Microsoft to start testing 'Kumo' search service

Microsoft plans later this week to begin internal testing of Kumo, a long-anticipated update to its Live Search product, CNET News has learned.

Ultimately, Kumo is designed to be both a rebranding and an update for Live Search, although at this point Microsoft is describing it as "an internal test environment."

"Kumo is the name of an internal test environment we are launching to a small sampling of employees...this week," a Microsoft representative told CNET. Kumo had been long rumored to be a possible name for the Live Search rebranding.

Barney Pell

(Credit: Dan Farber/CNET)

Word that Microsoft was close to launching the new search tool began with a Twitter posting by Powerset co-founder Barney Pell, who now serves as a "search strategist and evangelist" for Microsoft. In the posting, reported by enthusiast site LiveSide, Pell did not mention the Kumo name, but said that the site was getting an updated user interface and new brand.

"Barney was referring to our internal testing environments," the Microsoft representative said, adding that the company had nothing to announce today. "We are not in a position to confirm what will come to the market or when." Microsoft acquired Pell's Powerset in July.

Kumo is separate from another search tool being offered to employees by Microsoft Research. That tool, shown last week at TechFest and known as Viveri, uses the Live Search engine in combination with new visualization and vertical search technologies.

"They are different but they are complementary," the Microsoft representative said.

Meanwhile, Search Engine Land also noted a couple of changes on the public Live Search site, including "best match" and "categorized listings" options.

"We regularly test or 'flight' new features for a small subset of searchers," Microsoft said. "The purpose of these flights is to gauge customer response and collect data, which may or may not lead to eventual integration into the larger service."

[ghostofitpast]

Ina, in case you don't know, I think "kumo" is Japanese for "cloud," although I shall be very surprised if that connection signifies!

[Methuss]

That's correct. Kumo is the japanese word for cloud.

Kumo has two meanings in Japanese: cloud and spider

[kojacked]

They'll probably call it something lame like Live Kumo Search. Gotta keep the Live brand and introduce a "cool" new buzzword. They'll never make any traction with branding and user name recognition by moving much of the MSN services inth Live then migrating them back then introducing new, unrelated names such a Kumo. I sure hope they either rebrand all Live things as Kumo or just leave Live Search alone as far as it's name goes. "Live Search (powered by Kumo)" might not be a bad middle ground if they are truely determined to add another name to the brand.

[drbyte]

They should concentrate on delivering operating systems that aren't a pin cushion for hackers.

[Jonathan]

You mean like Windows 7....oops they already have. Nice try troll.

[selfkill]

And CNET should concentrate on deleting all these shallow, off-topic comments from their articles.

[drbyte]

So having an opinion based on experience is being a troll? The xp pro computers I run that don't connect to the internet operate just as good as linux or osx. Rock solid. The one's that connect to the web, and the computers I repair on a daily all have problems due to the internet and the ease in which windows is hacked by various threats. The anti-virus & spyware programs only do so much to deter threats. Windows is a pin cushion for hackers. You really believe Windows 7 is going to be any better at stopping threats once hackers get a firm grip on it? Didn't take them any time with Vista.

[CrashPad63]

drbyte, I maintain a homenetwork of 5 computers. Teenagers who love to get into everything. Excepting the average malware attack as inevitable, just like OSX and Linux, these Windows boxes have not had a virus on them in 2 years. Thats tow years without AV software running on them.
Now that being said you will note that the OSX platform has seen a rather large spike in trojans this last 2 years, which by the way corresponds to the jump from 3% to 8% in marketshare that OSX enjoys now. Coincedence I dont think so. As has been postulated before the larger the footprint the larger the attraction for exploit.

[drbyte]

CrashPad63 , I don't doubt that the osx / linux are going to be attacked in the years to come. That's a given, but microsoft, the world standard of operating systems, hasn't done a good job of making their OS more fool proof. Fancy taskbars, updated accessories and nifty FX are cool for an OS, but I'd trade that in for a more foolproof OS. For the consumer to accept virus and malware attacks as inevitable and ok is letting them get away with their "patch the brick wall with holes" approach. NOD32, AVAST, ect. Hackers know how to bypass these things, even turn them off. Just one of these viruses or malware programs can render your operating system useless, and I'm sure the people who have paid me hundred's of bucks to get their machine back up to speed would have rather spent the money somewhere else. Put the focus on stopping this stuff instead of having a 6th go at a competitive search engine.

The kind of surfing you do on the web will determine the frequency of your chances of being attacked, but the operating systems should not be so easy to infect in my opinion.

As a pc repair tech, you do kind of hope that windows continues to be a hacker's paradise just for the business, but the productivity person in me has high hope's Windows 7 will address the problems. If so I will be upgrading for sure, and I might lose a little business :-(

[CrashPad63]

drbyte, More directly then what virus for a fully patched Windows XP, Vista or 7 is there to be concerned with. I have not found one. I have nopt read or heard about one. Now malware yes. That is a very real concern, and like I stated before OSX and linux are running into these.
So What Virus do you speak of? And no conficker is not it. That one is for unpatched XP boxes in Asia, Middleeast and Russia.

[htcstech]

Errrmmm... I worry about MS. I always have as they just cannot get their collective minds into some kind of organized and creative nomenclature.
This maybe their chance to use a name other than 'explorer' or 'live'.
How about Elgoogi? Or El? Or L for Live?
Hey I think I just made a creative funny!

[dumbspammers]

Perhaps "Kumo" is somehow related to the "koobface" worm.

[Jonathan]

The real test will be to see if this thing actually does a better job of searching MS's own sites vs. via Google. Technet is a fracking mess to search on via MS's wares.

[another_cissp]

That is funny. It has always amazed me that Google can index MSDN better than Microsoft can.

[t8]

Live Kumo Hot Search?

If it isn't called Google it won't take off.

[t8]

It will be called Kumo.

kumo.co.nz goes to live.

[dream_fly]

Well, does anybody know more about this "Kumo" engine? Is it basically the Fast search engine or something else?

[dhavleak]

I have no inside information, but based on my understanding of Fast, it probably has nothing to do with that. Fast is targeted towards enterprise search -- it's a very different problem than web searching by nature of the format in which your content lives, and the way you would rank relevancy.

[slecalvez]

You're right, nothing to do with Fast... But they have taken some ideas from that platform.... good ones.

[Maccess]

"We regularly test or 'flight' new features for a small subset of searchers," Microsoft said. "The purpose of these flights is to gauge customer response and collect data, which may or may not lead to eventual integration into the larger service."

Technobabble again. Good search gives the results I'm looking for. It's not about interface, new features, integration. I search, I find. It's that simple.

[Super2online]

But the misconception is that you can only get that with Google. 5 years from now, the Google, Live Search, Yahoo Search that we see today won't resemble themselves at all, which means there is a ton of work to do to get right, and no one has accomplished that yet.

[TomMariner]

The breadth or accuracy of a search engine takes second place to preventing it from becoming another advertising medium. The fact (or urban legend) that good search placement is everything you need for success is an irresistable invitation to cheat. Google seems to do a pretty good job of detecting ways to game the system and punish offenders.

So, unless there are lots of Apple employees using Microsoft's internal search test, they are not going to see the fury of marketing techies until it gets to the WWW.

[random truth]

This would have to be one heluva search engine to catch up with google. Just by the pure amount of data and website crawlers google has it would be hard to come up with something that finds webpages as acurately as google.

[magicmaster]

Thank you! Microsoft. I will google your search engine later.

(Wink)

Changing plates doesn't make your food delicious. Similarly changing names (msn -> live -> kumo -> ...) would do nothing better.
This looks like an act of a desperate looser!

[21stCenturyBoy]

Google is much more than the name of a service, it's become a verb much like Kleenex, Coke, and Scotch Tape. People use it like "I'm going to google that" or "I found it by googling it". Nobody will ever say "I Live Searched information about that". Imagine someone saying "I kumoed some porn last night"

Microsoft can do whatever they want, but they cannot change the English language.

[t8]

A Microsoft search engine would never be an unbiased search engine. Their abuse in their Windows monopoly means that they would most likely also abuse the search engine market if they were able to monopolize it. Thankfully that is unlikely to happen. I trust Google to deliver unbiased search and so far they have been very good stewards and I hope they stay that way.