So what does this mean for businesses that rely on search results for their business? Here's a couple possible outcomes.
Nothing.
This partnership may not have any effect at all on those that advertise on the web or rely on search results for business. While Bing has shown some interest and the launch has created some buzz, most think its just buzz and will pass. Google is the leader by a vast margin because it works well and people are resistant to change if there's no good reason to change and what they use today (Google) works reasonably well.
Bing-ahoo continues to lose market share.
No one has been able to get and keep any additional share from Google in a long time. Many believe that this 'repackaging' will do little more than change the names on the pie graph while at the same time Google will retain the largest piece of that pie.
Google is toppled.
This is the most unlikely case, but as more and more people come to rely on the Big G for more than search (Google Voice, Google Docs, Gmail, Google Calendar, etc.) Google opens itself up to greater losses. Imagine what would happen if Google was hacked or lsot critical segments of its infrastructure. Or, worse yet, they violated their 'do no evil' mission. That's the kind of thing that changes the seats around the dinner table.
The 'Nothing' scenario is what I believe to be most likely. In the end, I've got to believe that SEM will remain and good content will still rule the search engine relevance game.
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