Microsoft Outlook for Android gets Bing search shortcut in Android's long-press context menu

Despite losing the search war to Google, Microsoft keeps pushing its search engine, Bing, whenever and wherever it gets the opportunity as the search engine is still an important product for the company for various reasons. Recently, in another attempt to promote Bing, Microsoft has quietly added the ability to perform Bing search in Outlook app on Android.

The way it works is fairly simple. If you’re using Microsoft Outlook on your Android smartphone, you’ll need to open an email that was sent to you, and then you’ll need to select the text that you want more information on by doing a long-press on the text. You’ll now see the Bing search option right at the top of the long-press context menu.

However, the feature seems not to be working for everyone. Some reports are saying that in order to be able to get the Bing search working in the Microsoft Outlook app, users will need to have the Microsoft Edge browser installed on their Android smartphone. Not only that, but you’ll also need to set the Edge browser as your default browser and will also need to sign in. On the contrary, some Android users are saying that they are currently seeing the Bing search shortcut in the Outlook app and they don’t have Edge browser installed on their smartphone.

This isn’t the first time Microsoft is pursuing a clever strategy to promote a product. But oftentimes the company’s clever tactics to promote some of its not-so-popular services get significant pushback from the tech enthusiasts. And the same is happening this time as well, as users feel the move to add the Bing search option in the Outlook app is spammy.

How do you see it? Do you think this is the right way to get people to use Microsoft’s Bing search engine? Let us know in the comments below.

Source: Pixel Forum; Reddit via: Android Police