14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft is offering Search Server 2008 Express as a free download, in a move designed to expand the company's offerings focused on delivering search at enterprise level. The Enterprise Search Summit West in San Jose was the stage where Microsoft unveiled Server 2008 Express, expanding its lineup of products delivering enterprise search capabilities. The product is positioned as a bridge between the enterprise environment and the information necessary to drive productivity.
"Information workers waste as much as 9.5 hours each week on searches that don't turn up the right information, which can add up to millions of dollars in lost productivity every year," said Kirk Koenigsbauer, general manager of the SharePoint Business Group at Microsoft. "We believe there is a core set of enterprise search features that every business should have, and we're delivering them for free in Search Server 2008 Express."
According to the Redmond company, Search Server Express is an equivalent of the search capabilities from Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. Still, the advantage in this sense is the fact that Search Server Express is available as a standalone download. The product integrates seamlessly with Windows Server 2003, and shares the same core technology as Microsoft Search Server 2008 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. The Redmond company stressed both the streamlined use of the application as well as its scalability as the top advantages set up to help with the efficiency of information search.
"Information access is at the heart of our approach to content management," said Jens Rabe, vice president and general manager of Microsoft Line of Business for Open Text. "We want people inside organizations to have a full view of the content stored within our systems as well as any other. Search Server 2008 Express offers the kind of complete access we think is critical to information management."
Microsoft Search Server 2008 Express Release Candidate can be downloaded from here.