Microsoft pitched the idea of selling its Bing search engine to Apple back in 2020, according to a new report from Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman.
According to Gurman, several top Microsft executives reached out to Apple’s Senior Vice President of Services Eddy CueEddy Cue was born in 1964, in Miami, Florida. He is Apple's Senior Vice President of Services and one of the company's most senior SVPs since assuming his current position in 2011. Cue earned bachelor's degrees in computer science and economics from Duke University. In addition to his role at Apple, Cue serves as a member of Ferrari's board of... to discuss a potential deal in which Apple would acquire the former’s Bing division. The talks were reportedly “exploratory” at best, and negotiations never reached a serious step, adds Gurman.
Despite the negotiations reaching a deadlock, both companies nevertheless explored other arrangements that could have made Bing the default search engine on Safari on iPhones and other Apple products. Ultimately, Apple decided to stick with Google, which remains the default search engine option on the Cupertino company’s web browser.
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Apple-Google deal
The particular relationship involving Apple and Google is currently being scrutinized as part of an antitrust case brought forward by the United States Department of Justice. Google pays Apple billions of dollars annually to remain Safari’s default search engine, and Cue recently testified as part of the case. On the stand, Cue testified that Apple is forced to rely on Google as no other options come close to the quality of its search engine.
The revenue that Apple received from its Google deal was reportedly a “key reason” why the Bing deal never went ahead, adds Gurman. Additionally, the company had reservations over Bing’s lackluster capabilities and features compared to Google.
Apple briefly used Bing as the default web search engine in Siri and Spotlight from 2013 to 2017 before returning to Google due to a revised revenue-sharing agreement. Nonetheless, Bing still remains an option for Safari search.
