[Fsf-friends] Microsoft search encounters glitches on first day

[Frederick Noronha (FN)]

Friday November 12, 7:30 AM

  Microsoft search encounters glitches on first day


  SEATTLE (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp.'s widely anticipated search engine,
  which launched in test mode on Thursday, encountered some glitches on its
  first day, the world's largest software maker said.

  The new search engine, Microsoft's first assault on Google Inc.'s leading
  position in the market, returned "temporarily unavailable" messages to
  some users looking for answers to queries at its Web site at
  beta.search.msn.com.

  "In the process of making our new MSN Search Beta globally available, we
  experienced technical difficulties that rendered it unavailable for some
  consumers for periods of time," Microsoft said in an e-mailed statement.

  Microsoft said it had expected such problems with MSN Search during its
  beta, or test mode, while soliciting feedback from users.

  "We expected to find some problems in the beta, and we anticipate there
  will be additional times when we limit service availability for
  maintenance purposes," the company said.

  Microsoft had been working on its search engine for the last 18 months
  after deciding to challenge Google's leading position the market.

  Microsoft's said its new search engine would deliver results from a
  database index of more than 5 billion indexed

  Web documents and pages. Google said on Wednesday that it had nearly
  doubled its index database to 8 billion pages.