Bing.com: climbing every internet mountain? The jury is out

Earlier this week Microsoft launched their search engine Bing.com. Dubbed the 'Google killer' the software giant has high hopes of challenging Google's search engine market monopoly.

The question is, will it work? We invited people to get on the soapbox and tell us what they think. Let the digital diatribe begin...

"I quite like the image search and the never-ending page is cool. Layout is nice and clean, although the shopping search doesn’t seem integrated into main search. I think it’s important that other companies are still developing search. It’s easy for us to become too reliant on one company."
MD

"Sponsored search looks exactly like Google Ads now. I don't think it's a threat to Google. I like the preview content box though, when you hover to the right of the listing."
Lucie

"I like the idea of having sub categories on the left hand side, but visually it looks a bit busy. although Microsoft aren't known for keeping things clean, easy to use and pretty to look at are they?
Conor

"I think people stick to what they know. A friend of mine still uses Yahoo just because that's what she's always used. I don't see consumers changing with what they're comfortable with, although Google may lose some market share when Microsoft no doubt make Bing the default search engine on their browser."
Dimitris

"I'd say Bing is a poor man's Ask.com. Not a Google competitor."
Jason

"Takes more than a slightly pretty, web 2.0 derivative interface and some nicely ordered results to topple Google."
Nik

"I don't have a problem with Bing, but I have found myself asking a question: why have they bothered? Google dominates this 'clever search' market and I reckon it's quicker and more streamlined too. Microsoft would, in my mind, be better off spending their millions of research dollars on taking things in new directions, rather than trying to compete on a playing field that already has a benchmark brand calling the shots. I won't be 'Binging' - I'll keep 'Googling' thank you very much."
Ian H

"Is the idea that people start saying 'Bing it'?! I like that the related searches automatically come up on the right hand side, saves you sifting through the pages in google normally. I'm used to my iGoogle page though not sure I would switch to this just now... weird choice of background image for a search engine too."
Lisa

So is Bing.com a grand yet unnecessary reinvention of the wheel? A pointless challenge to compete with a household name that had the search market sewn up years ago? Or do you think Microsoft have cracked it by giving us more choice?

To help you make up your mind you can try Black Dog which compares the Google and Bing search results on a topic, side by side.

Tomorrow we'll be asking the experts what they think from an industry insider point of view, but in the meantime, tell us what you think in the comments.