EPiServer May Embrace Forward Search
October 21, 2010
My recollection fogs with time, particularly when autumn settles on the goose pond. I thought that EPiServer (a Swedish content management system) relied on Mondosoft search. If the story in “The News of the Forward Search 2.0” write up is accurate, EPiServer (which could control as much as one third of the Swedish Intranet market) may be embracing Forward Search. I don’t know what happened to Mondosoft which I think is now owned and operated by SurfRay, a Danish firm.
Search results from the www.annefrank.org Web site.
What’s a Forward Search? The firm says:
Forward IT is a dynamic, flexible and committed supplier of Enterprise Search. Based on our own product solution – Forward Search we deliver search projects through our partners, covering different needs, from Website Search, Corporate Secure Search, eCommerce Search or Custom Search Solutions. Forward Search is Enterprise Search for enterprise solutions including Content Management Systems, intranets, databases, document repositories, OEM software etc. Forward Search appears to be a Danish firm. CMS Wire wrote about the company in its “Forward Search 2.0 for Enterprise and Web Includes Web CMS Integrations.”
What’s the search DNA? Here’s what the company says:
Forward is a Danish based and privately own company that was founded in 2004 by Thomas Jensen and Henrik Bach. Forward received capital for further growth mid 2009, when entering into cooperation with two Danish technology venture companies to ensure speeding up further development of the Enterprise Search product platform Forward Search, together with continued sales expansion that Forward has experienced since the second half of 2008, successfully delivering solutions to large customers in the Nordic and in Benelux.
Prior to the establishment they both worked with Enterprise Solutions based on technology from Open Text, at Ni Ansa IT Solutions ApS, from the year 2001.
The Kundo.se write up said, “A platform for web and enterprise search, it [Forward Search] works with a range of .NET Web CMSs, including EPiServer, Sitecore and Umbraco to collect a wide range of data including index content, crawler logs and visitor searching behavior from within the Web CMS, helping editors improve the search experience.”
I don’t have any pricing data at this time.
In Kundo.se, I located a list of Forward Search clients. These appear as:
- Addskills
- Anne Frank Foundation, www.annefrank.org
- Hotel & Restaurant Carone, www.hrs.dk
- Luminus SPE, www.luminus.be
- Mascot International, www.mascot.dk
- Niras A/S.
The write up lists these firms as Forward Search partners:
- Gengu, Netherlands
- LBi Lost Boys, Netherlands
- Magnetix, Denmark
- Nansen, Sweden
- Omega Point, Sweden
- Suneco, Netherlands
- Tuen Web, Denmark
- WWWins Consulting, China.
My take is that Forward Search is a snap in for Microsoft SharePoint search. The EPiServer outfit is pretty savvy. My opinion is that Forward Search delivers the needed functionality without the hassle and weirdness required to get SharePoint search in its various incarnations to walk, talk, roll over, and bark on command. I don’t want to push the canine metaphor too far, but Forward Search may be one of those animals discriminating buyers will want to take home for a weekend.
I have not updated my list of European search vendors recently. Yep, on the to do list. The old list is at http://arnoldit.com/wordpress/2009/09/18/european-search-vendors-additions/. I see that I need to add SurfRay, Fabasoft, Forward Search, and Exalead Dassault.
Gartner killed off its subjective, almost-an-infomercial search quadrant thingy. Maybe one of the enterprise azurini in Europe will jump into this empty marketing space? One can only hope.
Stephen E Arnold, October 21, 2010
Freebie and worth every penny
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Hi! Kundo is a online CRM-service company, MKSE.com is Scandinavias largest CMS news site. Just so you don’t mix ’em up 😉