Last week, Microsoft announced a major upgrade to the new search engine it has been testing since March. It has moved its Windows Live Search and Live.com out of beta status and said that Live Search will power the search capability on MSN, the company's news and entertainment portal. A new feature is the Related Search function, which is designed to help users refine a query by simply clicking on a list of related terms. The unusually low-key and minimalist press announcement generated little excitement. After some poking around, Information Today, Inc. learned from search expert Stephen E. Arnold that Microsoft has even more potent technology ready to deploy. Unlike the upgrade to Live.com, which, according to a Microsoft spokesperson, just uses algorithms that mine previously submitted queries to the engine, the new and unannounced search system brings faceted search to a Microsoft application. Try it yourself at http://rwsm.directtaps.net. The Microsoft project, called Search Results Clustering (SRC), currently offers a search beta and downloadable toolbar . . . Arnold, who is the author of Enterprise Search Report, 3rd edition, and the forthcoming Text Mining Report, said: "If Microsoft makes this function part of SharePoint, it will pose a serious threat to companies offering SharePoint-specific search enhancements and be a strong competitive challenge to Google and its Appliance and OneBox API. If Microsoft puts this technology in Live.com, that service will almost certainly see an increase in traffic. Microsoft had to do something, and this Vivisimo-like clustering may be one of Microsoft's most significant advances yet." Read the Full ITI NewsBreaks Story |
