Google has unveiled a new version of its Google Mini search appliance targetting small enterprises.

The new appliance promises to search up to 50,000 documents and costs $1,995.

The Google Mini allows users to search the company intranet as well as the internet from a single webpage. The device also offers integration with the Google Desktop for Enterprises applications, unlocking search for documents stored on the user's desktop.

The search engine's other appliances boast capacities of 100,000, 200,000 and 300,000 documents. The highest capacity model sells for $8,995.

Google furthermore has a $30,000 enterprise class Google Search Appliance that indexes up to 500,000 documents.

Google is largely banking on its name recognition in consumer search to sell into the enterprise search market, said Robert Lerner, a senior analyst for Application infrastructure and data warehousing with Current Analysis. But the company is trailing behind dedicated providers such as Autonomy, he noted.

"Autonomy is doing well and they still understand the market better then Google does," Lerner said.

Google isn't the only provider that is venturing into the enterprise search arena. IBM, Yahoo and Microsoft have set their eyes on it, and earlier this week Oracle unveiled its Oracle Secure Enterprise Search 10g search application.

Although Oracle's software won't be available until the end of May, Lerner believes that the enterprise application vendor is in a good position to sell its search software given its knowledge of content management and databases technology and a large installed based within enterprises.