IBM Versus Goog-zilla?

allow the Google Desktop Search James Governor

Maybe Lotus is just confident because it feels like they have fought off the MS Exchange and Live Communications Server collaboration challenge for now... But surely Google is going to come after IBM sooner rather later? Eric Schmidt is sanguine apparently. But Bill Gates didn't get to where he is today without being able to identify competitive threats. You could argue doing so is a Microsoft core competence. IBM on the other hand, has not always been quite so adept at spotting threats early. I don't expect IBM to ignore Google, after all it wants to attract ISVs, and Google is one, but in my opinion search is fundamental to the computing experience.

Ed Brill, Business Unit Executive, Worldwide Lotus Messaging Sales for the IBM Software Group, sounds a lot less in awe of Goog-zilla:

Maybe I'm being too practical, but I just see this deal as recognition of the value of a single end-user being able to search mutliple content types from a single engine Desktop search <> enterprise search...thus, I don't see the current -- or potential -- overlap that James does.

If nothing else, maybe IBM can help Google improve the Google Desktop Search, which is something of a bandwidth hog on the desktop (so is the Yahoo desktop search, for that matter), and which can be maddening to install in many cases.