And the whole point of Bing is to find content on the greater Internet. If I was Facebook I wouldn’t want my users searching the whole Internet for content I would want them searching Facebook for content.  I suppose they could use the Internet search results to drive people towards Facebook content instead of the greater Internet, but like I said then that leaves Microsoft without a good Internet search engine. At this point I think being able to search the Internet is still more valuable than being able to search Facebook.

  I suppose the deal comes down to just how much control Microsoft would get over Facebook.

  I think for this deal to really make sense there needs to be a tipping point where the content on Facebook is nearly as desirable or more desirable to people than the rest of the Internet combined. Or let me put it this way. We have to get to a point where whenever a company or individual decides to create their website they go to Facebook and not to Go Daddy.

  If you can amass all the content of value on the Internet inside of Facebook and block Google from searching Facebook then that really decreases the value of Google. The question is whether that is something that is realistic and doable. AOL was unable to keep people and companies locked inside of their walled garden forever, why are things going to be different for Facebook?

• Mario Albertico

  Yeah…no. Ballmer likes to use Bing when discussing back-end support for many of Microsoft’s services (hence their heavy investments)–I don’t see why they will suddenly see the benefit in unloading so much R&D onto Facebook, especially since nobody (today) really goes to Facebook to perform a web search… A stronger pact between both companies makes sense, but they’re already pretty close.

• nimatra

  Bing is not a separate Microsoft product. It gives added value to every other product (Azure Search, Windows Phone, Xbox). What you are suggesting is that Microsoft sells Bing to Facebook for a few billions and then start paying Facebook for using it, in other word paying back the money in a few years.
  A deeper partnership is more realistic than this wild rumor. Or even buying the whole AOL.

  • Avatar Roku

    But the official stock symbol “FB” would work well with a merger of the two logos. :-D

    Devil’s advocate: Couldn’t part of the deal be that Microsoft gets to use fb search for free for 15 years or something?

    Microsoft doesn’t lose the value of Bing in those products since they continue using it free of charge. And they’re not turning it over to Facebook for money, they’re turning it over for shares in the company. You’re also turning it over in hopes that fb can bust Google’s ad/search monopoly worldwide. The question is really how do you get people to use Facebook for internet searches?

    I just keep coming back to the question of why Facebook needs Bing?

    • Guest

      “Isn’t the reason Google is scared of Facebook because people are putting all their content on Facebook instead of the searchable Internet?”

      I think they’re scared of FB for several reasons including:

      1) FB knows even more about their users than Google does
      2) Searches in FB are growing at an enormous rate and none of it requires the user to navigate to google.com
      3) Results filtered by social have the potential to leapfrog Google in relevance.
      4) Google dominates search, and all of its other businesses are mostly aimed at reinforcing that monopoly (as they have admitted). It’s hard to grow substantially in a market you already dominate. You’re basically relegated to the market’s growth rate. And that’s slowing in search overall. Then you have the disruption with the move to in-app alternatives vs navigating to a web page. And Apple’s moves in mobile search can’t be discounted either.
      5) FB is only just about to IPO. Even though their initial valuation will be high, that could still mean several years in which they can throw a lot of money around to attract new talent and pay for it mostly through stock appreciation. Whereas G’s stock is where is was back in 2008.

      All that aside, I don’t see FB buying Bing. Why would they? I’m sure right now MS is bending over backward to do anything FB wants. So why take on billions of losses every year when you can get all the benefit and leave MS holding the bag? About the only reason I can think of is you became worried that MS could emerge of your social competitor. But that’s laughable. MS is nowhere in social, mobile, or tablets. FB is right to key off Google and Apple. Those are the only two giants they really need to be worried about.

      • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_NZRPL7DK7DFQQO44J5TM4PQLGU Harvey

        “…MS is nowhere in social”…
        Maybe not at the moment, but imagine if a young “fresh” mind was to step in and create a new social spot by bringing together the current “hotmail”, “messenger”, and “skype” userbase!!!�
        I think we’re already “sort-of” seeing it with the new “Microsoft Account”.

        I think you would be crazy to not account for Microsoft when analyzing the social, mobile and tablet market.  Just because they don’t have significant numbers now, does not mean they are done.

        In the end, I agree, FB is not buying Bing.  XBOX was in the red for several years until MS got it right.

        Bing is too important to the MS ecosystem to sell.

• http://disqus.com/samirsshah समीर शाह

  yes.

• uberlaff

  What about spinning Bing off into a subsidiary and split ownership with Facebook?

  Bing would need to get creative to find ways to survive on it’s own but may be able to find more partners in the process.

  The core components of Bing seem to be very important to Microsoft’s “Big Data” strategy and since they have added TellMe to Bing it’s close on it’s consumer platforms as well. The problem is Bing has little brand recognition as a consumer brand. This is where Facebook could help… but at what cost to Facebook?

• http://profiles.google.com/ian.aldrighetti Ian Aldrighetti

  I am quite doubtful, because as stated, there are way to many products that Bing is integrated into. This would be a disaster waiting to happen, and I doubt it ever will.

  I would think if it were to occur, Microsoft would still retain major control over Bing, just that Facebook would be taking care of Bing’s backend and everything.

• MSisdying

  Ballmer couldn’t survive a sale of Bing. It would be the last straw in what has been a series of expensive and highly visible failures. Shareholders would probably demand his head on a platter. However, since the clock is probably winding down on his tenure anyway, particularly given the twin strategic failures in mobile and tablets, a new CEO is likely on their way soon. In fact if they want Sinosky they’d better name him prior to W8′s launch. Otherwise, if that falls short – and it’s so late in the tablet market that it’s hard to see how it could do otherwise given Apple’s now almost insurmountable lead - then his viability would be badly damaged. Regardless, a new CEO would certainly have to consider this option given Bing’s failure to gain more traction and large ongoing losses. While they like to talk about Bing as if it’s just been since 2009, the reality is that MS has been investing heavily in search for a decade and has nothing to show for it but minor share in the US, virtually no share anywhere else, and massive ongoing losses that are no longer sustainable with tablets biting heavily into PC sales.

• http://simenm.tumblr.com/ Simen Mangseth

  Nooooooo :(

• gerryrivers86

  i don’t see Microsoft selling Bing, however i can see Microsoft partnering with Facebook to integrate Bing capabilities into the world’s largest social networking site, similar to what they did with Yahoo. Since the two companies are already working together on integration, why not integrate Bing in Facebook. Makes sense, but a complete sell, won’t happened

  • Zicoz

    That’s already happened though, Facebook search is already powered by bing, and Bings social search is powered by Facebook/twitter.

• http://royaletheme.com/ Royale Theme

  I don’t think so, Microsoft’s pride make it impossible

Featured on LiveSide.net