HOLD Going Fast and Skidding: Search Technologies Can Steer You to Safety
July 18, 2011
Last week we heard a number of rumors about layoffs and other organizational shifts at the Microsoft Fast Search units. We are not sure whether the news reported at Enterprise Search: The Business and Technology of Corporate Search was accurate. We don’t want to speculate.
We, like you, read:
[We] just learned that most of the FAST people we work with here in California and across the country have been laid off by Microsoft, apparently effective immediately. This is the team that was responsible for selling the FAST ESP products – FSIS and FSIA – as well as working with the Microsoft sales teams on Fast Search for SharePoint (FS4SP). Funny, I was just drafting a blog post today on ‘the future of FAST’ and I’m glad I hadn’t finished; I never would have guessed this at all.
Let’s assume that the rumor is false. Search Technologies remains committed to providing the technical and engineering support a Fast Search Server licensee needs to wring the maximum from the system.
Let’s assume the rumor is true. Search Technologies will continue to support Microsoft Fast as well as other Microsoft search technologies as long as our clients require top notch engineering.
Let’s assume there is uncertainty about the Fast search technology. Our view is that deep experience in search is more important than speculating about what a very large company is doing to manage its products and services for its clients.
One of the people tracking the search and content processing sector wrote about the “new landscape of enterprise search.” The point is that powerful forces are operating on search vendors, licensees, and users. We agree.
The Search Technologies value proposition is easy to articulate.
First, we have the depth of experience to cope with our clients’ engineering and technical requirements for Fast search as well as a number of other systems.
Second, most organizations with enterprise search installations will continue to use these systems even if staff changes or organizational restructuring occurs. Search Technologies can deliver the services required to derive maximum benefit from the installed software.
Third, our engineering approach embraces change. This means that if a client wants to replace an existing solution, our team can create the business case and implement the shift with little or no business disruption.
So, let’s put aside the issue of a single shift in a product. The focus at Search Technologies is helping our clients solve business problems. Software, while important, is just one facet of a broader commitment at Search Technologies to deliver value throughout the findability ecosystem.
To learn more about Search Technologies, navigate to www.searchtechnologies.com.
Iain Fletcher, July 25, 2011
Search Technologies
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