According to the AII press release, the main targeted applications could be divided into three broad classes: multimedia indexing and search tools for professional and general public use, including mobile environments; professional solutions for production, post-production, management and distribution of multimedia documents; and facilitation of access to cultural heritage such as audiovisual archives and digital libraries.
The search engine would have used techniques for recognizing, transcribing, indexing, and automatic translation of audiovisual documents and would have operated in several languages.
As France was researching image-searching, Germany was supposed to be advancing voice clip and sound media searches, with the intention of transcribing their content to text, and translating it to other languages, before they pulled out of the project.
The French satirical newspaper Le Canard enchaîné pointed out that the funding behind the project was dwarfed by both Microsoft and Google.
Search experts Autonomy, (Financial Times) called the plan "a blatant case of misguided and unnecessary nationalism".
[9] Writing in IEEE Spectrum, Nick Tredennick commented that "Going head-to-head with Google with a project involving well-funded, energetic entrepreneurs would be foolish.
5), Quaero "was reportedly scrapped" since the German partners "grumbled about the cost and have indicated they will produce their own, scaled-down search engine".