Working with the methods of a street corner drug dealer seems to be the Microsoft stock-in-trade these days. Give away the freebies, then reel the suckers in.

They did it with the Classmate PC deal in Nigeria. They have started it again with a move on Google. Google makes lots of money on the sale of their search appliances, with the ‘junior’ editions starting at about $2000. Larger appliances with more power are around $9000. With almost all medium to larger businesses needing a search capability beyond what can be handled with a desktop search mechanism, there is a huge market for this. This is, to put it clearly, Google’s bread and butter.

Now Microsoft has launched a free version of a search software, which, with the addition of run-of-the-mill x86 hardware and Windows 2003 server, allows search on the scale of an appliance.

In that effort to crush the competition, and get the suckers hooked, the basic edition is free [back before the era of unrestricted trade, we used to call this dumping]. If you add in the cost of the equipment and Win 2k3 server, it’s still a good buy, and a real deal for people who are cheap.

But is it really able to challenge the power of the Google appliances? Time will tell, as no published tests are yet available. I’m certain, though, that Microsoft has plenty of ‘results’ ready for publication.

Well, the candy has been put out, kiddies. Are you going to take it? Steve Ballmer and company are leaning against the lamp post at the corner.

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[tags] Microsoft, Search Server Express, Search appliance, Google, dumping [/tags]

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