Microsoft buys search start-up Powerset

2008-07-04 09:23:51 [ Big Normal Small ]    　Comment

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    BEIJING, July 2 (Xinhuanet) -- Microsoft announced Wednesday that it has acquired Powerset and plans to integrate the company's search and natural language features into Live Search.

    Powerset focuses on "natural-language search," a form of artificial intelligence that seeks to understand the meaning of both user queries and web pages.

    The promising search start-up will complement existing technology developed by Microsoft Research and help "take search to the next level," said Ramez Naam, a Microsoft search executive.

    Powerset's 53 employees would become part of Microsoft's search relevance team but continue working in the start-up's San Francisco offices.

    Barney Pell, one of Powerset's co-founders, said joining Microsoft would give Powerset the scale it needs to extend its technology to the entire Web as Powerset's approach to search requires enormous computing power.

    Microsoft bought the company because they share a vision to take search to the next level by understanding the intent and meaning behind people's search terms, according to Microsoft's Live Search team.  

    Microsoft hopes that by joining Poweset, it can improve its understanding of users' intent behind their searches and provide an improved user experience.

    The acquisition came less than three weeks after Yahoo rejected a second Microsoft proposal to pay 9 billion U.S. dollars in exchange for Yahoo's search business.

    (Agencies)

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