Fierce Pierce for Google Search Appliance
November 6, 2008
Fierce Media ran an interview conducted by Ron Miller called “Google Search Appliance Product Manager Responds to Critics” here. The trigger for the interview was an advertorial authored by Nitin Mangtani. The content of the advertorial in Forbes Magazine was a good restatement of the Google game plan for enterprise search. I wrote about the essay here in Beyond Search, not really taking issue with the content or its assertions. I remain baffled why an advertorial is needed when most analysts and reporters drool and quiver at an invitation to visit a real Googler and get the straight talk in the light of a lava lamp and with a cold Odwalla strawberry banana drink in hand.
My newsreader served up Mr. Miller’s interview with Mr. Mangtani. I scanned the interview and noted several items of interest to me:
- Google spoke with Fierce Media, an organization which I thought was an aggregator of content, not a high impact Web property like TechCrunch or Gizmodo. If Google talks with Fierce Media, perhaps I should reassess my views of this outfit?
- The Google Search Appliance has a couple of secret sauces. Prior to reading this interview, I thought that
Silicon Valley usage generally was for a hot company to have one secret sauce. Google has PageRank and engineers. Google is so powerful it can have as many secret sauces as its chefs want to craft. - Google uses universal search. I recognized that catchy phrase from the Google invention by Marissa Mayer and a couple of colleagues. Other companies federate as well, but Google universally federates with a USPTO seal of approval. Mr. Mangtani does not address the topic of protecting its intellectual property, which is an unfortunate omission from my point of view.
- The old chestnuts of Kimberly Clark and Honeywell make their appearance. I have come to expect these case studies, but with more than 20,000 licensees, I learn that these are the cases that really matter. My thought is that these are the cases that must be a bit like the advertorial in Forbes, known and predictable.
- The best is yet to come with regards to Google and enterprise search. I liked this line because it combined a dash of Delphic oracle, a pinch of confidence, and a heaping dose of Mother Google knows best.
A happy quack to Fierce Media for getting the GOOG to reveal some of the ingredients for its enterprise search secret sauces. Herewith, “Quack.”
Stephen Arnold, November 5, 2008
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