Books 'no longer part of the plan' for Microsoft

Category: Web 3.0

May 27th 08, 11:20

The digitalisation of books has been excluded from Microsoft's search plans, the software giant said on Friday.

Satya Nadella, search and advertising senior vice-president with the firm, released a blog post at the end of last week revealing that Microsoft's book search plans had been abandoned.

The move leaves nonprofit organisation the Internet Archive, which Microsoft was paying to scan books, with an uncertain future, observes the New York Times.

Meanwhile, the Associated Press pointed out that the move could signal an intention on the part of Microsoft to pick its battles with Google, whose Book Search would have been a direct rival to a Microsoft digital library.

"We believe the next generation of search is about the development of an underlying, sustainable business model for the search engine, consumer and content partner," noted the company representative on Friday.

The revelation came in the same week as an announcement by Microsoft that a new Live Search Cashback online strategy would offer consumers a portion of their money back on any transaction that originated with the search portal.

This news story was brought to you by Bluhalo, a leading UK digital agency.


Related News

  1. Augmented reality tipped for growth
  2. Web 3.0 conference to explore the semantic web
  3. Obama campaign 'demonstrated savvy mastery of Web 2.0'
  4. Obama's website 'is helping him to succeed'