Google's Springboard is a search engine built for enterprise customers

Google wants to attract more enterprise customers to its suit of productivity apps, and to do so it's leveraging one of its greatest strengths: search. Yesterday, the company announced Springboard — a new tool designed to "put the right information at your fingertips." Springboard's key feature is the ability to search across all of Google's apps, trawling Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Drive, Contacts, and more to find what users need.

It's not "google now for work," but it's not far off

More intriguingly, though, it seems Google has more in store than just search. The company says Springboard will also "assist you throughout your workday by proactively providing useful and actionable information and recommendations." It's not clear exactly what these recommendations will look like (access to Springboard is only through Google's Early Adopter Program at the moment), but they do like the sort of features an enterprise-focused digital assistant might offer. It's not yet "Google Now for work," as some have suggested, but it's getting there.

Alongside Springboard, the company also announced an update to Google Sites — a tool that's essentially a website builder for your company's in-house wiki or intranet. You can use it to quickly build things like guides and how-tos for colleagues, and Google promises the updated version is even more functional, with a new drag-and-drop design tool, real-time collaboration from multiple editors, and access to content stored in other Google work apps. Now if only there was a work-focused Google digital assistant — you could ask it to just build your site for you.

• SourceGoogle For Work