The New York Times reports Microsoft is making slow progress in its efforts towards gaining a solid foothold in the search business dominated by rival Google. Microsoft is trying to make Bing smarter by making it a “decision engine.”

In Bing, the most visible evidence of the decision-engine concept is the ability to aggregate and present specific kinds of information in a search result. Microsoft has invested in travel services, for example. Type “flights to San Francisco” into Bing, and below a few blue-shaded links to ads is a Bing Travel flight database. Click on departure and return dates, and it performs a full search of all flights and predicts whether the fare is likely to rise or fall in the days before the departure date. That feature is based on technology from Farecast, a start-up that Microsoft bought for $115 million in 2008.

Bing also uses technology from MedStory, a health search engine it bought four years ago for an undisclosed price, to pull together information from across the Web and present it in an on-screen box above the conventional search links. Type in “diabetes,” and the gray-shaded information box contains a short definition from the Mayo Clinic, along with a link to the full article. Just below are links to diabetes articles from other professional health publications. Next come links to four related conditions, like high blood pressure and obesity, and four to related medications. At the bottom are links to recent Twitter posts about diabetes.

Technology experts agree that Bing is making innovative strides. “There is so little context in current search, and what Microsoft is trying to do is present users with context and structure, more a map of the world of information instead of just ranking it, especially in specific subject areas like travel and health,” says Esther Dyson, an investor in start-ups and a longtime technology analyst. “Microsoft is trying to beat Google at this different game.”

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