Microsoft to Acquire Powerset

Microsoft reached an agreement to acquire Powerset, a San Francisco-based search and natural language company.

Powerset will join Microsoft’s core Search Relevance team, remaining intact in San Francisco. Powerset brings with it natural language technology that nicely complements other natural language processing technologies in Microsoft Research.

“We're buying Powerset first and foremost because we're impressed with the people there. Powerset CTO and cofounder Barney Pell is a visionary and incredible evangelist. When he introduced our senior engineers to some of the most senior people at Powerset — Search engineers and computational linguists like Tim Converse, Chad Walters, Scott Prevost, Lorenzo Thione, and Ron Kaplan — we came away impressed by their smarts, their experience, their passion for search, and a shared vision.” said Satya Nadella, Senior Vice President, Search, Portal, and Advertising. “Working with our existing Search team and other Microsoft teams that focus on natural language, Powerset will help us address all of those problems and opportunities.”

You can find the complete announcement here as well as here.