Before Xalo.vn, some other domestic search engines were launched, such as PanVietnam owned by NetNam, Hoatieu by Vuong Quang Khai, Vinaseek by Tinh Van, etc. However, these search engines have not become popular because of their limited search ability.

Xalo.vn is the successor of Vinaseek, which failed. Pham Thuc Truong Luong, General Director of Tinh Van company, said they learned valuable lessons from the failure of Vinaseek to create a better Xalo.vn.

Luong said total investment in this search engine is around $2 million, from various investors. Tinh Van’s contribution is less than 50%. He hopes that Xalo.vn will account for 35-40% of the search engine market of Vietnam by 2010. 

Before the official launch, this search engine was tested for six months. Xalo.vn is designed to search in seven areas: web, photos, news, music, blog, forum and small ads.

Luong said the advantages of Xalo.vn are its Vietnamese processing technology and filtering technique.