Microsoft has had its eye on Google for a long time, and executives at the company have openly admitted it as well. The Yahoo buyout strategy was constructed in hopes of seriously competing with Google. However, since the deal fell through, Microsoft has been feverishly developing its own Google killer in-house.

Last week I talked a little about Kumo, Microsoft’s new search engine set to replace Live search. The company has been publicly testing Kumo randomly by allowing it to come up instead of Live Search. The search engine is said to incorporate new tech acquired through the buy out of Powerset, a San Francisco-based search and natural language company.

Microsoft has been putting a great deal of R&D on developing Kumo in order to compete with Google toe-to-toe. Apparently one of Powerset’s main goals is to create a search based on natural language rather then same word matches. According to CNET, Microsoft’s Ramez Namm indicated that conventional search engines depend heavily on same word matching instead on understanding what the user is actually trying to search for.

Namm also states that search engines force users to figure out words to use to find the correct page, which is more difficult than it has to be. He seems to indicate that the software should be smart enough to figure out how to search based on how you would naturally ask for it. This technique seems to be similar to what Ask was (is) trying to achieve.

Kumo will also filter e-commerce and data related information so that users will receive results that are more relevant to the product rather then peripheral information. The layout is also said to be designed to be much more organic and intuitive than Google, with a great deal of focus on imagery. Everything sounds spectacular on paper, but only time will tell if Microsoft can break habits by luring consumers over to the dark side with Kumo.

Related:

Entry was posted on Monday, May 25th, 2009 at 3:29 am under Google, Microsoft, Software.

Read more entries by Mike Ferro.
Stumble It!