Microsoft had even offered to sell Bing to Apple around 2020, Bloomberg News reported last week.
Microsoft Corp. was prepared to hide its search engine’s ‘Bing’ brand on Apple Inc. devices. to secure a deal with the iPhone maker and dethrone Google, CEO Satya Nadella testified Monday.
Microsoft’s Nadella described how far his company was willing to go to become Apple’s default search engine, a position Google currently enjoys. That included providing “strategic flexibility” with the search engine brand and encouraging Apple to look at its technology independently of the Bing brand.
The testimony was part of a Justice Department lawsuit against Google, which the government says has used its search dominance to destroy competition and hurt consumers. The company’s agreement with Apple is central to this case. Google pays billions of dollars a year to be the default option for Apple devices, and Microsoft has tried (and failed) to offer a more attractive deal.
Getting that default spot from Apple would be “game changing,” Nadella said. “Whoever they choose, they make king.”
Nadella made waves at Apple between 2013 and 2017, when the iPhone maker opted to replace Google as the search engine that powers Siri and the Spotlight feature on its devices. However, Apple never dropped Google as the default in its Safari web browser, returning to Google in the other areas after just four years.
The discussion about dropping the Bing brand took place during negotiations in 2018. The agreement would mean that Safari search results were powered by Bing, but under an alternative brand.
Nadella said he has tried to replace Google as Apple’s default search engine every year since he became CEO in 2014. In earlier testimony Monday, he said Apple used Microsoft to “bid up the price” Google pays.
“Do you think Google would continue to pay Apple if there was no search competition? Why would they do that?” he said.
Apple service chief Eddy Cue has said he works with Google because the Mountain View, California-based company provides the best search results. The iPhone maker will get about $8 billion annually from the Google deal, which is structured as a revenue-sharing agreement.
Microsoft had even offered to sell Bing to Apple around 2020, Bloomberg News reported last week. Cue turning down that overture.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
