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Microsoft had its Google killer in 2000, but killed the project before it got rolling. Why? Worries about cannibalization.

The Wall Street Journal has an interesting tale of Microsoft’s miscues on the search front. The gist:

[Microsoft CEO Steve] Ballmer is expected in the coming months to renew his yearlong pursuit of a multibillion-dollar deal for Yahoo’s Web-search unit. But behind his push to capture a bigger piece of Google’s lucrative business lies an untold story: Nearly a decade ago, early in Mr. Ballmer’s tenure as CEO, Microsoft had its own inner Google and killed it.

In 2000, before Google married Web search with advertising, Microsoft had a rudimentary system that did the same, called Keywords, running on the Web. Advertisers began signing up. But Microsoft executives, in part fearing the company would cannibalize other revenue streams, shut it down after two months.