How about making WSS Search available in Microsoft Office 2003?
Mike commented on my last post and said
"I didn't read Patrick's article because he made it clear that it was for SPS 2003 only (and not for WSS).
So thanks for pointing out this feature from it. Maybe SPS 2003 has its points after all ..."
In my opinion SPS 2003 really have several good points, but that's a discussion for another time. The point here is that organisations that just want WSS and thus cannot hook up to the Microsoft.SharePoint.Portal.Search.WebQueryService through http://server_name/_vti_bin/search.asmx can achieve this aswell in the wonderful world of WebServices:
You simply need to develop a web service interface based on the same contract for the SPS2003 search service (search.asmx?wsdl) and implement WSS search making use of the SPWeb Search methods (or even straight to the database or indexing service). If this service is deployed to sharepoint as described on MSDN it will support site virtualization and you can basically add any toplevel website as a Research topic in Office 2003.
I don't have the time to do this, but if you do: let me know:-)