In the last few days, a lot of revelations have come to light during the ongoing trial between Google and the US Justice Department. For instance, a senior Microsoft executive testified in court and said that Apple makes more money because of Bing Search than Microsoft does. Now, a report by Bloomberg reveals that Microsoft considered selling Bing Search to Apple.
Why Microsoft wanted to sell Bing
One of the primary reasons was to ensure that Bing Search becomes the default search engine on iPhones. Currently, Apple has a lucrative deal with Google that allows Search to be the default search engine on iPhones. The report suggests that Microsoft executives met with Eddy Cue, services head, Apple but the talks ended at an exploratory stage only.
Apple first signed the search engine deal with Google back in 2002. It was the year when Apple released its first Mac web browser. The deal has continued since then and remains integral for Google as the iPhone has a user base of over a billion. According to the Bloomberg report, the US Department of Justice estimates Apple has been earning close to $7 billion from the deal.
Apple had little interest in acquiring Bing because of its deal with Google. Apple pays Google to be the default search engine on its devices, and it would have been difficult to break this deal. Additionally, Apple was concerned about the quality of Bing compared to Google Search. Bing is a distant second to Google in terms of market share and search quality. Apple would have had to invest heavily in Bing to improve its performance, and it is unclear whether this would have been a worthwhile investment.