Microsoft has pulled the search widgetry out of SharePoint Server 2007 and turned it into a standalone Search Server 2008 Express that it will make available as a free download. It says information workers waste as much as 9.5 hours a week on searches that don't turn up the right information. So far it's got a release candidate at www.microsoft.com/enterprisesearch. Microsoft expects to bait customers with the upward-compatible Search Server 2008 Express and then scale them up to Search Server 2008 or Office SharePoint Server 2007.
The historic takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which could come as soon as this weekend, moved to the forefront of the presidential campaign Saturday.
In the arena that night, the whole last minute was drowned out by cheers — and then when the soaring music swelled, the confetti rained down as the harbinger of balloons and the hopeful first family took the stage, forget about it — it was a perfect end to a convention that last Monday, no one even knew if it would happen. But it did, and I'm so glad to have been there.
