Microsoft discussed selling Bing to Apple as Google replacement

In court on Thursday, Microsoft business development executive Jon Tinter said that his company weighed making a multibillion-dollar investment in its relationship with Apple in 2016, an effort to outspend Google and make Bing the default option on Apple devices. — Photographer: Betty Laura Zapata/Bloomberg

Microsoft Corp. discussed selling its Bing search engine to Apple Inc. around 2020, a deal that would have replaced Google as the default option on the iPhone maker’s devices, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

Executives from Microsoft met with Apple’s services chief, Eddy Cue, who brokered the current search engine relationship with Alphabet Inc.’s Google, to discuss the possibility of acquiring Bing, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the situation was confidential. The talks were exploratory and never reached an advanced stage, they said.