Microsoft Launches Enterprise Search At IT Forum

The corporate search offering, which is integrated with Office, SharePoint Portal Server and Windows, will allow corporate customers to search for information on their desktops, e-mail and network file shares, Microsoft said. Using the existing MSN Search, customers can search across the Internet, the company added.

The offering is available free with the purchase of a Windows license and can be managed and customized from within the company's System Management Server. Microsoft said it views this release as the first deliberable of its planned Windows Live software-based services model.

At the IT Forum event in Barcelona, Spain, Microsoft also unveiled a bevy of other new products, including Microsoft Dynamics GP 9, formerly Microsoft Business Solution, and a midmarket version of its System Center management product, dubbed System Center Essentials.

The Redmond, Wash., software giant also said it had reached significant milestones with several other products, including the release to manufacturing of Virtual Server R2 2005, which will ship in December; the beta 2 release of Windows Compute Cluster Server; and the planned release of System Center Capacity Planner 2006 to manufacturing next month. Virtual Server R2 Standard Edition will be priced at $99 and the Enterprise Edition will be priced at $199.

Microsoft also detailed its plans to move aggressively into the 64-bit world in its next generation of products. The company's planned Exchange Server 12, Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003, Windows Server Longhorn Small Business Server, and Microsoft&'s server for midsize businesses, code-named Centro, will be exclusively 64-bit and optimized for x64 hardware, Microsoft said. In addition, Windows Server Longhorn R2 will support only 64-bit hardware but will offer 32-bit application compatibility.