Seattle Times on the search war

In "Microsoft Learns to Crawl", Kim Peterson at the Seattle Times gives an inside view of MSN Search's efforts in the search war. Some excerpts:

The search battle is bigger than beating Google. Microsoft is carving its path in the next generation of computing -- one in which search becomes a platform, not a feature ....

Some ... are eyeing perhaps the biggest weapon in Microsoft's arsenal: the operating system. The company is building search into its upcoming operating system, code-named Longhorn and expected next year, and likely will give it a prominent spot in front of the user.

Kim also wrote a good article on Sunday about the past and future of search.

See also Fred Vogelstein's excellent Fortune article on MSN and the search war.