14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft's Financial Analysts Meeting is probably the best occasion to find out what are the company's projects and intentions. Considering that Microsoft's activity domains have diversified, Windows and Office not being anymore the only products, it's interesting to find out what has the giant from Redmond in store for other domains.
MSN Search and its related technologies are the company's next major step and considering all the discussions related to Google, it will be interesting to see what Microsoft's plans are. The presentation made by Yusuf Mehdi, Senior Vice President, contained some references to the company's intentions regarding MSN Search.
Although in his previous speeches, Ballmer never hesitated to show his doubts concerning Google's future and performances, Mehdi said that MSN Search is a long way from reaching Google's and Yahoo's level.
Mehdi also said that Microsoft is planning to implement in MSN Search new technologies through which inquiries won't return only links, but also specific answers to questions.
Currently, these sorts of features are offered by the following search engines: Answers.com and Ask.com. Considering that between Answers.com and Google there is already an alliance according to which Answers.com results will be displayed by Google, is it possible that we will witness something similar between MSN Search and Ask.com?
As Neowin recently announced, MSN sent a series of invitations for MSN Mobile's testing, a search service for smartphones and Pocket PCs; so, after similar services from Google, Yahoo and AOL, in September, a MSN alternative might also appear.