Microsoft launches Bing Booster program for startups that want to use Bing | Hacker News Reader

Microsoft launches Bing Booster program for startups that want to use Bing

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16 pointsflardinois6 comments

I occasionally use the Bing search and spelling APIs (I wrote a Ruby example: http://markwatson.com/blog/2009/06/ruby-client-for-search-an...) but I would hesitate to build a business dependent on a 3rd party set of APIs.

A long time ago, I relied on Google's public search API and when it was cancelled I started using Bing, but nothing that I depend on.

I second that the name "bing" is unfortunate. It sounds Chinese but the only words pronounced bing in Chinese are things like "being sick", "sad", or "nightmare"; it's not a good name.

All they really need to do is changing that awful name. BING.. i mean can u choose a more obvious name indicating that you dont understand aesthetics and are only off for the market share? Same for Windows fcking Vista. The only reason I didnt even try it was that name. It's just too emberassing, has no spirit at all and sounds like some scumbag from the marketingteam ridiculed all the hopes of the developers. Longhorn used to be so much better. If they care about it, all they have to do is to show a little more enthusiasm, or simply fire their marketing advisors.

at least they learned from that experience with Vista and didnt chose a name at all for Windows 7 (although they messed up the internal version number).

They didn't mess up the internal version number. It was done for software compatibility reasons.

Windows 2000 code was 5.0 and then we shipped Windows XP as 5.1, even though it was a major release we didn't' want to change code version numbers to maximize application compatibility.

That brings us to Windows Vista, which is 6.0. So we see Windows 7 as our next logical significant release and 7th in the family of Windows releases.

We learned a lot about using 5.1 for XP and how that helped developers with version checking for API compatibility. We also had the lesson reinforced when we applied the version number in the Windows Vista code as Windows 6.0-- that changing basic version numbers can cause application compatibility issues.

So we decided to ship the Windows 7 code as Windows 6.1 - which is what you will see in the actual version of the product in cmd.exe or computer properties.

http://windowsteamblog.com/windows/archive/b/windowsvista/ar...

I actually think Vista was a really good name - it both plays off of the "Windows" brand (a vista is what you see through the window) and expresses some of the goals of the release (visual appeal, the idea of being connected to a vast world). It ended up being tarnished by problems people had with the product and the ecosystem surrounding it, but that's not the fault of the name.

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