Microsoft worming into Google's territory

Microsoft has announced a deal with a digital scanning company Kirtas Technologies to produce digital books, nudging its way further into Google's territory.

Kirtas Technologies will scan works for Microsoft's Live Book Search web-based application, with the books starting to appear online early next year. Kirtas can scan books at a speed of around 2,400 pages per hour.

Microsoft is planning to dodge the kind of copyright issues that have impeded Google by only scanning books that are no longer under copyright.

Lotfi Belkhir, CEO and founder of Kirtas Technologies, said: "Microsoft is a lot smarter than Google and is only focusing on books in the public domain."

Cornell University Library has joined the British Library, University of California and University of Toronto in collaborating with Microsoft to get its public domain materials online.

A spokesman for Cornell University told silicon.com around 100,000 volumes from the library will be scanned by Kirtas over the next year and "if all goes well, we expect to expand in terms of volume and format".

The spokesman added the deal with Microsoft is non-exclusive and does not preclude Cornell from signing a deal with Google in the future.