Microsoft’s Enterprise Search Center
May 31, 2008
I’m working on a report about SharePoint search. I’ve been surprised by the appetite for SharePoint search information. Judging from the email I receive, SharePoint search is a topic that quite a few readers of this Web log find fascinating.
I’m neutral on the subject.
If you are one of the many who want to beef up the native search functions of SharePoint search, you will want to visit Microsoft’s Web site called Microsoft Enterprise Search here. In my experience, the Web log is more useful than some of the content on the main site. I prefer having marketing collateral separated from technical information.
The information is reasonably well labeled. You can download trials of various SharePoint search versions here. Click the package and you are sent to a download page. No registration hassles and none of the Web 2.0 design elements that I find more annoying than helpful. One useful link is the one to the Microsoft Enterprise Search Blog here.
You can download Microsoft’s desktop search tool as well. When you click on the Desktop Products link, you see a Vista-themed page. Click here to check it out. You have to click a “Get It Now” button to see the five variants that are on offer. I was a bit confused by the choice of Windows Live Toolbar and the MSN Search Toolbar. But you can decide for yourself. My eyes glaze over when I am forced to choose among many options.
The most interesting links on the Enterprise Search Center site are the search connectors link and the partners link.
Click on Search Connectors and you see this page. I assumed that I would be sent to a page with a list of downloads. Well, sort of. What I had to do is read through the description of the “Search Connector Gallery”, figure out what type of search connector I wanted, and then read about resources, protocol handlers, and iFilters. There are three sub sections to navigate. These are Indexing, Federated, and iFilters.
What I wanted was a list of connectors. After clicking through this section of the Enterprise Search Center, I abandoned my hunt for downloadable connectors. These may be on the site, but I wasn’t sufficiently patient to locate them. The search function was simply not helpful to me. Your mileage may vary.
The salvation for me was the link to Partners. You can see this page here. There is a splash page and two sub sections to this part of the Enterprise Search Center site. The first is a list of companies who specialize in SharePoint. I saw some familiar names, including Bearing Point and Hewlett Packard. There were some firms identified that were unfamiliar to me. I was confused by the inclusion of Mondosoft on this list. Mondosoft at one time offered a SharePoint search alternative and then branched into metadata tools. Now Mondosoft is a unit of SurfRay, and I assume offers some services support for SharePoint. If you are looking for a list of people who can but a bandage on an ailing SharePoint installation, this list is a reasonable place to start looking. When you click on a link–for example, Mondosoft–you are sent directly to the partner’s Web site. My recollection is that Mondosoft experienced some stormy financial weather. The prominence given to Mondosoft suggested that forces other than serendipity were at work to put this company front and center. I wondered if Mondosoft’s visibility was a banner ad that looked like a standard vendor listing.
The other useful link is the one that displays a list of vendors who sell a replacement for SharePoint search itself. You can access this information here. The list is not alphabetical and pride of place goes to Mondosoft, which is featured at the top of the list. You have to do some scrolling, but you can browse the thumbnail descriptions of more than two dozen vendors. I noticed that some companies that offer snap in alternative to native SharePoint search were not on the list; for example, Interse in Denmark, ISYS Search Software, and several others. With vendors paying Microsoft for training and making a commitment of at least one engineer to Microsoft SharePoint, these missing firms will be added at some point. On the other hand, if I had undergone the Marine Corps. inspired drill to receive the coveted Microsoft Certified Gold label, I would want a link on this page.
I did a bit of random clicking and exploring on this site, and I think if you are in search of SharePoint information, you will want to add this site to your bookmarks. I also formulated some observations about this collection of pages. These are:
- The naming of the site is down right confusing. The redundancy and variations of the site title seem to be influenced by search engine optimization thinking, not the needs of the user who wants to beef up SharePoint search or just get it working.
- The search box that appears on each page delivers less-than-useful results to me. Most of the links were to other parts of the sprawling Microsoft site family. When I tried to narrow the query, the results struck me as off topic. You may find the relevancy just fine.
- The mix of visual styles and the inconsistent handling of download links, technical information, and marketing information added friction to my visit. On every page I had to crack a code and then scan the content blocks looking for information that I wanted.
Let me know if you have favorite SharePoint sites or sources. I will add them at the foot of this post.
Stephen Arnold, May 31, 2008
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