Microsoft is expected to unveil its new search engine at the D: All Things Digital conference at the end of the month, writes The Wall Street Journal. The new service, code-named Kumo during development, is now expected to be called Bing when it launches. Bing will replace Microsoft's current service "Live" and is designed to be more user-friendly than other search engines by reducing the time it takes users to find results by grouping them into categories with tabs. A search for a specific model of car might group results into categories such as spare parts, used car ads, message board discussions and videos. Microsoft has readied a $100m advertising campaign to launch Bing in the US but will have an uphill struggle on its hands to increase its market share. According to the latest conScore figures Microsoft has an 8.2% share of the US search market, behind Yahoo! (with 20.4%) and Google (64.2%).
From The Wall Street Journal: http://www.wsj.com, 20/05/2009
Microsoft: http://www.microsoft.com