Timeline: Microsoft’s Bing

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It is hard to imagine your day to day working life without a search engine.

No longer do we struggle to find the answers or waste hours arguing over the most likely remedy. Instead we type in a few characters to a search bar and Bob’s your uncle.

There have been many incarnations of search engines, with some achieving great dominance whilst others disappeared into the ether.

Microsoft might be the leader in a number of software products, but the company left it late to embark on this essential business, and consumer, tool.

Its search engine, known as Bing, was launched globally two years ago today, so we take a look back at some of the headlines the search engine made in its ongoing attempts to kill off its bigger rivals.

May 2009

Talk turned to truism in May two years ago when Microsoft’s search engine was unveiled. Previously codenamed ‘Kumo,’ the website was unveiled to the press under the new title ‘Bing.’

June 2009

The US might already have had its mitts on the new search engine but the rest of the world had to wait until 3 June for the global release.

July 2009

The search story had to move on from the days of mere answers to the days of integration and leading social networks were key. To this end, it only took Bing a month before it had Twitter results built in to the search engine.

September 2009

Words are great but how about pictures? The next addition to Bing came in the shape of ‘visual search.’

November 2009

Despite numerous features being launched, it wasn’t until October Bing came out of beta in the UK.

December 2009

Microsoft has had its fair share of days in court but the first one for the Bing product came when a design firm from St Louis – named Bing! Information Design – sued it for the title.

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