Microsoft Partners HP for Competing With Fellow Giants

Microsoft is collaborating with Hewlett-Packard to make Live Search as default search engine on HP personal computers, which will be shipped in the U.S. and Canada. Starting this January, this move is meant to bring more users to the struggling Microsoft search engine.

Angus Norton, a senior director in Microsoft's Live Search group, said that about 40 percent of web surfers use whatever search engine is set as the default on their PC. The deal also calls for HP, the world's largest PC maker, to install copies of Internet Explorer with an extra Live Search toolbar on them. Microsoft said that the toolbar also links to HP services with minimum hassle.

Google is fielding 10 times the search traffic of Microsoft and has parlayed that into billions of dollars in advertising. Yahoo, No. 2 search engine in U.S., also attracts more than twice its traffic. Microsoft is looking forward to change this scenario with their upcoming deal.