CNET: MSN launches revamped search engine

Microsoft is set to release today the first iteration of its new and improved search engine. The features coming out today may leave users wondering where the $100 million of research and development went. Changes are cosmetic, consisting of removing interface do-dads and paid listings to create a simple-looking search, which has proved so effective for the category leader Google. Interestingly, Microsoft says that the removal of Yahoo's paid listings will increase search relevancy by 50 percent. The back-end search technology will be made available just to webmasters in a test mode.

The CNET report seemed to suggest that Microsoft may actually be hoarding the "research and development" funds for a purchase of a technology that might prove better than their homegrown efforts, something the software firm has done more often than relying on its own engineering for new business lines. Ask Jeeves has been fingered as an acquirable firm with the sort of natural language capabilities that have been the main topic of Microsoft search executives of late.

Microsoft's search efforts are taken seriously because of the past pattern of seeking to tie new product lines to its operating system monopoly, thereby creating dominant marketshare. But the Microsoft search project has suffered credibility problems, as its MSNBot web crawling project petered out, presumably because the results it produced proved unsatisfactory. Earlier this year a senior executive Microsoft had wooed from Yahoo left the Redmond firm after just a few months on the job.