Microsoft fights back

The past few days have seen hectic activities from Microsoft. In a bid to increase its penetration in the virtual world, Microsoft has announced two major intiatives - in the search engine space and internet video sharing space.

Live.com is Microsoft answer to Google search. Live.com search site has officially graduate from beta last week, which means it is finally becoming live, quite literally. It has an uncomplicated home page, undoubtedly "inspired" by its competitor and has a few features that set new benchmarks - such as related searches and image searches. Expect Live to be a part of the strategy followed by Microsoft when its Vista operating system comes live.

The other major activity of Microsoft has been the testing of an Internet video-sharing service called Soapbox- the software company's answer to YouTube. Soapbox will be offered to invited users during the test phase and is likely to go live as part of MSN video within the next six months. Interestingly Microsoft intends to make Soapbox available to various browsers instead of limiting it to Internet Explorer browser and Windows Media Player.

Microsoft has been lazy in Internet services, especially search. This will be the first real counterattack of the software giant to its young competitors like Google, Yahoo and now, YouTube.

The fun has begun...