Microsoft's new search engine is built on open-source

According to The Register reports, Microsoft's newest search technology (codenamed KUMO) is built with open source and the Kumo search team (formerly powerset) prefers to use open-source software, not proprietary software. In July of last year, Microsoft acquired Powerset, a San Francisco startup intent on bringing natural language processing to web search. And like the original Hotmail, the startup's semantic search engine leans heavily on open source code.

Qouted from The Register

When Kumo launches, in early June, it will be the first "shipping" Microsoft product backed by open source code. That's the word from Robert Duffner, a senior director in Microsoft's platform strategy group.

In an email to The Reg, Microsoft points out that several other product teams have their hand in free software, including the Windows HPC and System Center teams. But they've yet to actually ship code drawn from the community.

In recent years, Microsoft has enjoyed hearing itself talk in vague terms about its commitment to open source. "Microsoft believes contribution and co-development are natural progressions of participating in open source communities," the company burbled to us over email. "A variety of Microsoft product teams and business groups are moving towards increasing contribution and co-development. The opportunity is in understanding the rules and practices of the particular project’s community to participate or contribute in a positive way."

Leaked images regarding Microsoft's overhaul of Live search, codenamed Kumo, started showing up on the Web last March 2.



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