Google hardware: A billion searched

Google sells hardware, too, and announced Tuesday that its Google Search Appliance can now find documents by the billions.

Google Search Appliance 6.0 (GSA) is the company's product for helping enterprises locate and manage the reams of internal corporate data that doesn't get indexed by Google's search bots, but which needs to be found by managers and employees.

The latest version is all about scaling, or the ability to link dozens of these appliances to allow even the biggest companies to search their networks for presentations, spreadsheets, and other documents.

There are two hardware models that are capable of searching different numbers of documents: the high-end GB-9009 can search 30 million documents by itself and reach into the billions if a company links several appliances together. The appliances are built on the Dell's PowerEdge R710 design.

Google charges businesses a licensing fee for several years of internal document searching, based on the number of documents inside their organisation.

Original article: Google appliance now searching by the billion from CNET News.com