Next week at the D: All Things Digital conference, Microsoft will be debuting its Kumo search which is exceptional an upgraded Live Search. Microsoft has been testing Kumo internally since March of 2009. The new search engine will provide new tools like related searches, single-session search history – in case you want to go back quickly, search categories that help you narrow down your search results, and other tools.
Tech Fragments actually learned of the Microsoft Kumo site in November of 2008 when we learned that Microsoft had snatched up all Kumo domain names.
Back then, it was thought that Kumo had more to do with a new cloud computing service by Microsoft but in March of this year, we found hard evidence that Kumo was a re-branding of Live Search. Then a day later, Microsoft sent an email to employees informing them of the internal testing of Kumo and we obtained screenshots of the new search tool.
A lot is still uncertain because Microsoft has been very quiet. It could be that Microsoft may drop the Kumo name altogether and re-brand with a new name.
A lot of analysts believe one thing is for sure, the Live branding may be discontinued altogether. Again, everything is still up in the air – we’ll find out more next week when Microsoft makes its announcement of Kumo Live Search, or whatever it is.
I would keep an eye on Kumo.com next week to see if anything interesting comes up.
