Gates searches for context

Bill Gates’ demeanor was almost dismissive when it came to Google. During a press Q&A here this morning, Gates responded to a question about the company’s search strategy by commenting: “We were in search before Google was founded.”

As quoted by Computerworld in this overview, Gates is determined to respond to Google by widening the scope of how we define “search.”

Naturally enough, if you look at search in the forthcoming “Longwait” (Longhorn) OS, Microsoft is chasing the notion of context. We want to search documents on our PC, across the company network, Intranet and Internet. We might (and should) want to include blogs in that search. It’s not a question of simply finding a document, but understanding how different documents and pieces of information relate to one another. That’s a very strategic, and interesting proposition that will reshape how we view information – and how computers map relationships between different pieces of data for us to analyze.

Another quick aside from today’s PR cameo. Gates said with the exception of media businesses like MSNBC, Slate and Expedia, Microsoft is completely focused on developing software. Wondering out loud here in the context of those spin-off businesses – will Microsoft become one of the first vendors to exploit ideas like Jeremy Wright’s Bloggist Magazine and set itself up as the blog portal and take out Google’s Blogger.com?

UPDATE: Here’s Computerworld’s report on Microsoft’s $40M charity drive, backed by the Aussie PM.

UPDATE #2: If you’re really keen, you can read this transcript of Gates’ speech today (supplied by Microsoft PR): Download speech_by_bill_gates.doc

UPDATE #3: The Australian notes that Microsoft’s search site will get a refresh in July. Here’s Gates talking about Microsoft search (from MS transcript):

In July the format of the site will change and so the quality of what you get and the way it’ll look is dramatically improved. It’ll be later this year that we actually roll out what’s entirely our own back end driving the search. So starting in July there’s significant improvements all the way through to the end of the year, and then, of course, you know, we’ll keep investing in it after that.