...and they'll connect to "Kumo"?

Are they even still in business?

Nobody uses Live Search because it's a facsimile of Google.

It didn't used to be and nobody used it because of the clutter. So they tried to 'Google-ise' it, which is all well and good, but then why would you use it instead of Google?

Google got there first because it's simple - a box on a white page is all you need. They all try something different every now and again - look at Ask as an example. Except that they've had to go back to the Google style because nobody wants to spend their life messing about on a fancy search engine.

MS are terrible at innovating. Their only way of getting anywhere in the search engine 'market' is to buy up competitors and become hapy with playing second (instead of third or fourth) fiddle to the market leader. Like the Zune. Like the XBox.

I've got some magic beans that will turn MSN search into Google

I started using Live Search a few months ago, seems to work well enough for my purposes.

The big surprise for me was the Images search. I like it much better than Google's because when you click on a picture, it opens it in a pane in the same window rather than taking you to another page. Saves a lot of wear and tear on the forward and back buttons.

Like Flickr.

Consumers are more likely to identify with "kumo" (keno?) than with "live search"? Ok, if you say so MS. I suggest, MS, you call your iPod killer "the Zune". That is going to frighten the pants off of Apple.

Bill/Ballmer with the dunce hat on icon.