Kumo to be dubbed Bing, AdAge says

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Kumo to be dubbed Bing, AdAge says
by Ina Fried


This search result for Zune, seen on Live Search last week by enthusiast Ryan Rea, bears
a significant resemblance to the Kumo prototype that Microsoft has been testing internally


Microsoft has been testing its search engine under the name Kumo, but if a report in Advertising Age is on target, it will launch under the name "Bing."
The advertising trade magazine says Microsoft will spend $80 million to $100 million on print, online, TV and outdoor ads touting its latest search effort. The magazine notes that figure is higher than most consumer product launches. Rival Google, meanwhile, spent just $25 million total on advertising last year, AdAge said.
Microsoft declined to comment on the report. The software maker is said to be planning to announce details on its search plans at this week's D: All Things Digital conference in Carlsbad, Calif., where CEO Steve Ballmer is slated to speak.

Bing was among several names said to be in the running for the new search engine. Microsoft had said that the Kumo name that was being used internally was not necessarily the moniker the company would ultimately use for the product.
In addition to the internal testing, Microsoft has been publicly trying out some of the concepts it plans to introduce with Kumo, including a left-hand navigation pane to move between different types of searches as well as to related queries.
AdAge said that JWT will be handling the ad campaign, which the magazine said won't mention Google by name. "Instead, they'll focus on planting the idea that today's search engines don't work as well as consumers previously thought by asking them whether search (aka Google) really solves their problems," the magazine wrote.