Blossom Software’s Dr. Alan Feuer Interviewed
February 18, 2008
You can click here to read an interview with Dr. Alan Feuer. He’s the founder of Blossom Software, a search-and-retrieval system that has carved out a lucrative niche. In the interview, Dr. Feuer says:
Degree of magic” is a telling scale for classifying search engines. At one end are search engines that take queries very literally; at the other are systems that try to be your intimate personal assistant. Systems high on the magic scale make hidden assumptions that influence the search results. High magic usually implies low transparency. Blossom works very hard to get the user results without throwing too much pixie dust in anyone’s eyes.
Dr. Feuer is a former Bell Labs’s researcher, and he has been one of the leaders in providing hosted search as well as on-premises installations of the Blossom search-and-retrieval system. I used the Blossom system to index the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s public content when a much higher profile vendor’s system failed. I also used the Blossom technology for the U.S. government funded Threat Open Source Information Gateway.
The FBI content was indexed by Blossom’s hosted service and online within 12 hours. The system accommodated the FBI’s security procedures and delivered on-point results. Once the incumbent vendor’s system had been restored to service, the Blossom hosted service was retained for one year as a hot fail over. This experience made me a believer in hosted search “Blossom style”.
Click here for the full interview. For information about Blossom, click Blossom link
Stephen Arnold, February 18, 2008
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