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December 14, 2004
Microsoft search suite: Desktop, Toolbar, and...Beta?
Microsoft finally opened it's doors to search, with the release of it's beta search suite, which incorporates desktop search, updates the original toolbar, and offers toolbar search for Outlook as well.
According to the press release at Microsoft: Microsoft Introduces MSN Toolbar Suite Beta With Desktop Search :
Quick, precise retrieval of desktop files. Consumers can quickly and easily search the thousands of files on their PCs, including Outlook Contacts or Calendar files, Adobe PDFs files, or Microsoft Office Word or PowerPoint® files. As a result, consumers will save time and increase their productivity.
Information when and where it's needed. The MSN toolbars save time, allowing consumers to find precisely what they need with less effort, when and where they need it, with less effort and within seconds. The MSN toolbars are conveniently designed to work with Outlook, Windows Explorer, Internet Explorer and the Windows desktop. The MSN Toolbars also give consumers quick access to MSN Messenger, MSN Hotmail® and MSN Spaces, enabling them to initiate common communication tasks right from the bar, including e-mail, instant messaging and inserting URLs into Spaces blogs.
Familiar interfaces and useful results. Consumers can use desktop search when browsing files in Windows in a comfortable and familiar format, enabling them to open files in their associated application directly from their desktop search results and enabling quick access to actions such as managing, sharing, deleting or playing files.
New MSN Search service. MSN Toolbar Suite displays Web search results from the recently launched MSN Search Beta release,* a new algorithmic search engine built by Microsoft and designed to help consumers find precisely the information they are looking for by providing more useful answers to their questions and more control over their search experience.
Gary Price at Search Engine Watch adds to the release, by noting in Microsoft's "Broader" Search Strategy that a preview of Messenger 7 also includes a search box (as does Yahoo!'s messenger):
The rectangular box, embedded in a preview version of the company's MSN Messenger 7.0, is a search field. Users will be able to launch Internet searches directly from that field, automatically opening a Web browser to display the relevant results on an Internet search site...The feature sends people to Microsoft's MSN Search service.
MSNBC also covers the main story with more vivid coverage in For Softies, Search Is the New Black, with a nod to the fact that Bill Gates apparently doesn't like the attention that Google gets instead of Microsoft:
Bill Gates has a Google thing. When I asked him about the search competition last summer, he turned on the sarcasm. "We'll never be as cool as them. Every conference you go to, there they are dressed in black, and no one is cooler!" Clearly Gates's dander was up, not only because the Google upstarts were eating his lunch, but they were press darlings as well. Behind the rant was a taunting subtext: watch me. Bill, you see, had been busy figuring how to get his lunch back.
The first fruits of Gates's response are now ripe enough to consume. The beta version of MSN Web Search debuted in November, and this week MSN Desktop Search comes online. Though neither threatens to topple Google's reign, both are credible products. Not bad for an 18-month crash course in an area that the company had previously neglected with the complacency only a monopolist can muster. "It wasn't clear to me that we could catch up in that time frame," says MSN head Yusuf Mehdi.
All sounds great - but the only thing that nags me is...is it all Firefox compatible? :)
(NOTE: Copernic's Desktop search is now apparently Firefox friendly: Copernic Releases Firefox-Supportin' Copernic Desktop Search)
More seriously, though: Do we yet have a confirmed release of the MSN Search Beta?
Posted by at December 14, 2004 01:41 PM
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