Some really bad news for Google

At the time, when Google Desktop Search is already competing with big players like Yahoo, MSN, AskJeeves, Gartner has just made the going even tougher.

Don't use Google desktop search in your business, warns Gartner. Google Desktop Search has great potential for business use. Its security problems and lack of corporate-ready functions, however, make it unsuitable for widespread use right now.

Gartner has warned that companies shouldn't use the new Google Desktop Search tool because of security concerns and a lack of features. In a three-page research document, the authors - Whit Andrews, Maurene Grey and David Smith - say the tool that was released in beta in October is "not the proper search tool for businesses right now".

Instead they reiterate concerns put forward by the CEO of Google rival Copernic, David Burns, two months ago: "Google's 'Consent to Collect Nonpersonal Information' states that GDS collects non-personal data; however, the policy is a one-sided contract in that the user must trust that Google will make the right decisions as to what it will collect."

However, it also doesn't offer enough features and for it to recommend Google it would want to see "greater customisation of interface, flexibility for visualisation of results, groupwide administration and index load-balancing".

This is certainly not good news for Google at a time when its biggest competitor MSN desktop search is getting better reviews. Preston Gralla of Oreilly writes:

Google may be the ultimate Web searcher, but when it comes to finding things on your computer, the just-released beta of MSN Desktop Search beats it hands-down.

That's because Microsoft's search tool has been built specifically to search through emails and documents, and so it lets you fine-tune your search in ways that Google doesn't. So if you're looking for a specific piece of email, for example, you can search by folder, by sender, by date, by size of file attachments, and more - and you can combine them all for exceedingly fine-tuned searches.

Additionally, MSN Desktop Search has an interface that lets you easily sort and resort your results, and lets you right-click on any result, and then take actions on the file from a pop-up menu - the same pop-up menu that appears when you right-click in Windows Explorer.

There are a lot of other nifty extras in it as well. It can sit as a box in your Taskbar for example, and when you want to do a search, type your search into the box, and results pop up, menu-style. Click on any result to get straight to the file or email.

Google's search tool, on the other hand, uses the Web search paradigm. You can fine-tune it in ways you would when searching the Web, but not in ways you'd like to when looking for files or email on your hard disk. The interface is bare-bones Google, which is fine for the Web, but not suited for when you're looking for files, and then working with them on your PC.

Don't expect either of these search tools to change drastically. Google has applied the Web approach to searching and applied it to your computer. Microsoft instead applied what it knows about Windows, Outlook, and documents. And the winner, without a doubt, is Microsoft.

You can buy the report titled Discourage Broad Use of the Google Search Tool from Gartner's site here.