Industry sceptical about Microsoft's Bing

Microsoft is set to spend $100m on a promotional campaign for the Bing launch

The response to Microsoft unveiling its new Bing search engine has come with a heavy sense of 'wait and see' in regards to how well it will compete with Google.

With Microsoft reportedly set to spend $100m on a promotional campaign for the launch, it clearly has a lot of weight to throw behind this new technology, both in terms of brand and budget.

Redmond hopes the new search brand will reinvigorate its battle against Google. Originally going under the codename Kumo, the semantic search engine promises to help users get faster and more accurate answers to queries. For the time being, these are restricted to specific types of queries, namely those around shopping, travel, health and locating local businesses.

However, Google's massive dominance in the search market means that many industry commentators are sceptical about how successful Bing will be.

The general sentiment was well summed up by Martin McNulty, director of online marketing agency Trafficbroker, who said, "While Bing brings some exciting new features to search, the big difference between it and Google is that Google is embedded in our culture and language, while Bing is still in beta. That's one hell of a gap to bridge."

Citing Microsoft's pan-European approach and collaboration with key agencies in advance of the launch, digital marketing firm bigmouthmedia believes that Bing could add a refreshing new dynamic to the industry, but remains cautious about how well the service will stack up.

"While the search sector is excited by the prospect of a new service, only time will tell if Bing is to have a permanent impact. The industry has seen numerous new engines launched over the years - including several by Microsoft - and it's fair to say they haven't been hugely successful," said Andrew Girdwood, head of search at bigmouthmedia.

"There are some tough questions that Microsoft has to answer. Just how are they going to get average household searchers to try Bing for the first time, and how long will the company be willing to support their current Bing strategy if progress is slow? Until we know the answers, the jury will still be out on this one."

Writing in his blog, Gartner analyst Allen Weiner went on to question the timing, and the delay between the announcement and the release of the service, believing that the gap could further hurt Microsoft's chances.

"With so much riding on Bing, why is Microsoft offering a six day gap between announcement and launch? Such a lag can only lead to the spread of misinformation and a potential flow of negative comments across the vast social media grid prior to launch," Weiner wrote.

"Ultimately, it is the consumer who decides, so why not a more public launch in a more fan-friendly venue? While there may be no control over timing, a June launch is past the window of quality TV ad buys with May sweeps over and out. Summer TV viewing consists of reruns and lesser fare, which doesn’t exactly lead to an engaged audience."