Microsoft partner with RIM: Blackberries now to come with Bing Maps, MS to promote Blackberry : Updated with press release

May 3, 2011 | By Surur

bingmapsblackberry

Bing Maps on Blackberry

At Blackberry World Microsoft has just announced a partnership between the company and Research In Motion.

The deal would extend initially to having Bing Maps pre-installed on all Blackberries and Bing Search would be the default search engine, but will also include further cooperation, including Microsoft promoting Blackberry Enterprise Server to their clients and offering the Blackberry platform in addition to Windows Phone 7.

Bing Search and Bing Maps will also be the default clients on the Blackberry Playbook tablet

The deal was announced by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, who told attendees at Blackberry World that Microsoft would invest "uniquely" in BlackBerry services, according to Business Insider.

Microsoft also promised further integration of Bing into the core Blackberry OS would occur around Christmas.

The move could be seen as Microsoft showing lack of confidence in Windows Phone 7, but also alternatively it could be seen as Microsoft being opportunistic and taking advantage of companies who see Google’s Android is their biggest threat at the moment and are looking for search and mapping alternatives. This motivation has prompted Nokia to adopt Windows Phone 7 in February this year.

Bing became one of the available search options on the iPhone in January 2010.

Update: See the official press release after the break:

Since we launched Bing, we’ve tried to make it as easy as possible for people to use the service from any device, anytime, so that they are never without access to Bing’s great decision tools. Today we joined with Research In Motion (RIM) in announcing some exciting news for our joint customers.

This morning at RIM’s annual Blackberry World, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced on stage a new alliance between Microsoft and RIM, outlining how the two companies can work together to help people make better decisions with Bing on BlackBerry devices.

Central to this collaboration, , Blackberry devices will use Bing as the preferred search provider in the browser, and Bing will be the default search and map application for new devices presented to mobile operators, both in the United States and internationally. Also, effective today Bing will be the preferred search and maps applications with regular, featured placement and promotion in the BlackBerry App World carousel.

Bing is also now shipping as the default search experience, and map app, for the newly released BlackBerry Playbook. Together, we’ll also market and promote the strength of our joint offerings as “Making better decisions with Bing on BlackBerry.”

These new experiences highlight how the mobile landscape is changing. Devices are becoming sensors that can provide real-time access to information to help people quickly complete tasks on the go. We’re going to see a convergence of search, commerce, social and location-centric services where Bing will provide the intelligence and the organizing layer in the cloud that connects a user’s intent with action, helping people be more productive.

For us, this goes way beyond a “search box” and links that rank URLs representing a set of web documents. For us, it’s about finding real tools that help real people get things done. Bing is about fast decisions, combining the topical graph with your social graph – as well as the geospatial graph – to connect the real world and the digital universe like never before. Doing this on mobile devices of all sorts is incredibly important to this effort, and our work with RIM will help both companies do great things for customers.

We are excited to be working with RIM, an early leader in Internet-connected mobile devices, to help people make better decisions with Bing.

- Matt Dahlin, Director, Bing

Via ZDNet.com

About Surur

Site Admin and Windows Phone enthusiast, he has been using Windows Mobile devices since before they were called PocketPC’s. He is currently sporting a HTC 7 Trophy.

Tagged bing, blackberry, RIM, windows phone 7

Eric

All BB clients will have Bing Maps pre-installed on all Blackberries and Bing Search would be the default search engine.
Poor BB clients. What did they do wrong to deserve this?
Bing and Bing Map are absolutely crap in Europe. I am not sure European BB customers will be really happy.
These 2 apps are the major weakpoints of WP7, which often make me hate my Optimus 7.

johnny

If you hate your phone you prolly should get something else and stop whining.

pdg

No, he is right, but I agree that there's no need to whine this time as BB is a major platform in the US but not in Europe.
Eric

I did not say I hate my WP7 phone. Actually I like everything except Bing and Bing Map. But it is logical. These two apps actually DO NOT work properly in Europe, except UK.

rsg

Actually, I LOVE Bing on my Mozart – it works surprisingly well.

I'm in the UK.
http://www.facebook.com/J88NYR Jonny Rose

People should stop saying its crap in Europe! you dont live in all of Europe! its one country you have experiance of!

Its brilliant in the UK (Incase you are too stupid to realise… in Europe)

Eric

Yes, It works fine in UK. The only European country where Bing is working correctly.

But you are right, I shall say "Bing is crap in Europe, except in the UK".
jrtorrents

So do you have streetview on your Bing where you live in the UK?

WOZNIAK

Come on, we cannot even search for images with Bing ?

Shame.

Lennard

this has nothing to do with lack of confidence, this is purely an opportunistic move to get bing on as much platform as possible.

Brian

Actually I suspect it is a little of both – with RIM their was an opportunity, made all the more valuable because of WP7's under performance.

Chris

If Bing Maps and Bing Search get more features on Blackberry than on WP7, I will kick someone

WOZNIAK

It has. You can check some newer articles.

MrAdelphi02

So long as this means BBM on WP7, i'm all for it!!!
John

It'll only be a matter of time until MS buys RIM lol

I really hope they focus more on WP7 than on promoting BB.

Eric

Yes, there's a chance MS buys RIM one day.

But I am not sure it will be worth buying BB. It's a dying platform.
Maybe some patents related to security and business, that's all.

tjarren

Am I REALLY the only one that sees this as a move to get all BB customers used to Bing in preparation for the eventual Enterprise version of Windows Phone?
http://www.facebook.com/people/Phil-Achleman/1738965192 Phil Achleman

I dont think that BB is ready to throw in the towel yet so this is probably as close as MS can get to taking over BB. Nokia wouldnt let them throw in the towel on WP7 so why not just slowly eliminate as much competition as possible? Seems logical to me!
jrtorrents

Bing maps is a total joke .. doesn't work in Europe
drunkinected

"including Microsoft promoting Blackberry Enterprise Server to their clients"

I really don't like the way this is going. Why not enhance the Exchange policies and support (all of) them on Windows Phones? Why not implement beefed up security protocols and encryption on Mango?
It seems to me they are starting to fall back on their old ways and trying to separate consumer and corporate users when they should have realized that any corporate customer is a consumer first.
CEOs, COOs, CFOs, etc continue to dump their blackberrys for iPhones and instead of focusing on WP7 as a better solution thanks to deep integration with Microsoft products, they seem to be getting distracted with other platforms.
The division that handles Bing can and should be making deals and exploring all avenues of income, but Microsoft as whole must focus completely on Windows Phones if they want to beat the competition.
Maybe it is indeed time for Ballmer to go.

Paul

WP7 on its own isn't a large enough opportunity for a company MS's size. They reportedly get $10-15 per phone (gross) and you can bet that's much less in the Nokia deal. Do the math on any reasonable volume. It's tiny. In fact they've probably lost several billion just over the last two years in mobile (Danger, Kin, the WP7 launch, etc).

Bing on the other hand is a very large potential opportunity, if MS can figure out how to stop losing money doing it. And a successful and profitable Bing is critical to sustaining the mobile effort because Windows and Office won't be cash cows forever (Windows is already showing signs of deterioration due to iPad) and even if they are, MS needs the earnings to try and halt the now decade long slide of their stock.

jrtorrents

I dont think MS's main idea with WP7 was to get rich off but but to use it as a platform to market other services they had like Zune, Bing and Xbox etc. The fact is Bing is not competitive enough, lots of people I know have no idea what Bing even is concerned with he North American market. Theres is zero advertising or exposure of Bing where I live and almost no support for their map services. I can see almost every corner in the Netherlands with Google street view but this is non existent on Bing maps. if they want to make Bing their next cash-cow they should be willing to make more investments and be more innovative as they have shown with heir other products rather than blindly copying whatever Google does with heir search engine.

Paul

The original motivation to go into mobile was to a) make sure someone else didn't dominate a high volume area that could threaten Windows and b) make money. By WP7, that has become just a).

I, and they, agree Bing isn't yet competitive enough even in the US. And it has virtually no presence in EMEA. But ramping it up in EMEA would mean even higher losses and they can't sustain those with a stock that is constantly declining. They're already losing 2-3 BILLLION per year on search. That's actual loses. There's probably another 1-2 BILLION more buried as part of their $9 billion R&D budget.
$3-5 billion a year in losses is a very serious commitment. If they were more innovative could they spend less and maybe get better results? Probably. But Bing is one area where they've actually been semi innovative. Indeed Google has copied half a dozen things from them over the past year. But that's part of the problem. Their innovations have been relatively easy to duplicate. And that's not a winning long term strategy.

drunkinected

The thing with WP7 is not really to make tons of money on the OS itself, but as jrtorrents mentioned, it is more a platform to sell other services and solidify the position of only provider capable of offering a complete abd integrated mobile solution. Also don't forget the 30% cut they get on every app sold.

I have no problems apreading Bing all over the place, quite on the contrary. My problem is with Microsoft promoting Blackberry Enterprise Servers. Not only it shows they don't have confidence on WP7 in a corporate environment but also weakens the proposition of System Center as mobile management solution. As a shareholder myself, I am quite unhappy with the current stock price, but recommending a solution from a company in serious decline while placing their own solutions in 2ns place doesn't make me any happier.

WOZNIAK

In my opinion, as a WP7 customer, I feel that it is a real shame that MS dare propose such a medicocre service to their European customers: Bing and Bing Map are just a bad joke.

Bing results are just stupid and not relevant.
Bing Maps are outdated, blurry and inaccurate. No local search, no Street View, no cache memory.
Bing Map is so bad that I never use it.

Google Maps is available for BB. BB users in Europe will quickly see the difference and will be able to compare.
At least, they have the choice. As a WP7 user I am stuck with my crappy Bing Map.
jrtorrents

Bing maps is a total joke .. doesn't work in Europe (except perhaps UK)

Serotango

The problem is that Ovi Map isn't really better than Bing Map

I tested it and was quite disappointed.
Google Maps is definitely far superior and I really miss it.
MS have to invest a lot of money in Bing and Bing Map if they want to be taken seriously one day.
At this stage Bing is just bulshit (outside US and UK)
Paul

So far we've heard that it works great in the UK and perfectly fine in Germany. Maybe you should be more specific rather than saying "Europe"? Anyway, I would expect the Nokia alliance to result in some improvements there (for Europe and NA).

http://www.facebook.com/people/Ror-Brennan/100001053840382 Ror Brennan

Almost seems like they're promoting Bing to the detriment of WP7. I like Bing, and I'd like to see it do well, but does that success have to come at a cost to other devices/services? I hope not.

Paul

If you were on the Bing team, complete with your own largely separate performance metrics for the year ending June, would you be putting time into doing deals with RIM, or waiting around for the WP7 team that still can't even get the minor January update out even five months later?

Milad

Bing results are a joke in Germany.

It gives you stupid and irrelevant results.

I had Bing installed on all desktops at my work but over time I have ONLY used google because I had to, even though its not my default seach engine, I have a bookmark that I use every day a 100 times.
WOZNIAK

This is not my business. It's MS' business.
Bing is shitt and I'm saying it.
There are more than 25 countries in Europe, so I do not care if it works in 2 countries: UK and possibly Germany.
dropqube

I'm from Germany and as much as I'd like to use Bing I have to say the search results are pure shit. I very often try to find something with Bing and it doesn't even show up in the results or only at a later page.

In Google the same search query gives the wanted results in the first 5 links at the top.

Bing is still BETA stage here – but recently Microsoft released some news that they have stacked up their Bing teams in several European countries to get the search ready for the market (since every country has their own "style" of requesting and needing information they have to make special stuff for every country involved)
macs

I am in the UK and Bing maps has vastly less detail than Google maps when it comes to points of interest. The sat and aerial images are also much older than Googles. Microsoft need to take control and rather than depend on other companies they need to take control of their own maps.
Rabbit

The problem with Bing Map is not only the mediocre maps in m ountry (France), but also the fact that even if the streets appear on the map image, there are no name on them !!!
What's the use for me to see several streets around my position and almost none of them are named ??????

You know why? because if the size of a street on the image map is smaller than the size of the font, then the name will not be displayed at all. As a consequence even a major boulevard will have no name because of this stupid technical problem. UNBELIEVABLE