Bing search engine launched

Microsoft has announced the beta launch of Bing, its new search engine.

Bing: A First Look

It will be rolled out over the next few days and is expected to be fully operational by Wednesday 3 June.

The announcement comes as no surprise as many rumours had been circulating in recent days about a Microsoft search project, codenamed Kumo.

Bing is promising to give relevant information with features including Best Match, which identifies the best result for popular queries and Instant Answers, which provides quick results in the body of the first search results page.

However, it is a beta product at the moment and Microsoft said there was still much to come from Bing.

Paul Stoddart of Microsoft said: "Bing is being built in the UK over the next six to 12 months based on consumer insights and is designed to help people find the shortest distance from their initial search query to the point of making an informed decision."

Though there has been a glut of activity in the search market recently with the launch of Wolfram Alpha and Hulbee, Microsoft still believes the search market is "still in its infancy".

"In 1997 there were only 100,000 websites compared with over 160 million worldwide today, so it’s important to challenge and evolve the search market and to make it as easy and relevant as possible for today’s consumers," Stoddart said.