Google dominates search, so much so that Wired founder John Battelle has declared, "It's over, Google wins." But that's not stopping Microsoft from trying to grab a bigger piece of the market.

The software giant has acquired semantic search engine Powerset for around $100 million, according to VentureBeat. The recently unveiled Powerset, currently available as a Wikipedia search tool, uses a technology that attempts to understand the phrases submitted to search engines and gives results based on that understanding. Google's search technology is based on the words submitted to search, and it does not attempt to understand the possible word combinations.

The acquisition indicates a clear focus on search for Microsoft, which distantly trails Google and Yahoo in the U.S. search market.

"The most important application for the foreseeable future is search," Microsoft boss Steve Ballmer said. "We don't have to dominate, but we'd better have a darn good chunk of the search market over time, and we're working away at it."

The acquisition comes a day after a rumor that Microsoft and Yahoo have resumed talks.