Microsoft is offering you your own search engine over on live.com. Here’s the lowdown:

“Ever wanted to create your own search engine? Or use a search engine that’s tailored to the specific topic you’re interested in? Last Friday we released a new Live Search feature called Search Macros that enables you to do this!

“What are Search Macros?
Search Macros are a feature of Live Search that make results more relevant for a given search topic. This is done by easily using, creating and sharing customized sets of search engine rules.”

Read the rest on MSN Search’s blog.

Photo New York times.

The New York Times points out that Windows XP has 35 million lines of code. And:

Several thousand engineers have labored to build and test Windows Vista, a sprawling, complex software construction project with 50 million lines of code, or more than 40 percent larger than Windows XP.”

David B. Yoffie, a Professor at the Harvard Business School says: “Windows is now so big and onerous because of the size of its code base, the size of its ecosystem and its insistence on compatibility with the legacy hardware and software, that it just slows everything down. That’s why a company like Apple has such an easier time of innovation.”

Ray Ozzie, Chief Technical Officer, who joined Microsoft last year, wrote in a memo: “Complexity kills. It sucks the life out of developers, it makes products difficult to plan, build and test, it introduces security challenges and it causes end-user and administrator frustration.”

True, but what’s the answer for a clearly-failing Microsoft?

“Mr Raymond Vardanega, the Marketing Director, of Acer Australia has confirmed independently of SmartHouse Magazine that Microsoft is having major problems with its Vista operating system. He said ‘The decision to delay Vista into the consumer market will have an impact on hardware sales particularly in the Media Centre market. We have been told that Microsoft has bought in programmers from the Xbox team to work on the problems. We have also been told that up to 60% of the code will have some form of re writing or changes made. We are told that Microsoft is concerned at the impact that the delay will have on hardware manufacturers. We have raised our concerns directly with Microsoft.’ ”

So says David Richards, writing today for Australian Smarthouse magazine.

Robert Scoble has said that the reorg is true but the rewrite is “totally false”.

Microsoft has not rebutted this story officially. Until it does, it can’t blame anyone for harboring suspicions.

Update: Robert Scoble muses, Can this week ever end?

After a near total rewrite of the Windows Vista code in 2004 at the behest of Jim Allchin, it now seems that Microsoft is to recode up to 60 percent of the operating system. After yesterday’s annoucement delaying release of the consumer editions until January, this must appear like the knell of doom to many retailers and manufacturers.

Smarthouse reports: “Up to 60% of the code in the new consumer version of Microsoft new Vista operating system is set to be rewritten as the Company ’scrambles’ to fix internal problems a Microsoft insider has confirmed …”

The company desperately wants to get this out before the end of the decade and has “pulled programmers from the highly successful Xbox team to help resolve many problems associated with entertainment and media center functionality inside the OS. The team is also working closely with engineers from the Intel Viiv team and it is now expected that the next version of Viiv could be delayed to line up with the launch of the consumer version of Vista at the 2007 CES Show in Las Vegas.”

As Syntagma comments: “However fast you drive or fly towards it, the horizon never gets any nearer. … Syntagma has a solution for all this uncertainty. Rename Windows Vista, Windows Horizon. Then we’d understand … philosophically, at least.”