Google enhances Mini search device

Google enhances Mini search device

Search engine giant Google has upgraded its Mini search device. This appliance is designed for small and medium-size companies and departments within large organizations.

The Google Mini search appliance is in version 2.2 now. It gains some of the features from the higher end Google Search Appliance product.

This upgrade was made necessary after IBM and Yahoo launched a free service providing similar facilities. With this upgrade, Google Mini is taking on the fresh competition provided by IBM OmniFind Yahoo Edition.

Google Mini now starts at $1,995 for 50,000 documents. The most expensive model indexes 300,000 documents and costs around $8,995.

Interestingly, the IBM’s tool provides indexing service for up to 500,000 documents.

Google said in a statement that this updated Google Mini now recognize access settings for users and documents that an administrator has pre-established in Windows’ NTLM (NT LAN Manager) authentication protocol and Active Directory.

In addition, the Mini also now has the ability to apply access settings and authentication requirements defined by administrators in LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) directories and in HTTP Basic schemes for online transactions.