Apple, Microsoft Discuss Giving Bing Top iPhone Billing
Amid an accelerating rivalry with Google, Apple is discussing ways to make Bing the default search engine on the iPhone — In 2003, when Apple said its iTunes music software would work on PCs using the Windows software of its age-old rival …
Context & Ripple Effects
The talks surface at a moment when Microsoft's mobile posture is explicitly platform-first: CEO Steve Ballmer has stated the company's strategy is to provide software solutions rather than build its own devices, even as a Zune Phone launch is rumored within two months. Microsoft is meanwhile pushing Bing across surfaces — it has taken the Silverlight version of Bing Maps out of beta and made it the default — so planting Bing on the iPhone would extend an engine it is already promoting aggressively.
For Apple, the reported approach rhymes with an old playbook the article itself invokes: iTunes arriving on Windows PCs back in 2003. Pragmatic cooperation with Microsoft when it serves a larger fight is established Apple behavior — this week alone it updated Boot Camp to support running Windows 7 on Macs — and the larger fight here, per the reporting, is an accelerating rivalry with Google. Note the default-engine talks remain unconfirmed; nothing has been agreed.
First-order effects
- If the discussions end in a switch, Microsoft captures the iPhone's search traffic without shipping hardware — exactly the software-first posture Ballmer has publicly committed to — while Bing gains default visibility it cannot earn on ranking quality alone.
- Google stands to lose free default placement on the highest-profile smartphone in the market, converting an uncontested distribution channel into a contested one.
Second-order effects
- A Bing default would hedge Microsoft's rumored Zune Phone bet: the company could seed its engine on the rival platform while still preparing its own device, keeping both software and hardware paths open.
- Even unconfirmed, the talks hand Apple negotiating leverage — a credible second bidder lets Apple price the default slot against Google, which can only defend the placement by paying for it or deepening its own handset footprint.
Third-order effects
- If default slots become negotiable at the operating-system level, mobile search consolidates around whoever controls placement rather than whoever ranks results best — making the phone's settings screen the industry's scarcest advertising inventory.
- The episode extends Apple's pattern of tactical Microsoft alliances — iTunes on Windows in 2003, Windows 7 drivers via Boot Camp now — where cooperation with Redmond serves a bigger competitive aim, at present containing Google.
The trend: Mobile search is shifting from a quality contest to a placement contest, with the smartphone default slot becoming the asset Microsoft, Apple, and Google negotiate over directly.