Google Enterprise Search speaks your language

The Google Search Appliance, which allows you to store company data and access it through Google’s standard search interface, has added support for multiple languages. So if you’ve got some documents from your company’s Berlin office that were written in German, Google will automatically translate them into English or any language of your choosing in your search results. (Now if Google only offered an automated way to translate technical jargon, too…)

Google Translate users could already do something similar to any web site. But this continues Google’s pattern of moving consumer search features into the search products it sells to businesses. Cross-language business search is part of Google’s “Enterprise Labs” initiative, which is how the search giant tests new features before incorporating them into the final product. (Gmail users should be familiar with a similar initiative.) Since Enterprise Labs began in October 2007, Google has “graduated” three of the 10 experimental features: Google Apps integration, Google Sites integration, and advanced reporting/analytics.

Google’s enterprise search competitors include Autonomy and Microsoft-owned Fast.