hooloovoo22 - 2:02 pm on Sep 29, 2004 (gmt 0)

I like DaveN's theory, but have a couple questions.

1. why would they spend time completely redesigning their algo and recreating the index when they already have arguably the best search engine already? That's a HUGE risk. True, you should never rest on your laurels...but it wasn't broken and fleshing out mail, news, portal, browser, etc would seem to expand their search empire more effectively.

2. it's not as easy to become a mainstream search engine anymore, somebody with a nifty little technology isn't going to slip by the big guys so easily like in the past. If they see something that does it better and is gaining market share, pull a MS and buy it?