Not to be outdone by its competitors, Microsoft announced plans this week to launch its own book search engine. The company's MSN Search, like Yahoo before it, has joined the Open Content Alliance to make publicly available print materials accessible on the Web....Analysts say that MSN is doing more than just tweaking Google's nose. The ability to archive, search, and retrieve information from offline content is in high demand among businesses and consumers, said Mukul Krishna, program manager for digital media at Frost & Sullivan. "It is a very valuable tool that is moving from a nice-to-have to a must-have for enterprises and [it is] beginning to be a need for consumers." At the same time, however, Krishna suggested that Microsoft stepped into book searching in part because of the legal battle Google faces before it can get its Library Project up and running. "This is a market that [Microsoft] definitely wants to pursue and the cream is that they might get one-upmanship over Google," Krisha said.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 10/29/2005 08:33:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
