San Francisco — With the speculative Yahoo deal to strengthen Microsoft’s Internet search offerings now fallen apart at best, Microsoft it seems that is exploring other steps avenues to revitalize its Windows Live Search. The software major is in the process of re-branding, and according to web rumors has allegedly already acquired the domain Kumo.com last week and since then has been also securing all the other variants of Kumo (.net, .jp, .fr and so on).
Group Marketing Manager David Beaupariant is amongst other Microsoft officials proposing that Live services need to be better organized. Microsoft registered the Kumo.com domain name last week, a move that sparked speculation Microsoft is considering re-branding Live Search and currently pointing to Microsoft test servers.
According to LiveSide.net, Kumo is the Japanese term for “spider” and “cloud,” both words fitting the general idea of search technology. (It is also a popular name for Japanese restaurants, as a Google search shows.)
The Web’s rumor mill kicked into overdrive during the weekend, with speculation that the re-branded site is expected to launch early next year, according to a TechCrunch report that cited a source within the company. Very few people in the company are privy to the chosen name of the new brand, and it could still change, TechCrunch said.
A latest Microsoft strategy, “software plus services,” has been often discussed by the company, but even some industry observers have noted confusion at sorting out the different services and their names. Live.com has a variety of server, client and social-networking services and software under its umbrella brand.
And while the fact remains that Microsoft is certainly going to adopt Kumo as its new search brand, altogether, it is pretty clear indication that Microsoft has decided to focus on revitalizing its own search effort over its former ambitions for Yahoo’s search business.
The big question here is whether Kumo.com will have more success than Live.com, which attained a dead end and has not grown in the past few months despite Microsoft’s programs to actually pay users for using the service.
Microsoft has struggled to find a winning strategy to compete with Google, far and away the leader in the Internet space. According to the latest figures provided by comScore and Citi Investment Research, Microsoft’s Live Search only owns 8.9 percent of the search market, an insignificant piece of the pie considering the fact that Google has about 63 percent of it and Yahoo has approximately 20.
Another sign of Microsoft’s attempts to boost Live Search is that it has recently hired Sean Suchter, currently Yahoo’s vice president of search technology, to join Microsoft in late December as general manager of the company’s Silicon Valley Search Technology Center.
Many industry professionals and analysts widely view Suchter is a big gain for Microsoft and a loss for Yahoo.
San Francisco — With the speculative Yahoo deal to strengthen Microsoft’s Internet search offerings now fallen apart at best, Microsoft it seems that is exploring other steps avenues to revitalize its Windows Live Search. The software major is in the process of re-branding, and according to web rumors has allegedly already acquired the domain Kumo.com last week and since then has been also securing all the other variants of Kumo (.net, .jp, .fr and so on).
Group Marketing Manager David Beaupariant is amongst other Microsoft officials proposing that Live services need to be better organized. Microsoft registered the Kumo.com domain name last week, a move that sparked speculation Microsoft is considering re-branding Live Search and currently pointing to Microsoft test servers.
According to LiveSide.net, Kumo is the Japanese term for “spider” and “cloud,” both words fitting the general idea of search technology. (It is also a popular name for Japanese restaurants, as a Google search shows.)
The Web’s rumor mill kicked into overdrive during the weekend, with speculation that the re-branded site is expected to launch early next year, according to a TechCrunch report that cited a source within the company. Very few people in the company are privy to the chosen name of the new brand, and it could still change, TechCrunch said.
A latest Microsoft strategy, “software plus services,” has been often discussed by the company, but even some industry observers have noted confusion at sorting out the different services and their names. Live.com has a variety of server, client and social-networking services and software under its umbrella brand.
And while the fact remains that Microsoft is certainly going to adopt Kumo as its new search brand, altogether, it is pretty clear indication that Microsoft has decided to focus on revitalizing its own search effort over its former ambitions for Yahoo’s search business.
The big question here is whether Kumo.com will have more success than Live.com, which attained a dead end and has not grown in the past few months despite Microsoft’s programs to actually pay users for using the service.
Microsoft has struggled to find a winning strategy to compete with Google, far and away the leader in the Internet space. According to the latest figures provided by comScore and Citi Investment Research, Microsoft’s Live Search only owns 8.9 percent of the search market, an insignificant piece of the pie considering the fact that Google has about 63 percent of it and Yahoo has approximately 20.
Another sign of Microsoft’s attempts to boost Live Search is that it has recently hired Sean Suchter, currently Yahoo’s vice president of search technology, to join Microsoft in late December as general manager of the company’s Silicon Valley Search Technology Center.
Many industry professionals and analysts widely view Suchter is a big gain for Microsoft and a loss for Yahoo.