Google Puts Search On Windows Phone 7

Google on 8 November released a search application for Windows Phone 7, available on handsets such as the Samsung Focus and HTC Surround.

Microsoft is betting on Windows Phone 7 to bail the company out of flagging smartphone market share.

Mobile search competition

Users have eschewed Windows Mobile smartphones for the popular Apple iPhone and devices based based on Google’s Android operating system, both of which chomped market share from Microsoft and RIM considerably in the past two years.

Google Mobile team programmers Jon Skeet and Nick Radicevic noted in a blog post Google Search app for Windows Phone 7 “provides quick and convenient access to a rich set of search results”, from Google’s index of web, images, local, news, and other results.

For example, users will be able to access Google Suggest to see suggested search queries in the app search bar, repeat a query from search history, and receive more relevant results by letting WP7 access users’ location info.

Users may grab the Google Search app free for all Windows Phone 7 devices and languages from Windows Mobile Marketplace.

The app can’t be seen by Microsoft as anything but a slap in the face, as the company has all but made it a mandate for phone carriers that its Bing search engine be deeply integrated on Windows Phone 7.

Bing response

As an answer, the Bing team published its own blog post about what users can do with Bing on WP7 here.

Google’s US search share is 66 percent on the desktop, with Bing commanding about 12 percent.

However, it is the consensus that Google’s search share on smartphones is more like 95 percent or higher. Chitika said in October, Google’s search share on the iPhone is 97 percent.