Every one of the past few years has been heralded "The Year of Search". And, each year, it has failed to live up to its billing.

Yet, at this late stage in 2007, there are stirrings. Within days of each other Yahoo! and Microsoft saw fit to lay out their their search strategies and their latest wares.

Yahoo!'s CEO, Jerry Yang, dropped into an analysts meeting to explain the company's new thinking while Microsoft called an analyst conference prior its own announcements yesterday.

The stories were chalk and cheese but it's interesting to see so much energy being applied to this vital topic. And make no mistake, our lives could be made a whole lot better with effective search at affordable prices.

Price, of course can be paid with money or attention. In Yahoo!'s case the equation is simple: get to know you, deliver better search results and more relevant advertising. Microsoft's aims to make search so much better for free that you just won't be able to resist upgrading to a more capable version in exchange for money. This is the 'freemium' approach beloved of Web 2.0 companies.

Microsoft's aim is to increase penetration into the enterprise, thus increasing its future business potential. It intends to do this by delivering better internal and external search. The key to the external search is the OpenSearch results-sharing 'standard' which allows Microsoft or its developers to aggregate and tailor it intelligently.

Yahoo's approach is to make access to and navigation of the information in the Internet as easy as possible by spotting user hesitation and stepping in with suggestions and providing contextual links along with the search results. The company is also providing API hooks into its software to encourage a third party developer community. It has realised, a long time after Microsoft, that it actually can't do everything itself.

In their different ways, both companies are seeking loyalty. Of course, they both need to find a way to escape the shadow of the search and applications behemoth, Google.

Microsoft is moving strongly to the enterprise search space, although it is being careful not to over-egg its pudding. The Autonomys, FASTs and Endecas of this world are well ahead of the game, but then so are their prices. Microsoft is wise to steer clear, although it makes no secret of its intention to narrow the gap.

It's also trying to steer clear of the Google enterprise appliance icebergs by avoiding preset document limits.

It's early days of course, but perhaps the most interesting aspect of these announcements is the legitimisation of the space. Perhaps 2008 will finally be seen as the Year of Search.