Search as Oil Slick or Volcanic Ash
May 3, 2010
I had a conversation with a person familiar with enterprise search. In the course of the ebb and flow, a metaphor surfaced, and I wanted to capture it before it slipped away.
The idea is that an environmental event or a human action can trigger big consequences. Anyone trying to get from Europe on April 16, 2010, learned quickly about ash plumes. Now the unlucky residents of the US Gulf Coast have an opportunity to understand the diffusion pattern of an oil release.
What’s this have to do with search?
The idea which struck me as interesting is that search is now having a similar impact on activities, processes, and ecosystems far removed from ground zero. I am not able to accomplish much of my “work” unless I can locate the program, file, information, and data I need. I don’t really do anything with physical objects. I live in a world of data and constructs built upon information. Sure, I have a computer and keyboard, and without those hardware gizmos, I would be dead in the water or maybe a sea of red ink?
The search eruption. Source: http://www.liv.ac.uk/science_eng_images/earth/research/VolcanicAsh.jpg
Search is now disappearing in some organizations, absorbed into other applications. One way to describe this shift is to use the phrase “search enable application”. Another approach is to talk about search as a utility or an embedded service.
The key point is not the particular way to describe the change, but the change itself. The “problem” that a more effective information retrieval solves is now the focal point. The code word for this is a “solution”. The user in marketing or the legal department has an information problem. The solution is to deliver the needed information to that person. The “old way” was to create a Boolean command and send the query to a search system. This Boolean stuff was too much work, so search systems adopted a mind boggling array of tricks to take whatever the user typed in a search box and deliver useful information. The idea was not to deliver a solution but to get the user “good enough” information.
Oil spill. Source: http://www.gmagazine.com.au/files/imagecache/node/news/oil-spill.jpg
Now this “good enough” approach works for certain types of information retrieval but not for other. One consequence of this insight is that search becomes a component within a “real” application like customer support. The person answering an email or taking a phone call has a system that “delivers” or “displays” potentially useful information. The user can click on an item, use what’s been delivered automatically, or enter a couple of words in the search box.
The idea is to put appropriate technology within another system, use smart software to “know” who is using the system and what that person’s information needs are, and output information in a heads up display or dashboard.
The same approach is used in a wide range of applications from business intelligence where users have to know what’s selling and who is selling to whom to manufacturing systems where the user has to know what parts are where and which product gets produced when.
Search becomes invisible, yet like the ash cloud or the oil spill, affects how these “real” enterprise applications work.
In short, the search ash cloud or oil spill is having a very significant impact on the environment within organizations. The users, like the hapless seagulls and deer, are having to adapt, move, or face some very tough times in their locales affected by the ash and oil.
What’s this mean for search vendors? The answer, like most answers today, is, “That depends.” At one end of the spectrum, there will be some search vendors who adapt and evolve into new types of companies. I would nominate Autonomy as an example of this type of search vendor. Rumors are flying around that Autonomy will buy an ERP or CRM vendor and relabel the software as a search solution. Search is part of the Autonomy strategy, but the reality is that search is tucked inside another application.
On the opposite end of the spectrum are vendors who sell systems that don’t integrate. A licensee has to use them for what they are. These vendors, over time, will be subject to more pressure to “play well with others.” Nevertheless, it is possible to build solid revenues on search systems that hand a specific type of task. Examples include chemical structure searching and similar domain specific systems. The most successful of these specialists actually cheat a bit and provide licensees with ways to “pipe” the results into other systems. But the users of these systems are specialists and the guts of the chemical structure search system are of interest to chemists who have to use the system.
The majority of vendors are in transition from their present business models to an approach that makes their technology relevant. There is considerable inefficiency in making this type of change. I enjoy the news releases and breathless analyst emails that tout “revolutionary,” “next generation”, or “dramatic changes” in search and retrieval. Most of these companies will fizzle and a few, like Radar Networks, will be acquired by larger, better funded companies.
The dominant forces in information retrieval are likely to be companies not really identified with cutting edge enterprise search systems. Instead search will increasingly a solution provided by a different type of company. These firms combine expertise, consulting, and technology. The “solution” may be labeled “business intelligence,” “marketing support,” or “call center” solutions.
Today one can find few extinct species in information retrieval. The command line is alive and well from OpenText’s BRS search. The appliance solution is offered by dozens of vendors including generalists like Google to specialists like Exegy. The tool kit approach is available from Microsoft. There are more than 14 different niches which I have identified on my enterprise search page for Global ETM.
The present search environment, then, is a pre-impact or boundary zone. Big changes are coming as the environmental effects of search drift into organizations either as an ash cloud in the air executives breathe or in the form of a rising tide of digital information saturated with finding technologies.
The question becomes, “Who will adapt more quickly and successfully?”
Stephen E Arnold, May 3, 2010
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