14 DAY TRIAL // If all goes well, Microsoft will be done with the integration of Bing and Yahoo by Christmas 2010, according to Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer. During the Microsoft Financial Analyst Meeting at the end of July 2010, Ballmer emphasized that Microsoft is moving ahead with plans to wrap up its search and online advertising symbiosis with Yahoo by the end of the year. The Redmond company had already revealed that it was hard at work to offer both users and advertisers in the United States and Canada the fully integrated Bing - Yahoo search and ad experience ahead of 2011. Of course, users in additional markets around the world will be able to see the results of the Bing and Yahoo marriage starting in 2011.
“We have the Yahoo integration coming in front of us, hopefully. We're all working hard to get that done in the United States by Christmas of this year. But the volumes and what we're learning to do and the scale and the benefits that that can bring to us, both in terms of improving our algorithmic results as well as advertising results, I think, [are] pretty interesting,” Ballmer said.
The Bing and Yahoo integration process is already in full swing as of July 2010. Microsoft and Yahoo are currently testing the symbiosis, with some users and advertisers starting to see the two search engines melting into each other. As much as 25% of the search results on Yahoo were being delivered through Bing at the end of the past month, the two companies confirmed.
At the same time, Microsoft adCenter advertisers have started seeing traffic coming from Yahoo. The Redmond company emphasized that the traffic differences are not final, and that customers leveraging adCenter should wait for the finalization of the Bing and Yahoo integration before changing their ad strategies.
“One of the questions on the gang there of investor questions is Bing progress -- Bing progress. I tell you, this is a year that's had at least a year of progress in it. I mean, it's really to me even quite stunning to think we just launched Bing 13 months ago. We've grown. Depending on how you like to talk about these things, we've grown our market share 40 percent in a year,” Ballmer said.
“You could highlight for me, that's not many share points. It's eight-point-something to 12.7 percent U.S. share. It may not be that many share points, but just think about all that extra infrastructure and the work we're having to do, because our total volume of queries is up close to double year on year,” he added.
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