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On the heels of a series of desktop search releases, Ask Jeeves Inc. is set to launch an application to scour users' hard drives for e-mails and files.

Ask Jeeves, of Emeryville, Calif., will release a beta of its desktop-search application late on Wednesday that offers a three-button query box for searching local files, e-mails or the Web. A general release is planned for 2005.

Following in line with Microsoft's MSN desktop-search release and product plans from Yahoo Inc., Ask Jeeves will separate local and Web results.

But the company is planning to integrate desktop and Web results later in 2005, most likely by offering desktop results within its recently launched MyJeeves personalized search service on the Web, said Jim Lanzone, Ask Jeeves' senior vice president of search properties.

Google Inc., the first major search engine to enter desktop search with a beta release in October, merges desktop and Web results into the same results page through its well-known Web interface.

"There's confusion when Web results are integrated with personal files," Lanzone said. "Those are kind of apples and oranges."

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Source: eWeek