Microsoft Surprise: Lucid Thinking with Regards to Search
June 7, 2012
Our Overflight system snagged this news release: “Lucid Imagination Search Product Offered in Windows Azure Marketplace.” A version of the story appears on Beta News as well. According to the release:
Lucid Imagination…announced that its LucidWorks Cloud product has been selected by Microsoft Corp. to be offered as a Search-as-a-Service product in Microsoft’s Windows Azure Marketplace. LucidWorks Cloud is a full cloud service version of its LucidWorks Enterprise platform. LucidWorks Cloud delivers full open source Apache Lucene/Solr community innovation with support and maintenance from the world’s leading experts in open source search. An extensible platform architected for developers, LucidWorks Cloud is the only Solr distribution that provides security, abstraction and pre-built connectors for essential enterprise data sources – along with dramatic ease of use advantages in a well-tested, integrated and documented package. Example use cases for LucidWorks Cloud include Search-as-a-Service for websites, embedding search into SaaS product offerings, and Prototyping and developing cloud-based search-enabled applications in general.
According to Bill Hamilton, director, product marketing for Microsoft Azure:
In line with Windows Azure’s commitment to working with open source communities and serving developers, we’re excited that Lucid Imagination is offering its LucidWorks Cloud search technology in the Windows Azure Marketplace. Developers gain the benefits of Windows Azure’s openness and flexibility while providing search capabilities in their cloud applications.
One one hand, Microsoft is following in Amazon’s footsteps by hosting third-party search-and-retrieval systems. On the other hand, the fact that Microsoft is taking a step toward open source search is an interesting development.
Does this move presage a “Fast shuffle”? In my opinion, Microsoft is probably aware of Attivio’s use of Lucene/Solr in its platform product. Attivio, as you may know, was founded by former Fast Search & Transfer executives. With that DNA, Attivio’s embrace of Lucene is important because it suggests that Attivio may have perceived that Fast Search was nearing its “end of life.” The fact that IBM uses Lucene to reduce the massive costs that keeping a basic search system bright and shiny cannot be overlooked either.
Will Microsoft itself cozy up to Lucene / Solr? The shift would be wrenching for some developers and Certified Partners. These folks have built on going engineering and support of Fast Search technology into their business models. A Fast shift could deliver higher payoff velocities to some and strip the gears for others.
From my Harrod’s Creek vantage point, this announcement warrants a happy quack.
Stephen E Arnold, June 7, 2012
Sponsored by HighGainBlog
Comments
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
