Yesterday, June 9, 2004, Ask Jeeves filed a Form S-3 with the SEC in order to sell an additional $400 million worth of stock and securities. Today Jeeves announced the purchase of Tukaroo Inc., a company that researches and develops desktop search technology.
“Since the 2001 acquisition of the Teoma search engine, Ask Jeeves’ strategy has been to build or acquire differentiated, next-generation, and best-in-class products or technologies,” said Steve Berkowitz, CEO of Ask Jeeves Inc. “We expect that Tukaroo’s desktop search and information management capabilities will enable Ask Jeeves to deliver a seamless, end-to-end search experience across the desktop and the Internet.”
Tukaroo’s software is a non-intrusive desktop application that is available as a hidden tool bar at the top of the desktop. Tukaroo also includes an automatic preview window for photographs and all documents.
With a majority of search technology beginning to focus on desktop-style search capabilities, Ask Jeeves has let it be known that they are going to be a player in this area of search as well. With this acquisition, Jeeves may beat the big three (Yahoo, Google, MSN) of the search engine industry by being the first to have an operational desktop search product available to consumers.
Yahoo has not announced any plans for desktop search. So far, their only desktop search presence is the partnership with MS Outlook add-on Plaxo. This allows users to search their email from their desktop.
Microsoft is building a completely redone file management and desktop search function to its future operating system, codenamed Longhorn. This is not expected to be available until 2006 at the earliest.
Google is observing an SEC-enforced silent period because of their impending IPO. However, word has leaked that they are planning a desktop search utility, code named “Puffin”. This will bring Google’s searching ability to the home computer.
However, with Jeeves completing the purchase of an already established desktop search program, and with their ability to market a product, it seems that Jeeves has the jump on the competition. And with the search engine filing to sell more stock perhaps more acquisitions are planned.
Chris Richardson is a search engine writer and editor for Murdok. Visit Murdok for the latest search news.
