Francisco Corella, Pomcor, an Exclusive Interview
February 11, 2009
Another speaker on the program at Infonortics’ Boston Search Engine Meeting agreed to be interviewed by Harry Collier, the founder of the premier search and content processing event. Francisco Corella is one of the senior managers of Pomcor. The company’s Noflail search system leverages open source and Yahoo’s BOSS (build your own search system). Navigate to the Infonortics.com Web site and sign up for the conference today. In Boston, you can meet Mr. Corella and other innovators in information retrieval.
The full text of the interview appears below:
Will you describe briefly your company and its search technology?
Pomcor is dedicated to Web technology innovation. In the area of search we have created Noflail Search, a search interface that runs on the Flex platform. Search results are currently obtained from the Yahoo BOSS API, but this may change in the future. Noflail Search helps the user solve tough search problems by prefetching the results of related queries, and supporting the simultaneous browsing of the result sets of multiple queries. It sounds complicated, but new users find the interface familiar and comfortable from the start. Noflail Search also lets users save useful queries—yes, queries, not results. This is akin to bookmarking the queries, but a lot more practical.
What are the three major challenges you see in search / content processing in 2009?
First challenge: what I call the indexable unit problem. A Web page is often not the desired indexable unit. If you want to cook sardines with triple sec (after reading Thurber) and issue a query [sardines “triple sec”] you will find pages that have a recipe with sardines and a recipe with triple sec. If there is a page with a recipe that uses both sardines and triple sec, it may be buried too deep for you to find. In this case the desired indexable unit is the recipe, not the page. Other indexable units: articles in a catalog, messages in an email archive, blog entries, news. There are ad-hoc solutions for blog entries and news, but no general-purpose solutions.
Second challenge: what I call the deep API problem. Several search engines offer public Web APIs that enable search mashups. Yahoo, in particular, encourages developers to reorder search results and merge results from different sources. But no search API provides more than the first 1000 results from any result set, and you cannot reorder a set if you only have a tiny subset of its elements. What’s needed is a deep API that lets you build your own index from crawler raw data or by combining multiple sources.
Third challenge: incorporate semantic technology into mainstream search engines.
With search processing decades old, what have been the principal barriers to resolving these challenges in the past?
The three challenges have not been resolved for different reasons. Indexable units require a new standard to specify the units within a page, and a restructuring of the search engines; hence a lot of inertia stands in the way of a solution. The need for a deep API is new and not widely recognized yet. And semantics are inherently difficult.
What is your approach to problem solving in search and content processing? Do you focus on smarter software, better content processing, improved interfaces, or some other specific area?
Noflail Search is a substantial improvement on the traditional search interface. Nothing more, nothing less. It may be surprising that such an improvement is coming now, after search engines have been in existence for so many years. Part of the reason for this may be that Google has a quasi-monopoly in Web search, and monopolies tend to stifle innovation. Our innovations are a direct result of the appearance of public Web APIs, which lower the barrier to entry and foster innovation.
With the rapid change in the business climate, how will the increasing financial pressure on information technology affect search / content processing?
The crisis may have both negative and positive effects on search innovation. Financial pressure causes consolidation, which reduces innovation. But the urge to reduce cost could also lead to the development of an ecosystem where different players solve different pieces of the search puzzle. Some could specialize in crawler software, some in index construction, some in user interface improvements, some in various aspects of semantics, some in various vertical markets.
A technogical ecosystem materialized in the 80’s for the PC industry, and resulted in amazing cost reduction. Will this happen again for search? Today we are seeing mixed signals. We see reasons for hope in the emergence of many alternative search engines, and the release by Microsoft of Live Search API 2.0 with support for revenue sharing. On the other hand, Amazon recently dropped Alexa, and Yahoo is now changing the rules of the game for Yahoo BOSS, reneging on its promise of free API access with revenue sharing.
Multi core processors provide significant performance boosts. But search / content processing often faces bottlenecks and latency in indexing and query processing. What’s your view on the performance of your system or systems with which you are familiar? Is performance a non issue?
Noflail Search is computationally demanding. When the user issues a query, Noflail Search precomputes the result sets of up to seven related queries in addition to the result set of the original query, and prefetches the first page of each result set. If the query has no results (which may easily happen in a search restricted to a particular Web site), it determines the most specific subqueries (queries with fewer terms) that do produce results; this requires traversing the entire subgraph of subqueries with zero results and its boundary, computing the results set of each node. All this is perfectly feasible and actually takes very little real time.
How do we do it?
Since Noflail Search is built on the Flex platform, the code runs on the Flash plug-in in the user’s computer and obtains
search results directly from the Yahoo Boss API. Furthermore, the code exploits the inherent parallelism of any Web API. Related queries are all run simultaneously. And the algorithm for traversing the zero-result subgraph is carefully designed to maximize concurrency.
Yahoo, however, has just announced that they will be charging fees for API queries instead of sharing ad revenue. If we continue to use Yahoo BOSS, it may not be econonmically feasible to prefecth the results of related queries or analyze zero results as we do now. Thus, although performance is a non-issue technically, demands of computational power have financial implications.
As you look forward, what are some new features / issues that you think will become more important in 2009?
Obviously we think that the new user interface features in Noflail Search are important and hope they’ll become widely used in 2009. We have of course filed patent applications on the new features, but we are very willing to license the inventions to others. As for a breakthrough over the next 36 months, as a consumer of search, I very much hope that the indexable unit problem will be solved. This would increase search accuracy and make life easier for everybody.
Where can I find more information about your products, services, and research?
Noflail Search is available at http://noflail.com/, and white papers on the new features can be found in the Search Technology page (http://www.pomcor.com/search_technology.html) of the Pomcor Web site http://www.pomcor.com/).
Harry Collier, Infonortics Ltd., February 11, 2009
Weird Math: Open Source Cost Estimates
February 11, 2009
IT Business Edge ran a story by Ann All called “Want More Openness in Enterprise Search? Open Source May Fill Bill?” If you are an IT person named Bill and you don’t know much about open source search, open source may turn “fill bill” into “kill Bill.” On the surface, open source offers quite a few advantages. First, there are lots of volunteers who maintain the code. The reality is that a few people carry the load and others cheerlead. For Lucene, SOLR, and other open source search systems, that works pretty well. (More about this point in a later paragraph.) Second, the “cost” of open source looks like a deal. Ms. All quotes various experts from the azure chip consulting firms and the trophy generation to buttress her arguments. I am not sure the facts in some enterprise environments line up with the assertions but that’s the nature of folks who disguise deep understanding with buzzword cosmetics. Third, some search systems like the Google Search Appliance cost $30,000. I almost want to insert exclamation points. How outrageous. Open source costs less, specifically $18,000. Like some of the Yahoo math, this number is conceptually aligned with Jello. The license fee is not the fully burdened cost of an enterprise search system. (Keep in mind that this type of search is more appropriately called “behind the firewall search”.)
What’s the Beyond Search view of open source?
In my opinion, open source is fine when certain conditions are met; namely:
- The client is comfortable with scripts and familiar with the conventions of open source. Even the consulting firms supporting open source can be a trifle technical. A call for help yields and engineer who may prefer repeating Unix commands in a monotone. Good if you are on that wave length. Not so good if you are a corporate IT manager who delegates tech stuff to contractors.
- The security and regulatory net thrown over an organization permits open source. Ah, you may think. Open source code is no big deal. Sorry. Open source is a big deal because some organizations have to guarantee that code used for certain projects cannot have backdoors or a murky provenance. Not us, you may think. My suggestion is that you may want to check with your lawyer who presumably has read your contracts with government agencies or the regulations governing certain businesses.
- The top brass understand that some functionality may not be possible until a volunteer codes up what’s needed or until your local computer contractor writes scripts. Then, you need to scurry back to your lawyer to make sure that the code and scripts are really yours. There are some strings attached to open source.
Does open source code work? Absolutely. I have few reservations tapping my pal Otto for SOLR, Charles Hull at Lemur Consulting for FLAX, or Anna Tothfalusi at Tesuji.eu for Lucene. Notice that these folks are not all in the good old US of A, which may be a consideration for some organizations. There are some open source search outfits like Lucid Imagination and specialists at various companies who can make open source search sit up and roll over.
It is just a matter of money.
Now, let’s think about the $18,000 versus the Google Search Appliance. The cost of implementing a search system breaks into some categories. License fees are in one category along with maintenance. You have to do your homework to understand that most of the big gun systems, including Google and others have variable pricing in place. Indexing 500,000 documents is one type of system. Boosting that system to handle 300 million documents is another type of system.
More SEO Oh, Oh
February 10, 2009
Years ago when I worked at Ziff Communications I listened to John Dvorak. He was an insightful thinker, and his expertise was not leveraged at Ziff. I left the company coincident with Bill Ziff’s announcement of his intention to sell his empire. Mr. Dvorak continued to work on Ziff properties after the break up. I have followed his comments over the years, and I regret that I was probably a suit in a crowd in meetings we both attended.
This morning I read PCMag.com’s “SEO Fiascoes: the Trouble with Search Engine Optimization” and noticed that he wrote the article. The article does a good job of pointing out what I have long known. The statement “…from what I can tell its proponents are modern snake-oil salesmen” is coincident with my research findings.
I steer clear of the SEO crowd. I gave talks at several SEO conferences six or seven years ago, and it was clear to me that this group of “experts” were promising Web site traffic by tricking the indexing subsystems. I mentioned this in The Google Legacy (2005), and that accomplished one thing: no SEO conference organizer wanted me on their program.
Please, navigate here and read Mr. Dvorak’s column. I am not going to summarize it. He is a good writer and an addled goose can do little to make his message more clear. A happy quack for his taking a stand on an issue and indirectly the consultants who snooker clients to pay to get traffic without investing in high value content.
Stephen Arnold, February 10, 2009
SurfRay: End or Beginning
February 10, 2009
Three people have alerted me to SurfRay’s liquidation. The administrator of the matter is Anne Birgitte Gammeljord. One source reported that the “advokat” handling the matter will entertain offers for the company’s assets. If you are in Copenhagen, you might want to ping Gorrissen Federspiel Kerkegaard for more information. The firm’s Web site is www.gfklaw.dk. As more information flows to me, I will post it. At this moment, I am putting SurfRay on watch. You will need to crank up Google Translate and verify this information. A happy quack to those who wrote me this morning. Readers with links to Danish or Swedish news on this matter can make me a happy goose by posting to the comments section of this Web log. I am chasing details as of 8 10 am Eastern.
Stephen Arnold, February 10, 2009
Patent Search from Perfect Search
February 10, 2009
The Perfect Search Corp. Google patent search attracted significant traffic on February 9, 2009. If you have not tried the system, navigate to http://arnoldit.perfectsearchcorp.com and then open a new window for your browser. You will want to point that new tab or window at http://www.google.com/patents. Now run the following query in each system: programmable search engine.
Here’s what Google displays to you:
The Google results force me to track down the full patent document to figure out if it is “sort of” what I want.
Run the same query programmable search engine and you get these results:
The ArnoldIT.com and Perfect Search collection makes it easy to decide if a hit is germane. A single click delivers the PDF of the patent document. Everything is clear and within a single interface.
Try these services and run the same query. You will find that you can dig into Google’s technology quickly and without the silly extra steps that other services insist upon. The USPTO search system is here. How about that USPTO search interface? I don’t want to name the vendor who provides this system and I don’t want to call attention to this company’s inability to make a user accessible system. FreePatentsOnline.com is here. Do you understand the results and how you access the various parts of a patent document? I do, but it takes quite a bit of work.
Notice the differences. First, the abstracts or summary of the patent is more useful because it contains substantive detail. Second, the key words in the query are in bold face, making it easy to spot the terms that were in your query. Third, notice the link to the PDF file. You don’t see fragments of the patent document. You get one click access to the patent document plus the diagrams if any. Fourth, because the Google patent collection includes only Google patent documents, you can easily explore the technical innovations that often “fly under the radar” of the Google watchers who deal with surface issues.
Information about the Perfect Search system is here. You can read an interview with one of the Perfect Search senior engineers, Ken Ebert, here. A happy quack to the Perfect Search team for contributing to this free Google patent document search and full text delivery service. Right now the system includes the Google patent documents that I have been able to identify in the course of my research into Google’s technical infrastructure. I cannot say with certainty that this collection has every Google patent application and granted patent. If you know of a Google patent document, I have overlooked, please, let me know. I am not an attorney and take my advice, “Don’t use this system as your only source of Google patent information.” It’s free and not the whiz bang service that West and Lexis provide for a fee. A hefty fee I might add.
Stephen Arnold, February 10, 2009
Sowsoft’s Effective File Search
February 10, 2009
One of the goslings here in the mine drainage runoff pond called my attention to Effective File Search. We tested version 4 and more recently version 6. We were favorably impressed. The desktop search systems that are available from some vendors are–to coin a technical phrase–pigs with lipstick. The indexing overhead sucks CPU cycles and the graphical interfaces can get in the way of locating the information the Beyond Search team needs. The built in search systems in XP, Vista, and Windows 6.1 (named Windows 7 beta) make the goslings do some extra waddling and paddling in the murky interface.
Effective File Search eliminates most of these complaints. No search system is flawless, but the EFS search software does its work quickly, clearly, and intuitively. The program installs without any hitches and it works on Windows 7 too. The screenshot below shows a query–alon halevy–and the results from the e drive of one of our test servers.
The most important feature of this system is that it is fast. A query on a 200 Gb drive stuffed with text, PowerPoints, and PDFs took about 20 seconds.
The company, Sowsoft.com, provides a trial version. After three weeks, you will be asked to pay a modest license fee. The single user price is about $30. Commercial licenses are available.
We were impressed with the software. We did encounter one glitch. One of our test drives had an iMac image files. The EFS system stalled when it tried to crunch through the Mac file types. This is a minor issue, and it is not a problem that most Windows users will encounter. Keep in mind that EFS is designed for Windows. Mac users are out of luck.
We learned from Vladimir Sinitsyn, one of the wizards at Sowsoft LLC in Moscow that EFS was a reaction to the sluggish and decidedly non intuitive search system included with Windows. The first version of EFS was designed for Windows 98, and the program has been continuously enhanced. The system is now at Version 6.0. Sowsoft is a privately-held firm. In addition to the company’s EFS product, the firm offers security software and some other utilities as well.
Mr. Sinitsyn was circumspect when talking about the engineering that delivers the excellent EFS performance when search for files, text in files, or folders and text in files. He told Beyond Search:
EFS works without index (real time search). But it is fast (not instant) real time search. EFS offer very flexible choice of search parameters for very fast searches. The program is well optimized.
If you are looking for a fast, easy to use search system for a desktop computer, please, take a look at EFS. We officially issue two happy quacks to the coders in Sowsoft’s Moscow office. For more information, click here. The download page is here.
Stephen Arnold, February 10, 2009
More Google Layoffs
February 10, 2009
Interesting article at http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/090208-230735 concerning the GOOG and quiet employee cuts. According to the blog post, some industry people are all a-Twitter with the news, acting like it was unexpected. But Google has already been in the news about some paring down that included RIFs (engineers too), the apparent closure its office in Trondheim, Sweden, (http://arnoldit.com/wordpress/2009/01/15/google-shutters-trondheim-office/) and the announcement that it was reorganizing Google Israel offices (http://arnoldit.com/wordpress/2009/02/08/google-israel-re-googles/). With the economy the way it is, why are people surprised that even the GOOG would have a deadwood reduction plan? As a side note, one of the addled geese here at Beyond Search wrote about the great Twitter versus Google battle. You can read that article here. http://arnoldit.com/wordpress/2009/02/09/google-threatened-by-twitter/. Maybe Twitter’s the as-it-happens news source, replacing the you-were-there of the dead tree crowd.
Jessica W. Bratcher, February 10, 2009
Semantic Engines Dmitri Soubbotin Exclusive Interview
February 10, 2009
Semantics are booming. Daily I get spam from the trophy generation touting the latest and greatest in semantic technology. A couple of eager folks are organizing a semantic publishing system and gearing up for a semantic conference. I think these efforts are admirable, but I think that the trophy crowd confuses public relations with programming on occasion. Not Dmitri Soubbotin, one of the senior managers at Semantic Engines. Harry Collier and I were able to get the low-profile wizard to sit down and talk with us. Mr. Soubbotin’s interview with Harry Collier (Infonortics Ltd.) and me appears below.
Please, keep in mind that Dmitri Soubbotin is one of world class search, content processing, and semantic technologies experts who will be speaking at the April 2009 Boston Search Engine Meeting. Unlike fan-club conferences or SEO programs designed for marketers, the Boston Search Engine Meeting tackles substantive subjects in an informed way. The opportunity to talk with Mr. Soubbotin or any other speaker at this event is a worthwhile experience. The interview with Mr. Soubbotin makes clear the approach that the conference committee for the Boston Search Engine Meeting. Substance, not marketing hyperbole is the focus for the two day program. For more information and to register, click here.
Now the interview:
Will you describe briefly your company and its search / content
processing technology?
Semantic Engines is mostly known for its search engine SenseBot (www.sensebot.net). The idea of it is to provide search results for a user’s query in the form of a multi-document summary of the most relevant Web sources, presented in a coherent order. Through text mining, the engine attempts to understand what the Web pages are about and extract key phrases to create a summary.
So instead of giving a collection of links to the user, we serve an answer in the form of a summary of multiple sources. For many informational queries, this obviates the need to drill down into individual sources and saves the user a lot of time. If the user still needs more detail, or likes a particular source, he may navigate to it right from the context of the summary.
Strictly speaking, this is going beyond information search and retrieval – to information synthesis. We believe that search engines can do a better service to the users by synthesizing informative answers, essays, reviews, etc., rather than just pointing to Web sites. This idea is part of our patent filing.
Other things that we do are Web services for B2B that extract semantic concepts from texts, generate text summaries from unstructured content, etc. We also have a new product for bloggers and publishers called LinkSensor. It performs in-text content discovery to engage the user in exploring more of the content through suggested relevant links.
What are the three major challenges you see in search / content processing in 2009?
There are many challenges. Let me highlight three that I think are interesting:
First, Relevance: Users spend too much time searching and not always finding. The first page of results presumably contains the most relevant sources. But unless search engines really understand the query and the user intent, we cannot be sure that the user is satisfied. Matching words of the query to words on Web pages is far from an ideal solution.
Second, Volume: The number of results matching a user’s query may be well beyond human capacity to review them. Naturally, the majority of searchers never venture beyond the first page of results – exploring the next page is often seen as not worth the effort. That means that a truly relevant and useful piece of content that happens to be number 11 on the list may become effectively invisible to the user.
Third, Shallow content: Search engines use a formula to calculate page rank. SEO techniques allow a site to improve its ranking through the use of keywords, often propagating a rather shallow site up on the list. The user may not know if the site is really worth exploring until he clicks on its link.
With search / content processing decades old, what have been the principal barriers to resolving these challenges in the past?
Not understanding the intent of the user’s query and matching words syntactically rather than by their sense – these are the key barriers preventing from serving more relevant results. NLP and text mining techniques can be employed to understand the query and the Web pages content, and come up with an acceptable answer for the user. Analyzing
Web page content on-the-fly can also help in distinguishing whether a page has value for the user or not.
Of course, the infrastructure requirements would be higher when semantic analysis is used, raising the cost of serving search results. This may have been another barrier to broader use of semantics by
major search engines.
What is your approach to problem solving in search and content processing? Do you focus on smarter software, better content processing, improved interfaces, or some other specific area?
Smarter, more intelligent software. We use text mining to parse Web pages and pull out the most representative text extracts of them, relevant to the query. We drop the sources that are shallow on content, no matter how high they were ranked by other search engines. We then order the text extracts to create a summary that ideally serves as a useful answer to the user’s query. This type of result is a good fit for an informational query, where the user’s goal is to
understand a concept or event, or to get an overview of a topic. The closer together are the source documents (e.g., in a vertical space), the higher the quality of the summary.
Search / content processing systems have been integrated into such diverse functions as business intelligence and customer support. Do you see search / content processing becoming increasingly integrated
into enterprise applications?
More and more, people expect to have the same features and user interface when they search at work as they get from home. The underlying difference is that behind the firewall the repositories and taxonomies are controlled, as opposed to the outside world. On one hand, it makes it easier for a search application within the enterprise as it narrows its focus and the accuracy of search can get higher. On the other hand, additional features and expertise would be required compared to the Web search. In general, I think the opportunities in the enterprise are growing for standalone search
providers with unique value propositions.
As you look forward, what are some new features / issues that you think will become more important in 2009? Where do you see a major break-through over the next 36 months?
I think the use of semantics and intelligent processing of content will become more ubiquitous in 2009 and further. For years, it has been making its way from academia to “alternative” search engines, occasionally showing up in the mainstream. I think we are going to see much higher adoption of semantics by major search engines, first of all Google. Things have definitely been in the works, showing as small improvements here and there, but I expect a critical mass of
experimenting to accumulate and overflow into standard features at some point. This will be a tremendous shift in the way search is perceived by users and implemented by search engines. The impact on the SEO techniques that are primarily keyword-based will be huge as well. Not sure whether this will happen in 2009, but certainly within
the next 36 months.
Graphical interfaces and portals (now called composite applications) are making a comeback. Semantic technology can make point and click interfaces more useful. What other uses of semantic technology do you see gaining significance in 2009? What semantic considerations do you bring to your product and research activities?
I expect to see higher proliferation of Semantic Web and linked data. Currently, the applications in this field mostly go after the content that is inherently structured although hidden within the text – contacts, names, dates. I would be interested to see more integration of linked data apps with text mining tools that can understand unstructured content. This would allow automated processing of large volumes of unstructured content, making it semantic web-ready.
Where can we find more information about your products, services, and research?
Our main sites are www.sensebot.net and www.semanticengines.com. LinkSensor, our tool for bloggers/publishers is at www.linksensor.com. A more detailed explanation of our approach with examples can be found in the following article:
http://www.altsearchengines.com/2008/Q7/22/alternative-search-results/.
Stephen Arnold (Harrod’s Creek, Kentucky) and Harry Collier (Tetbury, Glou.), February 10, 2009
Sinequa Lands Co Op Financial Deal
February 10, 2009
The world’s largest consumer co-operative just made Sinequa, http://www.sinequa.com, a part of their plans to develop company efficiency, facilitate collaboration and improve customer service. The Co-operative Financial Services (CFS), http://www.cfs.co.uk, will use the Sinequa CS enterprise search engine to connect different business units. The engine links data sources using connectors so employees can access information across the company based on access rights. The co-op needs Sinequa CS to pull all its pieces parts together. It’s a no brainer: the co-op has about 6.5 million customers to serve. Sinequa CS facilitates natural language queries and retrieves search results by way of patented semantic technology. Results include related documents regardless of format (Office, PDF, HTML etc.) classified by category. More about the search engine is available at http://www.sinequa.com/solutions.html.
Jessica West Bratcher, February 10, 2009
Microsoft’s Certified Partners Are Jittery
February 9, 2009
The Fast Forward conference (search, not the science fiction show) is now a reality. I want to report that I have had more Microsoft announcements in the last few hours than I normally receive in a month. The announcements–email spam, really–underscore how Microsoft’s executive revolving door has escalated the uncertainty among certified partners. I don’t want to mention the names of these nervous Nellies. You can spot the Microsoft mania in other Web log posts. The spammers know who they are, and I don’t want to deal with outputs from legal eagles. I can offer a handful of observations germane to the shindig at which Microsoft’s most recent enterpriser search strategy will be unveiled this week. If you are not familiar with this user group meeting gussied up for the faithful, you can read about the FUG (Fast User Group) here. The conference is in Las Vegas, a place where risk and odds make the city vibrate.
First, expect good news, lots and lots of good news about the power, flexibility, and value of the Fast Search Enterprise Search Platform. In my limited experience with these types of events, not much of the downside of the system will find its way to the lectures, cheerleading sessions, and events. To be fair, the open user groups went the way of the dodo. The reason is that users form grouplets and then some of these grouplets raise a stink. The controlled user group, in this case the FUG, helps to ensure that the agenda is followed. Closely followed. Is there a downside to Fast ESP or any other search system? In a word, “Yep.” Fast ESP in particular? Good question indeed. Example here.
Second, expect anti Google moves. Now the speakers will be gracious to Googzilla. The GOOG will be praised for doing a good job in Web search, but that GOOG technology doesn’t do the job an enterprise needs. Furthermore, the GOOG has primed the market with a low priced, inferior product that sets the stage for a low priced superior offering from Microsoft. Around this theme, there will be “experts” who point out that Google does okay but Microsoft does much better. The attendees will, in my experience, cheer when Googzilla takes a liver punch.
Third, expect consultants, pundits, and advisors to quiver with excitement. Users of SharePoint will be ready to pay big bucks for guidance. Among the questions that these wizards will “answer” are: “What’s this mean for the 50 million document limit in SharePoint?” “When do I abandon a free SharePoint search and move to the more capable search platform?” “Will the new and improved search work with Dynamics, SQL Server, and other servers that Microsoft puts into client locations?” “Will there be a managed service available from Fast Search’s data centers?” “Whom do I call when I can’t get the indexing subsystem to update?” “How much are the connectors to hook the new search system into a legacy Ironsides application running on an old AS/400?” I must admit that I don’t have answer to some of these questions, and I would wager a goose feather that the boffins don’t have the answer either. That’s what makes consultants quiver: getting paid to find out the answer to a question that can’t be answered for quite a while.
To close, I want to offer some observations about the impact of Fast Forward’s “news” on Googzilla. Keep in mind that I have zero relationship with either of these publicly traded companies, so you are getting my opinions.
- Google doesn’t really care too much about Fast Forward search announcements. The GOOG is busy responding to unsolicited inquiries about its various enterprise products and services. I wouldn’t be surprised if Googlers did not know about the event. Fast Forward is not technical, and technology, not PR and boosterism, doesn’t resonate with some of the Googley tribe.
- Customers are defining search as Google. Microsoft will have to find a way to counter the grassroots interest in Google solutions. Large consulting firms are forming Google practices to respond to demand. Microsoft consulting practices are in place, but these are different in their tone and services from the Google practices. One consulting firm is making phone calls trying to find Googley people to ram information in the members of the Google practice. There is a hunger for Google information based on my narrow angle of view. Google has grassroots growing in Microsoft’s playing field.
- Integrators are getting more interested in things Google. It is not just the Google Search Appliance, the Google Apps, or GMail. Google appears to be what a snowmobile drivers wants: fresh, firm, untracked snow. Integrators want to be among the first to blast through this pristine environment, reaping the joy and excitement of the new. Microsoft, despite its best efforts, is not new.
As more “news” from Fast Forward flows into the hollow here in Harrods Creek, I will filter and comment as my wont. In the meantime, I am going to check out what’s new on Google via Overflight.
Stephen Arnold, February 9, 2009
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