MNC Group Plans to Create a Search Engine Next Year

MNC Group plans to dive further into the digital world by developing a search engine. The potential Google competitor will see efforts towards its creation to begin in 2013.

The plan was revealed by the CEO of MNC Group, Harry Tanoesoedibjo following the opening of Rakuten Expo 2012 in Jakarta on Monday, according to Bisnis Indonesia. Tanoesoedibjo is certain that Indonesia will be able to create its own comprehensive search engine to remove its dependence on Google.

To build this search engine, MNC will seek collaboration with a foreign company. This partnership is required considering the more traditional background of MNC Group in the business sector and its relative inexperience in the technology industry. He has yet to confirm which company or companies will the group be working with. MNC's previous effort in the tech scene was the partnership with Japan's Rakuten in creating Rakuten Belanja Online, an e-commerce site for the Indonesian market.

MNC decided to move towards the technology industry after seeing the considerable business potential that this sector will bring. He cited rapid growth in the number of Indonesian Internet users especially in 2016 as one of the reasons behind the decision.

The search engine market isn't exactly devoid of interest. Aside from Google, other companies have tried their hands in delivering similar services to compete with Google's offering. Other than Microsoft's Bing with Yahoo!, Wolphram Alpha is also there to deliver a different kind of experience in keyword-based search. Up to this moment however, there hasn't been one that provides a significant competition to Google.