Monday, January 23, 2006
Europe Seeks Its Search Engine - Internet Life - NewsFactor Network:
"Germany and France are negotiating plans to inject 1 billion to 2 billion euros over five years into a public-private initiative to develop a series of sophisticated digital tools including a next-generation Internet search engine, a project organizer said.
The program, called Quaero, would be paid for by the French and German governments and technology companies in both countries, including Thomson, Siemens, France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom. Philippe Paban, a spokesman for Thomson, which is leading the French effort, said Quaero's organizers might be ready to announce details of the project by next week.
Quaero, which means "I seek" in Latin, still faces several hurdles, including scrutiny of its public funding by the European Commission and uncertainty in Germany, where no single company has taken the lead and a coalition government elected in November has yet to publicly endorse the project. Organizers are also fighting some skeptics who maintain that Quaero could waste taxpayers' money in academic research that produces no commercial benefit.
The project, conceived in April by President Jacques Chirac of France and Gerhard Schroder, then the chancellor of Germany, is an attempt by two of Europe's largest economies to develop a local challenger to Google, the California-based search engine, which spent $327 million on research and development in the first nine months of 2005.
In a speech this month laying out his 2006 agenda, Chirac spoke to those concerns, saying: "We must take up the challenge posed by the American giants Google and Yahoo. For that, we will launch a European search engine, Quaero."
Quaero organizers said they were racing this month to complete the main details of financing, which one participant in the project, who did not want to be identified because of the sensitivity and fluid nature of the discussions, said was "in the realm of 1 billion to 2 billion," or $1.2 billion to $2.4 billion, over five years..."
"Germany and France are negotiating plans to inject 1 billion to 2 billion euros over five years into a public-private initiative to develop a series of sophisticated digital tools including a next-generation Internet search engine, a project organizer said.
The program, called Quaero, would be paid for by the French and German governments and technology companies in both countries, including Thomson, Siemens, France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom. Philippe Paban, a spokesman for Thomson, which is leading the French effort, said Quaero's organizers might be ready to announce details of the project by next week.
Quaero, which means "I seek" in Latin, still faces several hurdles, including scrutiny of its public funding by the European Commission and uncertainty in Germany, where no single company has taken the lead and a coalition government elected in November has yet to publicly endorse the project. Organizers are also fighting some skeptics who maintain that Quaero could waste taxpayers' money in academic research that produces no commercial benefit.
The project, conceived in April by President Jacques Chirac of France and Gerhard Schroder, then the chancellor of Germany, is an attempt by two of Europe's largest economies to develop a local challenger to Google, the California-based search engine, which spent $327 million on research and development in the first nine months of 2005.
In a speech this month laying out his 2006 agenda, Chirac spoke to those concerns, saying: "We must take up the challenge posed by the American giants Google and Yahoo. For that, we will launch a European search engine, Quaero."
Quaero organizers said they were racing this month to complete the main details of financing, which one participant in the project, who did not want to be identified because of the sensitivity and fluid nature of the discussions, said was "in the realm of 1 billion to 2 billion," or $1.2 billion to $2.4 billion, over five years..."
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