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Microsoft Warns Google to Stay-off Enterprise Search Business

By Sophia Mayengbam

Is enterprise search autonomy business, or is it Microsoft’s territory? Well Microsoft has accused Google of trespassing their enterprise search domain. The company’s Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner has warned Google and Linux vendors to put their hands off its exclusive business. "Enterprise search is our business, it's our house and Google is not going to take that business," Turner told 7,000 delegates attending Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference. "Those people are not going to be allowed to take food off our plate, because that is what they are intending to do."

Turner, who was appointed head of Microsoft’s worldwide sales in August 2005, declared a war against its competitors saying that Microsoft will emerge as the winner claiming it offers the best solution compared to its users.

"Then we've got Novell, Linux, Red Hat and other competitors. We're going after IBM and Google," Turner said. "We're going to win because we have a better solution, better total cost of ownership. We're going to get at the competition."

He predicted that the company and its partners would have most of the growing software market.

Google entered into the world of enterprise in 2002 with Google Search, although they offered hosted site search solutions from before that. The Google Search tool, which sells for around USD 2,500 pop, allows search to company employees through intranets, content management systems and file servers.

In an attempt to capture the largest advertising revenue that Google generates through Google search Microsoft launched its online search unit MSN, which is far behind its competitor. But Google was not behind! It launched Google Spreadsheets and Google Calendar competingc.

Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer declared that the company is entering into a set of new markets over the next 12 months. Ballmer said, "Business intelligence, the portal, workflow, content management, collaboration market. Everybody likes to call it something different, but that's really now one category, one market that we're entering in full force this year…. Search from the desktop to the enterprise to the internet is a business of great importance and a market of great importance to us."

Microsoft is also rebranding the much-awaited Windows Vista search feature to avoid confusion with Microsoft's Internet property. Windows Live Search for the desktop, is now Windows Live Search Center and will allow Windows Vista users to search data in Office and desktop system files.
Microsoft promised improved search in its upcoming Office SharPoint Portal Server 2007, which will feature a set of connectors that would enable users to search Microsoft's Dynamics customer relationship management and enterprise resource planning applications, including software from SAP and Siebel, now owned by Oracle.

Microsoft said that of the USD 340 billion enterprise services market growth predicted by Gartner, it would drive only 1.5 percent of the total figure.


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