Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center to build a search engine

Google has been the dominating player in the search engine industry since many years now. Microsoft and Yahoo! have been trying hard but have practically failed to challenge the popularity of Google on the web.

Now, Xerox could become a potential challenger to Google’s domination as their research subsidiary the Palo Alto Research Center has struck a licensing deal with a high-profile startup Powerset Inc. to develop a search engine technology.

Powerset founder and CEO Barney Pell said in a statement that their search engine is expected to go live by the end of the year.

The company has already managed to secure US$12.5 million in funding from various venture capital firms and angel investors. And they have been negotiating with PARC to use the technology they have been developing since September 2005.

PARC’s Ron Kaplan is also joining Powerset as its chief technology and scientific officer.

Something about PARC: This research institute is credited with some of the most important innovations in the field of IT. These include laser printing, Ethernet, the modern personal computer graphical user interface (GUI) paradigm, object-oriented programming, and ubiquitous computing.