Microsoft reps call it an illustration of the company's efforts for increasing platform interoperability, but you could also say it's another sign that the company's entirely serious about making headway in the search wars: Ladies and gentlemen, a Live Search browser add-in... for Firefox.

As per the image shamelessly hijacked above from the Port 25 blog, it's pretty simple stuff, enabling query suggestions in a small search box at the upper right of the browser window. It's more eyecatching behind the scenes, where (as lead program manager Alessandro Catorcini points out) the 2.0 version of the Live Search API supports multiple protocols (JSON, XML, SOAP), as opposed to Google's AJAX-only search API. Developers will recognize the project as being in the wheelhouse of Project Silk Road.

The add-on is available at Mozilla.org.