Google moves to expand its search empire

Internet search provider Google Inc. is set to make a foray into corporate messaging search today when it unveils an alliance with IBM Lotus of Cambridge that will enable tens of millions of office workers using Lotus Notes software to search their e-mail, instant message threads, and nonLotus desktop files using a new Google product.

The product, to be called Google Desktop Search for Enterprise, will be offered as a free download from the Google.com website onto office computers, starting today. Most of the downloading is expected to be done by information technology managers at businesses and other organizations, said Dave Girouard, general manager of Google's enterprise search business in Mountain View, Calif.

Google, as well as rivals Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp., previously introduced desktop search products for consumers.

''We're trying to make a seamless search experience across the Web, across corporate intranets, and on your own computer," said Girouard, who noted that Google already markets products that enable large and small businesses to search their intranets and websites.

Sean Poulley, an IBM Lotus vice president of business development in Somers, N.Y., said the new Google enterprise product will be able to search Lotus Notes in-boxes and Lotus Sametime instant message threads that have been saved in Notes versions 6.5 and higher. Initially, at least, the Google tool won't be installed directly into Lotus Notes but will operate as a plug-in from a separate desktop searchbar.

The next release of Lotus Notes, version 7.0, is due out this summer or fall, and Poulley said there are ongoing discussions about extending the IBM-Google partnership. ''This is probably the beginning of a set of collaboration projects that we'll do together, not only in Notes but in our other workplace products as well," Poulley said yesterday.

Just as Google has been moving to expand its franchise into news, local search, image search, and other areas, IBM is seeking to extend the capabilities of its workplace and collaboration products. In a rare move into consumer markets earlier this spring, IBM licensed its Sametime technology to Verizon Communications and Research in Motion for use on cellphones and BlackBerry e-mail devices.

Poulley said IBM Lotus has no plans to abandon its current Lotus Notes search box, which operates within the Lotus environment, or to scale back its search-related research in Cambridge and elsewhere.

Office employees who use Microsoft Outlook software, rather than Lotus Notes, for e-mail and calendar functions also will be able to use Google Desktop Search for Enterprise to search their messages, though there is no formal agreement with Microsoft, as there is with IBM, Girouard said. He said Google was able to make its tool work as an Outlook plug-in because Microsoft has published applied program interfaces for the software to allow outside developers to build on it.

Robert Weisman can be reached at weisman@globe.com.