IT giants are taking divergent routes to become the default search option for enterprises, with free tools, appliances and integration with discovery capabilities among their strategies.

IBM is taking its search business far and wide with a new version of the OmniFind Enterprise Edition tool that lets users search portals, databases, file systems and the public internet.

The latest release provides a dashboard for searching and analysing Lotus Domino deployments, including attachments, and IBM is also offering new search capabilities for WebSphere clients and Workplace web content management systems.

Separately, IBM said its free enterprise search tool, OmniFind Yahoo Edition, has won the support of add-in providers including Axioma Search, whose corporate search tool is designed to improve relevance; Groxis, whose Grokker platform queries subscription content sites; TnR Global, whose ESearch lets search windows be built into sites based on the open-source Joomla content management system; and Fortune Interactive, whose Feature Match add-on can learn from previous searches and tailor results accordingly.

Experts said that having primed the pump with its free OmniFind Yahoo Edition, IBM is aiming for enterprise search leadership. “The Yahoo edition was the sprat to catch a mackerel and I’m aware of a good number of organisations that have tried it and liked it,” said Ovum analyst Mike Davis.

Microsoft will launch its first search appliance this year, based on a relationship with UK-based Scan Computers. Scan’s Orange Spider Search is designed to let firms add in SharePoint Server capabilities in a four-step process.

Mike Pallot, Microsoft channel development manager for search, said, “We’re in the early stages but it’s a pre-built server that makes it easy to deploy SharePoint without IT assistance. It’s not a ploy to go head-to-head with the Google Search Appliance but it lets you deploy a familiar environment and link people search to CRM capabilities.”

Autonomy has agreed to buy legal discovery specialist Zantaz for $375m in a deal that could point the way forward for search as a complement to other tools. Autonomy plans to integrate its multimedia search expertise with Zantaz’s ability to discover archived data relevant to legal and corporate governance probes.