On the 28th of May 2009, Microsoft finally soft launched its Bing search engine. Everyone has been waiting to see if Bing (formerly code-named Kumo) would have anything special to offer in the way of search since as we all know Google has been the leading search engine for ages, and no one is really complaining.

The folks from Redmond clearly figure that their software development chops give them the birthright to take Google head-on (again) after Windows Live Search failed to live up to its promise. The initial reviews of Bing are surprisingly good! It seems that Bing offers something new and unique in the way of search – Microsoft has actually managed to re-think internet search as we know it and it seems (really) that they may have built a better mouse trap (i.e. search engine), at least in some ways compared to Google.

The most important big idea in Bing is the manner in which it gives out its search results in a very contextual manner rather than flooding you with a list of unrelated or irrelevant listings. You can read the latest review on Bing VS Google here at Search Engine Land and user comments on Bing at Techcruch.

Everyone knows that Google is still the king of internet search but do we all remember other innovative search engines like Alta Vista and Hotbot that got way laid by Google? Could the same therefore happen to Google if Bing actually proves to be a better mouse trap, in time? Only time will tell. Meanwhile, you can play around with Bing here and see for yourself.