Microsoft is to open a new research and development centre in Europe that will concentrate on innovation for the search market.

The software giant believes that it can make inroads in the search market by tuning its tools for regional demands.

"Searchers have different expectations and experiences in every geography in the world, so we believe it is critical to make deep investments in physical locations in multiple markets to ensure that we’re applying the best local expertise to our research and development efforts," said Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s senior vice president of the Search, Portal and Advertising Group, in a statement.

The European centre will be modelled on a similar facility in Beijing, China, which was set up in 2005. The Beijing centre works to create a more competitive search product that covers the core Web, yellow pages, mobile, multimedia and news search.

The exact location of the new centre in Europe has yet to be confirmed.