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Google's Search Appliance
An anonymous reader noted that Google is working on a Search Engine
that you can install behind your corporate firewall for indexing
your internal documents. It's a bit thin on information, but it
looks like for as little (cough) as $20k, you can have your own
google box. Not for everyone obviously ;)
Everywhere you look, companies are hawking products geared for searching internal documents. Google is making a good move; enter an expanding market as an established leader in searching.
hawaiianshirt
Google did exactly what us fanboys all whined and complained for - a company that made a good product (awesome search engine) without selling out (no popup ads). Google offered a free service, built up an enoumous following, and now offers its premium service for a premium price, while insuring its loyal customers continued free services. Forget eBay, Google is an Internet-Success-Story worthy of such praise!
The companies that are useing the apliance are Large Corporation with Hundreds perhaps Thousands of computers and Millions of files and documents to find. The real question is how much money is the company loosing from people who have to redo misplaced documents. or make new ones which are simular to an other document that someone else made a while back. In a large corportation a Thousand of people working at $20 an hour are taking 1 hour to redo a document or spend time finding it. It makes up for the caust. Also if it gives google more money the better change the search eng. Stays free and without a ton of anoying avertising.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Unless Google reimplemented their own operating system, or <shudder> ported it to Win2K, they have a very expensive product, that runs on Linux, that is not GPL.
More power to Google--I'm glad to see them finding a way to make money without trashing their search engine, like happened with the previously good search engines that came before (e.g. Altavista, Lycos).
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
$20k is jsut the tip of the iceberg - there's also a good revenue stream to be had in those yearly support contracts for the software.
Google runs on two business models: the Sponsored Links model (and the Google Sponsored Links are much more effective than any other online advertising out there) and the sale of search services (to Yahoo!, Washington Post, et al).
Fact is, Google's already profitable. Why? Because they didn't make the moronic mistakes that the other dot-coms did. Have you seen a Google Super Bowl ad? Have you seen a Google ad anywhere? Exactly. The Google model is, quite simply, you run a lean and mean ship that gets the job done well, and you make money.
Because they don't do evil or annoying things. That isn't a tremendous excuse, but it just works in practice. No intrusive ads, performance is always great for a free service, etc.
Philosophically, however, I'd imagine that parsing/indexing patents are far more legitimate in many people's eyes, than say, one click purchasing patents.
ostiguy
Finding that vital piece of information can be far more important than $20k, especially to a large organisation.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
I agree with the "many are silly, but this one is worthwhile". Google's approach was non-obvious, innovative, and really advanced the state of the art. It wasn't just another "do what we did before, but with a computer this time" patent.
I'll admit that it helps that their site is non-painful to use, but that's just gravy. Google's search is so much better that even if their site was a pain, it would still be a worthwhile search tool.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
When's the last time _you_ clicked on a google sponsor because of their compelling attraction?
Google's ads tend to be relevant to what I'm searching for, so I click on them often.
Last summer I looked up filk music after seeing something about a "space-themed filk concert featuring Kathy Mar and..." at Stanford the day before the Mars Society convention. I searched for filk, and there was an ad to download some of Kathy Mar's music from mp3.com! I listened to what mp3.com had and then went to the concert. During the concert, I met Kathy and also met the guy who put the ad up.
Oh, did you mean "What was the last time I bought something through Google adwords"? I haven't yet, but I am now a filk fan and plan to buy Prometeus Music's Space CD when it comes out. (Kathy's CD, which I didn't buy, is also a Prometheus CD.)
I also ran $50 worth of ads for my non-revenue-generating bookmarklets site because I thought it would be a cool way to give Google money. I don't know how many people run ads without the intent of making money, though.
The shareholder is always right.