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Microsoft officials announced the release of its own desktop search application Monday, hoping to make up Google ground established two months ago.
Desktop search joins the recently released beta version of MSN's Web search functionality and is wrapped in the Redmond, Wash., company's beta version of the MSN Toolbar Suite. The beta program is currently available only in English and in the United States. It also includes a pop-up blocker for users with Internet Explorer 5.5 and above, and a password-protected auto form-filler function.
For now, officials don't plan on releasing a standalone version of the desktop search tool, though multi-language support for the software suite is expected in the early months of 2005.
Nor have officials set a firm date for the release of the final version of the suite, which they suspect will be sometime next year, saying it depends on the feedback the company gets through the beta program.
The company is playing catch-up to Google's own desktop search tool. But whereas Google wants to make the search experience as much like a Web search as possible, Microsoft wants to retain that Windows desktop look-and-feel.
As such, the company also released plug-ins to expand the MSN Toolbar out of Internet Explorer (IE) and onto the desktop. They include the MSN Deskbar for the Windows Desktop, MSN Toolbar for Microsoft Office Outlook and MSN Toolbar for Microsoft Windows Explorer. Officials have also updated the toolbar for IE.
Yusuf Medhi, MSN Information Services and Merchant Platform corporate vice president, said the launch today will put Microsoft's search services in the lead among its competitors.
 News source: InternetNews.com
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