London — Microsoft on Tuesday unveiled plans to establish a search technology centre in Europe in 2009 as it seeks to bolster its Live Search efforts, following the firm’s failed bid for rival Yahoo.
The plans revealed on Tuesday at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival, is proposed to open sometime during Microsoft’s next fiscal year to improve and expand its search advertising division, which begins on July 1, and a assessment of possible sites is under way.
The centre will appoint teams of engineers that will work to speed up the development of Microsoft’s Live Search product and aim to offer consumers an attractive alternative to Google.
The UK is being considered as the possible location for the centre, which will be modeled after Microsoft’s Search Technology Center in Beijing, China, which opened in 2005.
The move comes barely a week after Yahoo! signed a joint advertising and online search deal with Google after rejecting plans to sell its search business to Microsoft.
With such international search centers, Microsoft is anticipating to dive deep into understanding the consumer search habits, methods and preferences of local residents.
“Searchers have different hopes and understanding in every geography in the world, so we believe it is vital to make deep investments in physical locations in multiple markets to ensure that we are applying the best local expertise to our research and development efforts,” Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s senior vice president of the Search, Portal and Advertising Group, said in a statement.
Microsoft said that the centre will be devoted to “delivering locally relevant, more intelligent and powerful search experience to online customers around the world”.
“Microsoft trails behind both groups in the internet search space and has been trying to fight off Google’s stranglehold of the search advertising market.”
Kevin Johnson, the president of the platforms and services division at Microsoft, said: “Success in search in Europe is of paramount importance, and we see the investment in this new Search Technology Centre as an important step in doubling down on our long-term investments.”
The company is searching for new ways to disrupt Google’s dominance of the search and online advertising markets and hopes European researchers can come up with ideas to rival its Live Search cashback feature, which offers online buyers rebates on products bought as a result of using Microsoft’s search engine.
The cashback idea did not originate with Microsoft researchers, though, but with Jellyfish.com, a Wisconsin company that Microsoft acquired for an undisclosed sum last October.
Microsoft plans to build on its previous projects in Europe, where it has been working on enterprise search via its $1.2 billion acquisition this year of Fast Search & Transfer SA.
The software giant currently reaches 68 percent of Internet users in Europe via its online assets and display advertising, said Johnson.