A recent report stated that Microsoft may launch an all-in-one “super app” that combines its various services, and seeks to stand in the way of the mobile search partnership between Apple and Google.
The American technology giant has considered creating an application that combines shopping, messaging, internet search, news, and other services.
Microsoft executives aspire to make the app a way to boost its advertising activity and increase the share of its search engine, Bing. Microsoft hopes to emulate companies with a proven track record in this field, such as the Chinese company Tencent, which owns the popular universal application, WeChat.
It is not yet known whether Microsoft will launch such an application or not, but in any case, the sources say that the CEO, Satya Nadella, is establishing this by enhancing the capabilities of the Bing engine among other Microsoft products on mobile devices.
Bing is at a disadvantage on mobile operating systems compared to Google’s search engine. The latter signed a billion-dollar contract with Apple to make its engine the default engine for iOS, as is the case in its Android system originally.
Microsoft also suffers from the problem of the lack of an application store dedicated to mobile devices, which forces it to rely on competitors to attract users to its services and keep them. They also have to be subject to competitors’ rules, which greatly hinders them.
According to a former Microsoft employee, the company periodically submitted bids to contract Apple to make Bing the default search engine on iOS, but Google won the contract each time.
However, regulators monitor the ongoing partnership between Google and Apple, and the US Department of Justice is seeking an injunction in the pending antitrust lawsuit against Google; With the aim of preventing it from renewing the contract with Apple, the argument is that it stifles competition unfairly. Any deal between Apple and Microsoft is unlikely to come under the same level of scrutiny given that Bing’s share of the web search market is much lower than that of Google.
Apple, for its part, has also focused on providing search features across its services, but its efforts are slowing. Because of its privacy stance, the company has less data than Google or Microsoft.
Earlier in 2022, rumors emerged that Apple was seeking to launch a private search engine, and analyst Robert Scoble claimed that the company would unveil it in January 2023.
