Buy Office 2010 Confirmed Microsoft buys Powerset

The rumors accumulating over the previous few months were accurate: Microsoft has purchased natural-language search vendor Powerset for an undisclosed amount.Microsoft introduced the offer on July one. Microsoft is planning to make use of Powerset;s folks and technologies to “take Search to the next level by adding understanding of the Internet and meaning behind the words in searches and webpages,Microsoft Office 2007 Standard,” according to a post on the Live Search blog.Alot more from that posting by Satya Nadella, Senior Vice President of Lookup,Office 2010 Home And Business, Portal and Advertising:“Powerset will join our core Search Relevance team,Windows 7 Code, remaining intact in San Francisco. Powerset brings with it natural language technologies that nicely complements other natural language processing technologies we have in Microsoft Research.”Some have taken to referring to Microsoft;s purchase of Powerset as a piece of Microsoft;s “Plan B” following the breakdown in acquisition talks between Microsoft and Yahoo.(I noticed Richard Sprague,Office Pro, Senior Director of Marketing in the Microsoft Research Incubation team, hint via a blog post last week that his team had had some interesting interactions with Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates just before Gates retired. Given Sprague;s areas of focus,Buy Office 2010, perhaps he was referring to Powerset.)What do you think: Is the Powerset acquisition a good first move for Microsoft after the dissolution of the Yahoo deal?