Microsoft: Search is much more than you think

Redmond (WA) - Microsoft is heating up the search wars : Bill Gates outlined in a speech at the firm’s "CEO Summit" Microsoft’s vision to take search from an information research tool to an organization tool. Gates also believes that the Xbox 360 will grow to be a social entertainment hub for a family’s digital lifestyle.

History repeats itself. Again. One more time is Microsoft catching up to a trend it badly missed and wants nothing less than world domination. Remember the beginnings of PC multimedia in the early 90s ? And the browser wars soon thereafter ? Now the battlefield field is "search".

Microsoft recently presented its Desktop Search to counter a similar approach from Google. Designed to find virtually any type of information and relate different types of documents to each other, the tool however appears to give at this time just a glimpse of what Microsoft believes a search feature can be. It is clear that Microsoft puts a lot of time into search and ties it closely to other applications - an area where Google cannot follow, at least for now.

"Search is in its very beginning," Gates said. "We see dramatic change that takes us from folder filing to a keyword-based way to find information." Instead of investing hours to file information in folder sub-structures, Gates thinks a sophisticated search can find related information and provide instant access to data that is important at any given time. For example, financial scorecards that merge numerous types of data can automatically include relevant data from different sources such as email, presentations, Word documents or Excel charts - as a result of an instant search. Gates hopes that this approach will allow people to easier see and understand important information.

As part of this strategy, Microsoft also revealed its plans for Groove, software it recently acquired. Groove will complement the firm’s communications tools by being capable of creating ad-hoc virtual desktop sharing workspaces for multiple users. Microsoft will tie Groove especially to email and hopes that people will use the software instead of sending emails with the same content to multiple recipients.

Gates also showed his vision for the Xbox 360. In Microsoft’s mind, it is not just a game console, but a device that will be closely connected to the PC and will evolve to be a digital entertainment hub for the family. It will be integrated in areas such as viewing HD TV, viewing pictures or listening to music. In terms of gaming, Gates considers the Xbox 360 to be "8 to 40 times better" than its predecessor, depending on the feature. According to Gates, ever new game for the console will be connected to the Xbox Live community to enhance the social element of gaming. "In this decade, the digital lifestyle is really coming into the mainstream," he said.