Microsoft in search engine deal

Microsoft's live search will be the default search engine on all PCs made by Hewlett Packard for the US and Canadian markets from January 2009.

Under pressure after calling off its bid to buy search engine Yahoo, Microsoft hopes the deal will attract more people to live search.

The toolbar will also have links to HP's online services.

Google dominates the internet search engine market, handling 10 times more traffic than Microsoft's live search.

Yahoo attracts more than twice as much traffic as live search.

"This is the most significant distribution deal for live search that Microsoft has ever done," said Kevin Johnson, president of Microsoft's platforms and services division.

Microsoft has a similar but smaller arrangement with China's Lenovo Group, while Google has a distribution deal with Dell and Mozilla's Firefox web browser.

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