Google Offers Free Search Appliance To Woo Competitor's Customers

Google said Tuesday it will offer a $2,995 Google Mini search appliance for free to customers that purchase one of its $30,000-plus Google Search Appliances to replace an existing search system.

Google is hoping to capitalize on the uncertainly in the enterprise search market created by Autonomy Corporation's recent acquisition of Verity.

Google says the Google Search Appliance is a tool for searching internal corporate sites, and the Google Mini is a search tool for public-facing Web sites. The company says it has over 2,000 business customers worldwide using its enterprise search hardware.

Dave Girouard, general manager of Google Enterprise, acknowledges that Google's hardware doesn't have the bells and whistles found on some competing products. But he believes most companies don't really need or use such capabilities.