It now prefers to be called the “MSN Search Toolbar with Windows Desktop Search”.  Respect!  

 

Getting this release out has been a crazy 11 months for our Silicon Valley & Redmond based team.  Here is what I remember (I’ll admit some of it is a bit blurry…):

• 1 “lost” suitcase (recovered!)

• 1 baby born

• 2 marriages (not related to the 1 birth)

• 3 power outages on milestone days

• 5 weeks in Redmond to help the team up north

• 8 new team members

I could go on for a quite a while, but needless to say one of the highlights for the entire team has been the tremendous feedback and community around the product.  From easy changes (not so many butterflies in the deskbar) to hard ones (rich previews are tricky!) we were able to make a great product because of the detailed feedback and bug reports we received.  I’m really stoked we were able to deliver the outlook folder picker, the updated deskbar UI and the overall quality improvements requested – supa suhweet!  Thank you, thank you, thank you to all of our users inside the company (dogfood rocks!) and on the outside (bloggers, beta testers, family & friends, and more).  While I’ve failed at being a regular blogger, I hope the following will make up for it…a quick preview of two things we are working on right now:

1. Tabs in MSN Search Toolbar for Internet Explorer: This was leaked a while ago but we haven’t commented because our plan to release it is still coming together but it’ll be out soon.

2. Corporate Desktop Search: Desktop Search (and specifically email search) has become indispensable and we are working on a version that supports deployment and use in the corporate IT environment.

Well enough yap from my trap….please download the final release, use it, and share your comments here on or via our feedback form!

 

– Bubba Murarka, Program Manager (and math geek)