Gates said trends in the "new world of work" create a need for companies to rethink how employees find, analyze and act on vital corporate information. Microsoft asserts that enterprise search is just one facet of effective enterprise information management, and the company says it is addressing this by providing new solutions that enable employees to find people and information quickly through their desktop, within the corporate network or on the Internet.

Microsoft asserts that although finding information and people through powerful search tools is critical to enabling information workers to more effectively do their job, the intelligent enterprise requires secure, customizable solutions that help their employees collaborate and act on information to drive business success.

"Everyone inside an organization -- from the CEO to the newly hired information worker -- has to be able to find the information they need and then use it to drive smart decisions and take action," said Kevin Johnson, co-president of the Platforms and Services Division at Microsoft. "Search is just one piece of the solution. Organizations that enable employees to create, access, use and share information efficiently will be more successful at building customer relationships and better at getting great results from their people."

According to Microsoft, enterprise search is just a component of information management, which is far more than browser toolbars and appliances or a keyword search of a set of documents on a network.

Microsoft's goal is to create and deliver enterprise search solutions that present information workers with a simple, unified way to get at the information they need, no matter where it resides. No surprises for guessing from within which applications those search solutions will be launched - Windows Vista and Office 2007, as well as the internet using Windows Live Search.

Microsoft also announced a new product called Microsoft Office SharePoint Server for Search 2007. SharePoint Server for Search aims to provide midmarket and departmental enterprise customers with core search capabilities, crawling content in common data repositories including file shares, Web sites, SharePoint sites, Exchange Server and Lotus Notes. It can also be extended to search other repositories using third-party or custom-built connectors, and is upgradeable to the full SharePoint Server offering.

In the second half of 2006, Microsoft will release a test version of Windows Live Search, which delivers a single-point-of-entry experience for enterprise search. {moscomment}

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