SAP launches enterprise search application
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(InfoWorld) - SAP AG unwrapped its Enterprise Search application to help customers conduct specific secure queries of structured and unstructured data held in both SAP and non-SAP software. The vendor announced the search application Tuesday at its TechEd developer conference in Las Vegas during a flurry of announcements promoting innovation and simplicity. "We can do deep searches into enterprise data," Peter Graf, executive vice president of solution marketing for SAP, said during a conference call to discuss the news. "We can leverage all the knowledge we have about a user from [SAP] applications in terms of their preferences, roles and authorization for what information they can see." For instance, an individual within a company could carry out queries around the organization's corporate structure as to who reports to whom or determine which of their peers are experts in technologies like Java, he added. The aim is to make enterprise search tied to business context accessible to nontechnical users for a "Google-like" searching capability, according to Graf. "You don't need a very long learning experience to use Enterprise Search," he said. Formerly known as Project Argo, the application runs on SAP's NetWeaver 2004s integration platform. The underlying indexing engine is SAP's existing Trex search technology combined with newly developed search capabilities. SAP developers can download a free trial version of Enterprise Search now from the company'sÂ SAP Developer Network (SDN) Web site. The company plans to make the application commercially available in 2007, at which point SAP will release pricing details. Developers will be able to adjust Enterprise Search so they can use the application to search non-SAP applications, Graf said. They will also be able to embed search capabilities in other applications and create new search services. Enterprise Search has open interfaces so it can hook into third-party information sources and search engines. SAP plans for Enterprise Search to support a number of different user interfaces. The vendor will make the application available as a browser-based user interface for simple Web search and as a desktop widget embedded in its mySAP ERP 2005 enterprise resource planning application. SAP also intends to offer Enterprise Search as an enhancement to its Business Intelligence Accelerator (BIA) product. Graf stressed that Enterprise Search and BIA are complementary technologies, both using in-memory capabilities and being highly scalable.Â SAP released its BIA analytical engine in May after working closely with Intel Corp., IBM Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co. The software enables users to quickly analyze and query vast amounts of business data on the fly without having to pre-aggregate and store the information in a database before querying it. SAP pre-installs BIA on blade servers from HP and IBM. Shai Agassi, president of SAP's product and technology group, described BIA as a "mini-grid and a mini-Google." SAP's main applications rival Oracle Corp. debuted aÂ stand-alone enterprise search product, Oracle Search Enterprise 10g, in March. Other applications players are also looking more seriously at the enterprise search market, including Microsoft Corp. with its Index Server software. Â
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IBM has created a free semantic e-mail search engine aimed at users of the company's Lotus Notes software and Microsoft Outlook.
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Treading on IBM and Google toes Oracle is beefing up its enterprise search, by offering links to non-Oracle applications and data repositories. The idea is to make it a compete more creditably in this fieled against Google and IBM.â¦
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SAP has decided to support virtual server installations.
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(InfoWorld) - Fast Search & Transfer ASA has developed an enterprise desktop search tool that retrieves data from users' PCs, as well as from internal servers and the public Web. Fast Search, in Oslo, Norway, will unveil and begin shipping the application on Tuesday at a price of US$25 per seat. Discounts apply on purchases of over 1,000 seats. Fast Personal Search can be used on its own or in conjunction with server-based search platforms from Fast or other vendors. The ideal set-up is with the Fast Enterprise Search Platform, which lets users take advantage of all of its features, a spokesman said. The application is designed to let employees fetch data from multiple sources with a single query. Fast Personal Search also lets users act on files it retrieves. From within its search-results interface, the application lets users open, launch or print found files. It also offers a variety of ways to sort and cluster results. The application comes with security and administration tools to help IT departments configure, deploy and manage it. Fast Search is also making available a software development kit so that its partners can create services and products based on the new product. Matt Brown, a Forrester Research analyst, liked the product's user interface and set of features for end users and IT managers. It's clear that the application will add value to companies that already have Fast Search's server platform, he said. However, he questioned the decision to charge for the product. Considering that desktop search tools tend to be free, he wondered how willing companies will be to pay for it. "I haven't seen companies making huge investments specifically for desktop search," he said. Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp. offer free enterprise desktop search tools. X1 Technologies Inc. recently joined them, making its enterprise desktop application, previously priced from $74.95, available free. And Microsoft has aggressive plans to make enterprise search pervasive in its operating systems. "Looking out five years, I'm not bullish that desktop search will live forever as a standalone category," Brown said. In the meantime, beta tester Kevin Madden is excited about Fast Personal Search. He is chief executive officer of Clooster Inc., a startup that makes software to improve the rendering and visualization of results from other desktop search tools. His company has partly integrated its Clooster Desktop with the Fast product and found the process to be simple and straightforward, using the Fast software development kit. Clooster is now completing the integration. "We're excited with its performance and features," Madden said.ADVERTISEMENTMAKE SOA REAL WITH IBM WEBSPHERE PODCASTStreamline processes and maximize efficiency within a proven service oriented architecture. Take back control of your business processes with IBM WebSphere.
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SAP, the world's leading maker of business software, unveiled a program to woo customers of its rival PeopleSoft wary about future technical and maintenance support for PeopleSoft products now that the company has been taken over by Oracle.
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Google, the world&#39;s most popular search engine announced the launch of a beta desktop search utility application that goes beyond basic web search.
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The companies plan to release the server-side application on Wednesday as a free download aimed at companies that haven't tried out enterprise search due to cost and complexity concerns.
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SAP on Wednesday introduced a long-delayed line of Web-based business management software for mid-sized companies.
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A Google executive said yesterday that the search tool could at some point be extended to tap enterprise databases, desktop PCs, content management systems and CRM applications.
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Microsoft Corp. on Wednesday plans to make available a connector kit that allows users to easily link Microsoft's Office Project Server 2003 with SAP AG's ERP (enterprise resource planning) products.
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SAP today unveiled three compliance products and announced a compliance marketing agreement with Cisco Systems that targets firms in the U.S. and Canada.
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Google has released a tool that lets people search documents, e-mails or spreadsheets stored on a PC.
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Business software maker SAP aims to  win about 1,000 customers for its new Web-delivered software  aimed at smaller companies by the end of 2008, according to  slides due to be presented on Wednesday.
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Its new enterprise search appliance has more tagging and customization.
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SAP AG unwrapped its Enterprise Search application to help customers conduct specific secure queries of structured and unstructured data held in both SAP and non-SAP software.
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SAP AG on Wednesday unveiled a service that evaluates security settings across a customer&#39;s SAP enterprise system. SAP Security Optimization helps customers identify and fix vulnerabilities