Google, BearingPoint Form Corporate Search Alliance

Google is continuing its drive to open up corporate data to its search engine through a new alliance with BearingPoint.

BearingPoint plans to launch a search solutions practice, headed by Chris Weitz from the systems integrator's Mountain View, Calif., office.

"The idea is to provide the enterprise customization and verticalization in different industries that are possible using Google technology and the [Google Search] appliance and extending that with custom extensions that we can build as a systems integrator," Weitz told CRN. BearingPoint will build plug-ins to bring Google search into corporate repositories, he said.

The deal with BearingPoint represents another push by Mountain View-based Google to make its search technology as ubiquitous inside corporate firewalls as it has become on the Internet. In that quest, it faces off yet again with Microsoft.

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates has said he feels Microsoft's search is ahead of Google's when it comes to intranet searches. Nevertheless, Google is seen as the overall search kingpin on the Internet."We have decades of experience implementing enterprise applications around the world with 5,000 to 8,000 people working on enterprise applications, customizing ERP and CRM," Weitz said. "We have strategic Oracle, Siebel, PeopleSoft and other alliances."

Last year, Google began recruiting solution provider and ISV partners with expertise in legacy systems and applications to help bring the Google Search Appliances into corporate data centers.

McLean, Va.-based BearingPoint brings its years of experience in CRM, ERP and other applications into the Google sphere. Though the alliance with Google isn’t exclusive per se--BearingPoint could do similar work with Yahoo and Microsoft, and Google could ally with other integrators--executives from Google and BearingPoint said they're dedicated to working together.

David Girouard, general manager of Google’s enterprise group, said the two companies are a great fit. "We don't have a services business ourselves, so there's no conflict of interest. It's a wonderful thing for us that customers can work with BearingPoint, which already has this incredible expertise. It's complementary to what we're good at," he said.

Weitz said BearingPoint may work with other current or future Google partners with their own domain expertise.0