This week at Microsoft: IE9, Bing, and hello Nokia!

It has been a gigantic week in the world of Microsoft, so large in fact that we can scarcely believe that so much was packed into a mere 7 days.

That said, this week’s roundup is truly only a taste of what we covered recently, so please read through the archives to catch up, and follow us on Twitter to stay abreast of everything that is yet to come. Without further ado, This week at Microsoft:

Bing Punches Google

In a shocking study, Bing swamped Google in terms of usability and user success. It wasn’t even close. Now, some people are objecting to the results and methods, but if you ever wondered if Bing was any damn good, the answer is yes.

What was measured was the search engine’s ‘success rate,’ or how often it provided a set of results and had a user click through out of the page. This metric measures relevance and the quality of results. Bing ‘succeeded’ some 81.54% of the time, while Google was a distant contender at a mere 65.68%.

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If you are like me, the last time you used Bing was never, but it may finally be time to give it a whirl.

IE9 Drops An RC

After much ado, the release candidate of Internet Explorer 9 has dropped, and you can use it.

Should you? If the first beta of Internet Explorer 9 was good, and it was, this new version is only a step up. IE9 is coming together as a strong, well nuanced product. While it might never convert Chrome users away from their speed, it surely is something that I would compare favorably to Firefox (version 4 or otherwise).

You can download the RC here.

Consumers Bored Of Windows Phone 7?

We took a look at the search trends around Windows Phone 7 and found a shocking decline. Sure, after the holiday season we were expecting some drop, but what we found was shocking.

After noting a 59% slide in search for the term ‘Windows Phone 7’ since December we said:

[C]onsumer interest in Windows Phone 7 is showing signs of [having] being puffed up by big Microsoft ad buys and two-for-one sales deals over the Christmas sales season.

Short term slump? Time will tell, but if the next news item has anything to say about it, Windows Phone 7 has a bright future yet.

Nokia Jumps Into The Deep End

Nokia is going Windows Phone 7 crazy, putting its own offerings on hold to focus on Microsoft’s new OS. The company has exclusive rights to adapt the OS a bit, but the big news is that WP7 is going big time in a big rush.

The deal will:

[S]ee Nokia “contribute its expertise on hardware design, language support, and help bring Windows Phone to a larger range of price points, market segments and geographies.”

Boom. If Microsoft wanted to pump WP7 with a gallon of steroids they could not have found a better way to do so. The haters are out and about, but as anyone who has ever used WP7 as their day-to-day phone OS can tell you, Nokia made a smart move.

That’s all for now folks, keep your eyes peeled, lots more coming.