Apple Is In negotiations with Microsoft to replace Google as the default search engine in both Safari and the iPhone, according to industry insiders. If you want to use Microsoft’s Bing at the moment, you need to go to bing.com.

The talks confirm just how much relations between Apple and Google, its erstwhile ally against Microsoft. have shifted. Until last August, Google CEO Eric Schmidt was still on Apple’s board of directors, but now the two companies are in direct competition in the smartphone, mobile advertising, browser sectors and, when Chrome OS appears, in the personal computer market.

‘Apple and Google know the other is their primary enemy.’ one insider told Businessweek. ‘Microsoft is now a pawn in that battle.’

Meanwhile, Schmidt recently attempted to tone down the perceived acrimony between Apple and Google. ‘I, as a former board member, have a special spot for Apple in my heart,’ he told financial analysts during a conference call. Apple is a very well run company. They have a lot of very good stuff coming. We have a couple of very good partnerships with them, and we also compete with them in a couple of areas. My guess is that is a pretty stable Situation for a while.’

For Microsoft, a deal would enable it to boost Bing’s market share, especially in the emerging mobile search market, where Google is less entrenched, and where the iPhone is the dominant hardware platform.

Although Apple and Microsoft. have been mortal enemies in the past, the two have also worked together when it suited them. Microsoft makes money selling Mac applications like Office, and in 1997 Apple made Internet Explorer the default web browser for the Mac in return for a $150 million (about £93 million) investment.

Apple’s decision to switch to Bing from Google could also just be a Question of Microsoft offering more money to have its search engine made the default for the iPhone and Safari, according to some industry analysts.

Others have speculated that Apple could adopt Bing as a stop-gap, while it develops its own search engine.

It wasn’t so long ago that Microsoft was considered a dirty word. Dare to defend the company and the outpouring of scorn was enough to leave you wondering whose puppy you’d just shot. To be fair, the software giant hadn’t done itself many favours. Its response to antitrust investigations stopped marginally short of certifiable paranoia, while Vista turned out to have all the charm of a broken bottle beingwaved around at a bar fight. Office 2007 was brilliant, but conspicuously so among a product list that could cure insomnia.

Microsoft seemed adrift, bereft of inspiration as its empire was systematically hacked to bits by Google, Apple and Mozilla. Yet two years later and it’s once again the toast of the tech press. Windows 7 is good, but one product isn’t enough to rescue an enormous company’s repubtion. What on earth has happened? Is it really okay to like Microsoft again?.

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