Microsoft testifies about difficulties getting Bing into hardware for a fee

Google appears not to be the only search engine that is interested in purchasing the search browser in popular devices. Microsoft approached Apple to make Bing the default search engine on the Safari browser, but the Bing developer could not afford this due to the dominant position of Google Search.

In 2016, Apple was reportedly approached by Microsoft with the request to use the Bing search engine as the default in the Safari browser. To make the deal attractive, the deal would cost the Windows developer billions of dollars. That reports Bloomberg.

This is not a rumor, but was stated by Jon Tinter, VP of business development at Microsoft. This happened during an interrogation in the American court in the antitrust case against Google. The search giant must defend itself against the US Department of Justice, which accuses Google of unfairly maintaining market dominance with Google Search.

The deal to integrate Bing into Safari fell through, but Microsoft already had other agreements in place with Apple to strengthen the search engine’s market position. Bing was used in Siri and Spotlight, a feature that helps users find apps.

Costs too high for Microsoft

The extension to Safari would not have been attractive to Microsoft. The search engine Bing only has a small number of users compared to Google Search. Due to the smaller market share, there are fewer users to click on ads in Bing. However, that actually generates revenue for Microsoft and in order to complete the deal with Apple, these revenues were also shared with the iPhone developer. However, Microsoft had to share a higher percentage of advertising revenue compared to Google in order to propose an interesting amount for a deal.

“In the short term it would have been very negative. We told the board we are thinking about making a multi-billion dollar negative investment to support this,” Tinter said.

Market plays out Bing’s existence

Furthermore, Microsoft’s search engine turned out not to be interesting enough for hardware manufacturers to make a deal. Tinter defends this position with negotiations that once took place with Samsung. “Even if the economic conditions were superior in working with Microsoft, they would not leave Google,” Tinter testified.

The manufacturers would only use Bing’s existence to extract a larger percentage of Google Search’s profits. Mikhail Parakhin, president of Web Experiences at Microsoft, stated this as follows: “It is no secret that Apple makes more money from Bing’s existence than Bing itself does.”