When I previously wrote about Wolfram Alpha, I had suggested that this kind of system could become more than just a competitor of Google (or other types of general search engines); it could be an excellent complement to meet specific and punctual needs. Therefore, I was not surprised when I heard the news  that Microsoft had sealed a deal with Wolfram to integrate Bing and Wolfram Alpha for searches/questions belonging to a subcategory of topics for which Alpha has good coverage of.

The terms of the accord are still unknown, but I really believe it will be beneficial for both parties. After its initial launch, general interest in Wolfram Alpha greatly diminished (due also to the excessively high expectations which were created but could not be met…). An accord of this type could be just the thing to create a new buzz and new interest. Surely, it won’t help Bing make any improvements in quality, but for Microsoft, this agreement could help keep the hype about Bing and its ecosystem alive.

Maybe because it’s summer, maybe because it was almost to-be-expected, but the recent accord between Microsoft and Yahoo hasn’t really received much press and while the analyses that I have read were interesting, they did not add much to what I had already assumed.

Basically, it’s a classic agreement between the second and third place leaders of a market which is dominated by an effective  monopolist: this is something that happens in many economic sectors and the fact that it is also present in the Internet search engine market, is nothing shocking. Not only, but given the general economic situation, there has not yet been a single payment by Microsoft, something which up until last year, would certainly have occurred by now.

On paper, it looks like an agreement which is beneficial to both, but as we have seen in the past, uniting two weaknesses does not always lead to desirable results. I do think that this development is positive however, as it will increase Google’s competition (something I’ve been waiting for), but we’ll just have to wait a while and see what kind of an impact it will have on the market.

From a technical standpoint (as research technology is my real interest), the news is actually kind of negative. From what I’ve read, Yahoo’s current solution no longer exist. This is a pity because it contains a great part of the history of Web search engines. It’s true that in the past two years, the engine has lost some clout (up until then, it’s quality was very similar to Google’s, if not better in many ways),  surely not due to limitations in technology, but because of a reduction in product investments.

So, farewell to Altavista, Inktomi and AllTheWeb -  in some way they  still managed to “live” inside Yahoo’s searches. Now we’ll just have to see if Bing will be able to become a worthy successor as well as a real alternative to  Google.

Microsoft and Yahoo Tie a Loose Knot. And Google could also use the competition.
Bing surprised many with its new features, clean interface and the way they made use of some semantic processing without having to be a rocket scientist. I would love to see Yahoo and Microsoft make a run at Google; it would force Google to wake up a bit and not feel so comfortable and smug in their market leading position.