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Enterprise Search Top Vendors: But Who Is the Judge?

July 3, 2008

My jaw dropped when I saw “The Top Enterprise Search Vendors,” an essay by Jon Brodkin, a writer affiliated with Network World. You can read the two-part document here. (Note: The url is one of those wacky jobs with percent signs and random characters, the product of a misbegotten content management system. So, if you can’t get the link to work after I write this [July 3, 2008, 2 pm Eastern time], you are on your own.)

Let’s cut to the chase.

Mr. Brodkin is using a consulting firm’s report as the backbone of his analysis. There is nothing wrong with that approach, and I use it myself for some documents. He picks up assertions in the consultant report and identifies some companies as “best” or “top” in the “enterprise search” market. We need a definition of “enterprise search”. A definition, in my view, is an essential first step. Why? I wrote a 300-page study about moving beyond search for Gilbane Group. A large part of my argument was that no one knows what enterprise search so dissatisfaction runs high, in the 50 to 75 percent. Picking the “best” or “top” vendor when the majority of system users are unhappy is an issue with me.

He writes:

The best enterprise search products on the market come from Autonomy, Endeca, the Microsoft subsidiary Fast and Vivisimo, but Google’s Search Appliance continues to dominate the market in terms of brand awareness and sheer number of customers, Forrester Research says in a new report.

Ah, yes, the Forrester  “wave” report. Now we know the origin of the adjectives “top” and “best”. Other vendors to note include:

  • Coveo
  • IBM
  • Microsoft’s own MOSS and MSS search systems (distinct from the Fast Search & Transfer ESP system). This is in too much flux to warrant discussion by me. I handle this in Beyond Search by saying, “Wait and see.” I know this is not what 65 million SharePoint users want to hear, but “wait and see”.
  • Oracle
  • Recommind.

Let’s do a reality check here, not for Mr. Brodkin’s sake or that of the Forrester “wave” team. Just in case an individual wants to license a search system, some basic information may be useful.

First, there are more than 300 vendors offering search, content processing, and text analytics systems at this time. There is no leader for several reasons:

  • Autonomy has diversified aggressively and much of their market impact comes from systems in which search is a comparatively modest part in a far larger system; for example, fraud detection. So, revenues alone or total customer count are not key indicators of search.
  • Fast Search & Transfer has been struggling with a modest challenge; namely, the investigation of its finances over an alleged loss of FY2007 $122 million in the fiscal year prior to Microsoft’s buying the company for $1.2 billion. Somehow “best” and “top” are in conflict with this alleged short fall. So, “best” and “top” mean one thing to me and definitely another to the Mr. Brodkin and the Forrester “wave” team. If an outfit is the best, I assume the firm’s financial health is part of its being “top” or “best”. I guess I am old fashioned or an addled goose.
  • Endeca works hard to explain that it is an information access company. Sure, search functions work in an Endeca implementation, but I think lumping this company with Autonomy (diversified information services) and Fast Search & Transfer (murky financial picture) clarifies little and confuses more.
  • Vivisimo is a relative newcomer to enterprise search. The company has some nifty de-duplication technology and it can federate results from different engines. The company is making sales in the enterprise arena. I categorize it as an up-and-coming vendor. I wonder if Vivisimo was surprised by its being labeled as a firm nosing around in Autonomy and Endeca territory. Great publicity. But Autonomy is about $300 million in revenue. Endeca is in the $110 million in revenue range. Vivisimo is far smaller, maybe one tenth Endeca’s size, but growing. A set to my way of thinking should contain like objects. $300 million, $100 million, $10 million–not the type of set I would craft to explain “enterprise search”.

Second, have vendors been miscategorized. I am okay with mentioning Coveo and Recommind. Both companies seem to have a solid value proposition and a clear sense of who their prospects are. Coveo, in particular, has some extremely tasty technology for mobile search. Recommind, despite its efforts to break out of the legal market, continues to make sales to lawyer-types. I am not sure the word “search” covers what these two firms are offering their customers. I think of both vendors offering “search plus other services and functions.”

Third, identifying IBM and Oracle as key players in search baffles me. Both buy consulting and advertising, but in “enterprise search”, neither figures prominently in my analyses. IBM is not a search company; it is a consulting firm using advice to push hardware, software, and services. Search at IBM can mean Lucene with an IBM T shirt. IBM also sells DB2, FileNet, iPhrase, and assorted text processing tools whose names I cannot keep straight. IBM also has an industry “openness” initiative called UIMA, a gasping swan right now in my opinion.

And, Oracle has been beating the secure search drum to deaf ears for a couple of years. Oracle SES 10g sells more Oracle servers, but Oracle is moving a lot of Google Search Appliances. So, what’s Oracle search? Is it the PL/SQL stuff that fuels more Oracle database installations, the SES 10g, or the Google Search Appliance? My sources indicate that Oracle sells more Google Search Appliances than SES 10g. Why? Well, it works and has a nifty API that allows Oracle consultants to hook the GSA into other enterprise systems. Forrester says Oracle is a search vendor, which is accurate. Forrester and Mr. Brodkin don’t mention the importance of the GSA in Oracle’s information access efforts.

Then there is Google or the GOOG. Google rates inclusion in the list of search leaders. The surprise is that Google is THE leader in enterprise search. The company doesn’t provide much information, but based on my research, Google has more than 11,000 Google Search Appliance licensees and more coming every day. When you add up the revenue from various enterprise activities, Google is not generating the paltry $188 million reported in its FY2007 financials. Nope. The GOOG is in the $400 million range. If my data are correct, Google, not Autonomy, is number one in gross revenue related to search.

What’s this all mean?

Let me boil out the waste products for you:

  1. Enterprise search is a non-starter in organizations. People don’t like the “search” experience, so the market is shifting. The change is coming quickly, and the established vendors are trying to reposition themselves by adding social search, business analytics, and discovery functions. The problem is that other companies are moving more quickly and delivering these much needed options quicker.
  2. There are some very significant vendors in the information access market, and these must be included on any procurement team’s “look at” list; specifically, Exalead (Paris) and Isys Search Software (Sydney and Denver). Both companies serve slightly different sectors of the information access market, but omitting them underscores a lack of knowledge of what’s hot and what’s not.
  3. Specialist vendors are having a significant impact in niche markets, and these vendors could make leaps into other segments as well. Examples that come to my mind are Attensity and  Clearwell Systems.
  4. New players are poised to disrupt existing information access markets. Examples range from Silobreaker (Stockholm) to companies such as Attivio and Connotate. In fact, there is an ecosystem of new and interesting approaches that have search and retrieval functions but are definitely distancing themselves from the train wreck that is “enterprise search”.

I urge you to read the Forrester report. Just be sure of your facts before you base your decision on a single firm’s analysis. There is a reason that a pecking order in consulting exists. At the top are Booz, Allen & Hamilton, Boston Consulting Group, Bain, and McKinsey. Then there is a vast middle tier. Below the middle tier are firms that offers boutique services. Instead of accepting a firm’s view of the “top” or the “best”, make sure the advice you take comes from a firm that has a blue-chip recommendation.

The growing dissatisfaction with enterprise search can come back and bite hard.

Stephen Arnold, July 3, 2008

Written by Stephen E. Arnold · Filed Under Enterprise, News, Search, Text processing 

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