Microsoft offers ad-free Bing for the classroom to battle Google

http://news.yahoo.com/microsoft-offers-ad-free-bing-classroom-battle-google-102402977.html

by manishsp • 13 years ago

30 50 13 years ago

news.yahoo.com

chollida13• 13 years ago

This was probably a pretty easy decision for Bing to make. Really, how much ad revenue are they missing by not showing adds to students at school:)

brudgers6• 13 years ago

Bing has always been a long term play for Microsoft. If they never made a dollar directly, the research itself still has significant value.

And what is Google going to do in response? Any competing project has to admit the premise that their primary product is unsuitable for children.

Essentially, Microsoft is competing with Wikipedia and homegrown solutions from school districts and the governor's brother in law.

barista2• 13 years ago

Actually I wonder why doesn't Microsoft do it for every one? No tracking, no ads just plain old good results. Google has been attacking Microsoft with its scorched earth strategy in many areas (google docs, chrome OS, etc.) And given that google is just a one trick pony, this might affect them more.

archangel_one2• 13 years ago

Attacking someone in many areas is a pretty neat trick for a one-trick pony to learn.

mcintyre19942• 13 years ago

I'm quite surprised it took this long. Hasn't Microsoft's strategy in this space for a long time been to sell schools Microsoft stuff insanely cheap to win the mindshare of students, most of whom leave school knowing only of Windows and Office?

My ICT teacher was quite open that Microsoft essentially wrote his curriculum and provided all his funding, and that's why all we learned was Excel/Access.

iterationx• 13 years ago

As part of the program, Microsoft will also offer free Surface tablets...

Because they can't sell them... this is just PR garbage.

swalsh• 13 years ago

Ah the McDonalds strategy, hook em in as kids keep em as customers when they're adults.

brudgers6• 13 years ago

More relevant, this has long been Apple's strategy. One which has evolved from primary education onto college campuses by following the money - money in the form of student loans.

fatjokes• 13 years ago

I don't know if that's what got people hooked though. I remember using Apples as a kid at school, hated them, used PC's up until college and Apple introduced the Mac Air, at which point I switched and haven't looked back.

I don't know if it's the McDonald's strategy either---kids love McDonalds, then grow out of them.

I'd say it's more like the tobacco industry's strategy. Most smokers I know got hooked as kids and couldn't quit after growing up.

mcintyre19942• 13 years ago

Even more relevant, isn't this Microsoft's strategy in this space anyway? Provide Windows and Office super cheap to schools and make sure it's all that gets taught?

brudgers6• 13 years ago

"Google in December announced a program to give its Chromebook computers to schools for $99 each."

That's an interesting use of "give."

Anyway, the idea of an ad free search engine hits right at the heart of Google's business. While I know many adults who are unconcerned about their own online privacy, many of them have serious concerns about their children's.

Google is entangled with Schmidt's creepy line.

Kylekramer• 13 years ago

I don't see how targeting children with an adfree product with the stated intention of turning them into lifetime Bing users (with ads) is improving on Google's creepiness.

brudgers6• 13 years ago

Marketing in the gatekeeper model pitches the product both to children and their parents, it suggests that parents (or schools in loco parentis) are right to exhibit veto power in regards to what children consume. School districts really have no other option - it's potential political dynamite if a nine year old girl nags Mom for Revlon nail polish based upon advertizing delivered while using the schools computers for an academic project.

I'm not saying that Microsoft is motivated purely by altruism - however, Microsoft could probably offer everybody (not just students) ad free search and still be massively profitable and there's not a damn thing Google can do about it.

Privacy issues are a potential long term limitation on Google's business model and kids grow up fast.

jabits• 13 years ago

Fewer ads while a child grows is always a good thing.

r00fus• 13 years ago

I don't think Microsoft's main goal is to indoctrinate the youth (though that's a desirable aim for them, I'm sure).

Their goal is to "cut off the air supply" to Google… just like Google's goal with ChromeOS (and the $249 Chromebooks) is to cut off Microsoft/Apple's profits.

As consumers, sometimes we get a nice deal out of the infighting.

marccuban• 13 years ago

A Chromebook is a pretty impressive piece of hardware for $99.

harrytuttle7• 13 years ago

Piece of hardware yes. Terminal yes.

Computer: no.

RyanZAG• 13 years ago

Not sure I understand this - if a school so desperately wants ad-free search, just deploy an adblock plugin to the school's browsers? It's a very strange thing to 'give away' as an incentive.

brudgers6• 13 years ago

Microsoft is providing an institutional scaled solution to solve institutional scale problems. Students don't just search on school computers. They search from home, and often their school's website serves as an entry portal - eg. the student fires up the browser on their home computer with a link to a school or class web page. This provides a familiar starting point for continuing the lesson from home.

Why? Well that's a reasonably safe way for parents to allow computer use with less supervision. It's not quite a walled garden, but at least there's a shared interest among the adults.

In other words, Microsoft is helping school districts solve the problem of solving problems for parents - and without having to stipulate which browser people use at home or in the classroom - many mobile browsers do not allow plugins.

aroch• 13 years ago

But does it matter that much...Most schools are using Win7 (or, sadly, Vista) at this point and I would wager most set IE as the default browser. As most educational networked software targets IE. Many of the 'secured' browser based exam companies base their model around IE. And most schools don't allow you to change the default browser (at least in a way that persists across logins)

SilasX• 13 years ago

You haven't worked with a public school IT department, have you?

jlgreco2• 13 years ago

The (ahem) reputation that Bing's image search is starting to get is probably not going to help them with this initiative.

venomsnake• 13 years ago

Can you elaborate? People are turning for Bing for image searches for "research" purposes since google disabled the disabling of the content filter in the US?

jlgreco2• 13 years ago

Apparently people find Bing to be wildly better than Google when searching for porn. It is beginning to get something of a reputation for this.

Selfcommit4• 13 years ago

I can't help but feel that this is typical of Microsoft's sales/PR team.

Generate a false problem: "You don't wan't ads on your search engine do you!?"

Claim to have a solution: "You can use Bing! We don't have ads for students!"

As a systems admin for a large school district, I'm very comfortable stating that what Microsoft and Apple offer to education is a joke compared to Google's offerings.

Not even comparable products.

avsbst• 13 years ago

I'm curious, what do you feel "Google's offerings" are when it comes to education?

I'm asking because besides search, and the ability to search effectively, which I think is a very necessary skill for a modern education, I've never considered Google as company with educational offerings.

Selfcommit4• 13 years ago

Chromebooks solve 90% of the issues the average school district faces (How do I build collaborative works?(Docs/Drive) How do I ensure student files are protected? (Drive) How do I handle deployment? Imaging and servicing 3000-7000 windows computers requires a pretty substantial professional IT department in the business world - I've worked in several schools that handle that volume with teams ranging from 2 to 5.

So when Google comes along and says "Hey, for $199 here's a system that has an expected life of 2 years, minimal deployment overhead and integrated services that connect to your existing AD infrastructure"

It's a no brainer. Chromebooks will, without question, be dominant in schools everywhere in the next 2 years.

Simple1234• 13 years ago

On Yahoo news? Really?

Microsoft offers ad-free Bing for the classroom to battle Google

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