Is Search Approaching a Crisis in 2008?
February 26, 2008
In May 2007, I will be doing the end note talk at the Enterprise Search Summit 2008. This is a conference owned and managed by Information Today, Inc. This may be the third or fourth year that I have anchored the program. Last year, Sue Feldman, IDC’s well-known search wizard, and Robert Peck, Managing Director of BearStearns’ Internet unit “debated” me last year. The idea is that I am known to be controversial, so representatives of received wisdom about “enterprise search”, a term I don’t like. For May 2008, I’m not certain what Information Today has planned to counter balance by contrarian views of behind-the-firewall search.
I worked yesterday to locate my remarks from 2007 here and come up with observations based on my research since May 2007. I have two studies under my belt in the last 10 months– Google Version 2.0 and Beyond Search: What to Do When Your Search System Doesn’t Work. Google is an interesting company, and I will be talking about its impact on enterprise software at the AIIM Show in Boston on March 4, 2008. My research for Beyond Search unearthed a number of interesting facts and insights. I am inclined to lean heavily on that information for the Enterprise Search Summit 2008 “controversial” end note.
I want to outline my preliminary thinking for my May 2008 remarks and invite comments on my views. Accordingly, here’s the table I created yesterday:
|
2007 Crisis |
2008 Delta |
Observation |
|
Organization’s info tech departments are in trouble |
No change |
Complexity continues to escalate. There’s a reason Salesforce.com, Amazon S3 and EC2, and NetSuite are getting hard looks. Blossom, Exalead, and Fast Search offer hosted solutions |
|
Costs are rising |
Financial pressure is increasing |
Buy outs, staff reductions, and repositioning are making it tough for potential buyers to know what search vendors have on offer. Examples: Autonomy and Zantaz; Inxight becoming part of Business Objects, then BO getting acquired by SAP, then SAP investing in Endeca. |
|
Customers |
More confident in their ability to select the right system than in 2007 |
Arrogance, not common sense, on the rise. |
|
Vendors |
More despite buys outs and consolidation |
Vendors are morphing quickly. Utilities become search engines. Search engines become platforms. Platforms become knowledge systems. Too many companies chasing too few customers. |
|
Sea change |
Greater uncertainty | “Stay the course” seems to be the mantra. |
As I reflect on these points, I see three characteristics of the 2008 search market that are not addressed. Let me summarize each:
- A naive dismissal of the Google Search Appliance, OneBox API, and Google Apps as not important to the major players in behind-the-firewall search. My data suggest that Google has about 8,500 licensees of the maligned GSA. Interest in Google Apps is climbing, often following the sky rocketing interest in Google Maps. Google is going to reshape the behind-the-firewall market for search and other applications.
- Growing importance of international vendors. I am continually surprised that many of the organizations with whom I speak about behind-the-firewall search are essentially ignorant of important North American vendors such as Attensity, Cognition Technologies, Siderean Software, or Thetus. But I am thunderstruck when these informed and bright people look baffled when I mention Bitext, Copper Eye, Polyspot, and Lingway. I haven’t mentioned the innovators in behind-the-firewall search in the Pacific Rim. Big changes are afoot, and few in the U.S. seem to care very much. There’s more curiosity about new Apple iPods than enterprise information systems, I surmise.
- Over confidence in search expertise and knowledge. I have been amazed on several occasions in the last six months at the lack of knowledge about the “gotchas” in search and the incredible hubris of certain procurement teams. In addition to refusing to consider a hosted or managed solution, these folks have zero knowledge of viable solutions developed in far-off, mysterious places like far-off France. Amazing. I meet many 25-year-olds who have “mastered” the intricacies of behind-the-firewall search. I conclude that it must be wonderful to be so smart so young. I’m still learning by plodding along. I’ve been at this more than 30 years and know I don’t know very much at all.
Let me close with an anecdote. One of my long-time friends and colleagues told me that her firm’s behind-the-firewall search system didn’t work. I think the word she used was sucked. Young people are quite colloquial.
I said, “Didn’t I try to flag you off that vendor?”
She replied, “Yes, but our VP of Information Technology made the decision. He knew what he wanted and made the deal happen.” I think she made a sound like an annoyed ocelot, a grrrr sound.)
What’s interesting about this exchange is that company with the search system that “sucked” conducts analyses of text mining, knowledge management, and “enterprise” search systems — for a fee.
I am struggling with how to communicate the need for those who want to procure a behind-the-firewall search system to make a decision based on understanding, facts, and specific, pragmatic requirements. I thought it was my generation who watched Star Trek and believed that technology would make it possible to issue voice commands to computers or say “Beam me up” to move from place to place. I learned in 2007 that recent graduates of prestigious computer science programs have absorbed Star Trek’s teachings.
Just one problem. Behind-the-firewall search remains a complex challenge. I document in Beyond Search 13 “disasters” and provide guidance on how to extricate oneself from the clutches of these problems. There’s no “beam me up” solution to the rats’ nest of issues that plague some behind-the-firewall search solutions — yet.
Stephen Arnold, February 26, 2008
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