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January 4, 2006

PC World Talks Web Mail Betas and Desktop Search

An article in the the January 2006 issue of PC World offers a brief look at web mail betas from Yahoo (I use it all of the time, kudos), MSN Live Mail, and Zimbra. The Yahoo and MSN services are invite only betas at the moment.

Yahoo Mail's search shines, reaching into attachments as well as e-mail messages, and showing the document snippet where the search term was found. Yahoo Mail also interacts logically with your browser's back button--often a trouble spot for Ajax apps that continually update one "page" in the browser. In contrast, Gmail disables the back button, while Zimbra warns you that using it will log you out.

Microsoft's Windows Live Mail, which feels more like a tweak to Hotmail than a total rethinking of Web mail...

...Zimbra's real strength is as a full-fledged communication server, allowing a company to integrate its databases so users can, say, jump from a message with an order number to the order database itself.

The Open Source Version of Zimbra is available as a free download while a Network Edition priced at $28 per mailbox per year

And now to desktop search...

What a difference a year makes. It was just a year ago when we were in the midst of desktop search wars. Well, that was a year ago and this month the topic gets little press. A PC World article by Stephen Manes: Desktop Search: Just What You Need, looks at the power of what desktop search can offer the end user. He says that Yahoo Desktop Search is his favorite but adds that if YDS doesn't work for you to try one of the many other free desktop search tools available.

Posted by Gary Price at 11:44 AM | Permalink

November 15, 2005

MS Releases Free Desktop Search Client for Enterprise Users

Word from Gates, Ballmer, and crew that Microsoft's Desktop Search is now available and free for enterprise users. Use of the Windows Toolbar with the enterprise version is optional.

Additionally, the AP reports that Microsoft also said that its consumer desktop search product will "eventually" let people search information found in Microsoft?s Windows Live online services.

More Coverage: + Windows desktop search gets down to business (via ZDNet) + Microsoft Launches Enterprise Desktop Search Tool (via NewsFactor) + Microsoft Offers Enterprise Version of Free Windows Desktop Search (via TechWeb)

Posted by Gary Price at 1:53 PM | Permalink

September 23, 2005

New Watson Sidebar for MSN Search

Watson, a "proactive" search utility that watches what you do and automatically provides related search results from the web, is now available as a plug-in for the MSN Desktop/Toolbar suite.

From the press release: Watson’s sidebar display is continuously updated with real-time information that is relevant to the work being done at any given moment. This gives users an instant snapshot of information that’s pertinent to their work. The security and identity of each Watson and Windows Desktop Search user is never compromised, since Watson does not store or transmit any personal data.

I'll be taking a closer look at Watson and its capabilities in an upcoming SearchDay. Meanwhile, the free 30-day trial of Watson 2.0 and the Add-in is available to download at http://addins.msn.com.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 10:57 AM | Permalink

May 16, 2005

MSN Desktop Search Toolbar Out Of Beta In today's SearchDay, MSN Toolbar with Desktop Search Officially Launches, Chris Sherman looks at the new MSN Toolbar coming out of beta. Desktop search is a key part of the toolbar.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 6:57 AM | Permalink

January 31, 2005

Microsoft: No Plans to Integrate Desktop Search into OS

During a panel about search at the Harvard Business School Cyberposium, Mark Kroese, general manager of information services and merchant platform product marketing for MSN, told the audience that MS doesn't plan to integrate desktop search in the operating system.

"'...there's no immediate plan to do that as far as I know,' Kroese said. 'That would have to be a Bill G. [Microsoft chairman and chief software architect Bill Gates] and the lawyers' decision.'"

The remainder of the eWeek article: Microsoft Won't Bundle Desktop Search with Windows, offers more coverage of the http://www.cyberposium.com/index.asp with comments from Yahoo!, Google, and Xerox representatives. Topics include local, paid, desktop, and enterprise search.

Here are a couple of key quotes from the article: At Yahoo, we think of local search as an extension of vertical search," [Bradley] Horowitz said. "It reaches into a different business model and provides a tremendous amount of value."

Microsoft's approach is a bit different, Kroese said. "At Microsoft our heritage is being a platform and our approach to search will not be a lot different."

"Today, paid [search] is a great business model," said Microsoft's Kroese. "But we're also pursuing other business models."

Google's [Deep] Nishar emphasized that "advertising is not necessarily evil." He noted that 40 percent of Internet search queries are commerce-specific queries. Charging advertisers for placement is not unethical, he said.

For additional coverage of Cyberposium, see the News.com article: Future of search rides on relevance.

Posted by Gary Price at 9:22 AM | Permalink

December 19, 2004

MSN Deskbar Shortcuts

msnsearch's WebLog alerts us to a new site loaded down with an constantly expanding list of shortcuts for the deskbar that comes with the MS Toolbar Suite beta.

You'll find the page at: http://www.deskbarshortcuts.com

Posted by Gary Price at 11:14 AM | Permalink

December 16, 2004

MSN Desktop Search Questions

msnsearch's WebLog answers a few questions about the MSN Desktop Search including why results aren't viewable in Mozilla/Firefox.

The post ends with a link to some advanced search syntax for their desktop tool.

Posted by Gary Price at 10:04 AM | Permalink

December 13, 2004

MSN's Desktop Search is Here (finally)

The long anticipated MSN Desktop Search application finally made its debut today, joining the horse race that's shaping up between Google Desktop, the forthcoming desktop search applications from Ask Jeeves and Yahoo, and offerings from smaller companies such as Copernic, Blinkx, Autonomy and many others.

My initial impressions of the application are favorable. The program is fast, results are generally high quality, and the indexer is polite, playing nice (so far) with other desktop search applications. About the only downside is that MSN has embedded desktop search into its search toolbar, taking up yet more precious browser window space. But this is a minor quibble given the functionality built into both the toolbar and the desktop search app. For more, read on in today's SearchDay article MSN Joins the Desktop Search Fray.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 3:52 PM | Permalink

December 10, 2004

Yahoo Details Desktop Search Plans; Ask Jeeves & MSN Launch This Month

Yahoo has announced that it will release a desktop search product after the New Year, putting the search engine firmly in the desktop search race that Google kicked off earlier this year and that other major search engines have already declared that they'd be entering as well.

Ask Jeeves, Microsoft's MSN and AOL have all confirmed to date that they will launch desktop search applications, leaving Yahoo as the only major service remaining only in "rumor" status. That's now ended.

Yahoo's Plan

Yahoo plans to release a licensed version of X1, a powerful but relatively expensive tool that was recently rated well by CNET. Unlike X1, Yahoo's version will be offered free to consumers. Yahoo also promises integration with Yahoo's web search and other vertical search properties, an integration that will grow over the coming year, as the tool matures.

How exactly that integration will happen remains to be seen. The tool is only now going into non-public beta test, and I haven't yet gotten a copy to play with. We'll report more when that becomes available.

Yahoo did say that it plans for any integration to prevent leakage of desktop search queries from getting back to Yahoo itself. This has been an issue for some with Google's service.

For the most part, Google will have no idea of what someone's searching for on their own computer. However, in some instances where people go from web to desktop results or vice versa, Google could tell that a particular query term has what I call "desktop intent." Yahoo tells me that its tool will eliminate this entirely.

File Types & Interface Issues

Yahoo also touts that its tool will index many more file types than Google's. It's true that Google's tool is restricted compared to existing tools out there, such as X1 or Copernic, in terms of file coverage. But for many, what Google currently covers may be enough -- and it's an incredibly easy tool to download and install.

At only 450K, grabbing the Google application for use takes no more bandwidth than reading a few web pages. In contrast, the current X1 tool is a 6.3MB download. Yahoo's version may be lighter, which would help in reaching out to the broadband-challenged.

Personally, I've also found Google's application-less interface to be very compelling. Unlike other desktop search programs, Google Desktop doesn't require that you go into a particular program to do your search. Instead, you use a web page that looks just like the Google home page, and you get back results that look just like ordinary Google web results. The format is easy to understand and user-friendly.

The downside is Google doesn't provide some of the sorting and refinement options that rival tools offer. Yahoo hopes that will be another reason that consumers seek out its tool.

Yahoo's tool will also offer taskbar searching. This means that you can search using a box on the Windows taskbar. That would be helpful, given that I currently find it incredibly inconvenient that if I don't have a browser open, I've got to take an extra step to start searching with Google Desktop.

I've asked Google if there are plans to add a "Desktop" search option to its popular Google Toolbar or Google Deskbar. The response was the standard "no plans to announce but it's something we'd consider" line. Well, start considering soon! FYI, there is a workaround on this for Google Deskbar users.

Release Dates

Yahoo tells me its tool will go out to the public in early January. That's going to put it behind Ask Jeeves, which launches its own tool next week on December 15. MSN will also be out with its own tool by the end of the year. I'm working with a beta release of that right now but can't comment more beyond that. Instead, here's the latest statement the company is issuing on the subject:

"We have publicly stated that it is our intention to release a beta of our new desktop search technology by the end of the calendar year in the US and our timeline is driven by the quality of the service - we will launch MSN desktop search when we feel that the service has met the quality bar our consumers expect and deserve," said Justin Osmer, MSN product manager.

And AOL? The company plans its own desktop search application that is packaged as part of the new AOL browser that's in beta testing. Any AOL member can access this by signing into AOL, then using the keyword "beta" to reach the beta download area. I've just downloaded the beta but haven't had a chance to play with it. But the desktop search is powered by Copernic, another well regarded desktop search app. It was CNET's editor's choice in a recent review of desktop search apps. (Google Desktop was unrated in that review because it was too new but drew plenty of praise).

And so the timeline recap:

  • October 14: Google Desktop released
  • December 15: Ask Jeeves desktop search due for release
  • December 31: MSN desktop search due for release by this date or earlier
  • January 31: Yahoo desktop search due for release by this date or earlier
  • Sometime In 2005: AOL's combined browser and desktop search should be out at some point

Desktop Search Winner? Searchers!

Will Google having been first give it a key advantage over rivals? Honestly, who knows? We know that over half-a-million people downloaded it in the first two weeks according to Majestic Research. The downloads since almost certainly have exceeded a million if not more, though the actual installed user base is unknown.

As said, the tool is light to download, easy to use and useful enough for many people. In addition, I'd consider it a key search memory feature for Google, which otherwise lacks this type of personalization that most of its rivals offer. More on this in my review of the tool: Google Desktop Search Launched.

On the flipside, the more powerful features some of the rival tools offer, combined with the distribution through major search sites, will certainly grab other users. Those wanting to do MP3, photo or PDF searching, for example, need something other than Google Desktop -- at least unless Google begins to upgrade its beta product.

So who will win the hearts-and-minds of desktop searchers remains to be seen. Chances are, everyone's going to get a share. But the real winners are the desktop searchers themselves. We started 2004 with only a few fee-based desktop search tools. We're going to end with a great selection of free ones, finally -- and long-overdue -- making it easy for anyone to find material on their own computers as they can in searching the entire web.

For more on desktop search, see our Desktop Search category. It lists all stories previously we've previously blogged on the topic. It's available to Search Engine Watch members.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 2:20 AM | Permalink

November 14, 2004

An Early Look at MSN Desktop Search

Tom Warren over at Neowin has just posted an early look (loaded with screenshots) at MS's desktop search product and the toolbar/deskbar suite that is scheduled for release in the next six weeks.

Chris wrote in his MSN Search article last week: "I've seen a demo of the desktop search application and am impressed with its capabilities but a non-disclosure agreement prohibits me from writing anything more about it until it's actually released."

Posted by Gary Price at 12:09 PM | Permalink

October 22, 2004

Microsoft Desktop Search Beta Coming Soon

News.com reports in the article: Microsoft fixes date for desktop search tool, that the company will offer up a beta release of a desktop search by the end of this year.

During its earnings call with financial analysts, Microsoft said an MSN-branded tool would be made available before the end of 2004. The tool and an algorithmic Web searching engine will be in beta testing by year's end, a representative said on Friday.

A "technology preview" of MSN's web engine is currently available.

This is the desktop search tool that was shown to financial analysts at a July meeting by MSN's Yusuf Mehdi.

Posted by Gary Price at 5:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 30, 2004

MSN Desktop Search Still To Come This Year, Despite Longhorn Delay

The successor to Windows XP, Longhorn, is being pushed back until 2006. In addition, a new file system for that operating system designed to improve desktop searching, WinFS, won't be fully implemented when Longhorn is released. A long interview with Microsoft chairman Bill Gates on these and other issues from News.com: Gates: Longhorn changed to make deadlines.

Does this knock Microsoft out of the desktop search game? Nope. Microsoft's MSN division has a desktop tool that I've talked with them about. It's a standalone application that will be released in the near future, certainly before the end of the year, MSN says.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 4:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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