Microsoft Unveils Desktop Search for Enterprise

Microsoft today unveiled a version of its desktop search tool targetted at enterprise users, with features an IT manager would love to work around.

The Redmond giant made the announcement at its IT Forum 2005 conference in Europe for IT professionals, which is being held in Barcelona, Spain.

Desktop search is a major area of focus for Microsoft and its portal rivals, such as Google and Yahoo. There are also a slew of independents including Copernic Desktop Search and blinkx. But enterprise search has been a focus for IBM, which has for the most part stayed out of the stand-alone desktop search field.

Microsoft plans to integrate desktop search with its forthcoming suite of Live products, the software vendor said in a statement. A consumer version of the application has been available since May.

The enterprise tool is designed to make it easy for corporate IT departments to deploy, customise and manage the application on systems running Windows 2000 or XP.

Microsoft sees the business-focused desktop search product as an intermediary step before the company releases its next version of Windows, called Vista, which promises better search capability.

The enterprise version of Windows Desktop Search will further integrate its search abilities into Windows and Office. Searches from the Windows XP search bar, for example, will now default to Windows Desktop Search as opposed to the operating system’s built-in search tool, which is slower because it does not use widespread indexing.

Also, searches from Outlook’s MSN Toolbar will appear as part of the Outlook pane, rather than popping up in a separate window.

Unlike the consumer version, businesses will have the option of deploying Windows Desktop Search without also downloading the MSN Toolbar.

The application can be managed through systems management tools such as Microsoft’s Systems Management Server, and offersvarious options for establishing policy settings for the application.