Google Nov. 8 released a search application for Windows Phone 7, which launched today on handsets from AT&T and T-Mobile.
AT&T is selling the Samsung Focus and HTC Surround for $199 with a two-year contract. T-Mobile is offering the HTC HD7 for $199.
Microsoft is betting on Windows Phone 7 to bail the company out of flagging smartphone market share.
Users have eschewed Windows Mobile smartphones for the popular Apple iPhone and devices based on Google’s Android operating system, both of which chomped market share from Microsoft and Research In Motion considerably in the past two years.
Google Mobile team programmers Jon Skeet and Nick Radicevic noted in a blog post that Google Search app for Windows Phone 7 “provides quick and convenient access to a rich set of search results,” from Google’s index of Web, images, local, news and other results.
For example, users will be able to access Google Suggest to see suggested search queries in the app search bar, repeat a query from search history and receive more relevant results by letting WP7 access users’ location information.
Users may grab the Google Search app free for all Windows Phone 7 devices and languages from Windows Mobile Marketplace.
The app can’t be seen by Microsoft as anything but a slap in the face, as the company has all but made it a mandate for phone carriers that its Bing search engine be deeply integrated on Windows Phone 7.
As an answer, the Bing team published its own blog post about what users can do with Bing on WP7 here.
Google’s U.S. search share is 66 percent on the desktop, with Bing commanding about 12 percent.
However, it is the consensus that Google’s search share on smartphones is more like 95 percent or higher. Chitika said in October that Google’s search share on the iPhone is 97 percent.
It will be interesting to watch whether users who purchase Windows Phone 7 leverage Bing or download Google’s Search app for Windows Phone 7.