Kumo may no longer be on the cards for Microsoft, as sources say that the new search engine replacing Live Search, which is being launched next month, will be named Bing.
According to Advertising Age, Bing will be launched with a bang, and a budget of US$80-100m for its advertising campaign.
This, the website reports, is in comparison to the modest US$25m spent on advertising by Google last year.
What a way to gain visibility in the search market, and one where Google commanded 64pc of all searches in the US in April 2009, according to Nielsen. In comparison, Yahoo! commanded 16.3pc of the market, while Microsoft Live Search was left with a mere 9.9pc slice of the pie.
If Bing is indeed replacing Kumo in name alone, then it will already be well prepared. Back in March 2009, Microsoft employees confirmed to CNET that they were internally testing this new search engine, which, judging from leaked screenshots published on All Things Digital, is clean, streamlined and, in terms of ads, ever so slightly like a cross between Google and the now virtually unheard of Cuil.
Further details of the new search engine will be announced by Microsoft at this week’s All Things Digital conference.
By Marie Boran
Pictured: Screenshot of Microsoft’s Kumo