|
Yahoo launches desktop search tool
Tuesday, December 14, 2004
Yahoo! recently announced its plans to add a tool to search computer
hard drives to help users sort through jobs of information on the
Internet and the desktop.
The Internet company also said that it will wait until January
to introduce the free tool for searching e-mails and a wide variety
of other files stored on computers operate on Windows.
Unlike Google's desktop search tool, Yahoo's won't operate within
a browser. The distinction means that Yahoo's desktop searches won't
be co-mingled with online searches conducted at its Website.
The product, licensed from a pioneering startup named X1 Technologies,
seeks to cure a common computer-induced headache by making it as
quick and easy to find digital information offline as it has become
online.
The rush to develop better technology for scouring computer hard
drives reflects a belief that desktop search is an increasingly
important complement to online search engines, where advertising
has become a major moneymaker.
Yahoo had been widely expected to take this step since Google introduced
a hard-drive search tool nearly two months ago.
Microsoft's MSN service hopes to introduce a similar product before
year's end and Ask Jeeves Inc., which runs several online search
engines, plans to unveil its desktop offering next Wednesday.
The competitive pressure likely motivated Yahoo to license an existing
product.
|
