Microsoft has announced that it will release 2 new services later this year, one for searching through hundreds of news sites, and one to search Web logs (blogs). Later on, there will also be a service called Answerbot, that lets Web surfers type in questions rather than search terms and get natural language answers.
Steve Ballmer regrets that Microsoft has sought partnerships with competitors first, and not developed its own search technology from the beginning. This is seen as the main reason why Microsoft/MSN is behind Google, Yahoo and others in the search engines race. Google and Yahoo already have news search services, while Ask Jeeves has pioneered natural-language queries years ago.
Not so long ago, there were rumors about a possible takeover of Google by Microsoft, but this now looks further off than ever. Microsoft wants to be independent of the sudden strategy changes at its competitors, develop its own technology, and completely control the services it provides.
Posted by Patrick Van Renterghem at March 27, 2004 10:32 AM