That’s the noise it makes? “Bing?”

Microsoft’s expected unveiling of a new search engine next week will be accompanied by a massive ad campaign that won’t mention Google and Yahoo by name but will ask if you’re happy with the results you get from competing services, AdAge reports.

The search engine will be named “Bing” which raises an obvious question: will an ad campaign said to be upwards of $100 million ever get anybody to say “Just Bing it”?

Google has about 65% of the search market share, and Yahoo about 20%. Microsoft in in the single digits. But so strategic is search, and so tied is it to ad-supported services that will only grow in importance with the increased use of cloud-computing — where your data is readily available to the people whose services you are using — and so deep are Microsoft’s pockets that even $100 million to move the needle a bit would seem to be worth the effort. Indeed, the Redmond, Washington software giant was willing to spend more than $30 billion to acquire Yahoo mainly to acquire its relatively better search prowess.

I know Microsoft has jillions of dollars and thousands of coders. You have to wonder how long they will bumble along burning up these enormous pyres of money – as an alternative to designing and marketing truly useful products?