Microsoft Search Eats Dog Food

Today, Microsoft unveiled a new Microsoft.com search feature built on Windows Server 2003 and Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003. The latter product still is beta testing.

The new search, which you can find here, is another example of Microsoft eating its own dog food. The company's longstanding practice has been to widely deploy beta software internally before releasing a final version to the rest of the world. In fact, no software ships out of Microsoft without sign off by the company's CIO. Microsoft figures that if the code isn't good enough for its own employees, the software isn't good enough for anyone else, either.

The new search features shine a new spotlight on SharePoint Portal Server, which Microsoft touts at just about any opportunity. SharePoint Portal Server typically allows companies to create corporate Intranet portals for accessing all kinds of information. Employees can even create customized Websites for looking at their payroll and other human resources infromation. Microsoft is using SharePoint Portal features to improve the speed and accuracy of Microsoft.com searches, such as delivering search results in up to eight different categories.

Microsoft researcher Stephen Robertson developed the new algorithm used for the improved search capabilities--assuming Microsoft's improvement claims prove true. You can tell Microsoft whether the new search is a hit or miss here.

As I wrote last week, Microsoft is putting increasing emphasis on search, particularly as the company looks to make MSN more competitive with Google and prepares for the new file system planned for Windows Longhorn. My colleague Matthew Berk and I look at Microsoft's MSN search strategy in a report publishing this week.

Posted by Joe Wilcox at July 13, 2003 04:45 PM