halcyon, Microsoft is a big (very big) company. They don't have the inclination to get into every single business. They pick and choose their product lines based on either 1) profit potential, 2) competitive threat, and/or 3) strategic reasons.
Until this past year, Microsoft (and everybody else, but maybe google and overture) didnt see a great deal of profit potential in search engines. They also didn't see it as a competitive threat until recently. The only reason MSN provided ANY search engine (outsourced) was for strategic reasons. But NOW, all THREE reasons are telling MSFT to get in... hence Microsoft's big push.
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