Google drives Mini to small enterprises

New version of Google Mini claims to search up to 50,000 documents

Google has unveiled a new version of Google Mini targeting small enterprises. The new appliance costs $1,995 and claims to search up to 50,000 documents. 

Google Mini allows users to search the company intranet as well as the internet from a single webpage, offering integration with Google Desktop for Enterprises and unlocking search for documents stored on the user's desktop.

The search firm's other appliances boast capacities of 100,000, 200,000 and 300,000 documents. The highest capacity model sells for $8,995. Google also has a $30,000 enterprise class appliance that indexes up to 500,000 documents.

Google is largely banking on its brand recognition in consumer search to sell into the enterprise market, according to Robert Lerner, a senior analyst for application infrastructure and data warehousing at Current Analysis.

But the analyst said that Google is trailing behind dedicated providers such as Autonomy. 

"Autonomy is doing well and still understands the market better than Google, " Lerner told vnunet.com.

Google is not the only provider that is venturing into the enterprise search space. IBM, Yahoo and Microsoft have set their eyes on the market, and Oracle earlier this week unveiled its Oracle Secure Enterprise Search 10g search application. 

Although Oracle's software will not be available until the end of May, Lerner believes that the enterprise application vendor is in a good position to sell the product.

The company has extensive knowledge of content management and database technology, and a large installed based within enterprises.