Page III: In moving beyond Web search to the desktop, the company faces a slew of challenges: controversy over privacy, technical hurdles and the rivalry of Microsoft among them.
Google introduced an application for searching corporate intranets and desktop files two years ago. But the software makes up less than 5 percent of the company's business, or less than $48 million last year, according to the company's IPO filing. While Google has a couple hundred enterprise customers, it hasn't been as successful in that sector as it has in search and advertising.
Google has become popular because it's helped to improve Web search by delivering fast, relevant results. But its formulas for the Web that rely on the link structure of Web pages are unlikely to translate well to the PC environment, as files and documents on the PC don't contain an inherent link structure.
One answer is to embed a common "sticky" note to applications and documents that would let people label these with a few keywords. That would make it easier to retrieve the files down the road. Application makers such as Adobe Systems and OS makers such as Microsoft are in a prime position to develop such tools.
Another approach, now under development by Microsoft, is to create intelligent documents with XML (Extensible Markup Language) links. These would enable people to input information into one document and funnel that data to other, relevant applications. Search tools would be built in, so related information could be found in disparate applications.
Autonomy, Convera and Verity are all companies that are working to solve these enterprise search problems and typically offer much more robust technology than Google's enterprise technology. Google's system tends to focus on simplicity and works particularly well with HTML-based documents.
"Google's real challenge will be in adoption: getting people to download and install it," independent analyst Matthew Berk said. "In order to search your hard drive, you need to install something that's pretty intrusive, that can reach deep down into your machine."
16%
7%
