[xanadome]

well no matter what, i makes financial sense to ms and rim to partner up. its actually brilliant. why develop something when there is someone out there who will to help you develop in exchange for increase penetrance for bing? its a win win situation. and if you dont like, just use google. it might take a few steps more and some wasted time, but that shouldnt be a problem is you are that adamant about googles superiority

When Steve Ballmer unexpectedly appeared on the stage, I knew there must have been some evil deal made between M$ and RIM. On the surface, the desperate M$ is offering some sort of cash to RIM in exchange of Bing/map built into OS7. But why is M$ doing so. I believe it is essentially the same case as in Nokia. M$ wants a hardware vehicle to "carry" Windows Mobile 7. I hope M$ is not looking at that. But without that, just asking RIM to incorporate Bing and Map for money seems too strange.
I hope RIM is not unwittingly selling their soul to M$ without realizing it. Hope RIM made the inclusion of Bing an option. But they embedded it at the OS level?
A bad move.

[JayceX]

M$ wants a hardware vehicle to "carry" Windows Mobile 7.

Doubtful,

If Microsoft wanted RIM they have the ability to put in an offer that RIM couldn't refuse. They didn't for a very simple reason - they are focusing on a different market segment to RIM and the two won't really clash.

NOKIA tend to do really well in the developing markets, they ship a lot of cheap products, as these nations begin to get more and mroe capital to spend on products such as smart phones they will stick with NOKIA at first... This is what Microsoft wanted.

They are putting BING/Microsoft Maps on the product to weaken the market share of Google in this area. It is a good idea for Microsoft and RIM to do this as the Android platform is gonig to cause RIM much more headaches over the next 5 years then Apple will.

[GentlemanCool]

It'd be a real shame if Google wasn't even an option. What the device defaults to when it comes out of the box doesn't concern me (I think my 8900 was Yahoo?) but I would like the option to change it without third party software.