Comments on: Microsoft puts multisearch tool on show

Software giant demos prototype technology that can search both the Internet and a PC's hard drive.

[blariz]

Innovation?

The following text from this new story:

**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.**

clearly describes the Lookout technology that Microsoft just acquired. With the Outlook Lookout plugin/software you can quickly do an indexed search of all the Outlook mail folders along with searhes through My Documents. Seems like another case of Microsoft buying someone else's technology and then "appearing" to claim it as their own. Not much in the way of innovation if you ask me........

[unixrules]

Re: Innovation

or steal as the case may be.

[dmehus]

Re: Innovation?

It's called growing through acquisition as opposed to organically, something Google and Yahoo! do very frequently. Google has acquired Picasa, Blogger, Sprinks, and Applied Semantics, among others.

Once you buy a company, you own their intellectual property.

I don't like Microsoft, but if you're going to bash Microsoft, at least get your facts straight. :)

Cheers,
Doug

Already exists

The tool microsoft is workin on does already exist. It is called 'SERglobalBrain Personal Edition' and can be used to search textual information within file- and outlookitems. The power lies in its ability to search fuzzy and really fast compared to existing solutions. Server versions also seem to exist. For further details see

http://www.ser.com/product_showcase/globalbrain/index.asp

Microsoft puts multisearch tool on show

I may be wrong and am just a user, but isn't this already offered by Google.com also? They have a little search program that looks at every file in my computer that contains words I type in. Maybe I'm talking apples and oranges?