Recently Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer said in an interview that the past 5 years of search has not been that innovative. Is he right?

There are any number of ways that charge could be answered. On the one hand, there has been quite a bit of innovation. After all, Bing, itself a Microsoft product, has captured imaginations by actually making itself somewhat competitive with the number one search engine, Google.

On the other hand, we do only have two search engines to speak of, and one of them dominates the market with an overbearing presence. If there is any innovation, it might be difficult to see.

But there is innovation still going on. It isn’t the same type of innovation that took place in the earlier days of search – when no one knew quite what to do about search – but it is innovation. In some ways it’s more sophisticated innovation. The search engines themselves are growing up and realising what their own limitations are. From that, one can only hope the future will see some of the best innovation ever.