Starting in 2009, HP's consumer PCs will not only have the default browser search engine to Live Search, it will also have a Live Search enabled-toolbar installed. This will be a customized toolbar for HP, powered by Silverlight.

Undoubtedly this will give Silverlight a boost as well as Live Search (I've managed to keep from installing Silverlight to this point, but oh, well). In fact, by the time this starts up, Silverlight 2 will likely have been out for a couple of months.

In the press release, Kevin Johnson, president of the Platforms & Services Division at Microsoft said:

"This agreement with HP is a strategic indicator of our increased focus on securing broad-scale distribution for Live Search. This is the most significant distribution deal for Live Search that Microsoft has ever done, and we are very pleased to be partnering with HP to help bring Live Search to millions of consumers across North America."

He right about the deal size, that's for sure. As I indicated, the toolbar will be customized for HP, and HP will be able to use the buttons on the toolbar to access a variety of online services and tools, such as Snapfish (HP’s online photo service) and HP customer support.

Honestly, there's nothing like having your search engine as the browser default, or having a toolbar installed on the PC to increase your market share. Of course, people like me will just a) uninstall the toolbar, b) set the default to my search engine of choice, but for many people, it'll just be "use as install."

What do you readers think? Will this increase Microsoft's search share significantly, and is it the another one of their "alternate" plans since the Yahoo! deal fizzled (remember their search engine "bribery")?

Source: By Tech Ex http://technologyexpert.blogspot.com/