The Old New Fast

March 2, 2012

The Fast Search & Transfer story continues to unfold. I think the approach is closer to one of those 1950 motion picture serials or chapter plays. Just when I thought Don of Don Daredevil Rides Again as a goner, he would survive. Wow, I need some popcorn.

With the sale of Fast Search & transfer to Microsoft in 2008, the subsequent hassle over Fast Search revenues and the activities of its Board of Directors, the search system morphed into FS4SP (great name!). The former Fast Search wizards and mavens scattered to the four winds.

Some remain at Microsoft. Others set up new companies which have moved beyond the Fast Search technology like Attivio. Consulting and service firms have flowered. A great example is Comperio which describes itself with this tagline: Search Matters.

Comperio is venturing outside of the Home of the Vikings with a new seminar series in conjunction with Microsoft (the world’s leader in search because there are more than 100 million SharePoint installations and an equal number of findability challenges) and BA Insight. You can read about the seminars here, but the details are sketchy. My hunch is that the content will praise SharePoint and then explain why one should license tools from the hosts, but that’s the way Microsoft’s ecosystem works.

The Comperio Web site ran an interesting interview with a former Fast Search wizard, Bjørn Olstad in “Hard Job Keeping Search Technology in Norway.” The interview summary contained some “search gems,” which I wanted to capture. So, check out the original and here are the points which I noted. My observations to myself appear in italics and in blood red, almost the color of financial red ink, but a tad darker:

The demand for enterprise search has been increasing. The cause is the increase in unstructured data. Okay, great insight. I was only partially aware of the growth in digital information.
Comperio has 50 employees and is a system integrator, Microsoft Partner of the Year, and specializes in the use of search technology to integrate disparate sources of information. Comperio is thriving like other SharePoint solution providers. I think this is because SharePoint and FS4SP needs quite a lot of love and care, diaper changing, baby oil, and spoon feeding. If the system worked, not so much effort would be needed, but that’s just my opinion.
Comperio is hiring for its Oslo and London offices. The more SharePoint, the greater the need for mechanics to fix the system. Another opinion, maybe a hypothesis.

We cover a number of articles about SharePoint. It is clear that SharePoint business is booming, and I think a company which understands the old Fast can make a lot of new money because the issues which contributed to the Fast revenue shortfall may lurk in the dark corners of a SharePoint implementation.

So the old new Fast is back and generating significant revenue for the former Fast specialists who are now focused on SharePoint and the new Fast. Makes sense, right?

Stephen E Arnold, March 2, 2012

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Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.