Rik van der Kooi: Microsoft ups its challenge to Google with big plans for Bing

Microsoft will consider introducing Bing into its Skype platform, as its strategy for integrating the search engine into a range of services has helped it challenge Google’s domination of the UK market. Bing, which also powers searches for Yahoo and other syndication partners, now deals with 15.8 per cent of UK searches (including its partners), and grew by 24 per cent in the last quarter.

In an interview with The Independent, Rik van der Kooi, Microsoft’s global head of search advertising, said Bing’s performance in the UK could replicate advances in the United States, where it powers one third of searches. “Our goal for the UK is to try to make it follow in the US’ footsteps as closely as we can,” he said.

Mr Van der Kooi said Microsoft’s strategy was based on making search an “ambient” experience by integrating Bing into multiple features, including Office and the personal assistant service Cortana, as well as partner platforms such as the classified ads site Gumtree, which is a UK partner. “Instead of having all search revolve back to the search results page where you put the query in and get all the blue links, it is sort of making search more ambient in all the experiences,” said Mr Van der Kooi.

He said that Microsoft was prepared to introduce Bing into the Skype platform to benefit users. “In the future we are thinking about not artificially pushing it in but maybe putting it in where it’s of use to the user.

“I could imagine a scenario where if you were either talking with somebody via Skype or chatting via Skype, that providing a search experience inside of Skype is a very valuable experience. And if it’s valuable to the user then we would consider it.”

Bing launched in 2009 and this year became profitable. “We were considered a Microsoft experiment in the past, but the commitment we have as a company to Bing has never been greater,” said Mr Van der Kooi. “We have grown market share not just in the US but in the UK.”

He refrained from criticising Google (which has around 88 per cent of the UK market and 64 per cent in the US), saying that Bing was targeting the “broader market” and not an individual competitor. But he did say the two companies differed in their approach and that because “Google is more reliant on advertising as a model – and some might say solely reliant – they might make decisions … differently than we would.”

With reference to privacy concerns, he said: “We don’t take data out of Bing,” but claimed users were increasingly appreciative of services being personalised. The launch of the Windows 10 operating system this year had provided new opportunities for establishing Bing as an “ingredient to other services”, such as Cortana, he said. “In Windows 10 you are seeing Bing integrated into the overall service.”

The inclusion of the Bing Insights feature in the latest version of Microsoft’s Office applications (Office 16) is driving use and awareness levels of the Microsoft search engine. Users of the Word word-processing system can right-click on a word or phrase and receive insights directly from the Bing index. “[Bing] makes other services more valuable to the user,” Mr Van der Kooi claimed. “Where most users are starting to struggle is flipping back and forth between the many applications they have open at one time.”

Mr Van der Kooi, who is based at Microsoft’s headquarters in Washington State but is originally from Amsterdam, hopes that advertisers now recognise the scale of Bing’s reach. “Our performance in the UK has been very strong over the past five years. Our market share is well into double digits, which is very important both for users and brand awareness of Bing but also important for marketers and advertisers.

“Our ‘share of wallet’ is growing in the UK and that’s a very important metric for business health. We do expect that on the back of Windows 10 we will continue to grow significantly.”

The UK is “globally a huge search market” and particularly important because of the high per capita online spend, he said. “If you just look at the size of the UK online search market relative to the number of citizens, it’s among the top in the world.”

Bing’s share in the US will grow further when Microsoft’s deal to provide searches for AOL begins next year. It already works with Amazon’s Kindle and Apple’s Siri.

Microsoft’s faith in search is based on the knowledge that it is a “supply-constrained business”, Mr Van der Kooi said. “We always have more advertiser demand in our system and advertiser budget available than we can satisfy. So growing the scale of usage immediately means the overall business will grow.”

That means Microsoft wants more UK platform partners with “quality traffic” to integrate Bing into their offerings. “We are looking to add more global partners as well as UK specific partners. We have a clear strategy,” he said.