HP to employ Bing as standard

Bing, Microsoft's rival service to Google, is to become the default search engine on all Hewlett-Packard PCs sold around the world for the next three years, according to reports. 

Steve Ballmer, chief executive of Microsoft, also reportedly announced the US software giant had extended its deal with HP to include its MSN website as the default homepage on their machines at the Consumer Electronics Show on Wednesday.

The existing partnership between Microsoft and HP only covers home PCs sold in the US and Canada, but now will include global sales of business and consumer PCs for three years.

It could bring much-needed exposure to Microsoft's expanding search engine, which had already picked up a 10.3% share in the search market by November last year, six months after its launch, according to ComScore statistics. 

Google helped keep its 65% market dominance by paying to become the default search engine of Mozilla's web browser Firefox, paying out US$56 million of the company's $66 million revenue in 2006.

Dickson Seow, Google's Southeast Asia head of corporate communications, told ZDNet Asia: "We welcome competition that helps deliver useful information to users and expands user choice."

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