Microsoft says Bing profitability just around the corner

Microsoft’s Bing search engine is will soon begin making money for the software giant, according to the company’s chief financial officer for applications and services. Applications and Services CFO Dave O’Hara has said Bing was ready to turn the corner, as Microsoft now has the resources to keep its search engine running without having to continue to make outsized investments in it. Future infrastructure investments for Bing, O’Hara said, will be incremental.

Like clockwork, every time Microsoft has released its quarterly earnings for the past few years, the stories about Bing being an endless money pit have appeared. (We’ve written more than a few of these on ZDNet ourselves.) But Microsoft’s massive investments in building Bing’s datacenter infrastructure are now behind the company, said Dave O’Hara, the Chief Financial Officer for Microsoft’s Applications and Services Group. O’Hara answered questions about Microsoft’s online services strategy on a December 19 an investor call organized by UBS analyst Brent Thill.