Microsoft Paves Enterprise Path with MSN Desktop Search Launch

Microsoft Paves Enterprise Path with MSN Desktop Search Launch
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As Microsoft releases a full version of MSN's toolbar approach to desktop search, it outlines plans for a corporate version later this year. MSN also gets ready to add tabbed browsing to Internet Explorer in an upcoming toolbar update.Microsoft Corp. is moving its MSN desktop search application out of beta on Monday and laying out plans to extend the software to enterprises later this year.

In the applications full version, Microsofts MSN division is emphasizing its ties with the Windows operating system. The application is being renamed the MSN Search Toolbar with Windows Desktop Search.

Microsoft next plans to parlay the MSN desktop search offering into an application tailored to enterprises that will be out in beta by the end of the year, said Dane Glasgow, a product unit manager for MSN Search. He declined to provide many details about the corporate version of the software, such as whether it will be delivered by MSN or another product group such as Office of Windows.

But Glasgow said it will feature administration options for managing and deploying desktop search across a company.

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Click here to read about Googles plans for a corporate version of its desktop search application.

More immediately, the MSN toolbar will be building tabbed browsing into the Internet Explorer browser. MSN is announcing plans to release an automatic update to its new toolbar suite within the next few months that adds the ability to open tabs of multiple Web pages inside one browser window and to create routines where multiple sites are opened at once.

Tabbed browsing has been a central feature in alternative Web browsers for Windows, such as Mozillas Firefox and Opera Software ASAs browser. Glasgow said that the MSN desktop search application will open search results within separate browser tabs.

Microsoft also is working on a new version of Internet Explorer, but Glasgow said the tabbed browsing feature for the MSN Search Toolbar is a separate effort from IE 7.

"The technology in IE is separate from the technology we will be shipping," he said.

The desktop search technology grew out of an effort across multiple parts of Microsofts business, including MSN, the Microsoft Windows and Office teams, and Microsoft Research, Glasgow said.

It also appears to be part of Microsofts broader desktop search development for Windows, including the upcoming "Longhorn" release, though company executives have said that MSNs version of desktop search wont be directly bundled into Windows.

"Desktop search is a cross-company effort," said Glasgow, who leads development for the toolbar. "This technology is on the path to Longhorn. Longhorn has had search as part of its plans for quite some time, and this is the first Windows offering into that space."

As for MSNs new desktop search application, it will be available as a free download in the United States for Windows 2000 and Windows XP.

Similar to the beta version released in December, it provides a group of toolbars for initiating searches across local e-mails and files or the Web. Web searches send users to MSNs Web search engine, launched earlier this year to compete with Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc.

Next Page: Search toolbars in Windows Explorer and Outlook.

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