Copyright 2004 by http://www.organicgreens.us and Loring
Windblad. This article may be freely copied and used on other
web sites only if it is copied complete with all links and text
intact and unchanged except for minor improvements such as
misspellings and typos.
Google beat out rivals Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL in launching an
application that lets users retrieve Outlook e-mail, text files,
Microsoft Office documents, AOL IM logs and a history of Web
pages previously viewed via the Web browser. Google calls it a
"photographic memory for your computer."
According to search industry pundit Danny Sullivan, Google is
making the desktop part of Google, rather than making search
part of the operating system. And your desktop data never is
never sent on to Google.com--your machine does the heavy lifting
on local data.
AOL is close behind with a desktop search tool in the works that
will likely be offered as a feature within a Web browser that
AOL is developing. Meanwhile, Apple has already demonstrated a
desktop search tool (Spotlight) that will make its appearance in
the next version of Mac OS X. Google on Thursday (14 Oct)
unveiled its first-generation desktop application for searching
through personal files and Web history stored locally on a PC, a
move that could shake up the landscape of Internet search and
raise privacy hackles. The Mountain View, Calif.-based company,
which will report earnings for the first time as a public
company next week, has created Google Desktop Search, a
thin-client application that lets people retrieve e-mail,
Microsoft Office documents, AOL chat logs and a history of Web
pages previously viewed, all via a Web browser. "It's like
photographic memory for your computer--if you've seen it before,
you should be able to find it," said Marissa Mayer, director of
consumer Web products at Google. Rumored for months, Google's
unveiling of desktop search trumps rivals Yahoo, Microsoft and
America Online in the race to integrate Web navigation with PC
search and stay on the cutting edge of search technology in
people's minds. Desktop search has been earmarked a priority by
all the major search engines, but among investors and analysts
Microsoft has posed the biggest threat to Google's reign because
of its dominance with the Windows operating system. The software
giant has said its long-delayed version of Windows, code-named
Longhorn, will eventually bring better PC file search to the
operating system, although that plan has been delayed. In
addition, Microsoft researchers are developing more advanced
search tools that could find their way into future products.
What's surprising is that it has taken these companies--not to
mention Microsoft--so long to create something that every user
needs. Perhaps more interesting is how the sudden rush for the
crown of desktop search will impact Microsoft's plans for WinFS
- the search-oriented filesystem for future versions of Windows
that Bill Gates once called the "Holy Grail" of Longhorn, but
that has been subject to numerous delays.
|
