IBM and Google Inc. are collaborating to make it easier for office workers not only to search for local documents and personal e-mail but to delve deep into corporate databases, the companies said on Friday. IBM is linking up its OmniFind corporate search system with Google"s free desktop search for business to make it easier for users to locate information throughout an organization that is often locked up in many separate systems.
"Getting these two products together makes sense for both of us," David Girouard, general manager of Google"s enterprise business unit. "If you want to have a good corporate search product, you have to have desktop search," he said. Google wins IBM"s endorsement among corporate technical managers for its desktop search product and IBM gives corporate information workers an already popular entry point into back-office databases through Google"s search.