Google boosts Intranet search

SEATTLE: Google Inc., the No. 1 Web search company, unveiled an upgraded version of its search appliance that companies, schools and government use to sift through their own internal networks for information.

The new Google search appliance, which combines computer hardware with Google's search software, is able to store information on 1.5 million documents, about five times the capacity of the previous search appliance, said Dave Girouard, general manager of Google's enterprise business.

The new search appliance, which sells for prices starting at $32,000, is also designed to find information five times faster than the previous version, which was introduced in February 2002.

"It is a smaller part of Google's business but an important one," Girouard said.

Google, which has filed to go public, gets the bulk of its revenue by selling advertising that is displayed alongside its Internet search results.

The bright yellow search appliance, which is designed to fit into the same racks that house networking equipment and computer servers that store, manage and direct data, is designed with the same search technology that powers Google's search engine.

Google's new hardware is also designed to continuously find new data as it is added to networks, instead of performing that task at set intervals.

(C) Reuters