Microsoft had revenues of over US $32 billion for the fiscal year ending June 2002, and employs more than 50,000 people in 72 countries and regions. Microsoft's mission is to advance and improve software technology while making it easier and more cost-effective for people to use computers. Microsoft has made its reputation on constantly reworking its software products until they resemble perfection in the eyes of their users. The company employs its own team of editors that monitors the most popular searches being performed and they hand-pick sites that are most relevant.
Their technology comes from various sources; some listings are compiled by human editors, while most results in the index are provided by their own crawler. They have discontinued the index relationship with Yahoo, but continue their Overture paid listing program.