Microsoft revamps Windows Live search, eyes Google
229195
Seeking to narrow the gap with Google,  Microsoft Corp unveiled a retooled Web search service that aims  to deliver more relevant results and combines text, video and  other information onto a single page.
573115
Windows Live QnA Search Now Open for Beta Testing The Question &#038; Answer human powered search alternative has expanded beyond Yahoo Answers &#038; Google and has now found a home with Microsoft&#8217;s Windows Live QnA. Windows Live has opened QnA up to the public for BETA testing and is looking for feedback on its product. Betsy [...]
487710
Microsoft Corp. introduced two new  online services to its Windows Live line-up on Tuesday and said  it plans to release more Web offerings this year to beef up its  Internet strategy.
770270
Building on the Custom Search Engine it introduced last October, Google on Tuesday took the wraps off a new hosted search site designed for businesses, which offers greater flexibility for a small, yearly fee. The service targets small to medium-sized businesses and will surely ruffle the feathers at Microsoft.
505583
Microsoft Corp. plans Tuesday to officially launch its updated and renamed Internet search engine, the latest step in a massive effort to make headway against market leaders Yahoo Inc. and Google Inc.
179616
(InfoWorld) - Microsoft has enhanced its Windows Live Search Maps with a 3D map of New York, the first of several cities in the U.S., U.K., and Canada that will be featured in 3D through the service. Throughout the day Tuesday, Microsoft also plans to release 3D cityscapes of U.S. cities Austin, Texas; Cape Coral, Florida; Cincinnati; Indianapolis; Savannah, Georgia; and Tampa, Florida. Northampton, England, and Ottawa, Canada, also will be featured as 3D cityscapes through the service. The free online map of New York provides a photorealistic view of New York, including landmarks like Times Square, Central Park, Wall Street, and Rockefeller Plaza. As with other locations mapped through Windows Live Search Maps, users can get Yellow Pages listing, locations of businesses and other landmarks as well as contact information; driving directions, and reviews for New York businesses, restaurants and the like. In addition, users can get real-time traffic incident information integrated with driving directions in the city and can share and access custom maps and lists of notable places in New York that other users have created. Users also can create their own lists of favorite maps and locations in New York. Users can access the new 3D maps on the Live Search Maps Web site. Windows Live Search Maps is one of the new Web-based services Microsoft has been rolling out over the past year and a half to drive its online advertising business, a segment it is hoping will become a significant source of revenue for the company. Links to businesses or locations found through Windows Live Search Maps include paid-search advertising links, one area where Microsoft is hoping to gain round on Google. In the meantime, the company recently said it would purchase digital marketing services company aQuantive Â to boost its advertising strategy. The purchase will differentiate Microsoft from Google by the acquisition of Avenue A/Razorfish, a full-service design and advertising agency owned by aQuantive.
157488
A new battle in the multibillion-dollar online search war begins today as software giant Microsoft unveils a test version of its new search engine, looking remarkably like one of its chief rivals, Google.
675196
Under pressure from Google, Microsoft has agreed to make it easier for users of Windows Vista to choose third-party software tools to search their hard drives. The change will be included in a significant update scheduled for release sometime later this year.
272890
Microsoft's Live search engine enjoyed a recent jump in queries, although Google still reigns.
144070
The software maker is in the midst of a major revamp to its search product. Over the coming weeks, the company will make more changes, including to the engine itself. Whether the changes add up to more eyeballs is an open question.
437182
InfoWorld - Microsoft will change how desktop search works in its Vista operating system by the end of the year, in response to an antitrust complaint by rival Google Inc., the company said in court documents released late Tuesday.
752462
We think Microsoft has officially announced "the next generation of Windows Live." Whatever that means.â¦
681256
(InfoWorld) - Microsoft will make changes to its desktop search program following aÂ complaint to the U.S. Department of JusticeÂ (DOJ) by Google. Google suggested in a white paper submitted to the DOJ earlier this year that Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system puts other search software companies at a disadvantage, making it difficult for users to utilize non-Microsoft desktop-search software. Microsoft has reached an agreement with the DOJ to make it easier for end users to employ desktop search programs made by rival software developers, The Wall Street Journal reported. Microsoft will also provide more documentation and information to developers about how to make those search programs run smoothly, it said. The changes will be included in Microsoft's firstÂ Vista update, called Service Pack 1, slated to be released later this year, the report said. California Attorney General Jerry Brown said Microsoft had agreed to make the "significant changes" in Vista operating system to stay in compliance with a U.S. court agreement in Microsoft's antitrust case. Brown's office intervened in the wake of reports that Microsoft's new operating system included a desktop search function called "Instant Search" that violated terms of its agreement to open its products to more competition. Google, which offers the most popular search engine on the Internet, said "Instant Search" is a "Microsoft middleware product," which is subject to the federal agreement in the antitrust case. The State of California contended that Vistaâs desktop search feature is a functionality that did not exist in prior Windows operating systems and is therefore covered under the agreement. Brown said Microsoft will provide users and computer manufacturers, such as Hewlett-Packard and Dell, with greater flexibility to choose and access competing desktop search products. The agreement was included in a joint status report that was filed Wednesday with federal District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly in Washington, D.C., who presided over the 2002 agreement in the case. "This agreement -- while not perfect -- is a positive step towards greater competition in the software industry," said Brown. "It will enhance the ability of consumers to select the desktop search tool of their choice." "Microsoft believes that Google's complaint is without merit," Microsoft's lawyers wrote in the status report. "Nevertheless, Microsoft worked with the Plaintiffs in a spirit of cooperation to resolve any issues the complaint may raise." Google said the search changes are welcome but more needs to be done. "Microsoft's current approach to Vista desktop search clearly violates the consent decree and limits consumer choice," said David Drummond, Google's senior vice president and chief legal officer. "These remedies are a step in the right direction, but they should be improved further to give consumers greater access to alternate desktop search providers." Microsoft was found to be operating an illegal monopoly in software by another U.S. District Judge in Washington. Microsoft entered into a settlement agreement with the federal government and attorneys general for several U.S. states to abide by certain rules to allow more competition. Microsoft had originally denied that its own desktop search interfered with non-Microsoft indexing software, noting that its search indexing could be turned off, although with some difficulty. The Redmond company also seemed to have the DOJ, its former antitrust foe, on its side: Thomas O. Barnett, now the DOJ's top-ranking antitrust official,Â recommended that the DOJ and state attorneys general rejectÂ Google's complaint, according to a New York Times report earlier this month. As part of the desktop search agreement, software vendors will be able to register their products as alternatives for the Vista search. The default search selected by the computer user or OEM will launch whenever Vista launches a search result window, and the default search will have space in Vista's start menu. Microsoft will also tell software vendors and OEMs that the desktop search index in Vista is designed to run in the background and "cede precedence over computing resources to any other software product, including third-party search products," the DOJ said in its portion of the status report. "Microsoft will emphasize that there is no technical reason why OEMs and end-users cannot, if they choose to, install additional desktop search products on their systems." The plaintiffs in the case, including 17 states that sued Microsoft for antitrust, are "collectively satisfied that this agreement will resolve any issues" in the Google complaint, the DOJ said. Elsewhere in the status report, the DOJ said a technical committee overseeing Microsoft's compliance has hired two consulting firms to check Microsoft's procedures for identifying communications protocols that it is required to disclose to independent software vendors who want to make their products interoperable with Microsoft's. In March, Microsoft and the plaintiffs reached an agreement to address concerns over the belated discovery of protocols that plaintiffs believed needed to be disclosed. The technical committee will extend a royalty-free program for software vendors to receive the protocols, the DOJ said. The royalty-free program will continue 18 months after the date the committee decides the protocol documentation is substantially complete, and the technical committee can extend the program if it believe Microsoft isn't making progress on the documentation, the DOJ said. But Microsoft is on schedule with a plan to fix technical documentation used by other software vendors, the DOJ said. Errors in the technical documentation have prompted repeated complaints from the antitrust plaintiffs in recent months, but the DOJ said Microsoft has been able "to keep up with the flow of new technical documentation issues." This story was updated on June 20, 2007
373408
Microsoft Corp. plans to launch its new Windows Live Search engine, a pillar in its strategy to topple market leader Google and wrestle away billions of dollars worth of online advertising.
203309
SEATTLE _ Google, unsatisfied with changes Microsoft is making to Windows Vista's desktop search feature in response to an antitrust complaint, is pushing for further changes and more judicial oversight of Microsoft's practices.
486848
SEATTLE Microsoft has unveiled a new preliminary version of its search tool for finding documents, e-mail and other files stored on personal computer hard drives.
562819
(InfoWorld) - Microsoft released documents on Wednesday that detail changes it will make to its desktop search and indexing feature in Windows Vista that will be included as part of the Vista SP1 (Service Pack 1) update. The changes are a response toÂ charges from rival Google that Microsoft built the feature in such a way that it slowed down competitive offerings from rivals. Microsoft agreed to make the changes as part of its ongoing antitrust proceedings with U.S. and state officials, and they were detailed as part of a status report filed in the case in June. To provide more information to the general public, the company posted documents online Wednesday that detail how third parties can help modify desktop search applications to work with the changes being made in SP1. Microsoft has said it will release SP1, a roll-up of updates to the Vista OS, in the first quarter of 2008. Microsoft said it made the changes so that a customer who uses a third-party desktop search product instead of Vista's built-in feature can have "easy and direct access" to those offerings through the Windows user interface. "That means that in addition to the numerous ways a user could access a third-party search solution in Windows Vista, they can now get to their preferred search results from additional entry points in the Start Menu and Explorer Windows in Windows Vista SP1," the company said. These features were at the heart of Google's claims, which appeared in a white paper to U.S. and state antitrust officials in April. Google said the desktop search feature in Vista discouraged users from installing third-party products because Vista's search boxes and bars -- available in several places in the OS, including the Start menu and in the Windows Explorer file manager -- work only with Microsoft's search and indexing tool. The company also said it is nearly impossible to turn off Vista's indexing, which means a competitor must add a second indexer that slows down a PC. To let their products use Vista options they don't have access to now, third-party vendors can register their search applications using the new search protocol in Windows Vista SP1, which is detailed online. An article explaining the search changes can be found in Microsoft's Knowledge Base.