The long-awaited upgrade to Microsoft?s search engine is expected to make its debut next week at the D: All Things Digital conference in Carlsbad, California.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is scheduled to appear onstage at the event and unveil "Kumo", Microsoft's updated search engine, expected to publicly rollout later this year.

Kumo has been in private tests within Microsoft for months, is designed to better organize search results for consumers to minimize the amount of time they spend clicking around Web pages looking for information.

Microsoft's updated engine is part of the company's efforts to raise its hand to table stakes in the battle for search market share with Google, which has the lead according to research firm comScore Inc.. Google?s share of the search market rose to 64.2 percent in April from 63.7 percent in March and from 61.6 percent from a year ago. Meanwhile, Microsoft?s market share for the month topped out at 8.2 percent, down from 8.3 percent in March and 9.1 percent a year ago.