Just noticed that Google has a search product available for small businesses that includes the hardware and software to run a Google index on up to 100,000 documents. The cost? $2,999 USD. See Google Enterprise Solutions : Google Mini:

Meet the Google Mini. Designed to help small and medium-sized businesses make the most of their digital assets, the Mini is a hardware and software search appliance that delivers the power and productivity of Google search across your organization’s documents and websites.

Also available on the code.google.com three new APIs to work with this product: Applicance Search Protocol, Feeds Protocol and Authorization Protocol.

Now, we’re getting into more realistic small business territory with this mini project. Interesting choice of name considering the Mac Mini is the most inexpensive way to get into a Mac. Coincidence? I don’t think so.

Anyway, previously when I’d checked into the Google search appliance it was over twenty grand. Nice to see they are working on getting something sensibly-priced for small businesses. Also, I wonder, can these minis be chained together? So if we bought 3 of them, could we index 300,000 documents? Or do they all run independently of each other? The more expensive appliance now costs $30,000 and will index up to 15 million documents.

I found one part of the pitch rather humorous on this page

For attending, you’ll receive an invitation to open a free Google email account.

So you get pitched on something that costs three grand and what kind of perk do they give you? An invitation to open a free GMail account? LOL!

Did this post make you go hmm?

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