Report: Microsoft Buying Would-Be Google-Killer Powerset For $100M
What are semantic search engines, and why does Silicon Valley love them? Semantic search, or "natural language" search, is supposed to divine searchers' intentions more accurately than today's standard offerings -- which means Google. And creating a search engine that works better than Google would have obvious benefits for whoever figures it out. Hence Hakia, Twine, etc.
We've been skeptical about the ability of semantic search to deliver results that are significantly better than Google's, and think that Google does a very fine job of figuring out what we're looking for. But we had previously assigned a value of $80 million to Powerset, predicated primarily on the idea that someone who wanted to take on Google would find the company attractive. Now that looks like a reasonable hunch.
I think Microsoft has two great new assets on their hands: the PARC and Powerset IP/technology stack and the team they are acquiring (having heard a number of them speak before, and they are a pretty impressive crew). My hope is that Microsoft finds a way to creatively introduce some of the Powerset stuff sooner vs. later (even getting broader exposure to the the semantically aware wikipedia pages they generate would be a great initial win in my eyes).
This is a win for both parties: Powerset gets to scale way faster than they would have ever gotten on their own, and Microsoft injects unique computational linguistics talent to help address their number one on-line priority - search.
Congrats to Barney and his team.
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