Microsoft has unveiled a streamlined Internet search site that looks and acts much like Google, marking the software giant's opening salvo in what promises to be an epic battle for Web searching dominance.
The site, found at search.msn.com, features a clean, white screen that separates ads from other search results, rather than mixing them as Microsoft searches used to do. Behind the scenes, however, the results are still driven by Yahoo technology, as has been the case at Microsoft's MSN Search site.
But that, too, may change. The Redmond, Wash., company is offering Internet users a peek at its real ammunition -- a new search engine being developed by Microsoft engineers.
Starting Thursday, surfers were able to visit a separate Microsoft site, at sandbox.msn.com, to test the company's own engine and offer feedback to its creators. The new engine is expected to be ready for widespread use within the next year.
The moves place Google and Yahoo, the two most popular search engines, squarely in Microsoft's sights. Microsoft has a reputation for entering markets late and overwhelming entrenched competitors. With its software running the vast majority of America's personal computers, Microsoft may be well positioned to seize rivals' market share once again, analysts said.
"It's way too early to pick a winner," said Gary Stein, senior analyst with Jupiter Research. "But this is the path they're going down, and they're going down it with a lot of speed."
Microsoft's moves also called into question the company's future ties with Yahoo, a relationship whose prospects analysts already considered strained. Shares in the Sunnyvale search pioneer dipped nearly 6 percent Thursday, falling $2.10 to reach $34.30.
A Yahoo spokeswoman said her company would continue to count Microsoft as a partner for now.
"Our goal is to make our partners as happy as possible, and we'll work with them as long as they want to work with us," said Joanna Stevens.
Google, the Mountain View company at the center of the tech world's attention since it announced plans to go public, holds the lead in market share over all other search engines. An estimated 35 percent of all U.S. Internet searches ran through Google in April, compared to 31 percent a year earlier, according to ComScore Networks. Yahoo held 30 percent of the market in April, while Microsoft's MSN had 15 percent.
The revamped MSN Search service unveiled Thursday takes several cues from Google.
The main page is a simple, white screen. The results separate paid links from those found by the search engine's algorithm -- in essence, filtering ads from other results. The number of sponsored links shown on each page has been reduced.
"With this significant upgrade to MSN Search, we are delighted to now offer what we believe is the best search service available for the 350 million MSN customers," Yusuf Mehdi, corporate vice president of MSN, said in a prepared statement.
For Google, the threat from Microsoft is clear to anyone who knows Silicon Valley history.
In the late 1990s, another startup with groundbreaking technology and an all-star list of investors held a blockbuster IPO.
That company was Netscape, whose wildly successful stock offering was the trigger to dot-com mania. Its Navigator Web browser introduced millions of consumers to the Internet by making it easy to browse Web pages.
Microsoft entered the Web browser market after Netscape had built a dominant share. Yet the Redmond giant gradually chipped away at Netscape's lead, giving its Internet Explorer product away free as it gradually added more functions.
Eventually, it came to dominate Web browsing.
Google, however, won't easily be overcome. The firm has built up such loyalty among users that its name, turned into a verb, has become slang for searching the Web.
"There are other search technologies in the marketplace that are as good or better than Google's," said Derek Brown, an analyst with Pacific Growth Equities who does not own Microsoft or Yahoo shares. "But Google's got phenomenal mind share, which translates into phenomenal market share."
If it is to fend off threats from Microsoft and Yahoo, Google will have to expand the reach of its search capabilities beyond the Web to the user's desktop, say some experts.
"Microsoft has clearly set their sights on search," said Jim Breyer, a partner with the Palo Alto venture capital firm Accel Partners.
Microsoft has even been talking about including an advanced kind of search engine within the company's next-generation operating system, Longhorn.
The softwaremaker has talked about a Google-like engine for the PC, one that could sift through today's large and cluttered hard drives, quickly retrieving information whose location the user had forgotten.
However, Apple Computer Inc. stole some of that thunder this week with its announcement of Spotlight, a search engine for the Macintosh computer that helps the user locate files by typing in related words or phrases.
Apple's Spotlight will be a feature in its next Mac OS X operating system called Tiger, which will be out sometime in the first half of 2005.
The site, found at search.msn.com, features a clean, white screen that separates ads from other search results, rather than mixing them as Microsoft searches used to do. Behind the scenes, however, the results are still driven by Yahoo technology, as has been the case at Microsoft's MSN Search site.
But that, too, may change. The Redmond, Wash., company is offering Internet users a peek at its real ammunition -- a new search engine being developed by Microsoft engineers.
Starting Thursday, surfers were able to visit a separate Microsoft site, at sandbox.msn.com, to test the company's own engine and offer feedback to its creators. The new engine is expected to be ready for widespread use within the next year.
The moves place Google and Yahoo, the two most popular search engines, squarely in Microsoft's sights. Microsoft has a reputation for entering markets late and overwhelming entrenched competitors. With its software running the vast majority of America's personal computers, Microsoft may be well positioned to seize rivals' market share once again, analysts said.
"It's way too early to pick a winner," said Gary Stein, senior analyst with Jupiter Research. "But this is the path they're going down, and they're going down it with a lot of speed."
Microsoft's moves also called into question the company's future ties with Yahoo, a relationship whose prospects analysts already considered strained. Shares in the Sunnyvale search pioneer dipped nearly 6 percent Thursday, falling $2.10 to reach $34.30.
A Yahoo spokeswoman said her company would continue to count Microsoft as a partner for now.
"Our goal is to make our partners as happy as possible, and we'll work with them as long as they want to work with us," said Joanna Stevens.
Google, the Mountain View company at the center of the tech world's attention since it announced plans to go public, holds the lead in market share over all other search engines. An estimated 35 percent of all U.S. Internet searches ran through Google in April, compared to 31 percent a year earlier, according to ComScore Networks. Yahoo held 30 percent of the market in April, while Microsoft's MSN had 15 percent.
The revamped MSN Search service unveiled Thursday takes several cues from Google.
The main page is a simple, white screen. The results separate paid links from those found by the search engine's algorithm -- in essence, filtering ads from other results. The number of sponsored links shown on each page has been reduced.
"With this significant upgrade to MSN Search, we are delighted to now offer what we believe is the best search service available for the 350 million MSN customers," Yusuf Mehdi, corporate vice president of MSN, said in a prepared statement.
For Google, the threat from Microsoft is clear to anyone who knows Silicon Valley history.
In the late 1990s, another startup with groundbreaking technology and an all-star list of investors held a blockbuster IPO.
That company was Netscape, whose wildly successful stock offering was the trigger to dot-com mania. Its Navigator Web browser introduced millions of consumers to the Internet by making it easy to browse Web pages.
Microsoft entered the Web browser market after Netscape had built a dominant share. Yet the Redmond giant gradually chipped away at Netscape's lead, giving its Internet Explorer product away free as it gradually added more functions.
Eventually, it came to dominate Web browsing.
Google, however, won't easily be overcome. The firm has built up such loyalty among users that its name, turned into a verb, has become slang for searching the Web.
"There are other search technologies in the marketplace that are as good or better than Google's," said Derek Brown, an analyst with Pacific Growth Equities who does not own Microsoft or Yahoo shares. "But Google's got phenomenal mind share, which translates into phenomenal market share."
If it is to fend off threats from Microsoft and Yahoo, Google will have to expand the reach of its search capabilities beyond the Web to the user's desktop, say some experts.
"Microsoft has clearly set their sights on search," said Jim Breyer, a partner with the Palo Alto venture capital firm Accel Partners.
Microsoft has even been talking about including an advanced kind of search engine within the company's next-generation operating system, Longhorn.
The softwaremaker has talked about a Google-like engine for the PC, one that could sift through today's large and cluttered hard drives, quickly retrieving information whose location the user had forgotten.
However, Apple Computer Inc. stole some of that thunder this week with its announcement of Spotlight, a search engine for the Macintosh computer that helps the user locate files by typing in related words or phrases.
Apple's Spotlight will be a feature in its next Mac OS X operating system called Tiger, which will be out sometime in the first half of 2005.
