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When Ask.com's mapping service was just getting up to speed as a very workable product, the company decided to jettison its in-house mapping service and instead install Microsoft Corp.'s (NASDAQ: MSFT) own mapping service. Ask.com company parent InterActive Corp. (NASDAQ: IACI) apparently decided to cut some costs in the day and age of hyper-competition with Google, Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) and Microsoft and just outsource a great product that was taking up too many resources with too little to show for it.

Microsoft's Virtual Earth technology is now powering Ask.com mapping service. It should not be seen as defeat for Ask.com, as Microsoft's offering is superior in almost every way from my experience (and most likely, cheaper to license instead of maintaining an in-house product). This brings up an important question: is Ask.com in cost-cutting mode temporarily or permanently? The search engine and portal has seen its global market share sit pretty idle for the last year, as has Microsoft. Google, meanwhile, has slightly increased its search marketshare, Let's face it -- Ask.com, like those others, makes it's money in search (with smaller peripheral income sources of course).

Where is Ask.com's future revenue going to come from? Search advertising? Shopping commissions? All of the above? If Yahoo, Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) is possibly going to outsource its search to Google, what is stopping Ask.com from using Google's technology as well? That would literally pit Microsoft and Google as bulls racing towards each other. But if Ask.com is fretting over the continuance of its mapping product, search can't be that far behind. Then, the Ask.com brand will be the only thing left.