In this case, the natural-language query was “Now what?” | Good Morning Silicon Valley

More on Microsoft/Powerset

As rumored last week, Microsoft, with the notion of a Yahoo deal receding quickly in the rear-view mirror, is taking another tack in its efforts to stem the dominance of Google search — rather than playing catch up, it wants to try leapfrog. Today, Microsoft confirmed an agreement to buy Powerset, one of the leaders in semantic search, which attempts to glean the context and intent of a search rather than just matching keywords against the content of ranked pages. Details of the deal weren’t revealed, but the price is rumored to be in the $100 million neighborhood. “We’re buying Powerset first and foremost because we’re impressed with the people there,” Microsoft’s Live Search blog said. “We came away impressed by their smarts, their experience, their passion for search, and a shared vision. That shared vision is to take Search to the next level by adding understanding of the intent and meaning behind the words in searches and webpages.”

In this case, the natural-language query was “Now what?” | Good Morning Silicon Valley