If Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) can’t buy a search business, then maybe it had better build a better one. And since it was in Europe for the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival today, it thought it might as well declare that it will open a Search Technology Centre (STC) “in Europe” with just that aim. An STC is an R&D hub designed to yield better search products. Microsoft already has one such facility in Beijing, opened in 2005, but there’s no location given yet for the European one, which will open in the fiscal year beginning next July 1.
“Today Microsoft has 68 percent reach to internet users throughout Europe through our online assets and strengths in display advertising; however, we