With so much data out there, finding it is becoming as big a problem as storing it once was. But a new crop of desktop search tools is making this job easier ... and riskier.
Whether or not "talk is cheap," (as the expression goes) storing it certainly is. And that has resulted in mushrooming storage costs.
According to IDC, organizations spent $14.2 billion on external disk storage systems last year. While this is only a five percent increase in dollars spent, falling prices mean it represents a 63% increase in the amount of capacity sold.
And then, of course, there is the fact of bigger drives. 250GB drives are becoming common on PCs, Hitachi and Fujitsu have introduced 100GB laptop drives, and LaCie sells a one terabyte external PC drive for less than $1 per gigabyte.
For many users, then, the problem is not so much storing data but how to find it. This has led many companies to install enterprise search software such as Autonomy Corporation's IDOL Server, Convera Corporation's RetrievalWare, or Verity, Inc.'s K2.
But such products may not be enough. Even in organizations that store files centrally, the growing use of laptops and home computers means that many files still reside outside the enterprise collection.
Just one LaCie drive, for example, could hold one-tenth of the Library of Congress book collection. Yet the Library of Congress employed a permanent staff of 4,120 last year to manage its resources and make them readily available.
Short of asking HR for a few thousand staff, how should you cope with the burgeoning laptop and desktop file collections? The answer is to install a desktop search tool.
While Windows has a search function built into Windows Explorer, it is woefully inadequate. But over the last year, a wide range of desktop search tools have hit the market, making it easier to locate relevant information.
These tools break down into three broad categories, based on their provenance:
Operating system vendors: In April, Apple released its latest OS, Mac OS X Tiger, which includes a desktop search engine called, aptly, Tiger. Desktop search will also be part of the Longhorn version of Windows when Microsoft releases it in late 2006.
Commercial Search Vendors: Copernic Technologies has a free desktop search tool utilizing many of the features of its enterprise products. dtSearch Corp., Enfish Software, and ISYS Search Software also have desktop search, but in the $100- to $200-per-user price range.
Web Search Vendors: Ask Jeeves, Google, MSN, Yahoo, and others all have freely downloadable browser toolbars for desktop search.
Comparing the Options
Desktop search is a high interest area due to its usefulness, but most of the data available has been from the standpoint of individual users.
For an enterprise, the UW E-Business Institute (UWEBI), at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, conducted a study comparing a dozen of the more popular desktop tools. Rather than looking at it from the viewpoint of the individual, the report looked at it from what an IT manager needs to know, according to Shawn Helwig, a researcher and consultant for the UWEBI.
The UWEBI tested each of the desktop engines and ranked them on a 0-5 scale. The overall winner was Copernic, which ranked No.1 in three of the six categories tested, tied for second in another, and third in a fifth category.
That doesn't necessarily mean, though, that it is the best tool for a particular company to install.
For one thing, the features vary on each tool, and it might not search the types of files you need. Top-ranked Copernic, for example, indexes Microsoft Outlook and Mozilla Thunderbird email files, but not IBM Lotus Notes.
Another factor to consider is that there are enterprise versions of desktop search tools starting to come out that may better suit your needs. Google, for example, released an enterprise version of its desktop tool in mid-May. Alternatively, you may want to consider Copernic off-shoot Coveo's enterprise search tool.
