Manthan

Had been thinking about how one could go about extending desktop search with features like tagging which are so very popular on the internet. The next logical thing that came to mind was that it could be a good feature to have with Google desktop search, which has been so useful. The del.icio.us could be extended to the desktop. Googling around a bit came across this very interesting post by D. Weinberger about Microsoft Tesla.

Tesla is a layer on top of XP that provides an alternative way of structuring and accessing the files on your desktop. You can sort your files by a whole bunch of the usual file attributes (date, size, etc.) but also by tags. Tags replace folders. (It’s a faceted classification system.) Tesla virtualizes the file system to the point that it doesn’t care which actual machine a file lives on. So, if you have home and office computers, it syncs them up automatically. From your point of view, you’re working on a file without worrying about where the bits actually are stored.

This I think is a great feature to have and something that has been long due. The archaic Windows explorer made it impossible to organize or sort data the way one wanted and hence tools like Google Desktop Search made a very positive impact. But when the battle is on the home turf, one can be sure Microsoft has the last laugh. Unless Google Desktop search introduces concepts like tagging, visual representation of files and their relationship, its going to lose ground to Microsoft pretty soon. Something that comes installed with the OS is definitely going to have more impact that Gooogle Desktop Search, which has to be down loaded and installed.
This in my opinion is not going to have any impact on Google, since Desktop Search was more of a technology demonstration project rather than something which could earn revenue in the long run. But what’s significant is the fact that this shows how Microsoft is the master of desktop and by incoroporating new innovations in its existing product lines, can prevent any company from entering its turf.

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