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SEATTLE (Reuters) – Microsoft Corp. will launch its long-promised Internet search engine Thursday, competing directly with market leader Google Inc., sources close to the company said.
The world’s largest software maker had promised to enter the search market with its own technology by the end of the year, as it seeks to attract more users to boost advertising revenue for its MSN Internet division.
Earlier Tuesday, Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer told shareholders at the company’s annual meeting Microsoft would beat Google’s technology and double its advertising revenue in the next five years.
The company had no official comment on its plans for the new MSN Search service, which has been operating on a trial basis at search.msn.com since the summer.
Microsoft, which has been relying on Yahoo! Inc. (Research) unit Inktomi to power its search services, decided to enter the search game after Google took the lead and turned itself into a multi-billion dollar company.
Google (Research) shares shed 2 percent, or $3.35, to $165.35 in after-hours trading following release of the news. Yahoo’s (Research) stock also fell, slipping 35 cents to $36.68 in extended trade. Microsoft (Research) shares were little changed in after-hours trading, standing at $29.80 from their Nasdaq close of $29.77.
Small, but growing
Search still remains a small part of Microsoft’s business, however, with the MSN Internet division posting revenue of $360 million compared to total company profits of $36.8 billion in the latest fiscal year.The MSN unit, however, recently reached profitability on an operating basis thanks to increased Web-based advertising.
Google recently reported that revenue in its latest quarter doubled to $806 million from a year earlier.
Google makes its money by displaying text-based advertising alongside its search results, which has turned into a lucrative segment of the online advertising market.
Microsoft, Google and Yahoo are also going head-to-head to provide localized information by searching for nearby businesses and services based on geography.
Beyond the looming rivalry over online search services, local hard drive search and customized search are considered the next frontiers in search technology.
Google last month unveiled a preliminary version of its desktop search tools for finding information buried in e-mails, documents and other files on hard drives.
Microsoft has said that it will launch its own desktop search engine by the end of the year.
Personalized search promises to deliver search results that are more relevant by taking into account an individual’s interests based on previous search queries and other information. Amazon.com Inc.’s (Research) search service, called A9, offers such technology.
I can already predict the answer but just wanted to know if they are going to be taking gaming ads?
Thanks professor,
I heard that they were moving into the PPC arena.
(Maybe later).
I certainly hope that the new msn search keeps the algo they have been using for the techpreview since its one of the few that seems to really like me at the moment…lol
I second that.
It’s just the third beta release. They made the same announcement about the second beta release. It will probably be easier for people to find than the second beta, but its still a preview. http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1722773,00.asp
http://techpreview.search.msn.com/
:cheers: :cheers: :cheers:
New MSN has been delayed
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2002087815_microsoftsearch11.html
If a user typed the query “What is the population of Seattle?” for example, the answer will be included in the search results along with links to related Encarta articles, some of which may require a paid subscription to read.
This I would find annoying unless the paid subscription part was clearly marked as an ad.
Go blind looking from all the paid ads:
http://beta.search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=gambling&FORM=QBRE
