Microsoft Aims For Personalized Search

Microsoft Corp. said on Monday it was aiming to make search services customized for users so that results would be based on individual preferences and interests.

“We’re going to make search extremely personal,” Microsoft chairman Bill Gates told an audience of computer science and technology researchers at the world’s largest software maker’s headquarters in Redmond, Washington.

Personalized search promises to deliver search results that are more relevant by taking into account an individual’s interests based on previous search queries and other information.

The company has been making news in the search arena lately with its acquisition of Lookout, a company that makes software for searching through e-mails and other computer files. Microsoft has made clear its intentions of going after the Internet search market as well as strengthening its desktop search products – and combining the two technologies together.