Looking to keep up with Google and stay just ahead of Microsoft’s MSN, Yahoo said December 9 they would introduce a hard drive search tool in January.
Yahoo’s will differ from Google’s in that it won’t run from or within a browser, meaning Yahoo desktop searches will not co-mingle with online searches from the popular portal.
Licensed from a startup known as X1 Technologies, the Yahoo tool is aimed at relieving a major computer pain by giving you a quick, easy way to find information offline, Yahoo said. X1 said they plan to continue marketing their standard $74.95 search software and licensing it to businesses even with Yahoo offering a free version.
Google introduced its hard drive search tool in October, and MSN anticipates bringing out a similar tool by the year’s end with Ask Jeeves expected to introduce its own such tool next week. That kind of competitive pressure, analysts like Charlene Li at Forrester Research said, probably pushed Yahoo to license an existing product rather than begin researching and developing its own tool.
"Some people may pooh-pooh this because Yahoo didn't build it on their own,” Li told reporters, “but this is going to give consumers some really good choices."
