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IE is worth a lot to Microsoft because of Bing. Google pays Mozilla for Google search being on the toolbar. Chrome is Google. IE is the only browser that wou

IE is worth a lot to Microsoft because of Bing. Google pays Mozilla for Google search being on the toolbar. Chrome is Google. IE is the only browser that would have Bing be the default search engine. That's worth a good amount of money to them - I can't seem them throwing up the white flag.

schammy 16y ago
Is Bing really a big source of revenue for them though? I thought something like 90% of their profit was Windows and Office. Either way, good point in terms of promoting their own search engine, but unless it's a significant source of profit then again I say, what is the point?
- dmnd 16y ago
  Bing will never be a significant source of revenue if it has no users. Like it or not, browser defaults drive market share. Besides, what's wrong with a large company trying to diversify streams of income?
  - Typhon 16y ago
    Nothing's wrong with that in itself. However, it can have undesired negative side-effects.
alanh 16y ago
They could easily release a WebKit-based browser with Bing search built in and call it MSIE, solving both your/Microsoft’s and schammy’s problems. (Edit: This is obvious to industry observers and has been “requested” by frustrated devs for years. But Microsoft won’t do it. Pride, probably, is the biggest reason.)
- masklinn 16y ago
  And it would instantly break every single intranet built on MS technologies.
  - alanh 16y ago
    They could bake in Trident (IE’s rendering engine) and allow intranet administrators /IT to declare intranets render in IE7/8/9 mode. They already do something similar with their browsers, and IETab for Firefox essentially does this.
  - dchest 16y ago
    It's time to break them.