Microsoft builds Bing Search App for Android

In case you like Google (GOOG) for its AndroidOS but hate their search engine, Microsoft (MSFT) has built a Bing Search Engine.    For now, like Skype, it is only available on Verizon’s Android phones.

The Bing app has some interesting features that may or may not grab some customers:

• The app homepage features the Bing image of the day, flickable back seven days
• The image search feature has endless scrolling results
• Voice Search for ” relevant answers for things like movies, stock quotes, flight status and local listings”
• It also has a Maps app built in.

That last feature is interesting for me because it may provide different results than Google’s Maps which are sometimes off or questionable.  In fact, one could argue that it is good to have a Google alternative in all of the above areas.

On the Microsoft side, perhaps this is their hedge against Windows Mobile 7 failure.  The app is big enough to be the starting point to an OS inside an OS with all of the features listed above.

It will be interesting to see how Microsoft’s Google app develops and whether it comes to the general Android Market or stays a Verizon ‘exclusive’.