Microsoft Officially Updates Desktop Search - What we can expect to see in the future
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Microsoft isn’t finished with adding features to its desktop search tool by any means. In a few months, the software giant plans to add tabbed browsing functionality. It will organize individual searches as tabs. This could be useful if you find yourself performing the same searches over and over again, or if you are working on a report or document and need to perform several different but related searches to get the information required.
Another new item to look for from Microsoft is a desktop search tool for the workplace. The beta version of this tool will supposedly be available by the end of this year. So far, there is no word as to how this version of the search tool will be different from the current version. Possibly it will include more security-related features or allow administrators to more tightly control the sorts of searches that users can perform with the tool.
It’s possible also that the growing popularity of alternative browsers and Web services may force a certain amount of interoperability on the tools –- or that third parties will come in to fill the gap. Firefox, remember, currently has not quite seven percent of the browser market, and that percentage has been growing steadily –- some might even say explosively. Its usage is highest among tech-savvy Web surfers, according to Guy Creese, an analyst with Ballardvale Research. “It’s a big mistake to ignore Firefox users,” he says. “They are early adopters and thus keen on trying out new stuff, such as desktop search tools.”
So will we see a repeat of the instant messaging wars, only with desktop search tools this time? That seems unlikely, since people use desktop search tools for finding things, not communicating with other people who are using different, incompatible software. But extending the usability of these kinds of search tools is important; we’re already seeing third party add-ins with Microsoft’s tool, and we’re likely to see more of this for search tools from other companies.
One point seems certain: with the amount of bytes a hard drive can hold constantly growing, and the variety and amount of “stuff” that users choose to store on their hard drives growing correspondingly, more of us will see desktop search tools as a necessity for finding everything. And that may be the biggest reason why Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, and others recognize that this might be the next big battleground.
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