Apple to Bring the Bing, Blow to Google

In what would seem to be a further example of the conflict growing between tech giants Apple and Google, started by Apple’s rejection of the Google Voice app in its app store, and inflamed by Google’s introduction of its ‘iPhone killer,’ the Nexus One smartphone, Apple has reportedly began talks with Microsoft to implement Bing over Google as the default search engine on the iPhone.

This sounds like a great blow to Google’s quest for search engine domination, and while it will remove a large portion of market share in the mobile device area, the blow will be softened because of the rising popularity and expansion of Google’s Android-powered devices as well as Google and others continuing to expand the list of internet capable mobile devices and smartphones. Although Google wasn’t the default search engine for iPhone and iTouch, the inclusion of Bing to the Safari browser will take its toll. The inclusion of Bing also seems to hamper the chances of Adobe’s Flash for the iPhone, perhaps opening the door for Microsoft’s Silverlight.

The winners here are the iPhone users, as their list of search engines expands from just Google and Yahoo, and, of course, Microsoft, as they look to increase their market share from just 10.7% of US search traffic in December ‘09. The biggest threat to Google is if the talks with Microsoft go into changes in other apps and processes besides just the Bing search engine. Now, we await Google’s counter-punch in this continuing brawl of the tech giants.