Google released a fairly significant version 6.2 of its appliance today. There's a very corporate YouTube video summarizing the main novelties, and a quirky one about the one spotlighted for this release -- the "Self Learning Scorer," which uses indirect feedback from clickthroughs to improve ranking (SharePoint Search 2010 purports to do this, too).

As usual, there are plenty of features to discuss, but I'll leave the detailed write-up for the evaluation in our Search & Information Access Report. For me, the main surprise was the fact that the SharePoint connector -- which used to be out of the box -- is now actually in the box.

If that sounds confusing, let me explain. The Google Appliance's "Enterprise connector framework" allows the search engine to connect to various repositories and index the data. However, this doesn't actually run on the box itself -- you need a go-between server, running Tomcat, to deploy the connectors on.

Most customers seeking out the Google solution are looking for ease of use: plug it in, index, and you're off. To many, having to build a complete auxiliary server structure around the yellow box completely defies the main rationale for choosing it over other products. Their plans for a search implementation didn't include setting up the hardware and software: they want a box that does it all, straight away, as soon as you turn it on.

And that's why the main highlight of this release is the fact that Google has now managed to get the SharePoint connector running on the box itself. If you buy a new GSA, it'll be able to index MOSS 2007 straight away. All you need to do is configure this from the web UI. Which means that in at least one important respect, the Google Appliance is finally starting to be what people expect it to be.

Of course, having a SharePoint connector is one thing, but connectors come in many shapes and forms. The devil is in the details. So even though it's much easier to use than before, you'll still want to find out whether this connector is going to work for you. Caveat emptor.