Powerset really does go to Microsoft... but for how much?

Well, it appears that the rumours were true. Powerset and Microsoft are both announcing the deal this evening, with VentureBeat also weighing in on the story.

Maybe I'm missing something, but I'm not convinced. Don't get me wrong, Powerset is good, and their current Wikipedia-based demonstrator has compelling elements. But the rumoured $100million seems like a poor return for those Powerset investors who injected their $12.5million way back in 2006, and the company's brute-force computational approach seems an unconvincing fit for the open Web. If Microsoft hadn't canned their Live Search Academic I'd be pointing to that as an 'obvious' place to put the Powerset investment to work. Without it... I'm left clutching at straws, and wondering if Microsoft's online knowledge base might soon be brought to us courtesy of Powerset smarts...?

I certainly wouldn't be looking for a semantically enriched generic web search from MicroSet/PowerSoft anytime soon... and not because I doubt the abilities of either team.