Comments on: Search Coincidence in a Comic Strip

By: ThanxMedia - a word of warning : SLI Systems Blog

ThanxMedia - a word of warning : SLI Systems Blog — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 03:06:04 +0000

[...] It smells a little of desperation to me. Endeca may be one of the enterprise search companies that Stephen Arnold suggested was in trouble - they did have to raise more capital earlier this [...]

By: SLI is in a strong position : SLI Systems Blog

SLI is in a strong position : SLI Systems Blog — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 21:18:55 +0000

[...] Even in these difficult financial times we are growing strongly. Last quarter was the best quarter we’ve ever had in terms of new customers and the first month of this quarter was the best month we’ve had in over a year. We expect that most of our customers’ business will continue to grow and we are still hiring staff and investing in improving our service. Our situation has been helped by the demise of one of our competitors, Mercado and by the extremely poor attention to customer service of some of our other competitors. There is speculation that other search companies are struggling. [...]

By: Stephen E. Arnold

Stephen E. Arnold — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 13:58:26 +0000

Charlie Hull,

Yes, i know you are. Your model is a good one. But I write the Web log as a way to capture my thoughts. I’m not a journalist, nor do I pretend to operate as a real publication. That’s why I use the addled goose as my mouthpiece. I realize now that this Web log is marketing and some people (thousands, surprisingly) turn to it for real information. What’s the world coming to?

Stephen Arnold, October 29, 2008

By: Charlie Hull

Charlie Hull — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 10:22:54 +0000

We’re also doing pretty well, with our best quarter just gone, and we’re also using a novel business model like SLI – ours is open source.

I think we’re seeing a huge change in how customers regard search. Talking to people at the E-commerce Expo show in London yesterday there was a distinct lack of tolerance for vendors who can’t scale, who cost too much or lack features.

By: Stephen E. Arnold

Stephen E. Arnold — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 00:47:51 +0000

Martin,

Thanks for your post. I wish there were a way to extend support to sales professionals who get crushed by nutso quotas.

Stephen Arnold, October 28, 2008

By: Stephen E. Arnold

Stephen E. Arnold — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 00:46:35 +0000

Shaun Ryan,

Thanks for the post. I am thrilled you are doing well. I’m tired of bad news, comic strips about crooks in companies, and financial fast dancing. Must be the influence of the lambs?

Stephen Arnold, October 28, 2008

By: Shaun Ryan

Shaun Ryan — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 20:56:35 +0000

Stephen – I thought you’d like to hear from one enterprise search company that is thriving at the moment. Here at SLI we had our best quarter ever last quarter – both in terms of revenue and new customers. We are closer in size to Mercado than Endeca or Fast and they were one of our closest competitors. Unlike Mercado we are cashflow positive. Their demise, along with poor execution from one of our other competitors has helped us. Even in this tumultuous month we are signing up customers every week (3 so far this week). These are small but profitable deals.

One of the reasons for our success is our pure SaaS model – where we install and run the search for all of our customers and let them try it before they start paying. This means that we ensure that the customers’ searches works well and that they are happy.

By: Martin Griffies

Martin Griffies — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 20:49:33 +0000

Having been a victim of unmeetable sales quotas from an enterprise search provider in the past, I can only sympathise with the poor guys who are having their careers wrecked by overoptimistic & short-sighted management.

But the Dilbert cartoon is more likely about the madness of multiple-level planning “plan the plan’s planny plan” instead of execution, and the new employee is being taken away by a psychiatric nurse rather than policeman.