Microsoft appears to be leveraging an Android feature to promote Bing

Microsoft seems to be attempting to get more people to start using Bing, according to a new addition to its Outlook app for Android.

As first reported by Android Police, users who have the Outlook app installed on their phones have started to see a new option to perform a Bing search when they highlight text. The tech giant is using the contextual text selection Android feature to do so.

The feature lets companies add in custom options to menus that appear when users highlight and select text. Microsoft is using the feature to add an option to the menu that says ‘Bing search’ when users highlight words.

The interesting part is that the option doesn’t just appear within the Outlook app, and is seen when selecting text system-wide.

This is an interesting move by Microsoft, especially since less than three percent of online searches are conducted through Bing, as noted by Stat Counter.

Even though Microsoft is just using an Android feature to promote one of its services, it seems a bit odd. Android Police notes that it would have made more sense to display the Bing search option if it coincided with the installation of the actual Bing search app.

However, since there’s no correlation, it seems a bit odd on Microsoft’s part to add it to users’ phones simply because they have the Outlook app installed.

Via: Android Police