Why the hell wouldn’t Microsoft just sink a third of that cost into revamping its horrible search engine/web portal rather than attempt to buy up another horrible search index that’s stretched itself too thin with a million mediocre features? They might have a fighting chance if they hired some decent developers (and a marketing team too, while they’re at it).

Buying up more shitty search engines a la destroy and conquer isn’t going to work. As Google — which buys up innovative, genuinely cool start-ups and adds them to its mix rather than just eat up the competition — evolves and adapts to the real needs of web users, their slice of the market pie is only going to get bigger. Better take a hint, Ballmer.