In typical corporate world fashion, Microsoft engineers are again attempting to build a new search engine platform (Kumo) that promises to help you “not just search, but accomplish tasks”. It does appear that Microsoft is finally using the thousands of employees they have as a focus group by releasing it internally and redirecting employee traffic from live.com to Kumo.com, requesting feedback. If only they could redirect internal Google.com traffic… A recent Microsoft insider reported that 4/5ths of internal searches were completed on Google. This is an amazing statistic and should be a rude awakening to the big guys over in Redmond that they cannot buy market share, but rather they must provide a superior user experience.

All of this commotion comes as talks with Yahoo! heat up, again. It appears that Microsoft is positioning themselves to make a big splash in late 2009, with their sights set on Google during the big holiday push. Plans for a $100 million ad campaigns are also bouncing around the advertising world. In my opinion this money will be better spent if they no longer have Yahoo! between themselves and Google.