Microsoft, which is challenging market leader Google in the online search market, has demonstrated for the first time on 2 August a search engine that looks for information on computer hard drives as well as information on the Web.
In a demonstration during the annual analysts meeting at Microsoft's Redmond, Washington, headquarters, Microsoft vice president Yusuf Mehdi typed search terms into a prototype version of MSN Toolbar, which runs as an add-on to the Internet Explorer browser. Search results, such as email, email attachments, pictures and documents, were returned nearly instantaneously. Results from the Web for the same search terms were displayed on a separate pane to the right.
Microsoft, Google and Yahoo are trying to attract more users and advertising revenue by enhancing their search services, shifting their attention toward providing search tools for information buried in computer hard drives, which is considered the next battleground among search technology providers.
