It wouldn’t be surprising if, at some point, in some fashion, we see some Google-brand housing. After all, parts of the Googleplex are already pretty cozy, and a recent development has placed Google at the fingertips of one of Britain’s biggest builders.
Unfortunately, the subject of this article isn’t a new line of power tools (wouldn’t that be interesting?). Instead, “Taylor Woodrow Construction has adopted the Google Search Appliance as the enterprise search technology to improve the efficiency of the company Intranet,” according to IT Backbones.
“[I]n the area of affordable enterprise search, the Google Search Appliance is largely unrivalled,” said Sean McAndrew, a business systems analyst at Taylor Woodrow. “Google has the added benefit of users familiarity with Google.com so the learning curve for implementation was really simple. Users noticed the benefits of the improved search immediately, and there was no requirement to develop and rollout an extensive training course as is usually needed with a new system.”
If you’re feeling a need to see quantitative information, then according to ComputerWeekly’s Warwick Ashford, “McAndrew said the clearest indication of a return on investment has been the 25% reduction in calls to the support department from users who were unable to find the information they needed.” So the Google Search Appliance saved time and money; maybe it’s not as nifty as a nail gun, but it’s having some of the same effects.
Also, it’s worth considering that the Appliances used by Taylor Woodrow may be some of the very first ones manufactured by Dell and distributed by Ingram Micro. No one expected a drop-off in quality, and, well, their lack of suspicions have been confirmed.
