UPDATED · News · 3 May 2011 · MTW Editorial Team
Steve Ballmer took everybody by surprised a few minutes ago when he appeared on stage next to Rim’s CEO Mike Lizaridis during the BlackBerry World 2011 conference keynote. What was he there for? To announce that Bing will be the default search engine and on all future BlackBerry devices alongside Bing Maps which will be the default mapping services on the Canadian company’s handsets Update: and the PlayBook tablet. Microsoft’s services will be tightly integrated into the Blackberry OS according to Ballmer. The war for mobile search and locations services has just begun.
Instead of going against Rim, Microsoft has apparently decided to side with them in the quest to topple Apple and Android in the mobile market. Microsoft will also offer BES services to its consumer and other EAS related services to BB users. The Nokia Partnership and subsequent transfer of Navteq/Ovi Maps assets and IP is now also going to be found on Blackberry phones now thanks to this new partnership.
Update: Here‘s the official word from Microsoft
Upfate2: Here’s a video of Microsoft’s Blaise Aguera demonstrating the newly announced Bing integration in BlacBerry OS:
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