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Quaero Starting To Build Momentum

Doug Caverly — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 22:06:15 +0000

Although the "there" in this case represents more of a starting line than any results, French search project Quaero is indeed "getting there." Reports indicate it’s making new hires and planning an important spring meeting.

"[T]he different organizations and companies are building up their staff and preparing a big kick-off for the team at a meeting in mid-May," Pieter Van Der Linden, Quaero’s project leader, told Peter Sayer.

Then, unless something changes, they’ll continue their work for the next five years.

After the departure of some Germans and a long period of inactivity, Quaero seems to be getting its act together. Just last month, roughly $158 million in state aid was approved (the weak dollar makes the amount look bigger every month), and this latest announcement makes it appear that some physically observable progress has finally happened.

Sayer had only one disappointing thing to say: "There are no plans yet to put the translation tools they are developing to use outside their own labs."

EU: Quaero Can Receive $152 Million

Doug Caverly — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 22:02:26 +0000

Over time, references to Quaero have become less and less frequent; it seemed that the French search project was more likely to fade from existence than challenge Google. The European Commission has approved $152 million in state aid, however, so Mountain View might not want to forget about it.

Neelie Kroes

In a statement, Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said, "We are confident that the positive contribution the programme will make to European research will outweigh any distortion of competition caused by the aid." Now there’s simply the matter of what that – and this entire development – means.

To address an issue some people are sure to think about: two weeks ago, the European Commission fined Microsoft $1.35 billion over antitrust issues, and many saw the amount as excessive. On the other hand, the European Commission approved the Google-DoubleClick merger yesterday, so it’s not as if the entity has resolved to squash all American businesses.

And here’s one final bit of information: although we haven’t seen any more recent figures, Google’s market share in France approached 90 percent late last year. This last fact tends to overwhelm the others; all in all, it only seems fair to let Quaero take its shot at search.

The project, as a whole, is supposed to last five years. We’re hoping some product releases or public betas will occur along the way.

Google France Approaches 90 Percent Share

Doug Caverly — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 20:41:50 +0000

On the one hand, new data makes it surprising that Google doesn’t cater more to the French market. On the other hand, perhaps the search giant doesn’t need to – in France, it already has a market share of almost 90 percent.

89.98 – that’s the exact figure for August, according to XiTi and Alt Search Engines. Since Google won over 89.79 percent of the French market in July, that means Google’s liable to hit 90.00 at any given moment. And that means Google’s opponents are in serious trouble.

After all, we’ve nearly reached the “nine out of ten people prefer Google” point, and most of us can admit that at least one person in any group that size is bound to be asleep, stupid, or, in the tradition of an old Trident commercial, being bitten by squirrels.

Still, Yahoo might take some comfort in the fact that it’s in second place (with a market share of 3.17 percent). MSN is next (with 2.33 percent), followed by Orange (with 1.82 percent). Would-be challenger Quaero remains nowhere to be seen.

It’s going to take quite a lot for anything to overthrow Google as France’s top search engine. At the rate things are going, it actually seems more likely that Google will hit 100 percent than plummet to 49.

Japanese Search Project Could Challenge Google

Doug Caverly — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 14:48:58 +0000

Google’s search dominance has reached legendary proportions, and the term “Google killer” has become something of a joke. But there’s word that a number of powerful companies, along with the Japanese government, will work together to challenge the search giant.

Toyota, Sony, NEC, NTT, and Hitachi – these are the corporations named by Mariko Sanchanta and Richard Waters in an article for the Financial Times. “The ministry of trade has allocated Y14bn-Y15bn (€89m-€95m) to the project,” the pair also report, which amounts to between $121 million and $129 million.

Of course, that sum might still be insufficient for a direct attack, but the Japanese alliance has something else on its mind. “Tokyo hopes to use Japan’s strength in developing devices, such as mobile phones and car navigation systems, to create proprietary search and information retrieval functions,” write Sanchanta and Waters. “For example, the government has matched NTT Data with Toyota InfoTechnology Center and Toyota Mapmaster to create an interactive, personalised car navigation system.”

Many onlookers remain doubtful of the project’s chances; this could be due, in part, to the complete lack of (public) deadlines. There’s also the silence from Quaero and Theseus, two other national search projects, to consider.

Still, if anybody can beat Google, it might be this Japanese coalition. For “proof,” read The Onion’s humorous story titled “Earthquake Sets Japan Back to 2147.”

118 218 Embraces Exalead

Doug Caverly — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 22:13:06 +0000

First things first: 118 218 is a French directory assistance number. It’s provided by Le Numero, which can be traced to INFONXX, but that’s all secondary. What’s interesting is that 118 218 searches are now powered by Exalead.

On Search Engine Land, Greg Sterling explains, “In principle, this is comparable to enhanced directory assistance/mobile voice search services being offered in the US by Tellme, 1-800-YellowPages, Jingle Networks and Google (Goog411) but it’s a much broader service.”

Coincidentally, GOOG-411 is getting a share of the spotlight following Click-to-Call’s death. And Exalead is involved in Quaero, a would-be Google-killer. Small world, huh? (Quaero is also associated with Theseus, which has been in the news lately, but this connection is a little more tenuous.)

In any case, “Users in France pay for 118 128 . . . like traditional directory assistance in the US,” according to Sterling. “By contrast, the services above (Tellme, et al) are all ad-supported – or will be. In addition to mobile voice search, 118 128 also offers a companion, Internet local search and shopping site.”

On the ExaBlog, there are promises of faster and more accurate search, which should benefit users of 118 218. And this development should grant Exalead, which is based in France, an even stronger foothold in that country.

Europe’s Challenge to Google’s Dominance

Andy Beal — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 15:21:39 +0000

It seems the European Union is all too quick to question Google’s dominance and probe its acquisitions, but is there a huge conflict of interest to consider?

For more than year a consortium of European technology companies have been working on the development of Quaero – said to be Europe’s challenge to Google’s dominance. Well, today we learn that Germany has received the blessing of the EU to provide $165 million in funding to Theseus, the German arm of the project.

Initially, the German government would pay several “icebreaker” companies - Siemens AG, SAP AG, Deutsche Thomson oHG and EMPOLIS GmbH, owned by Bertelsmann AG - to kick start research. Later, the German funding would be spread out to small and medium businesses for them to build on the earlier research.

In addition, France is considering pumping another $112 million into the project.

Anyone else see a huge conflict of interest here? It’s highly controversial that European companies are probing Google’s every step, while openly funding a competitor.

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Theseus Aid Gets EU Authorization

Doug Caverly — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 15:34:19 +0000

The mythological Theseus was a Greek hero who became a king; he presumably became filthy rich, as well. The modern Theseus – a German search engine project – has also gained quite a bit of money: the European Commission just authorized $165 million in aid.

“Initially, the German government would pay several ‘icebreaker’ companies – Siemens AG, SAP AG, Deutsche Thomson oHG and EMPOLIS GmbH, owned by Bertelsmann AG – to kick start research,” reports the Associated Press. “Later, the German funding would be spread out to small and medium businesses for them to develop the earlier research.”

In the end, the Germans hope to offer unique semantic search abilities, but Theseus is not intended to compete with Google. (A slight side note: if the name Quaero is familiar to you, know that Theseus won’t directly challenge it, either.) As for the possibility that Theseus would give those “icebreaker” companies an unfair edge, Neelie Kroes, EU Competition Commissioner, had something to say.

“I am pleased that Germany intends to promote additional research and innovation for the next generation of the Internet and has taken care to do so in a way that will minimize any distortions of competition,” she told Bloomberg’s John Rega.

There’s been no word about when results are expected from Theseus, but the $165 million in funding is supposed to last through 2011. We’ll have to see if, in that period, the German project can come up with better than following a thread out of a maze.

Germans Bail From Quaero Partnership

WebProNews Staff — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 18:57:35 +0000

France and Germany had great plans to take on Google for search engine dominance, but the French will have to go it alone as Germany withdraws from the project.

Goodbye, Quaero. Hello, Theseus.

That’s the message from Germany’s economic minister, who disclosed the awful truth about the Quaero move at a Potsdam IT summit:

He said (translating) “The co-operation is at an end and although we won’t be cutting all ties, the project will in future be a national German project with the political and economic aims of this summit.”

Apparently, the co-operation had “Not been easy.” Heise.de reports that Hartmut Schauerte said the French were more interested in pursuing a ‘conventional search engine’ whereas the German Government expressly did not want to go into direct competition with Google and others and wanted to concentrate more on the development of the semantic web.

World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee has been a proponent of the semantic web for several years, where concept and structure of content mean as much as the content alone.

TechWorld noted that the French will continue to tilt at the Google windmill, however:

“The Quaero file is not closed,” said a spokeswoman for the French Agency for Industrial Innovation (AII), which funds research for the French Ministry of the Economy, Finance and Industry. “There are still German partners involved in the Quaero project (but) the configuration of partners will change. When you work on something international, it’s more complicated than when it’s just the French involved.”

Germany, it appears, has recognized the writing on the wall when it comes to contextual search. Their Theseus project will aim for the semantic web, which is just as well since Google dominates in European markets just as it does in the United States. Running at that buzzsaw never looked like a prudent idea.

David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.

The French Oxymoron Called Quaero

Neville Hobson — Wed, 10 May 2006 20:54:20 +0000

In January, I wrote about Quaero, a planned European multimedia search engine, the answer to Google and brainchild of the French government.

My own thoughts about it were expressed thus:

[] The idea of Quaero is a terrific one. Yet I can’t imagine anything more oxymoronic than “government-backed search engine.”

Loic Le Meur – a Frenchman – has posted a withering commentary on this oxymoron, lambasting the French government in the process.

Headline points from Loic’s 10 reasons why the French search engine will fail:

1. Can’t spell it.

2. Centralized.

3. Secret versus beta.

4. No buzz, no adoption.

5. A galaxy of actors who compete to get the subventions and don’t get much noticed for their latest web innovations.

6. Not really international.

7. A neverending story.

8. Not enough euros.

9. Subventions euros are not worth venture capital euros.

10. Google is a thousand startups

See Loic’s post for the excruciating details.

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Neville Hobson is the author of the popular NevilleHobson.com blog which focuses on business communication and technology.

Neville is currentlly the VP of New Marketing at Crayon. Visit Neville Hobson’s blog: NevilleHobson.com.

Quaero: French Search Or N.C. Firm?

WebProNews Staff — Mon, 16 Jan 2006 17:55:43 +0000

The much-discussed Quaero project, in development with French tech giant Thomson, adds Bertelsmann AG as the German project lead and partner in the venture; apparently neither of them bothered to do a whois lookup on the name first.

An alert WebProNews reader emailed to remind me the Quaero.com name has been registered by Quaero Corporation, an online marketing firm based in North Carolina. The .net and .org versions were registered by Benoit Lelong of Fontenay Sous Bois, France, and Vecsys-Research, also of France.

While the anti-American bent of French President Jacques Chirac’s comments about challenging Google and Yahoo in search was clearly calculated, the esteemed leader may have missed out on a fundamental Internet truism: dot-com is the desired ending for a domain name, period.

And Quaero Corp of Charlotte, NC, US of A, has that registered through 2007.

Bertelsmann and Thomson will develop a multimedia search engine, provided the informal agreement reported by MSNBC becomes formal and Bertelsmann, via its Empolis data processing subsidiary, signs on by the end of the week.

Quaero has ambitious plans for search. Its proponents envision it as enabling search for text, video, audio, and images. Quaero would be able to divine multimedia files through visual recognition and audio transcription technologies.

Tech companies in the US have been working to achieve a dominant place in those fields. Microsoft, the world’s biggest tech company, has sizable aspirations for speech recognition for its product line, including Exchange.

Though Chirac cited Google and Yahoo as the firms to catch, Microsoft could prove a touch competitor on the audio side of search technology.

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David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.