Microsoft Corporation (MSFT): Bing Results, More Space on Pro?

Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) has been launching several campaigns recently that were designed to take on Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG). Last fall, there was the campaign to convince users that Bing is a better search engine that Google Search, and just in the last few days Microsoft has re-launched its “Scroogled” campaign to try to convince Gmail account users to switch to he Outlook e-mail service.

Well, the Bing vs. Google Search campaign did not produce good results, based on the most recent data. So maybe Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) could use some good news with its beleaguered 128-gigabyte Surface Pro tablet.

In its effort to take some search-engine market share from Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG), the results from the end of 2012 would not be encouraging for Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT). The results are in from comScore, and the Bing search engine actually fell to fifth in worldwide market share, dropping further behind Google. During the November and December months, Google Search processed nearly 115 billion searches (65-percent market share), while Bing posted about 4.5 billion. The Russian Google, called Yandex NV (NASDAQ:YNDX), took over fourth place with 4.8 billion searches. Second place internationally is the Chinese engine Baidu.com Inc. (NASDAQ:BIDU) with 14.5 searches, with Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) taking third with 8.6 billion searches.

In the U.S., Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) is first, Bing is second and Yahoo! is third. Overall, the comScore report noted that the total number of worldwide searches dropped by nearly 5 percent from December 2011.

While the search news isn’t positive for Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT), its Surface Pro tablet computer, which launched this week, at least get some kind of positive reprieve from one of its biggest criticisms – the amount of memory available. How much more memory is available than was first reported?

The initial reports surfaced that the 128-GB Surface Pro actually had only about 83 GB of free space when it came out of the box. However, after a series of tests performed on the final product, and the tests determined that there were 89.7 GB of free space, which is actually 8 percent more than expected. It was also discovered that with the removal or a particular partition in the device, another 7.8 GB of space could be freed up, which would then send the total amount of free space to more than 87 GB.

What do you think about the Bing search engine? And does this news about the Surface Pro affect your perception of the device, or about Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) in general? Can the company remain viable in technology? We’d like your comments below.

DISCLOSURE: I won no positions in any stock mentioned.

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