Bing Partners with Wolfram Alpha, will be better than Google

The teams behind Microsoft's Bing and Wolfram Alpha announced today they have teamed up to enhance Bing's search results across topics like nutrition, health, and advanced mathematics. Financial terms weren't given, but the partnership gives Bing users access to Wolfram Alpha's advanced algorithms and curated data. The move fits with Bing's goal of helping people make decisions more efficiently. Led by Stephen Wolfram, the renowned physicist and mathematician, Wolfram Alpha debuted in May with the goal of making "all systematic knowledge immediately computable by anyone."

Like the ringing sound it is supposed to evoke, Bing has resonated with many users and advertisers. Microsoft’s new search engine, first introduced in May, has made modest, but steady gains in market share against Google and Yahoo.

Microsoft is now moving quickly to try cement, and perhaps, enhance those gains with a string of small innovations.

On Wednesday, the company said it will begin to integrate some results from Wolfram Alpha, a powerful service that can answer a broad range of questions. The limited collaboration will bring certain results, like nutritional information and mathematical calculations, from Wolfram Alpha to Bing.

For instance, when users type a food item like “chicken breast” into Bing, the results will include a box showing the nutritional information for it. Bing users will also be able to have access to a body-mass index calculator or to plot certain formulas on a graph.
Over the next few weeks, Bing will also add a handful of other features and revamp existing ones in what Microsoft calls a “rolling update.” They include localized results for weather and events, a revamped shopping section and an updated preview feature, which lets users see a snapshot of a Web page directly on the search results page. A video describing each of the features is available here.