The rumors accumulating over the past couple of months were true: Microsoft has purchased natural-language search vendor Powerset for an undisclosed amount.Microsoft announced the offer on July 1. Microsoft is preparing to make use of Powerset;s consumers and technologies to “take Lookup to the next level by adding understanding of the Internet and meaning behind the words in searches and webpages,” according to a post on the Live Search blog.Even more from that posting by Satya Nadella, Senior Vice President of Search, Portal and Advertising:“Powerset will join our core Lookup Relevance team,
Microsoft Office 2007, remaining intact in San Francisco. Powerset brings with it organic language technologies that nicely complements other normal language processing technologies we have in Microsoft Research.”Some have taken to referring to Microsoft;s purchase of Powerset as a piece of Microsoft;s “Plan B” following the breakdown in acquisition talks between Microsoft and Yahoo.(I noticed Richard Sprague, Senior Director of Marketing in the Microsoft Research Incubation team, hint via a blog post last week that his team had had some interesting interactions with Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates just before Gates retired. Given Sprague;s areas of focus, perhaps he was referring to Powerset.)What do you think: Is the Powerset acquisition a good first move for Microsoft after the dissolution of the Yahoo offer?
Microsoft Office 2007 Confirmed Microsoft buys Po
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