Don't be misled by the name-- "Windows Live Academic
Search."
At least the beta works on Macintosh as well, using System
10.4,with Safari as the browser. (Other permutations not
tested,
and I do not know about this for the new Intel Macs.)
Dr. David Goodman
Associate Professor
Palmer School of Library and Information Science
Long Island University
and formerly
Princeton University Library
dgoodman liu.edu
dgoodmanprinceton.edu
----- Original Message -----
From: Ann Okerson <ann.okersonyale.edu>
Date: Thursday, April 13, 2006 8:08 pm
Subject: Microsoft takes on Google Scholar
To: liblicense-llists.yale.edu
>>From the Chronicle of Higher Education, 4/12/06
>
> Challenging Google, Microsoft Unveils a Search Tool for
Online
> Scholarly Articles
>
> By SCOTT CARLSON
>
> Microsoft is introducing a new search tool today that
will help
> people find scholarly articles online. The service,
which will
> include journal articles from prominent academic
societies and
> publishers, puts Microsoft in direct competition with
Google,
> which offers a similar service called Google Scholar.
>
> The free search tool, which should work on most
browsers, is
> called Windows Live Academic Search. For now, it
includes eight
> million articles from only a few disciplines --
computer science,
> electrical engineering, and physics.
>
> "We will be expanding this over time to cover all
the areas where
> there are scientific journals," said Danielle
Tiedt, general
> manager of content acquisition for Microsoft. "We
started in the
> place where there is the most highly structured
metadata, which
> is these three hard-sciences areas."
>
> People at Microsoft and at other technology companies,
such as
> Google, have seen academic searches as an increasingly
valuable
> sector. Some at Microsoft have estimated that the
academic-search
> business could be worth $10-billion by 2010, although
Ms. Tiedt
> said that others cite figures both higher and lower.
>
> Ms. Tiedt pointed out that academic users perform six
times as
> many searches as other people. "Obviously,
getting the power
> searchers is important to us," she said, adding
that an
> academic-search tool fits into Microsoft's strategy to
court the
> academic community generally.
>
> Despite the potential for making money off power
searchers, Ms.
> Tiedt said that there is currently no business model
for
> Microsoft's academic-search tool. "For us this
is really a
> loyalty game," she said. "We're putting
this product out to try
> to get a lot of loyalty in the [academic]
community."
>
> [SNIP]
>
> Copyright 2006, Chronicle of Higher Education
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