For starters, we built the entire Bing stack from scratch. No OSS. No common platforms like the JVM. Nothing like that. We started from nothing, and invented the server infrastructure, the data pipeline, the runtime that would support the site, the ML tools, everything.
Wasn't much of the Bing stack built off Powerset, whose core technology was licensed from Xerox PARC?
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/microsofts-bing-powersets-role...