Microsoft sets its sights on Google

Published 9:00 pm Sunday, September 21, 2003

REDMOND – Microsoft Corp. may be the most recognized software company on the planet, but when it comes to searching the Internet, people are much more likely to “Google it.”

Microsoft wants to change that, and it’s betting millions that someday it will be as well known for search as Google already is. The software giant’s push comes amid an exponential growth in information – on desktop computers, on online photo albums, on Web sites.

“And the more information there is out there, the more difficult it becomes to find relevant information and content,” said Rob Lancaster, a senior analyst with the Boston-based Yankee Group research group. “The information glut, as it is popularly known, is becoming a real problem for lots of businesses.”

Beefing up search is a smart move for Microsoft, Lancaster said, and should strike some fear in the hearts of Google, Yahoo! and other companies that offer search engines.

It won’t be easy to shove those two aside, however, said Danny Sullivan, editor of Search Engine Watch online newsletter, noting their loyal followings.

And the field is getting even more crowded as companies realize the multibillion-dollar market for search – and search-related advertising. IBM Corp. this week announced its search engine, WebFountain, which is designed to not only find text online but also to analyze its meaning.

Still, Microsoft has a strong position as one of the top three search sites already on the Web. “Unless they make some terrible mistake they’re going to continue to be a very strong player,” Sullivan said. “If they’ve decided it’s important and they want to grind away at trying to solve the problem, they have a good track record of putting together good software to do that sort of thing.”

Microsoft has its eyes set beyond mapping the World Wide Web.

It is developing search-related technologies to do everything from sorting through digital photos to combing through items scattered on your desktop computers, in an effort to answer an Information Age-old problem. How do you find what you’re looking for?

“Information management is a really important problem moving forward,” said Susan Dumais, a senior researcher for Microsoft Research, who is developing a tool for rapidly finding material that users have seen – regardless of whether it was an e-mail, Web site or document.

Some of Microsoft’s efforts to simplify searches on the Internet will soon be in place. The new version of Microsoft’s MSN Internet service, available this winter, will include a tool for retrieving digital photos based on faces or similar backgrounds. For example, users can ask their computers to retrieve all pictures that include a specific person’s face.

But many are watching most closely the company’s project to develop its own indexing and searching system for the Internet – and how else the technology might later be deployed throughout the company.

Analysts estimate that Microsoft, which has long relied on outside companies to provide the search tool on its MSN Web site, is spending millions of dollars on developing its new search engine. Microsoft itself won’t comment on how much it is spending, how many people it is devoting to the project or possible acquisitions.

MSN decided several months ago it was time to create its own search technology instead of relying on search companies Inktomi and Overture, said Kirk Koenigsbauer, general manager of MSN.com. He said it was unrelated to moves by Yahoo! Inc., dating back to December 2002, to acquire Inktomi, and more recently, Overture.

Rather, Microsoft saw how important search has become, Koenigsbauer said, and contends that no one is really doing a good job answering those queries.

Although many do find what they are looking for, there are numerous ways that all search engines can better sort through the mass of Web sites to better hone results, said Charlene Li, a research director with Forrester Research.

That gives Microsoft an “in” to displace Google and Yahoo! If Microsoft can build a better search engine, “it’s wide open at this point,” she said.

Koenigsbauer would not say when Microsoft’s new search tool will appear or what technical changes Microsoft is making to improve search.

“That’s the secret sauce,” he said.

But he said better personalization is one way to improve searching. For example, if MSN knows that the computer user searching for “pizza” lives in a specific ZIP code, it can deliver results of pizza places in that ZIP code.

Spokespeople for Google and Yahoo! said no one from their companies would be available by phone or e-mail Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday to comment on the potential for competition in search technology from Microsoft.

Beyond satisfying consumers, better searching can be lucrative.

Companies pay or bid for inclusion in a search site’s listings – typically in a cordoned off section for advertisers – based on the keywords that the user types in. For example, a company that sells shoes might pay to be included on queries for “Manolo Blahnik sandals.”

Such paid listings are expected to generate more than $2 billion in revenue for search sites in 2003, Forrester Research’s Li said.

But the technology may help Microsoft focus on search in ways that go deeper than the Web.

Company researchers, including Dumais, are studying how people narrow down their search for documents they’ve seen before and want to retrieve – using special dates as a memory cue or the sender of the document as an identifying characteristic.

Others – led by Gordon Bell in Microsoft Research’s lab in San Francisco, are looking at how to build what amounts to a computer backup for people’s memories. Bell has turned phone calls, bills, pictures, music and other personal effects into digital files stored on a computer hard drive with a search tool to sort through the mass of information.

Although Microsoft has not revealed many details about its new Longhorn operating system, the company has said it plans to build a unified file system that allows a quick search across everything in a computer, regardless of whether it is an e-mail or other specialized document.

Electronic data is only going to grow, said Dumais. “If you have to struggle through looking for things in hundreds of different places, it’s just going to be intolerable,” she said.

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