The Ballmer 70/15/15 Challenge

“I would issue you all a kind of challenge to try any search you want on Bing and Google,” Ballmer said, explaining that 70% of the time, there won’t be any difference in the results, that 15% of the time, Bing will be better and 15% of the time, Google will be better.

Now, if Ballmer had said that maybe 20% of the time Bing would be better, that would have given it perhaps some advantage over Google. But saying your product is exactly the same as someone else’s isn’t a real incentive, much less a ringing endorsement.

Ballmer did allude to there being things beyond the search results, such user interface differences. But he didn’t stress these as huge, major reasons to change.

Bing: “Getting Stronger”

Asked how Bing is doing versus three years ago, when Battelle last spoke with Ballmer at Web 2.0 about the service, Ballmer said “it’s getting stronger every day” and noted that Bing’s share had risen from 7% to 15%, which was “a nice rise.”

“We went from the number three player to the number two player,” Ballmer continued, explaining that when Bing’s share is combined with that of Yahoo, which Bing provides with results, the two have a 25% to 30% share of the search market in the US.

Ballmer added that beyond market share, the Microsoft-Yahoo alliance is important for “providing enough data to improve the product.”

Ballmer On Yahoo

Was Ballmer happy the plans for Microsoft to buy Yahoo in 2008 for $44-45 billion didn’t go through? “Times change, times change,” he laughed, adding later, “You get lucky sometimes.”

Ballmer went on to say that Yahoo was a great partner, with a huge audience and lots of good things about it, which is why the alliance with Yahoo is important.

Indeed, so important that Microsoft is providing revenue guarantees for an additional year than was originally agreed, to make up for poor monetization that’s plagued the partnership, news that came out during Yahoo’s earning call a few hours before Ballmer’s talk.

No Microsoft+ Coming

In other questions, Ballmer declined to say if Microsoft would launch a social network to rival the likes of Facebook, instead pointing to things like Xbox Live and Windows Live as examples of how Microsoft has “picked its play” in the social space.

Siri Nice; Android Phones Are For Computer Scientists

As for mobile, Ballmer said “there’s certainly some nice things Apple has done with Siri” in terms of its voice recognition and lookup but suggested that Windows Phone and Bing would build on Microsoft’s long-standing previous work in the space and be better.

On Google and mobile, Ballmer got perhaps his biggest laugh of the interview:

“You don’t need to be a computer scientist to use a Windows Phone, but I think you do to use an Android phone.”

Xbox did very well. However consumer PC demand was lukewarm and Windows revenue decreased by 2 percent for the year ended June 30. Overall, the company reported gross revenues of $69.94 billion for the full fiscal year, a 12 percent increase from a year ago.

Online services revenues grew to $662 million but the division posted a $728 million loss for the quarter. Microsoft said the following in its release about search and online advertising:

Search revenue grew due to increased volumes reflecting general market growth, relative share gains in the U.S, and our Yahoo! alliance, offset in part by decreased revenue per search primarily related to challenges associated with optimizing the adCenter platform for the new mix and volume of traffic from the combined Yahoo! and Bing properties. As of June 30, 2011, according to third-party sources, Bing organic U.S. market share grew over 31% to approximately 14%, while Bing-powered U.S. market share, including Yahoo! properties, was approximately 27%.

The company attributed its operating loss to “higher cost of revenue  . . .  driven by costs associated with the Yahoo! search agreement and increased traffic acquisition costs.” Thus Microsoft points the finger back at Yahoo, just as Yahoo pointed the finger in its release at Microsoft.

The non-profit uses a multi-pronged methodology to determine an “Ethical Quotient” for nominated companies. Those that make the list are all considered “ethical.” There’s no further ranking or hierarchy. There were 110 total companies to make the list this year. EI has produced the list since 2007.

More than 3,000 companies were nominated for this year’s list and the winners selected from more than 100 countries in 36 industries. The following are the criteria that EI uses to determine it’s “EQ” score:

• Ethics and Compliance Program (30%)
• Reputation, Leadership and Innovation (30%)
• Governance (15%)
• Corporate Citizenship and Responsibility (25%)

Here are some of the winners from various industry categories:

Apparel:

• Adidas
• Comme Il Faut
• Gap
• Patagonia
• Timberland

Automotive:

• Cummins
• Denso
• Ford Motor Company
• Johnson Controls

Software/Internet:

• Adobe
• eBay
• Microsoft
• Salesforce.com
• Zappos

Specialty Retail:

• Best Buy Co.
• Hennes & Mauritz
• Sonae
• Target
• Ten Thousand Villages

EI’s list is one measure of “ethics” and some of the companies on the list have been dinged in other surveys or lists. For example, Ford was one of the companies near the top of the newly released “Customer Complaint Index“:

Politics doesn’t appear to play into EI’s criteria, although ideology would potentially manifest in corporate policy. But for some people ethics and corporate political behavior are connected. For example, Best Buy and Target, two on the EI specialty retail list above, have given money to right-wing causes and politicians that many in the political center and on the left would consider to be “unethical.”

EI contends that ethical companies do better financially than unethical companies and asserts that those companies, in the aggregate, on its list outperform the S&P 500 overall:

The full list can be found at Forbes on here on the EI site.

The company is on track to lose $2 billion for the year in that division, though ad revenues are up 23 percent.

There was very little discussion of search in particular or Windows Phones except for the following comments made on the earnings call by CFO Peter Klein.

On search:

Well, we’re extremely focused on doing what we need to do to be successful in that business. And we’ve been laser beam focused on what that is. One is growing our Search share and the other is growing our revenue per search. And we continue to grow our share every quarter. We’re going to continue to focus on that. We’re going to do a lot of things, a lot of the same things that we’re doing to that. Bill talked about some of the product enhancements. I think that’s probably the more important thing we can do to really differentiate the product experience because I think that’s really what drives usage and share in Search. And then of course, on the revenue per search side, the Yahoo! integration is the key component of that, and we’re excited to move forward in that. But really on the share side, I mean, we’ll do interesting marketing things like we have been doing. But I think what I’m really get excited about is product enhancement with some of the partnerships we’ve got there.

On Windows Phones:

Also during the quarter, we launched Windows Phone 7, which is now on nine devices with 60 operators in 30 markets. We said all along that our first priority was to make a phone people love, and to that end, we’re pleased with the initial response. Customer satisfaction data indicates 93% of customers worldwide are happy with the product, and we’re also seeing strong developer engagement. While we’re encouraged by the early progress, we realize we still have a lot of work ahead of us, and we remain focused and committed to the long-term success of Windows Phone 7 . . .

Windows Phone 7 is off to a solid start as handset manufacturers purchased over 2 million licenses in the quarter. Windows Phone 7 is making progress in its early days as user satisfaction is extremely high, and developer momentum has continued to build to now over 24,000 registered developers. As we announced at CES, we are looking forward to adding more features including support for CDMA.

The two products have a good deal in common in that both are underdogs (especially Windows Phones) and both represent long-term strategic bets for the company. The “over 2 million licenses” that Microsoft sold does not mean that over two million handsets were actually sold to consumers. However the customer satisfaction numbers cited must be encouraging.

The question of the impact of tablets (read: iPad) on PC sales was largely dismissed.

Related posts:

• Yahoo Beats Expectations with Weak $1.5B Revenues, But Display Up 17 Percent
• Google’s $8B Earnings Overshadowed By Leadership Change

Below, my live blogging of Ballmer’s talk at CES in Las Vegas.

Ballmer has arrived. Windows Phone 7, Kinect, other products launched last year, big success, “a year like no other.” Thanks the over 1 billion customers around the world.

Xbox & Kinect

Wins last year came from big bets Microsoft placed on technology. TV, computers and mobile phones are most important devices. Decade ago, took bold step with Xbox, smart device that transported 10s of millions of people into world of Halo and other games.

Then launch of Xbox Live that transformed things with gaming in the cloud [except no one called it the cloud then].

Entertainment beyond gaming, so expanded Xbox Live to including movies, TV, Facebook and more. And just over two months ago, biggest step was launching Kinect to open entertainment to the entire family. With Kinect, you are the controller. There’s nothing else like it in the world. Xbox Live, Xbox 360 and Kinect made last year biggest ever for Xbox.

Now we’re getting a video of Xbox stuff. Xbox does rock. I own, should I confess this? Three — so we can do multiplayer gaming all over the house. I’m sad. But it’s fun.

Millions are listening to music, watching movies and doing things with Kinect. Ron Forbes from entertainment division now to demo some things. Ron’s showing Zune, which has movies as well as music. Oh, yeah, I forgot about the Zune marketplace. Now he’s talking saying “Xbox suggest a movie” and getting previews of featured movies. Now trailer of Inception is showing and then he swipes his hand in the sair to select another movie. OK, this all seems cool if it really worked while I was sitting on my couch, I suppose.

Now saying “Xbox resume” to get back to a movie he was watching already, one of the Twilight flicks. “It’s simple. It’s natural. It’s effortless” to control movies with Xbox, and no need to remember where the controller is.

Now we’re listening to music, the Tron soundtrack, saying “next” to move to other songs. “This is what millions of people are discovering, a new world of controller free entertainment.” [But really? I though they were mainly playing games?]

Netflix & Hulu Plus Get Kinect Support

How about using Netflix. Two years ago, Xbox first console to bring Netflix to the living room. Now in a few months, Netflix will be controllable through Kinect. Also Hulu Plus service will be coming later this spring.

Now talking about sports content. I’m zoning out, because I’m pretty lame about sports. Sorry. Showing Rose Bowl game going on, how he can make his picks live and trash talk his sister while things are going.

Now is avatar is doing stuff to see what his friends think will win in a particular game. There’s a friends leaderboard for college bowl games. Only the beginning of exclusive partnership with ESPN.

All your entertainment, all on Xbox Live, with magic of Kinect. And he’s done.

“Avatar Kinect” Coming

Ballmer we will make entertainment for interactive, social and fun [I think] than ever before. Oh, looking up, it’s not Ballmer. It him talking on the Xbox as an avatar, I think using Kinect to capture his facial expressions.

Now a short video showing a bunch of people talking to their Kinects and their avatars doing what they are doing in real life. This is pretty cool. Guess I’d better get a Kinect. I pretty much though it was down to being useful for only certain games.

All this is called “Avatar Kinect” and coming in spring for all Xbox Live gold members.

Lots of numbers on Kinect selling like nuts, 8 million sensors when only 5 million planned for, Xbox itself with lots of record setting. Expect more innovation in 2011. [Meanwhile over at Google, they thinking damn, maybe we'd better rush some games via the Android Market into Google TV]

Windows Phone 7

Talking using Windows Phone 7 [hate that name] that gives you Xbox Live on the go. [I do want to see this. Really, Call Of Duty: Black Ops, on my phone? Fable is coming, Fable coin golf is one game.

Now a video of more games coming to Windows Phone 7. Centipede. Great, I have that on like 6 platforms now. Monopoly. Zombie Attack! My kids will love that. The Sims 3. Need For Speed Undercover.

Windows Phone 7 is dramatically different from other phones. Ah, we're shifting to Windows Phone 7 now, clearly. Could they simplify task and make phone easy to use?

Pulled together best of Office, Windows Live, Bing to build a great phone and deliver. Reaction to product has been great. 9 phones across 60 operators in 30 countries. Recently added Kindle, BofA app, have over 5,500 applications for customers. Customers typically get access to 100 new apps every 24 hours, and more than half download a new app every day.

Job number one is showing the new phone to people. Once people see the phone, the fall in love with it. Customers tell them just that. Nine out of every 10 customers at AT&T say they'd recommend the product to others.

We'll continue to invest in it aggressively in the future. Next few months, series of updates to come. Addition of copy and paste and better task switching. Then will finish release to make phone available on Spring and Verizon in second half [think he said] of 2011.

7 Things About Windows Phone 7

Liz Sloan from Windows Phone team now up to do some demoing. Liz has two kids, and they keep her busy, and the phone is great with that.

1) Camera, see something you want to shoot, but by time you get the app gone, the moment is gone. Microsoft set out to solve that. Every Windows Phone 7 has a dedicated camera button, which works even if screen is locked. Press and hold and take the picture. That’s pretty clever, actually. Then you can share it, of course. Pocket to picture to post in a few seconds.

2) Glance and Go, “lock” screen and “start” screens both give you a rundown on key things. Start screen has live tiles that change, say your friends update status, you can see that on the tile [the tiles still kind of freak me out, but I haven't played much with it].

3) Voice Search. She says “in n out burger.” there are the results coming up from bing, shows those closest to her and can then see what else is nearby where she wants to go.

4) Bing is part of the phone. Dedicated search button. Instant answers from Bing provide direct answers without having to click to sites.

5) Hubs which organize things. Going into Office, and how she can keep notes in OneNote and sync across PC and the web. Any note can be pinned to the start screen.

6) Apps: BofA, Fandango, Amazon.com are some of them. She’s copying a note she made to buy an Xbox and pasting into the Amazon app [I thought there was no copy and paste yet].

7) Now showing games, shouting out a variety of them, saying next update will make games play even faster.

Windows 7

Steve’s back. When I get a chance to show people a Windows Phone, the feedback I get is very gratifying. Told it’s snappy, easy to use, beautiful looking. But now time to talk about the Windows PC. Going to revisit some announcements earlier today, now time for context.

Last year, at CES, talked about how Windows 7 was getting a good reception. IE9 beta used by 20 million people. Windows Live used by 500 million users. Hotmail deeply integrates Microsoft Office [I need to get back and try that].  Windows Live Messenger connects to Facebook, one of the most used apps on Facebook.

Wide range of form factors for Windows 7 machines. Inviting Mike Angelo from Windows team to show some of the new Windows 7 PCs that are coming.

Windows 7 From Convertible Laptops To Tablets

Here’s Mike. First machine, Intel’s new second generation of core processors, multicore CPU and GPU on same chip, blah blah all super fast and get 6 hours of live. Now showing a performance demo, IE9 using GPU to accelerate web browsing, showing a planetary simulation.

Here’s another multicore CPU from AMD, high performance PC in a small form factor. Just changing processor nearly doubled battery life to 9 hours. Showing 250 fish swimming fast in a virtual tank to demo the graphics processing.

Now showing Acer’s dual sreen laptop. Oh, that looks cool, virtual keyboard or you can slide things from one screen to the other.

Here’s a Samsung that folds into a tablet. That’s what I want my Macbook Air to do.

Now showing a Asus tablet PC, which you can use via touch or by using a stylus using “Ink” is you can write or color to highlight.

Microsoft Surface 2

Extreme integration, look at new version of Microsoft Surface. PC is 4′ thin, with biggest piece of Gorilla glass bonded to an LCD. PixelSense, infrared sensors let the PC see what’s on a piece of paper.

You can also due Surface in kiosks now, rather than just on tables. But tables are tough, you can drop beer bottles on them. Now back to kiosk, showing how the Royal Bank Of Canada [I think] sends flyers to customers, they can then bring those in, hold them up to a kiosk screen and have that red.

You’re going to see Surface PC in a lot of cool places in the future.

Windows On A Chip

Steve’s back. Only imagination limits what can be done with Windows PCs. Hang them on a wall. Draw on them. Do all types of things.

Next version of Windows will support being on chips from AMD, Intel and ARM. Made announcement today to let all partners work together to build in innovation.

The support for chips will make it easier to do things like longer battery life, have always on machines. Windows has breadth and depth and flexibility to deliver innovation.

Now Mike is back to demo Windows Support System on Chip (SoC)

Windows Everywhere!

Steve is back. Whatever device you use, Windows will be there. 2010 was incredible year for Xbox, Windows and Windows Phone. Xbox is no longer a gaming device but hub for entertainment. Windows Phone 7 is best new phone out there. Windows PCs will continue to adapt and evolve. Support for System On A Chip means Windows will be everywhere without compromise.

Era of new technology for consumers, Windows from the small screen to the big screen (though Xbox really isn’t Windows).

Thanks everyone, and that’s it.

Some Closing Thoughts

Looking for Bing news? Last year, Bing got a lot of keynote time (and Search Engine Land’s logo even got a cameo). This year, Bing was only mentioned in passing, briefly as part of Windows Phone 7. Not mentioned was a deal withToyota: Bing Scores First In-Car Search Deal With Toyota has more about that.

Still, it’s notable that by having its own search engine, Microsoft gets a pay-off that Apple lacks — it can use its own search engine on its mobile device. Apple needs to outsource to companies that are both competitive to it, either Google or Bing (or Bing-powered Yahoo).

Another striking thing for me is how Xbox, when it gains Hulu Plus support, because much more competitive in the internet-to-TV space. Here’s an area that Google hoped to dominate with its Google TV. Instead, its been the simpler platforms like Roku or Apple TV that I think are gaining more consumer acceptance.

Xbox may be a real rival — but how about search? Will Bing come into it? And what about the rumored Microsoft TV box? Nothing was said about this. If it materializes, will it compete against Xbox?

For more about internet-to-TV devices, see my post from earlier today, Internet-To-TV Players Compared: Roku, Apple TV, Boxee & Google TV.

For more about the keynote, including other live blogging accounts and the inevitable subject-specific stories that will come out of it, see this round-up from Techmeme.

I complied a list of pictures, including a video of how the Google Doodle works. Here it is:

Here is a static version:

The other search engines also has some neat logos for the special day:

Yahoo’s animated logo:

Yahoo’s static logo:

Bing:

Ask.com:

DogPile:

Search Engine Roundtable:

Happy July 4th everyone!

Amazon and eBay are two examples of companies with strong revenues and income where investors sold off the stock. And so is Microsoft.

Redmond reported “record [fiscal] third-quarter revenue of $14.50 billion” with a 35% increase in net income. Investors responded by promptly selling Microsoft shares. Its stock fell about 4.5 percent in after-hours trading.

Microsoft’s revenue and income gains were driven largely by the success of Windows 7. Online ad revenue, the company said, grew 19 percent but the online services division, which houses Bing and advertising, saw a larger loss vs. last year: $713 million vs. $411 million.

During the earnings call Microsoft touted Bing’s growth and the approval of the Yahoo search merger. Bill Koefoed, GM Investor Relations, said the following:

Online advertising revenue grew 19%, primarily driven by search, which outperforms the market. We continue to be enthused with Bing’s momentum, which includes 10 consecutive months of share gains in the U.S. We ended the quarter with U.S. query share of 11.7%, according to comScore, 340 basis points higher than when we launched Bing last May.

The Yahoo search partnership implementation is underway and we’re working toward U.S. completion by the end of this calendar year and global completion by early calendar year 2012.

After Bing starts to see the benefit of Yahoo search traffic in 2011, we’ll see if that boosts online revenues in a meaningful way. In addition the release later this year of Windows (7) Phones will be significant in terms of Microsoft’s mobile outlook, which could uplift Bing if the phones are successful. Separately the KIN social networking phones could also positively affect Bing if they succeed as well.

Bing has a broader strategy and its success in mobile and off the desktop is not tied entirely to the success of Microsoft powered devices.

Google claimed that Microsoft was directly or indirectly responsible for the anti-trust complaints recently filed in individual European countries and with the EC:

Given that these complaints will generate interest in the media, we wanted to provide some background to them. First, search. Foundem – a member of an organization called ICOMP which is funded partly by Microsoft – argues that our algorithms demote their site in our results because they are a vertical search engine and so a direct competitor to Google. ejustice.fr’s complaint seems to echo these concerns . . .

Regarding Ciao!, they were a long-time AdSense partner of Google’s, with whom we always had a good relationship. However, after Microsoft acquired Ciao! in 2008 (renaming it Ciao! from Bing) we started receiving complaints about our standard terms and conditions. They initially took their case to the German competition authority, but it now has been transferred to Brussels.

Microsoft fires back, telling Google to stop bellyaching and that it’s quite normal for competitors to be involved in such complaints. It also calls out what it perceives to be Google hypocrisy here:

Google’s public response to this growing regulatory concern has been to point elsewhere—at Microsoft. Google is telling reporters that antitrust concerns about search are not real because some of the complaints come from one of its last remaining search competitors.

Google hasn’t been shy about raising antitrust concerns about Microsoft in the last few years, either.) This is the way that competition law agencies function: They look to competitors in the first instance to understand how particular markets operate, the practices of dominant firms and the competitive significance of those practices.

Microsoft acknowledges that it’s been trying to influence the relevant regulators with its opinions of Google:

Over the past few months Microsoft, too, has met with the DOJ and the European Commission. The subject of our meetings has been the competition law review, now completed, of the search partnership between Yahoo! and Microsoft. As you might expect, the competition officials asked us a lot of questions about competition with Google—since that is the focus of the partnership. We told them what we know about how Google is doing business.

Microsoft goes on to complain of “Google business practices that tend to lock in publishers and advertisers and make it harder for Microsoft to gain search volume.”

What these regulators and competition authorities need to determine is whether Google is doing anything affirmative or specifically to harm competition or competitors. Has Google specifically sought to prevent this or that competitor from ranking in search results or otherwise “punished” particular companies as these complaints explicitly allege. Beyond this, the “lock in” that Microsoft complains of is belied to some degree by the company’s own aggressive toolbar and “default search” deals with major PC makers such as HP and carriers such as Verizon.

Microsoft does provide a concrete discussion of how Google Book Search may well run afoul of anti-trust rules, but the company doesn’t further elaborate this “lock in” claim.

Microsoft is gaining search volume and reach through its now approved search deal with Yahoo. If Google weren’t dominant — if search share were more evenly distributed — that deal would never have been approved because it effectively removes a competitor (Yahoo) from the market, with all the related concerns about pricing and so on. Those same arguments were made effectively against Google’s earlier but aborted search-ads deal with Yahoo.

The MicroHoo search deal is being permitted because of Google’s market share, to enable more competition. In other words, by making the search market less competitive, in the form of the Microsoft-Yahoo combination, it becomes, paradoxically, more competitive. There’s truth in this argument, as a practical matter, because search is a game of scale, but there’s equally something cockeyed about it from an abstract legal standpoint.

Google has grown to this position of dominance because it has been the best and most effective search engine in the market. Competitors would undoubtedly disagree but consumers have voted. Craigslist is far from the most functional online classifieds marketplace, but consumers continue to use it. In other words, consumers may act in the market in ways that are “irrational” or defy expectations in some cases. But in Google’s case consumers have made their choice freely without coercion or manipulation.

Google has also created other products that people use and which themselves reinforce Google’s search brand and usage. There’s nothing inherently anti-competitive about putting a search box in GMail or on the home-screen of an Android handset. Microsoft has, until Bing, failed to gain traction in search because its product was, frankly, inferior. Bing is a strong offering and that has shown itself in market share gains, which have partly harmed its partner Yahoo.

It may be quite legitimate as a “policy matter,” however, to argue that once a single company reaches market share percentage or penetration level X regulatory bodies should step in to ensure that the market isn’t distorted by that dominance and that the company in question doesn’t abuse its position going forward. Once attained, power is very tempting to wield.

But that’s a different discussion than asserting company X (here Google) has ascended to its position or is maintaining its dominance through illegal means.

Today we sent a letter to the Article 29 Working Party notifying them of our intention to make a change to Bing’s data retention policy.

Specifically, we are reducing the amount of time we store IP addresses from searchers to 6 months.  Currently we keep that information for 18 months before we delete it.  Generally, when Bing receives search data we do a few things: first, we take steps to separate your account information (such as email or phone number) from other information (what the query was, for example). Then, after 18 months we take the additional step of deleting the IP address and any other cross session IDs associated with the query. Under the new policy, we will continue to take all the steps we applied previously – but now we will remove the IP address completely at 6 months, instead of 18 months.

Google and Yahoo have yet to agree to this, but Microsoft’s move puts pressure on them to do so. Google has argued in the past that it needs to store user date to improve the quality of search:

Back in March 2007, Google became the first leading search engine to announce a policy to anonymize our search server logs in the interests of privacy. And many others in the industry quickly followed our lead. Although that was good for privacy, it was a difficult decision because the routine server log data we collect has always been a critical ingredient of innovation. We have published a series of blog posts explaining how we use logs data for the benefit of our users: to make improvements to search quality, improve security, fight fraud and reduce spam.

Currently Google “anonymizes” IP addresses on its server logs after nine months. Again, what Microsoft is agreeing to do is not just make anonymous but completely delete IP addresses after six months.

Google will likely have to match Microsoft’s position and will have difficulty continuing to argue that IP data retention for more than six months is necessary for any purpose. Yahoo may, upon implementation of the Microsoft-Yahoo Search deal, automatically be opted in to this via Microsoft’s compliance.

Here are previous posts on this subject:

• Google Halves Data Retention Time Against Backdrop Of EU Pressure, US Regulatory Scrutiny
• European Groups Says Search Engines Must Delete Search Data Within Six Months
• Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, & Other Search Engines Must Comply With EU Privacy Rules
• Microsoft To Anonymize Log Data; Calls For Industry Standards Along With Ask.com
• EU Group May Serve Google With Letter Over Data Retention Policies
• European Union Questions Google’s Data Retention Policy

Ballmer spent some time talking about Bing and Bing Maps, as well as providing a demo of the latter and the new Street Side capability.

Ballmer announced that Bing would become the default search engine and MSN the default homepage on HP computers in 42 countries. This is essentially a three-year extension and expansion of a pre-existing deal with HP, the world’s largest PC maker. Here’s what’s different, according to Microsoft:

• The old deal was 12 months the new deal is three years.
• Bing and the MSN Homepage will be on more models of HP PCs than in the previous deal
• Our products will be on both consumer and commercial PC models
• The prior deal included US and Canada.  The new deal includes the MSN homepage, Bing search default and Bing toolbar much more broadly in 42 countries

Among other things, Ballmer also showed off a small “slate” computer from HP (a version of what had been rumored but not the “courier”). Surprisingly, given how hot the subject is, there was limited discussion of mobile during the keynote. However, there was a brief appearance by the HTC HD2, which apparently will be running Windows Mobile 7.

PaidContent has some additional coverage. And you can watch the entire keynote, if you have a little more than an hour to spare, here.