Lessons learned in Microsoft “search wars”
Does anyone now remember the unseemly shenanigans a couple of months ago when The Register claimed that IE7 Beta1 didn’t support Google or Yahoo toolbars? It ended with accusations of a doctored email and a lot of blogging mayhem.
Microsoft appears to have listened and learned the lessons. The Internet Explorer team has announced that IE7 will support all kinds of search engines, and is actively working with Amazon towards Open Search in the browser.
According to WebProNews, “OpenSearch compatible engines already include IceRocket, the New York Times, About.com. Wikipedia, Flickr, Feedster, Creative Commons, NASA, Furl, Google search, IMDB, Findory, ESPN, Wired, ABC News, USA Today, The Washington Post, UPS Package Tracking; over 260 in total.”
The IE team says : “… in conjunction with A9.com, we’ve also announced OpenSearch 1.1 in order to allow users to easily populate their search engine of choice. We’re working together with A9.com to provide backward compatible extensions to OpenSearch 1.0 to allow the OpenSearch to define search engines that output HTML as well as RSS. These extensions are being provided under the same Creative Commons license we used for the RSS list extensions.”
Amazon’s take on this : “… it is a perfect example of how open standards (e.g. XML and HTTP), common formats (e.g. RSS), generous licensing, and direct person to person collaboration can take an idea from concept to production in a matter of weeks.”
Update: Robert Scoble informs me that “the A9 search thing was in the works before the Register article.”
