Google and the 'Democratic' Enterprise

The recent brouhaha over search inaccuracies at Google.com may have some organizations reconsidering the contextually aware and relevance-savvy Google Search Appliance. Can the technology that rules the Internet rule enterprise search?

Google is banking on the fact that today's enterprises look like the Internet in that they make available unstructured data, such as HTML, PDF and Microsoft Office documents. If this premise is true, a search tool featuring full-text analysis and link popularity may provide even more relevant results than current solutions.

Google's enterprise search makes refinements based on meta data at query time. It can crawl Lotus Notes through Domino servers as well as password-protected pages and HTTPS (HTTP Secure) content. And it limits access to information secured through basic authentication or NTLM to authorized users.

With these features, Google appears ready to compete in the crowded enterprise market. Only implementations will prove or disprove Google's belief in parity between the enterprise and the internet.