Microsoft has cunning answer to Google newsgroups

Dom

IT'S NO SECRET that Microsoft looks at Google and wonders why it's not doing brilliantly with its own search engine technology – even though that's the default if a URL fails to return.

You can alter this default by the way, and replace it with Google if a URL goes AWOL, it's a comparatively easy process.

So it should come as no surprise that Microsoft's Netscan is well on the way to trying to mop up other parts of searching that Google's currently doing so well.

Netscan's static page, which you can find here, returns a whole heap of Microsoft related forums. Microsoft describes it as "a tool into the Usenet".

Do a search, say, for VMS, and it will find all sorts of groups related to that word.

So will Netscan and other cunning plans Microsoft has displace Google as the search engine of choice? We kind of doubt it. Which we suppose is why the rumours are afoot that if Microsoft can't emulate it, it will buy it.

And why is Microsoft jealous of Google? It's not just the advertising revenue that it could hoover up, but we suspect that it's proof that the Vole doesn't really, in its own words, "innovate" at all. It prefers to copy others.

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Source: TheInquirer