Microsoft's Bing search engine and Wolfram Alpha have reached a licensing deal that allows Bing to present some of the specialised scientific and computational content that Wolfram Alpha generates, according to a source familiar with the deal.
Representatives from Microsoft and Wolfram Research declined to comment on the deal.
Wolfram Alpha's unique blend of computational input and curated output has not taken the world by storm, but it is considered an interesting enough take on the business of internet search to attract high-profile attention within the industry.
Wolfram Alpha does not return the usual list of links to pages with search keywords, instead providing answers to questions such as stock prices and complex mathematical formulas — with mixed results.
Bing, on the other hand, is enjoying a solid start in the three months since it made its debut as it gains users, and it will at some point be the default search experience on Yahoo's highly trafficked pages following a long-awaited deal.
Read this
Leader: Why Bing is not the Wave of the future
If Microsoft is so powerful, why does it leave it to Google to innovate?
It is not clear whether Bing results will carry Wolfram's branding (that is, results 'Powered By Wolfram Alpha'), but there will be some sort of presence.
It is unlikely that Bing is going to turn over the bulk of its results to Alpha, however. In a blog post on Friday, Wolfram founder Stephen Wolfram admitted that linguistic problems are to blame for half of the occasions when Wolfram Alpha does not return a result. That percentage is changing as Wolfram refines the science behind Wolfram Alpha, but it will take some time.
Talkback
Microsoft is on it collating mission again, I haft to wonder though does this really make a difference to the average guy at the end of the chain.
It could make a big difference to us actually, as WA has a huge potential to be the search engine we have all wished google was - that is, returning an answer rather than a giant bundle of useful links. Hardly anyone has heard of it though, so this deal could open the way to more visibility for the fledgeling technology as well as more incentive for them to 'fix' it's often unhelpful responses.