Ask.com is cutting 130 engineering jobs and outsourcing its search technology, as the internet icon finally concedes that it cannot compete with Google and Bing in the search market.
In a move similar to Yahoo, which recently outsourced its search technology to Microsoft, Ask.com will stop working on its search algorithm and instead hire a third-party company to provide that technology.
The company is laying off engineers based in Edison, New Jersey, and in China, althouth it has not disclosed which companies it is approaching about a search partnership.
Ask.com, which digital conglomerate IAC bought in 2005, plans to focus on developing its online question-and-answer service, in which actual humans field customers’ queries. An “ask the community” program launched in July.
“We know that receiving answers to questions is why Ask.com users come to the site, and we are now serving them in everything we do,” company president Doug Leeds said in a blog post on Tuesday.
Speaking about the cuts, Leeds added: “Consolidating our engineering resources in a central location – our Bay Area headquarters – will also make it possible for us to swiftly respond to the hyper-competitive arena that Q&A has become.
“We need a team that is able to work side by side, face to face, idea to idea, as much as possible. We simply aren’t able to do that with our team fractured across the country, across the globe.”
According to data tracker ComScore, Ask.com had just 3.7% of the US search market in September, while Google commanded almost 65% share. Still, Ask is still the sixth-largest Web property in the world, according to Compete.com.
Read the full company blog announcement here:
http://blog.ask.com/2010/11/askcom-update.html
