English Invade France: Autonomy Snares Lyon Library
June 20, 2008
Autonomy, arguably one of the top two or three vendors of enterprise search, landed a big fish. In fact, the company snagged the second biggest library in France, the Bibliothèque Municipale de Lyon. You can read the full story on CityAM here. (No quotes. The AP sabre rattling echoes in my ears.)
Why is this important? Three reasons:
- France has some serious search, content processing, and text analytics vendors. The ones that merit a close look in any search bake off include Exalead and PolySpot, but there are others about whom I have written in Beyond Search and this Web log.
- Libraries are strapped for cash, so these organizations look for a vendor that offers text firepower and a good deal. My sources tell me that Autonomy’s pencil sharpening carried the day which, when combined with a video search capability, melted French hearts the way the sun softens camembert.
- User expectations for search are soaring. At the same time, dissatisfaction with search systems is rising as well. Lyon’s technologists have sent a bright signal that Autonomy can deliver a better solution and one that will leave users smiling and the users with big grins
So Autonomy has invaded Lyon. The company will work overtime to make this sales win the foundation of other attempts to win business. I will be monitoring the Lyon implementation, the reaction of the French technologists, and the number of wins that Autonomy can achieve.
Stephen Arnold
June 20, 2008
Update 1
A helpful (though reticent reader) has alerted me that the Autonomy Lyon win is not new. You could have fooled me. Here’s the news release that I saw on June 16, 2008, and I certainly thought “news” meant “news”. To my aging self, the news release appeared to originate in Cambridge, UK and San Francisco, California, and I understood the news release to report that event. My anonymous email writer pointed out that the library had been a Verity customer and this was a multi year extension. My anonymous writer suggested I do more research before commenting about news releases. Point well taken, but I’m trying to link actions in search to the needs of users, not analyze the veracity of what appears on PRNewswire. At my age, it is a habit (obviously a bad one) to assume that a “news release” contains news.
Stephen Arnold, June 20, 2008, 8 50 am
Comments
5 Responses to “English Invade France: Autonomy Snares Lyon Library”
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The Bibliothèque Municipale de Lyon was already a Verity customer 3 years ago.
So a classic Autonomy PR announcing nothing?
Julien, thank you for the information. Vendors, as a rule, ignore my inquiries. Getting details on procurements is quite difficult for me. The PR announcement was as attention getting as a goose honk on a spring morning in rural Kentucky. I will watch for more information about this high profile deal.
Stephen Arnold, June 20, 2008
Not to be catty, but I encourage you to compare the user experience between searching at Bibliothèque Municipale de Lyon (http://www.bm-lyon.fr/) and searching at Triangle Research Libraries Network (http://search.trln.org/). To keep it fair, I suggest you use terms that work at least as well in French as in English, such as Renoir or Fermat. Or even camembert.
I just got off an airplane. I posted a few comments about a plus for Autonomy. I did not include search terms. I’m amazed that a snappy headline perks up traffic. My intent was to say, “Here’s an opportunity to tackle three common problems in search”. I’m not suggesting there’s anything wrong with the French, Autonomy, or interfaces. I enjoy the anonymous email, the nasty voice messages, and the Web log posts. I am writing a Web log here to document what everyone in the industry needs to do to make users happy. We have a common goal. Quite a hot button. Must be 1066 hang over in the headline.
Stephen Arnold, June 20, 2008
[…] One of my short essays triggered a number of anonymous emails (the best kind), nasty phone calls (an interesting diversion for me) and Web log comments of varying clarity. The flash point item is here. […]