Microsoft Search Engine Out Tomorrow?

By Keith Regan
E-Commerce Times
11/10/04 10:43 AM PT

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, speaking at the company's annual meeting yesterday, said Microsoft recognizes it must come from behind in order to be a major player in the search wars, both in terms of technology and in garnering the millions of dollars in advertising budgets now being funneled into search placement.

Confident that its technology now is on a par with its competition, Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) reportedly plans to formally launch its long-awaited new search product tomorrow, taking the search wars to a new level in the process.

Microsoft reportedly has been working on the search engine for 18 months and made a beta version of it available for public and developer tryouts this past summer. Analysts say the fact that the launch might have been scheduled indicates the company feels the technology is at least good enough to be competitive.

A Microsoft spokesperson declined to comment on the prospective launch or whether it would be accompanied by any marketing efforts, adding that the company plans a specific announcement at midnight eastern time tonight.

Speaking at Microsoft's annual meeting yesterday, CEO Steve Ballmer said the company recognizes it must come from behind in order to be a major player in the search wars, both in terms of technology and in garnering the millions of dollars in advertising budgets now being funneled into search placement.

"We will catch up, and we will surpass," Ballmer said. At the same meeting, Chairman Bill Gates added that Microsoft's search improvements would soon be rolled out, with the result being "an even better search capability than people have ever had before."

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Microsoft is planning a major marketing campaign this winter to debut MSN Search. They may or may not win over the Google Faithful, but they will at the very minimum have a lot of traffic.

It will be interesting to see how the search wars pan out. If anyone has plenty of money to burn on research and development it is Microsoft. I just hope they don't make the silly mistake of trying to run the entire thing on a Microsoft back-end. Pfffft...