Hulbee: Enterprise Intranet Search System
February 26, 2018
I associated the Hulbee brand with the Web search system Swisscows. Like Exalead and Qwant, Swisscows provides a user friendly search system. Key in some words, and Swisscows delivers the results. I ran a query for the UK smart software system SherlockML and received these results:
The distinctive features of the system struck me as:
- Privacy-centric. The queries are not retained by Swisscows.
- The system filters to eliminate violent and pornographic videos. Overt queries return no results. Certain queries return results which might raise some users’ hackles.
- Search results appear to come from Microsoft Bing, a “partnership.”
- Tile search which are clickable rectangular blocks of related content. which are similar to the Ben Shneiderman inspired visualizations for presenting search results, but Swisscows cleans up and makes more usable the visuals
- An icon which sends the user to the page in the results list. Most search engines display a hyperlink, which can be difficult to top accurately on some mobile device display screens
- The key search term presented in a white block with “closeness” of other concepts and terms shown by proximity to the white block; for example, ASI Data is the developer of SherlockML and the company is based in the UK. However, ASI does not appear in the blocks. The idea is a useful one in my idea, but some refinement may be warranted.
I learned from Telecompaper that Hulbee also offers an enterprise search system for Intranet content. The idea is that Hulbee, like Yippy and other search vendors, can be a replacement for the more than 55,000 orphaned Google Search Appliance customers. I often wonder how many of these GSAs are still in use because Google has never provided oodles of data about its misguided, overpriced, and odd ball “one size fits all” approach to what is a highly particularized problem.
Telecompaper reports:
Enterprise Search is flexible and scalable; in addition to internal use, it can also be used on the company’s website and external online shop. The advantage for companies is that they can tailor the search tool to suit their needs, without any external advertising included in the results. Customers can also choose Enterprise Search as a hosted service at Swisscom data centers or an on-premise service on their own servers.
One of company’s promotional videos features — wait for it — Swiss cows, although I am not able to differentiate among cow nationalities:
It seems that “enterprise search for an Intranet” has bundled a number of other search and retrieval functions; for example, Web site search and eCommerce. In my experience, some enterprise search vendors have offered “Swiss Army knife solutions” in the past. The reality of commercial enterprises is that search and retrieval needs are idiosyncratic; for example, lawyers require systems that can be used for eDiscovery, engineers have to locate drawings and their associated products, marketers want to pinpoint versions of PowerPoints, marketing collateral, and email, etc.
If you want more information about Swisscows, navigate to this link. You can check out the personal appeal for a donation from the company’s founder at this Web page.
Give the system a look, please.
Stephen E Arnold, February
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