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ISYS Search Software (http://www.isys-search.com/) has a variety of enterprise search applications. Web based search interface or a local client depending on your needs.

-i

As a PC user, I have found one of the best products to manage hundreds of thousands of documents (*.doc, *.txt, *.wpd, *.xls, *.ppt, and email, images, etc.) is Isys by Odyssey. It requires very little work on the part of the endusers. Just searching. For the IT person, it requires very little to be up-and-running. You can set up automatic indexing to run anytime, without restricting usage and searching. This can be done across all hard drives. I found this little company (and their software) about 15 years ago when I was still using DOS. They have, of course, developed their software to match all the Windows versions that have come out, and have Web versions also. I manage a huge library of both physical and digital documents - all that must be located within seconds. Without this software, I would not be able to perform this job in the high-level capacity that I currently do. Yes, Google is a great contender, but it has its limitations. Google desktop, for example, does not index all different types of software that the hundreds of users may have/use/need. I have found the Isys by Odyssey to not only be extremely fast, high quality, but they have great customer service, and their prices are reasonable. You can always start slow - with a low number of licenses, and work your way up, depending on the company's finances and needs. We have 2 licenses, where I work. I currently am the main end-user to the product, and people request documents or information from me, which I can find and email to them in an instant. It's worth the time to check them out. Their home web page is: http://www.isys-search.com/

Expose - Xerox "Rooms" (1985), AmigaOS WorkBench (1985), swm (1990)

Dashboard - Borland Sidekick (1984)

Spotlight - Lotus Magellan (1989), ISYS:Desktop (1989), dtSearch Desktop (1991), Enfish Find (2002), Copernic (2004), Google Desktop Search (2004)

.MAC - Online disk, email, backup, ecards and ratings were all extant by 1998.

Don't search meta tags, search the content. Adding meta tags to documents is time-comsuming, unreliable are difficult to maintain. If you index the content of the files to be searched you don't run the risk of missing a vital nugget of information buried deep in a document. I have used ISYS for years to do just this. It's easy to set up and maintain, fast and accurate and indexes files the Google desktop won't touch.

This is just Google finally doing what Other Enterprise Search vendors have been doing for years.

Any worthwhile enterprise search has been able to search across multiple data types and sources long before this "news" by Google.

-i

But there is money to be made in desktop search, and we and some of our competitors have been doing so for years. The trick is to sell a premium quality product to people who have sufficient need that they're happy to pay a reasonable price for it. Not dumbed-down, feature crippled search software, but a fully-featured, professional, top-shelf product. It's worth paying for, and you know what, it's more fun to produce, too, because your users see the value.

All these products have one thing in common - they're aimed at very basic searching suitable for the home user. They're not professional grade search products, like for example, ISYS. There's a world of difference between a freebee home product and a professional tool, both in terms of feature set and price point. We compete against free search tools every day of the week, and beat them routinely. The only time we don't is when the 'customer' is looking for a free tool to search through his recipe collection and Outlook Express in-tray.

There's two different product-spaces going on here.

But for anyone doing more than storing recipes, you need a proper desktop search engine, or even just an email search engine.

And of course, your endorsement of aforementioned products would not have anything to do with being the CEO of the company that makes them, right?

Yes, but spectacularly badly. So badly in fact, that in practice most people don't do it. Google, Microsoft and Yahoo are pursuing desktop search because they realize just what a chasm there is between a "proper" search engine, and what's available right now for personal search.

If you've only got a few dozen docs and a few hundred emails, then you don't have a problem. But for anyone doing more than storing recipes, you need a proper desktop search engine, or even just an email search engine. Don't make the misteak of thinking both Google and Microsoft are way off base here -- it's something they know about.

You don't need an SQL database hiding inside your file system if you want to provide unified searching across disparate data sources (email, office, websites, SQL, etc). People have been doing it for years. Bill's just chosen the wrong means to the right end.