Microsoft on Thursday announced a software developer kit (SDK) to integrate the company's Bing search engine onto iPhone or Mac apps. The SDK allows developers to query Bing from within their Cocoa or Cocoa Touch applications, with support for both synchronous and asynchronous queries. Users can search Bing for web links, images, videos, news or phonebook results.

Several iPhone apps already integrate Bing search functions, including Search With Bing and a*VisionPro. The official Microsoft SDK will potentially bring the search engine onto a variety of new apps, if developers are looking for an alternative to the popular Google search.

The Bing search engine is still in its infancy, as Microsoft struggles to gain market share against the dominance of Google. Recent numbers still place Bing's market share at less than 10 percent, although it has been slowing rising amid the $80 million ad campaign.

The Bing SDK for iPhone and Mac is currently open source and available from CodePlex.