Some 90,000 Microsoft employees are currently testing a new version of Live Search under the name Kumo (well, some of them are testing it, the other half are using Google, apparently).  Expected to be released (or at least announced) in early June, Kumo, or whatever it ends up being called, seems to be taking on a life of its own as Microsoft stays mum and Twitter and the blogs have a field day. 

(Note that the Kumo name may not be final, from what we hear, and that the final product may still indeed be called Bing or Sift or something else entirely. We’ll call it Kumo for now, and wait to see if the name sticks).

Is Kumo just a rebranding effort, a bold foray into the semantic web, or just a rebate program for eBay?  Lots of speculation but not much in the way of facts out there, so just what is Kumo, anyway?  Let’s take a look at what to expect: