The world's largest software company is making a "big, multi-million dollar investment" to create a "decent-sized media operation," said Bob Visse, general manager, MSN Product Management Group.
Microsoft sold its 50 percent stake in news website MSNBC.com in July to longtime partner NBCUniversal, now majority-owned by Comcast Corp.
MSN will chiefly aggregate news from sources such as Reuters, a unit of Thomson Reuters Corp, the Associated Press and NBC, but it will also produce its own content, Visse said. He did not say how many journalists the news site would employ.
Microsoft's flagship website, which gets about 480 million visitors per month worldwide, is one of the biggest portals on the Internet, alongside Yahoo and AOL, and serves as the gateway to other Microsoft online services such as Outlook mail and Skype online calling.
Source: Reuters