I am going to be mild with my ranting. Because it’s hopeless after all. First off, I have no professional relationship with any of the products I talk about. I’d like to get some extra cash in my pocket by doing so, but not lucky so far.

Long story short: I got a new working laptop. It is using Windows 7 Enterprise. Someone else took the time to install the OS and apply the latest patches. Now it is my turn to install the software I am comfortable with. The pieces of software I cannot go without in a working machine.
Usually, the very first one is Firefox. But while I was about to download it I looked at IE and the default search provider (Bing) and thought “Let’s install an alternative one, good old Google”. After getting a couple of errors and being unable to change it (really Microsoft? Brand new shiny latest versions of both your operative system and browser and you can’t change the default search provider? Are you asking for trouble in Court again?) I thought “Ok, let’s give Bing a chance”. And so I did. Fighting my internal urge to go Firefox and Google all the way, I gave IE and Bing a chance.

Skype

I needed to install Skype. Typing s k y p e in the search box and…

First link… Bulgarian? Are you out of your mind? You could target all sorts of local “crappy” ad-links and the first “real” hit is in Bulgarian? Do not get me wrong, I have the deepest respect for the good people of Bulgaria, but I have no relationship whatsoever with them or their language, I promise.

What if… for the sake of the experiment searched the same from Google? s k y p e + INTRO and…

Spot on. Less Ad-clutter and top hits are right on the money. Winner? Google.

Live Messenger

I need messenger to be able to communicate with my co-workers. Messenger is one of those products that changes identity every now and then: Windows Messenger, Msn Messenger, Windows Live Messenger… who knows what will come next given the record of weird naming schemas coming from the brainy marketing guys from Redmond.

Let’s try with a simple and neutral “download messenger”

Mr. Bing. You kill me. I have go to link ranked fifth to get something remotely trustworthy.
Mr. Google? First hit. Thank you very much.

Zune

I am a happy Zune user in a foreign country. But I need to transfer my Zune library from one computer to another. Could Bing help me with a product from the mother ship?

This is getting serious. I would be needing to scroll to get something I could click. Not to sound like a jerk, but…. how about Google? Hooray!! it might no be what I need. But it looks like it. I will definitely read all of the top links.

Enough about you…

Just for the sake of some self-promotion. What would they find about me? OR better yet, my geeky alter-ego?

That is disheartening. I am positively depressed now. Sure I am not Mr. Big Shot, but… 9 links? Ok that most of my content is hosted by the guys from Palo Alto, but that did not stop Bing from sucking big time when asking about products from rainy Redmond.

What now?

Sorry Bing, I genuinely gave you a chance. You genuinely failed every single test I put you though. I searched for products from your company, other companies and even me. Your results were as quick as the ones delivered by Google. But speed only matters when meaningful results are delivered. And that did not happen. Adding up insult to the felony, Bing results are cluttered with Ad-links, which you may have noticed by now, I dislike.

I could not stand Bing anymore and I had to switch and use something else. Something that fulfills my expectations.
I know positively that Microsoft has invested a shit-load of money in Bing, which leads me to ask some interesting questions for which I have no answer:

• Is this the best they could come up with?
• Why not give up altogether up the search arena and focusing in something they have a chance to be good at?
• What kind of people uses Bing?

Goodbye Bing, it’ll be a while until I use you again.