SearchMax

Microsoft Launches Desktop Search

By Gregg Keizer, TechWeb News

Microsoft Monday debuted a preview of its long-anticipated desktop search as part of a toolbar suite that integrates with Windows, Internet Explorer, and the company’s Outlook e-mail client.
The new tools put Microsoft into the race for the title of desktop search champ with rivals Google and Yahoo. Google rolled out its Desktop Search application in early October, while last week, Yahoo promised to release its local search utility next month.

Dubbed “MSN Toolbar Suite,” the free-of-charge download includes an updated edition of the already-in-place MSN Toolbar for IE, and two new toolbars accessible from the Windows desktop and Outlook. All three of the toolbars allow searches for both Web-based content as well as wide variety of information stored on the local machine, although the results are not combined into one display, as are results collected by Google Desktop Search.

“We’re putting search in a very familiar place,” said Yusuf Mehdi, the vice president of Microsoft’s MSN division, in a teleconference with reporters Monday morning. “Unlike some other solutions that force you to go to a Web page, we let you search within Windows or Outlook and give you the result. For all intents, it looks like you’re searching within Outlook with the new toolbar.”

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 16th, 2004 at 2:24 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.