(MarketingVOX) Microsoft has launched, in beta, Windows Live Academic - a rival to Google Scholar - for searching through academic information, writes VNUnet. For now, the Microsoft service focuses on computer science, electrical engineering and physics and is available in seven countries. Microsoft is working with several organizations to expand the service to new subjects. Academic Search offers English versions in the U.S., the U.K., Germany, Italy, Spain, Japan, and Australia.

The currently available content includes articles from some 10 publishers, such as the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the Association for Computing Machinery, and John Wiley & Sons.

The search system is a cooperative effort between the publishers, Windows Live Search and not-for-profit publishers' reference association CrossRef.