Report: Microsoft To Demo Kumo Search Next Week

The unveiling will take place at the D: All Things Digital conference, to be held in Carlsbad, Calif. from May 26-28, according to a Tuesday report in the Wall Street Journal.

Microsoft, which has been testing Kumo internally since March, has been sending the message that current search engines aren't nearly as effective as they could be. In an email to employees earlier this year, Satya Nadella, senior vice president and head of engineering for Microsoft's Online Services Division, estimated that 40 percent of search queries go unanswered and 46 percent of search sessions consume more than 20 minutes.

"We believe we can provide a better and more useful search experience that helps you not just search but accomplish tasks," Nadella said in the e-mail.

Microsoft last July acquired San Francisco-based Powerset, a developer of semantic search technology that determines the intent behind search terms, in a deal estimated at $100 million. The move was seen as a compensatory reaction by Microsoft to its failed bids to acquire Yahoo, and a sign of its intention to differentiate itself from Google by snapping up nascent search technology.

But Microsoft's efforts to build search market share have yet to bear fruit. In April, Google's search market share stood at 64.2 percent, compared to 8.2 percent for Microsoft's and 20.4 percent for Yahoo, according to Reston, Va.-based research firm comScore.

By overhauling its search technology in Kumo, Microsoft hopes to be able to halt its recent market slide and start making up ground. But given that Microsoft recently experienced its first year-on-year decline in quarterly revenue since becoming a public traded company in 1986, it's unclear how much more it'll be willing to spend to make that happen.