Linklaters, a London-based law firm with 30 offices in 22 countries and more than 2,000 lawyers, said it expects that the upgrade will let it search for legal data on multiple systems through a single query.
Linklaters has been storing legal documents and project data in EMC's Documentum content management system for several years, but it must also retrieve information from legacy, library and categorization systems, as well as Web documents stored on desktops.
The law firm hopes that internal tests of the Google Desktop upgrade will show that it won't have to undertake separate searches of those systems, said Tony Bland, an information systems strategy manager at Linklaters. Googling the Desktop
Hopkinton, Mass.-based EMC said the Google function is now available as an add-on with the current Documentum Version 5.3 software. The tool will be integrated in Version 5.4, which is slated to ship later this year, according to EMC.
The Google tool allows users to access unstructured content stored on desktops, including documents, Web pages, XML, and audio and video files, said Lubor Ptacek, director of product marketing for EMC's software group.
The Google Desktop feature can query data that has been created inside or outside a company and resides on file servers, databases or even online services like Bloomberg News, Ptacek noted.
The Google search engine provides adapters to translate the different languages of various content sources. It then compiles the information from multiple sources into a single view, the company said.
"This completes our strategy when it comes to Google search sources," Ptacek said. EMC had earlier added support for the Google Web site search and the Google Search Appliance products to its Documentum system.
Ptacek said EMC is targeting call center employees with the new function. "That person is responding to calls and needs to quickly come back with the right document that has the right answer," he said.
Sue Feldman, an analyst at IDC in Framingham, Mass., said EMC's decision to add the Google interface is a recognition that end users want it as part of their companies' overall content management systems.
Documentum also supports the search-engine interface from Oslo-based Fast Search & Transfer ASA, she noted.
"So many people really prefer the Google interface to something that's more complex," Feldman said.