Google Inc. will upgrade its Search Appliance, a computer with search engine software, with native support for enterprise content management systems like EMC Corp.’s Documentum, IBM’s FileNet, Open Text’s LiveLink and Microsoft Corp.’s SharePoint.
Support for those systems will be provided via “connector” modules included with the enterprise search device’s Version 5.0 software, which customers will be able to download for free either this week or next week.
The modules were built on an open-source framework that is new in Version 5.0 and can be used by customers and other vendors to create other native ECM connector modules for the Search Appliance.
This complements already existing native support for enterprise databases and applications in the Search Appliance, said Nitin Mangtani, lead product manager for search in the Google Enterprise division.
With the ECM framework and modules, Google is introducing in the Search Appliance the concept of universal search, which refers to a search engine’s ability to merge items from a broad variety of data repositories in a single results list.
In the Search Appliance, this will be manifested by its ability to return links to files and Web pages from intranets, on-premise and hosted business applications, corporate directories, public sites and, now, ECM systems.
