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Samsung considers moving to Bing as default search engine

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Re: Samsung considers moving to Bing as default search engine

#21

Post by simula67 »

I always thought that Google made a big blunder by not encroaching upon Microsoft's turf more aggressively. They should have tried to make a better desktop OS (just buy Canonical or something) and then eat into Microsoft Office market share by releasing Google Office for Desktop. Wait for an opportunity to emerge and then pounce.

This is precisely what Microsoft did to Google. They had Bing running in the background for years losing truckloads of money. Now that AI has upset the applecart, they can use Bing to choke off Google's airsupply.

One of the reasons for Google getting so good early on was that they had oodles of usage data to test and improve their search functionality forming a positive feedback loop. Now, with deals such as this, Microsoft will have more data to tune their engine while Google is left on the sidelines.

Let's just hope that the AI driven search revolution does not produce a monopoly.

Re: Samsung considers moving to Bing as default search engine

#22

Post by robertlagrant »

IceWreck wrote: post #17
nailer wrote: post #8

Edit: looks like I'm wrong, see IceWreck's reply below. Original comment: my understanding is that this means Google will deny their customers access to Google Play, Photos and other first party Google apps. Samsung has replacements for some of these but not all of them.

Nope, to access play services you have to add the powered by android logo and preinstall a minimum set of required apps (including the google search app), but afaik nothing saying google has to be the default search engine.

Perhaps that will change in response to this.

Re: Samsung considers moving to Bing as default search engine

#23

Post by lightbendover »

roenxi wrote: post #6

1) "It will reportedly be known as Project ‘Magi’ and is said to provide a far more personalized experience than the company’s current service." That is super creepy. Google knows a lot about you, and now it is using that knowledge to really put you in a filter bubble. Imagine this plus engagement metrics. 2) So much for that monopoly a lot of people thought Google had. Turns out they're still as exposed to market pr…

The last thing anyone should ever want from a search engine is different results from the next person over.

Re: Samsung considers moving to Bing as default search engine

#24

Post by ocdtrekkie »

rippercushions wrote: post #15
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #5

Samsung has done this before, and Google has multiple times made various offers and incentives intended to "encourage" Samsung not to. Because a huge portion of the Android monopoly will leave Google Search when this happens. Stuff like OEMs getting a cut of Play Store revenue are mechanics done to avoid this. There's a pretty good chance Samsung is just negotiating for better terms, kinda like carriage disputes for…

For comparison, Google pays Apple an estimated $15 billion a year to be the default engine on Safari. https://9to5mac.com/2021/08/25/analysts-google-to-pay-apple-...

Indeed. Though for Android OEMs, "paying" for Google's app suite is considered part of the equation. It's less of an incentive for Samsung though since they have their own replacements for most Google apps ready to go.

Re: Samsung considers moving to Bing as default search engine

#25

Post by sempron64 »

pelagicAustral wrote: post #11

I've been using Bing for a few weeks now it is not all the way there yet but so far the experience is more gratifying than Google. The results seem to be better and there is less ads on top the search results. Their AI integration is also well accomplished. No complains there...

Anecdotally, their actual search results have sucked for me. For example, I searched for “narrowest cars with 6 or more seats”, and Bing’s results were terrible and irrelevant. The AI version gave me some acceptable results but very few. Google returned pages of relevant results from different years.

Re: Samsung considers moving to Bing as default search engine

#26

Post by amelius »

eoooooooo wrote: post #14

Some interesting dynamics at play here if true. Google basically maintains Android to get people to use Google services on it, so Samsung switching to Bing would eliminate Google's incentive to develop Android. Samsung is also by FAR the largest Android OEM and holds almost as much power over the platform as Google just from the sheer amount of Android devices that they ship.

> Samsung switching to Bing would eliminate Google's incentive to develop Android

They still have quite some apps on Android that they can use to extract data from users and send ads, e.g. youtube, gmail, maps, etc.

Re: Samsung considers moving to Bing as default search engine

#28

Post by detourdog »

king_magic wrote: post #2

I mean it is kind of nuts. I didn't have "pretty much switch entirely to Bing" on my 2023 search Bingo card, but here we are.

My computer literate but non-technical wife just noticed yesterday that google searches are a waste of time compared to ChatGPT. Over the course of about six hours it went from this thing is amazing to this stupid thing knows I'm on a Mac but still refers to F11 keys.

She even got ChatGPT to re-enforce she was on Mac and didn't have an F11 key but never got a substitute key to use for Mac users. (F11 is volume down on my Mac keyboard.)

Re: Samsung considers moving to Bing as default search engine

#30

Post by Zigurd »

nailer wrote: post #8

Edit: looks like I'm wrong, see IceWreck's reply below. Original comment: my understanding is that this means Google will deny their customers access to Google Play, Photos and other first party Google apps. Samsung has replacements for some of these but not all of them.

Android's early commercialization actively encouraged OEMs to "customize" Android for at least two reasons: Android product maturity was questionable, and what else are phone OEM product managers going to do?

Now that "Google experience" is generally cleaner and better than OEMs' customizations, Google is struggling to put the toothpaste back in the tube. It is very damaging to Android as a product because OEMs are slow to issue updates and won't continue updates beyond three years, in most cases.

I doubt Google will strong-arm Samsung over this. They need Samsung more than Samsung needs the Play Store and other "Google experience" apps.

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