Posted by kdownie @ 3:53pm GMT
2004 may have been the year of Internet search, but this year it's all about the desktop. Users have their choice of desktop search utilities from just about any logical player you can think of, so as of yet no company has cornered the market. But it's a safe bet that Microsoft will, when the next version of Windows (currently dubbed "Longhorn") arrives. What's more, Apple's "Spotlight" search feature in its new operating system, Tiger, is already being lauded as the wave of the future. Longhorn comes out in exactly one year - or so we're told -- and from then on it's a new playing field on the desktop. So why are so many smaller players scrambling to compete in this arena?
In a vacuum, today's column has nothing to do with the Internet. It's about finding data spread across the multiple hard drives and disparate applications on a user's own machine. True, there have always been operating system-based search tools, ever since the earliest versions of Windows and UNIX, but they have traditionally been anything but user friendly (ever try to get your arms around the GREP and FIND commands on a UNIX machine?). It's no secret why vendors have heretofore put the most emphasis on helping users find information "out there" on the Web instead of looking inward to locate data on the workstation - "out there" is simply where the money is. After all, people aren't going to stand for ads related to their personal information popping up on their desktop … are they? And how else could desktop search make money?
Google is a somewhat unique case as a non-OS vendor in that its clear dominance as the leader in Internet search, as well as being first to market with desktop search, will certainly gain it some ground on the desktop, at least for now. Another ace in Google's hand is its ability to mix its respected and ubiquitous Web search results with desktop search results, generating even more impressions for those good ol' money making text ads. Thus, desktop search seems to be a key component of Google's strategy.
The competition heated up this week as Google introduced an enterprise desktop search tool that offers the ability to view search results from a corporate intranet, central control over user features and preferences, and (most important) the encryption of user data and search index files. At virtually the same time, Microsoft released the final version of its desktop search tool, promising to make it available for corporate use as well.
As for the others - HotBot, Ask Jeeves, even Yahoo - who cares? Desktop search is so closely tied to the underlying operating system that independent developers of search technology won't be able to compete unless they have a brand like Google's or manage to strike a deal with Microsoft or Apple (or AOL, as in the case of specialty search vendor Copernic). And since it's pretty much too late for that at this point, pushing desktop search seems like a useless exercise for these companies. It's worth noting that Yahoo and Ask Jeeves - both of which are still lingering in the beta stage with their desktop search products - do not even have a desktop link on their homepages.
While writing this article, I tried products from Google, MSN and Copernic, and I have to say I liked Google's the best. It's simple and the results are relevant - two points where Google has always excelled - and it's the lightest download of all competing products. I'm going to keep it on my system. Keeping in mind that they're owned by Microsoft, Slate.com published some reviews of these products a few months back, curiously awarding Copernic an "A" while giving MSN only a "B".
Feel like being a guinea pig? I'm asking Internet Business readers to test drive these different offerings, and then vote in our poll to tell us your favorite. (Note: I'd recommend trying them one a time, uninstalling the previous one before installing the next. Desktop search utilities perform a one-time indexing of your hard drive that is fairly resource-intensive. This indexing process runs in the background, but takes a couple hours depending on the CPU speed and amount of data.)
