Microsoft abandons book-scanning project

BEIJING, May 26 (Xinhuanet) -- Microsoft Corp. is abandoning its effort to scan whole libraries and make their contents searchable.

The world's largest software maker is under pressure to show it has a viable strategy for turning around its unprofitable online business after its bid for Yahoo Inc., last valued at 47.5 billion U.S. was rejected this month.

Digitizing books and archiving academic journals no longer fits with the company's plan for its search operation, wrote Satya Nadella, senior vice president of Microsoft's search and advertising group, in a blog post Friday.

Microsoft will take down two separate sites for searching the contents of books and academic journals next week, and Live Search will direct Web surfers looking for books to non-Microsoft sites, the company said.

Nadella said Microsoft will focus on "verticals with high commercial intent."

"We believe the next generation of search is about the development of an underlying, sustainable business model for the search engine, consumer and content partner," Nadella wrote.

Microsoft entered the book-scanning business in 2005 by contributing material to the Open Content Alliance, an industry group conceived by the Internet Archive and Yahoo. In 2006, it unveiled its competing MSN book search site.

Unlike Google, whose decision to scan books still protected under copyright law has provoked multiple lawsuits, Microsoft only scanned books with the permission of publishers or that were firmly in the public domain.

(Agencies)