Microsoft's quiet attack on Google with Windows 10 appears to be working

Here's an interesting upside for Microsoft thanks to its aggressive push of free Windows 10 for consumers: People seem to be using Bing more.

When Microsoft reported its fiscal year 2016 third-quarter earnings on Thursday, the company said (emphasis added):

Search advertising revenue excluding traffic acquisition costs grew 18% in constant currency with continued benefit from Windows 10 usage.

The company also said that 35% of the revenue from search in March came from Windows 10 devices.

Microsoft didn't disclose what those traffic-acquisition costs were, which are the costs paid to third parties to drive traffic to Bing, so we don't know exactly how much revenue Windows 10 is generating for Microsoft in this way.

Beating Google at the search game is part of the master plan of giving Windows 10 away for free. Many of Bing's services are baked into Windows 10, including search when you ask Cortana a question as well as Maps and other online services.

Microsoft hopes that with Windows 10, Bing will scoop up some serious internet search-advertising market share.

But Google is hardly shaking in its boots. It also reported earnings today, and it reported a sizeable increase in its advertising revenue: up 16% to $18 billion.

The fact is, it's not a zero-sum game between Bing and Google. As more people in the world come online, and more of us use multiple devices, we're simply using the internet more, including Google and Bing.