Microsoft, Google | featured news

Slowly but steadily, Microsoft Bing has become a potent threat to Google in the search market. Over the last few months, Microsoft’s aggressive strategy with Bing has started to yield market share gains over competitors Google, Yahoo and AOL in the U.S. search market. Bing’s market share, which was around 11% in September 2010, is now close to 14% as of February 2011.

Amazon.com, apart from being a major online retailer of books, DVDs, music, games, apparel, and other merchandise, also has a small business of providing cloud and other Web services. It offers Web services like cloud computing and cloud storage service offerings, in which it competes with bigger players like Google, Microsoft and Salesforce.com. Amazon also owns and operates websites such as Audible.com, IMDB.com, and Shelfari.com.

No wonder Google seems so panicked about Bing. The latest results from market researcher Experian Hitwise show not only that Bing grew at Google's expense in January. They also show that Bing is delivering more accurate results. In the U.S., Bing now powers more than 27% of search results, up from 25% in December. That's despite a slight decline in traffic to Yahoo's search site, which has been powered by Bing since December.

Technology titans Nokia and Microsoft are combining forces to create smart phones that might challenge rivals like Apple and Google and revive their own fortunes in a market they have struggled to keep up with.

Google alleges Microsoft uses its web browser and Bing Search bar to harvest information on Google users.

Unleash the tablet PCs! Asustek is planning on launching a whole pack of tablets. As Joe Stalin once said, sometimes quantity has a quality all its own. Research In Motion’s Playbook tablet is coming early next year. Samsung will start selling the Galaxy Tab in November. Now Asustek Computer President Jerry Shen says he plans to launch five — FIVE! — tablets next year. Take that Steve Jobs.

Yahoo is redesigning its email service to help stem a user decline and counter offerings from longtime rivals Microsoft and Google as well as social-networking services such as Facebook and Twitter.

A firm run by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen is suing Apple, Google and 9 other companies alleging they are violating patents developed at a Silicon Valley lab Mr. Allen financed more than a decade ago.

As Microsoft moves into the cloud with Web-based versions of its Office suite of applications, Google has been beefing up Google Docs to stay one step ahead. The Big G has just made it much easier to share documents online through the service's online document editor, Google Docs.

A top Microsoft Corp. executive voiced confidence that the company's software will prove dominant in the burgeoning market for tablet personal computers, saying the company offers better support for manufacturers than rival Google ...