Ninetowns Internet Technology Group Company Limited, China’s leading provider of online solutions for international trade, in a press release today, announced what they’re calling “the next step in the development of its new business-to-business (“B2B”) strategy.” Ninetowns has agreed to acquire a related party of Beijing Baichuan Tongda Science and Technology Development Co., Ltd. (”Baichuan”), a leading Chinese vertical search engine. [Read more…]

If you use Microsoft Outlook 2003 and get a lot of email, then you can now search your email, files, and your desktop using your own personal search engine, called Lookout. Lookout, recently acquired by Microsoft around the middle of July 2004, is a “lightning-fast search for your email, files, and desktop works with Microsoft Outlook, according to the www.lookoutsoft.com website. “Built on top of a powerful search engine, Lookout is the only personal search engine that can search all of your email from directly within Outlook – in seconds…”. I can personally testify to that. [Read more…]