Now that Microsoft has given up on buying Yahoo, the software giant has decided to improve its Live brand for search and online services.

Kevin Johnson, president of Microsoft's platforms and services division, told a search advertising conference that the image needed to fixed. Microsoft Live brand is a mishmash of sites and applications, with long names which are difficult to identify. It is also regarded as a bit of a joke by analysts, he said.

Thinking in Microsoft is that the Live idea was a mistake, and that maybe the company should revert to Microsoft Search.

Johnson said that Microsoft was going to concentrate on finding more ways to get money from its searches. It wants to convince advertisers that its search engine is more likely to generate a sale. He said that the success of its search market position will be measured by whether it can raise its share of searches that lead to a sale. X

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AP