Comments on: dtSearch: At a Crossroads http://arnoldit.com/wordpress/2009/01/09/dtsearch-at-a-crossroads/ by Stephen E. Arnold Thu, 24 May 2012 16:47:40 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 By: Herc http://arnoldit.com/wordpress/2009/01/09/dtsearch-at-a-crossroads/comment-page-1/#comment-206955 Herc Fri, 19 Aug 2011 17:56:15 +0000 http://arnoldit.com/wordpress/?p=3948#comment-206955 I develop and sell a specialist, Microsoft based, web publishing system. We run it on about 300 servers across 150 customers. We use the very old MS Index Server for a our limited-quality integrated search facility. It is free, pre-installed, and does just about enough, after lots of massaging by us. However, this is being phased out by MS, with no practical free replacement. So what do I buy? - The Open Source (Lucene) offerings are really only supported on Linux. - The pre-FAST Sharepoint offerings a clumsy, SQL-based, poor API, poor documentation, and mostly require a Sharepoint! MS Search Server is rubbish. - FAST was a possibility until MS bought them. I really want more facilities than dtSearch can offer. I want intelligent keyword generation; I want automated 'related document', I want automated 'did you mean'. But is there anything better I can afford? The trouble is, I don't want to spend more than a few hundred quid per site. I could get a 500 server dtSearch licence for £30K. The point is, there is a market for API-based search engines, and there is a gaping whole in the Microsoft-based arena, now Microsoft has abandoned developers and just wants to shift SharePoint. I develop and sell a specialist, Microsoft based, web publishing system. We run it on about 300 servers across 150 customers. We use the very old MS Index Server for a our limited-quality integrated search facility. It is free, pre-installed, and does just about enough, after lots of massaging by us. However, this is being phased out by MS, with no practical free replacement. So what do I buy?

- The Open Source (Lucene) offerings are really only supported on Linux.

- The pre-FAST Sharepoint offerings a clumsy, SQL-based, poor API, poor documentation, and mostly require a Sharepoint! MS Search Server is rubbish.

- FAST was a possibility until MS bought them.

I really want more facilities than dtSearch can offer. I want intelligent keyword generation; I want automated ‘related document’, I want automated ‘did you mean’. But is there anything better I can afford? The trouble is, I don’t want to spend more than a few hundred quid per site. I could get a 500 server dtSearch licence for £30K.

The point is, there is a market for API-based search engines, and there is a gaping whole in the Microsoft-based arena, now Microsoft has abandoned developers and just wants to shift SharePoint.

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