Microsoft to Buy Search Startup for $100 million - Semantic Search Sounds Like UC Value Proposition

Will the enterprise infrastructure requirements be obsolete by fast moving consumer based cloud web service apps? Hmmmm. Will Microsoft lay down the UC market and cross subsidize their efforts to own Google and search services? Well maybe so? Unified Search sounds a lot like Unified Communications.

As speculated at Furrier.org first and confirmed by my sources Microsoft left the Yahoo bedroom with the intention of buying up the farm to get a foothold in search. Well folks… game is back on. Matt Marshall is reporting that Microsoft is paying north of $100 million for Powerset. .

I posted my editorial opinion on my personal opinion blog here.

UC Angle here?:

Microsoft is trying to unify the search market. What are the implications to Unified Communications?

I can’t tell you how many times I have the feeling that the search platform wars are related to Unified Communications. I just can’t put my finger on the overlap yet. But I do think that the search platform wars (which includes all consumers and advertisers requirements and dollars) will intersect with UC market. It has to. The line blurring between the enterprise and consumer has been going on for some time, but never this fast.

Will the enterprise infrastructure requirements be obsolete by fast moving consumer based cloud web service apps? Hmmmm

Anyway I knew Powerset was in discussion with Microsoft but I had no idea that this would go through this fast. Powerset is not even ready for prime time according to sources close to the company. The product barely works at scale and I’ve heard of some linguistic issues on their approach.

What does this mean?

This is all about Microsoft buying up the talent in search anything. Smart move. i think so. Overpriced: Yes. But if you think about the talent and the team it is justified.

Semantic search is a moving train. Cracking the code goes way beyond just software advances. Semantic search now intersects data, software, infrastructure, services, and devices. Wait that sounds like Unified Communications.

Will Microsoft change the game on Google in search by cross subsidizing one of their other business units in order to get a big advantage. Could it be UC?

I might consider “laying down” the UC platform to penetrate and dominate the consumer cloud business before Google does. This might give Microsoft to get rid of some of the UC baggage and start from a clean sheet and do it right in web cloud services. If the lines are truely blurring why not start from scratch.

Interesting possibility