Google has launched the Google Mini, a scaled-down version of its enterprise search appliance, to the UK. The small, blue box is designed to provide a search function for the intranets or public websites of small to medium businesses.

The asking price of just under £2,000 includes a year of support, and hardware replacement coverage. An extra £700 gets you another year of support. The box is capable of searching and indexing 100,000 documents and it recognises over 220 different file types, including HTML, PDF and Word, provided they are web enabled.

Once configured - a process Google says takes less than an hour - the box can be set to crawl on a regular basis, but can also be managed remotely, with full administrator access through its web-based interface. The administrator can also define areas that are not to be included in the crawl, and can monitor the most searched-for subjects.

One beta tester, Orthoview, said that the box was particularly useful in helping to comply with regulatory guidelines, because searching for relevant information was now much easier. It also kept them more on top of their own intellectual property, the CEO John Chambers said.

The Google Mini is available to buy online here. More on the the spec and so on can be found here. ®

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