The privacy aspect of Intellext’s Watson 2.0 search tool will appeal to users, but that $239.95 price tag may give them pause.
Everything is a tradeoff. Google and MSN make desktop search tools freely available, but users may worry about a search engine seeing everything on their hard drives. Intellext promises its for-pay Watson 2.0 tool doesn’t do that while it watches you work, although it does provide “anonymous usage statistics” to the company.
Intellext announced the debut of its product as an add-in for the MSN Toolbar with Windows Desktop Search. The tool is also available as a standalone product. After the 30-day free trial, Watson 2.0 costs $239.95, or can be purchased on a monthly or annual subscription basis.
“Context” is the operative word for the utility. The Watson tool searches through the Internet to find relevant information based on what the user is doing on the computer. That information gets delivered to a sidebar display.
The Watson tool is always-on, so as users type, the application continues going out to retrieve related content. Intellext touts this intuitive feature as meaning users don’t have to perform manual queries, since data related to their work will already be waiting in the sidebar to be used.
Watson 2.0 works with Firefox, as well as Microsoft products Word, PowerPoint, Outlook (with Word as editor), and Internet Explorer. Intellext said in a statement the tool can integrate with desktop search applications from Google, Microsoft, and X1, as well as other external and internal information sources.
David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business. Email him here.
