Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft Corporation recently announced planned upgrades to Microsoft's MSN Search, in an attempt to dominate the search engine market.
The improvements, rumoured to cost around £55 million, should see a streamlining of the current engine and user interface, in order bring it closer to Google's straightforward and simple look. The Seattle based software giant currently holds approximately 15% of the search hits according to a survey in Feb 2004 by comScore networks, its nearest competitor Yahoo fluctuating around the 28% mark. Market leaders Google, currently sitting atop the pile on 35%, generated approximately £65 million from advertising last year, enticing Microsoft to invest so heavily in their current search software.
The main changes Microsoft have revealed in a press statement, include: limiting advertisements to an average of 3 per page, along with enhancments to the actual engine powering searches, that should see approximately 50% more relevant results than current MSN searches. There are also other plans to add news articles, an online dictionary, and an online version of microsoft encarta.
Despite this huge investment by Microsoft, some experts claim that it is unlikely to lead to MSN search taking a lead in the market or even a significant boost in its market share. |
