IBM integrates Google Desktop into its own enterprise search

By Steve Malone

Posted on 31 Oct 2005 at 10:47

IBM today announced a new plug-in for its enterprise search technology that will allow it to integrate with Google Desktop for Enterprise, so that corporate employees can search for a wider range of information on their computer.

IBM is to integrate the Google Desktop tool with its WebSphere Information Integrator OmniFind Edition. The announcement means that corporate users will be able to use the Google Desktop for Enterprise tool to seamlessly search and retrieve various types of content held on their personal computer.

IBM's WebSphere Information Integrator OmniFind Edition already provides search across large volumes of information distributed throughout the enterprise, such as in databases and other applications, to retrieve information. Integration with Google Desktop will make it easier to make a single search of enterprise-wide data and documents held on the user's own machine.

Google Desktop for Enterprise can already search the full text of Lotus Notes mail messages stored on a user's local computer. This feature provides Lotus Notes customers the capability to search all Lotus Notes databases and mail servers in addition to their local mail files. However, more importantly for many of IBM's customers that are not a complete Big Blue shop, it adds search facilities for a wide range of Microsoft documents such as Word, Excel and Outlook.