Microsoft's IE8 to integrate Taobao search

May 12, 2009 (China Knowledge) - Microsoft Corp recently reached an agreement with China's hot C2C and B2C shopping site Taobao.com to integrate Taobao's online shopping search engine into Internet Explorer 8 (IE8), the latest version of its web browser, sources reported.

Under the terms of agreement, IE8 will enable three specific online shopping functions for Taobao. When users type a product name in the small search box at the upper right corner of IE8, it will show the latest results for that product on Taobao.com. When people use IE8 to browse web pages, names of products will be linked to Taobao, which will provide detailed product information. Web users will be able to click through to Taobao's online shops without needing to log in.

Web users will be able to add Taobao's online shops to their list of favorites in IE8, which will then collect and update information about goods at specific Taobao shops.

Both companies will benefit from the cooperation, said Zhou Hongmei, an analyst at Beijing-based China IntelliConsulting.

Zhou added that Taobao.com will attract more web users to the online retail industry through the cooperation with Microsoft.

According to a report released by the international provider of real-time web analytics OneStat.com, Microsoft's IE web browser controls 86.63% of the browser market.

Taobao.com, a subsidiary of Alibaba Group, previously announced that its total transaction volume skyrocketed 131% in 2008 from a year earlier to RMB 99.96 billion. It attributed its business growth to the increasing number of Chinese web users.