Microsoft shows off search tool
Published: 30 Jul 2004 08:40 BST
Microsoft revealed the progress it has made in building search technology on Thursday when it demonstrated a tool that can comb both the Internet and a PC's hard drive.
MSN chief Yusuf Mehdi showed a prototype of the search software to an audience at its annual Microsoft Financial Analyst Meeting. The technology is designed to quickly look through a hard drive, finding all the matches for a word from within documents, emails and even email attachments. The version Mehdi presented also returned Web results on the right side of the page.
The demonstration marked the first time Microsoft has showed off the technology, which Mehdi said would be part of a "service," although he did not offer further details.
Building a search system that looks through typically incompatible files has long been an key goal for Microsoft and a project favoured by chairman Bill Gates.
The PC search technology Mehdi showed allowed a computer user to search within Microsoft's Outlook email client as well as within Windows folders such as "My Documents."
In an interview, Mehdi said that the technology does not require an upgrade to the Windows operating system, but would require software to be downloaded onto a PC. The search is speedy, Mehdi said, because it builds a continual index of the files on the computer.
Microsoft had been expected to combine Web search with local PC search, but many had anticipated the move would come with Longhorn, the next version of Windows. Mehdi did not give specific details, but said the local hard drive search service would come before that launch.
"It will definitely be out before Longhorn," Mehdi said. That said, Longhorn, which includes a new file system, will allow for more powerful searches, he said.
Mehdi said that the company had made a lot of progress in the last few months on the local hard drive search technology. Two weeks ago, Microsoft acquired Lookout Software, a small company with technology for searching email.
"I'm duly humble about the challenge and incredibly optimistic about what we can get done," Mehdi said of Microsoft's prospects in search, noting that the company had built a full Web crawler in 11 months.
Mehdi also offered a sneak peek of the design of the MSN Music service that is scheduled for release later this year, but did not offer details on the service or say when it would launch.
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