Google vs. Bing fight for the market

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Microsoft's Bing has lost market share to Google over the past month, prompting some to start digging the decision engine's grave. But with Bing just a few months into real competition with Google, that evaluation might be a bit premature.

The drop in Bing's search engine market share doesn't mean that Microsoft should close up shop and throw in the towel, of course. Google, after all, didn't become the ubiquitous entity that it has become in just a few short months. Microsoft, somewhat ironically, is in as good a position as anyone to understand this.

Microsoft Internet Explorer has been the dominant Web browser since driving out Netscape over 10 years ago. But for several years now, Internet Explorer has been competing against Mozilla's Firefox Web browser.

Firefox currently has the second biggest share of the Web browser market with about 22 percent, according to September numbers from Net Applications' Market Share report. Internet Explorer, on the other hand, claims slightly more than 60 percent of the Web browser market.

Version 1.0 of the Firefox Web browser was rolled out in November 2004 and has been competing against Internet Explorer for almost five years. The fact that the open-source browser has even 22 percent of the market is seen as somewhat of a victory.