Microsoft, trying to chip away at Google's monumental lead in the Internet search business, this morning confirmed plans to release an overhauled version of its Live Search engine under a new name. As widely expected, it's "Bing."

"Much more than an Internet search engine, Bing is a decision engine that will help you navigate through excess information and find the shortest distance to an informed decision," the company promises on a site promoting Bing.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is unveiling the service this morning at a Wall Street Journal technology conference in Carlsbad, Calif. Microsoft says the site, at www.bing.com, will roll out gradually over the next few days and be fully available on June 3.

Bing's left sidebar

"This is an important milestone for Microsoft as search is a critical business for us and Bing is a significant step forward in redefining search and expanding our share of the online advertising market," Ballmer wrote in an internal email message to Microsoft employees this morning. "But Bing is just the start. We know this is a journey that will require a long-term commitment to hard work and investment in innovation in order to be successful."

[Full text: Ballmer's internal email on 'Bing']

Many of Bing's features were tested by Microsoft employees and others under the code name "Kumo." They include a left-hand sidebar on the results page that offers clickable keywords related to a search term, to help people quickly refine their query.

In many cases, the search results will also be organized by category -- including travel, shopping, health, technology, autos, entertainment, and sports. Other features include "Quick Preview" windows that pop up when people hover over search results, providing more information about the page before people actually visit it, to help them decide whether it's what they're looking for.

Bing is the fourth name for Microsoft's search service since the company launched its homegrown search technology in January 2005. Part of the reason for Google's success is its widespread brand recognition among consumers -- to the point that its name has become synonymous with Internet searching.

From a branding perspective, it will be tough for Microsoft to come close to that.

"Rebranding Live Search to some other name isn't what's going to save them," said analyst Michael Gartenberg, vice president of strategy and analysis at Interpret LLC in New York. "This isn't about branding -- this is about fundamentally coming up with something that moves search into a different space."

Microsoft also is rebranding a number of related services. Virtual Earth will be Bing Maps for Enterprise; technology from Microsoft's Farecast acquisition will be part of Bing Travel, and the Live Search cashback search engine will be Bing cashback, part of Bing Shopping.

Despite years of effort, the company remains in third place in the market, with 8.2 percent of U.S. search queries in April, compared with more than 64 percent for Google, according to the comScore market research firm.

"They're doing everything they can, but the game may be over," said Matt Rosoff, an analyst at Directions on Microsoft, a Kirkland-based research firm. "I think it's just going to be really hard for them to claw back market share."

Internet searches are a big driver online advertising revenue, where Microsoft also trails Google and Yahoo. The Redmond company, which still gets most of its revenue from Windows and other software businesses, reported $521 million in online advertising revenue in its most recent quarter, compared with more than $5 billion reported by Google.

Early reviews of Bing are mixed.

Joe Tartakoff of PaidContent.org reports that Bing "certainly give users reasons to try out another option." However, he adds, "if I’m going to use one search engine more than another (i.e. make it the default in my browser), I want to be confident that I’m not missing out on results that I might find via another search engine. And after my week-long trial, I don’t have that confidence with Bing."

Says Search Engline Land's Greg Sterling: "My overall assessment is very positive. Kumo, now Bing, has performed well and I’ve been satisfied with the results. There haven’t been any significant deficiencies or missing links (so to speak). While there have been a few occasions where I’ve found Google results to be better, the substantial gap that existed between Google and Live Search is largely gone with Bing."