In another move to pull itself out of the Google swamp of search domination, Microsoft announced the acquisition of the semantic search engine Powerset, a newcomer to the search arena with a unique contextual search technology.

While Google has dismissed the idea of contextual search as the next wave in search technology, Microsoft is clearly impressed with what the Powerset team has come up with, including a glowing blog post around the Powerset employees in its announcement about the acquisition. Apparently Microsoft gambles that a search engine that can understand the meanings and semantics of the words and phrases it searches will take the search market “to the next level”.

Whether or not the Powerset team and technology can keep the Microsoft search business afloat remains to seen. In the meantime, the move is yet another attempt to bolster the Microsoft offering by bringing in outside help.

-Daniel Yomtobian, CEO