Microsoft and Lenovo team up for a Cortana Power-Up

In its default state, Cortana is restricted to Outlook, OneDrive, the local hard drive, and other Windows-related locations.

This summer, owners of Lenovo PCs and tablets will have access to REACHit, a Windows 10 “add-on”, designed to enhance Cortana’s search capabilities, extending it to Google Drive, Dropbox, and possibly more cloud storage accounts.

The service, created by a collaboration between Microsoft and Lenovo, will add the ability to search emails, across all service types, including Outlook.com web mail, Microsoft Exchange, Gmail and even native IMAP accounts, and calendar entries.

The service will not be available on Windows 8.1 or any previous Windows operating system. Also it will only be available, at least on paper, exclusively on Lenovo devices.

REACHit’s working principle uses meta-data gathered from each services the app is capable of indexing, such as dates, locations, keywords and file extensions. While the initiative is clearly centered around Lenovo devices, it’s one step towards boosting PC sales.

The app comes with Zoho, a basic file editor, reminiscent of Google Drive or Open Office, which has default access to document within the app itself. REACHit can then be set to access local drives, Windows folders, and compatible services, whose contents will be indexed and made available through Cortana’s search app.

Much like Google Drive, local files added to REACHit’s folder, will be available through the web app as well. The mobile iteration of the app is also slated for release on iOS, Android and Windows Mobile.