Clarabridge Spans Sentiment
October 24, 2010
My perception of Clarabridge is that the company was a more friendly version of MicroStrategy’s query tools. I guess I was incorrect. I read “Execuvue Software Tracks Guest Sentiment” and learned about my perceptual shortcomings. According to the write up, Apptech “is now leveraging text analytics to include guest sentiment tracking.” For me the key factoid in the write up was contained in this passage:
The Execuvue Sentiment Engine measures the two primary sources of guest satisfaction information: brand data, including email surveys and brand comment cards, and Web data from social media sites and hotel review sites. The system collects data from all sources, including written comments and, in conjunction with Clarabridge, uses a natural language processing program to extract written speech prompts and then converts them to measurable scores. Additionally, it provides drill down capabilities so operators can view individual guest comments that make up the sentiment metrics.
A quick trip to the Clarabridge Web site alerted me that “Clarabridge is the leading provider of text mining software used by many global 1000 companies to improve customer experience management.” When I last looked closely at Clarabridge, I watched as the firm demonstrated how its system could provide information about a retail chain’s inventory.
Like other content processing companies, Clarabridge has verticalized; that is, instead of pitching a one size fits all platform or framework, the company is focusing on solving a problem. Like Lexalytics and Attensity, that problem is figuring out if content expresses happy or sad thoughts. Masssaged with some numerical sage and basil, a licensee will be able to head off trouble or ride a surge of interest quickly.
A Clarabridge document identifies these features of its system:
- Automatic linguistic “reading” of text and ad-hoc searching and filtration;
- Categorization of the text at detailed sub-document, sentence, and clause levels;
- Identification of varying levels of positive and negative sentiments and what they relate to;
- Analysis of root cause, emerging issues, and trends, and;
- Capability to drill down to the original text to understand any areas of interest.
The pricing model is interesting because it appears to be a per document charge. Clarabridge refers to a “verbatim” which is unclear to me. Each processed verbatim rings the cash register at 15 cents. Taxi meter pricing is a valid method, but the fees can escalate unless close attention is paid to the document processing flow.
Stephen E Arnold, October 24, 2010
Freebie
Nstein in the News
October 11, 2010
I had a couple of comments about my not mentioning Nstein, now a unit of OpenText. Nstein has been an interesting company or unit of a bigger enterprise. Last year, one of Nstein’s executives set up a meeting with me and then did not show up. I pinged the fellow and learned that his plans had changed. Since then, my plans for covering Nstein changed as well. Seemed only fair.
To assuage the aggrieved reader, I took a quick look at the content sucked into my Overflight system about Nstein. One of the more interesting items appeared in a publication for which I write a for-fee column. I don’t cover search in that publication, but Archana Venkatraman wrote “Semantic Content Analytics Can Resolve Digital Information Problems.” I was surprised because a picture of me and links to my recent write ups about SAP appeared in the border for the Web version of Mr. Venkatraman’s article. I was flattered, but I was confused about the premise of the article; to wit, analytics resolving digital information problems. I think of analytics as causing problems, particularly with regard to the methods used to generate output. Data type and source, privacy, and latency – these topics cross the goose’s mind when he thinks about content analytics.
With regard to Nstein, the passage that caught my attention was information which is attributed, I assume, to an OpenText Nstein executive, Lubor Ptacek, vice president, product marketing:
Semantic Navigation first collects content through a crawling process. Then the content is automatically analyzed and tagged with relevant and insightful entities, topics, summaries and sentiments – the key to providing an engaging online experience. Next, content is served to users through intuitive navigation widgets that encourage audiences to discover the depth of available information or share it on social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter. From there, it supports placement of product and service offerings or advertising to convert page views into sales.Ptacek gives the example of a medical information professional is searching for the name of a disease, content analytics technology can provide him additional information such as the side effects of the illness the drugs used in the past and so on. “And this logic can be applied to other industries as well.” The solution comes after Open Text acquired Nstein Technologies, a content analytics company, six months ago. It acquired Nstein at a time when analysts were suggesting that such e-discovery solutions could provide sophisticated search and content navigation options that info pros are seeking.
I am hearing similar explanations of functionality from a number of companies. These include “sentiment specialists” like Attensity and Lexalytics and from certain mashup vendors such as Digital Reasoning and Kapow Technologies. I have heard the leaders in enterprise search like Autonomy and Exalead reference similar functions. I could toss in IBM, Google, and Microsoft, but I think you get the idea. Quite a few search vendors are morphing into solutions.
If you want more information about OpenText / Nstein, navigate to www.opentext.com. I would also suggest a look at the other vendors making similar assertions. I may have to start covering this new segment of search. Perhaps it warrants a separate Web log?
Stephen E Arnold, October 11, 2010
Freebie
Decisiv Search and SolSearch: Now Unified Search
September 30, 2010
This story in Information World Review interested me: “Recommind and Solcara Collaborate for a Unified Search Solution.” Note: I write a for-fee column for Information World Review. The story concerns Recommind, a vendor which I have traditionally associated with search and content processing for the legal sector. The story also references Solcara, a company that offers what I recall as an intuitive, personalized and integrated search solution across disparate information sources. These include structured information, online services, document management solutions, etc.
Here’s the passage that caught my eye:
Under the partnership, Recommind is integrating its Decisiv Search solution with Solcara’s SolSearch solution. The joint solution is aimed at providing unified access to internal and external sources, saving time and costs. Together, the two technologies deliver an enterprise search solution that unifies access to all internal data repositories, such as document management systems, know how systems and essential online services, such as Lexis Nexis Library, Thomson’s Westlaw & Lawtel and Practical Law Company (PLC).
The tie up of Decisiv Search and SolSearch obviously adds value to both firms’ search and content processing solutions. The questions that crossed my mind were:
- Is this type of tie up a variant of the no-cash mergers that Attensity and Lexalytics implemented? On the surface, the merging of two somewhat similar sets of functionality are difficult for me to unravel?
- Are customers likely to come from a specific sector like the US legal market or from broader enterprise search sectors such as those server by SharePoint? I am not sure about the functions of SharePoint, but with products from SharePoint add in vendors, SharePoint seems to off unified access.
- How will this type of tie up affect open source search vendors? With open source search showing some stamina, I wonder if this new merged service will allow both Recommind and Solcara to jump up the value chain?
This is a relationship that warrants further observation.
Stephen E Arnold, September 30, 2010
Freebie
Teradata on Unstructured Data
April 25, 2010
Teradata is one of the search vendors who don’t make headlines in faux news releases. The company licenses its industrial strength structured data management and content processing platform to those with “big data” needs. Teradata’s approach is to target specific opportunities and work with its partners. ComputerWeekly.com published “Interview: Teradata CTO Stephen Brobst on the Challenges of Unstructured Data.” Three nuggets from the interview made their way into my Teradata file:
- Teradata wants to work with partners who can integrate their numerical recipes in the Teradata technology. Teradata is working with Attensity and SAS at this time.
- Teradata has experienced some interest from intelligence agencies “around the world”
- “Brobst says initial loading of the data warehouse is best done via optical storage media, but all updates and access are then via the Web.”
If you are not familiar with Teradata, check out www.teradata.com.
Stephen E Arnold, April 25, 2010
Unsponsored post.
Trade Association Defines Search Its Way
April 12, 2010
I don’t know much about the Technology Services Industry Association. Most associations serve the narrow requirements of a select membership. Some “associations” are not really associations. I learned that the outfit called the “National Association of Photoshop Professionals” is a company that owns an association, a magazine to which I subscribed once, and a string of expensive “how to” conferences. TSIA may be like the American Bar Association or it could be like the NAPP outfit.
What caught my attention was a news story that we snagged in the Overflight system. The headline was “TSIA’s “Intelligent Search Market Overview” Report Identifies Innovative Criteria for Search Technology Selection.”
Reports about members are bread-and-butter activities in some “associations.” I don’t have a problem with a member profile write up but I did stumble on this passage in the news story:
The following search specialists participated in the study: Attensity, Baynote, Clarabridge, Consona CRM, Coveo, InQuira, KANA, nGenera CIM, Q-go, and RightNow.
So what’s the big deal? Well, for the addled goose, this listing of companies as “search specialists” is one of the most egregious examples of confusing an enterprise procurement team I have encountered. Tossing in the word “intelligent” just plain flummoxed me.
Let’s look at this line up of “search specialists”.
First, there’s Attensity. This is a deep extraction content processing firm. Recently the company has moved from the intelligence market sector into advertising, sentiment analysis, and other markets. The company’s technology processes content and generates a range of outputs that can used to figure out whether email is positive or negative. The firm provides basic search functionality, but the company is a vendor that adds metadata to content objects. Those metadata can be manipulated in a number of ways. One of the uses is to locate documents tagged in a consistent manner by the Attensity system. This is impressive technology, but it is a component of search, not a search system along the lines of the Autonomy, Exalead, or Google offerings. This is an error of confusing the parts with the whole, and it is a serious logical flaw in the TSIA write up.
Second, there is Baynote. This is a company that offers a “recommendation engine.” Think of Baynote as a more robust, more configurable version of the Amazon system. The idea is that the firm’s technology can process information about a Web site visitor and then generate outputs that reveal intent and context. Again, this is powerful technology, but it is not search. Baynote supplements more comprehensive search-and-retrieval systems. Baynote is what it says it is, a recommendation engine. Why label it a search system? (I think it is to create a report for which inclusion was advertising and revenue perhaps?)
Third, Clarabridge is a company that, at one time, had some of the good old MicroStrategy DNA. The system can process the type of data collected in a traditional structured business intelligence system and perform additional functions. Instead of coding a report, a client can use the Clarabridge system to frame a Google-style query and get a report out. Recently Clarabridge has embraced the Attensity approach of pushing into customer support and other allied market sectors. There’s good business logic behind this shift, but Clarabridge is not a vendor of search-and-retrieval technology. In fact, one might need both Clarabridge and a more robust text processing system to get most users comfortable with the outputs in a business application. This is a repositioning of Clarabridge from business intelligence to a specific vertical application. Okay with me but misleading in my opini0on.
Consona CRM is just what the name says. Customer relationship management. The company includes a basic search system with its software, but the core competency of the company is in supporting a call center application. Try to extend the system over the full spectrum of potentially relevant content in an organization, and you will find the need to look for other bits and pieces. This is a naming error because CRM is not search. Search is a utility within CRM in my opinion.
Coveo is a vendor of search and content processing. Unlike the other firms, Coveo started with a search system and has now created a solution that fits into a customer support application. Coveo’s platform makes possible more than customer support. While it is important to explain how Coveo’s customer support solution delivers call center features, it is a disservice to Coveo to position the company narrowly.
InQuira is a company formed by fusing two other firms. The company has natural language processing technology which is sold as an engine for self-help systems. The firm can deliver a broader search solution, but I think of the company as a niche player in the customer support sector. I don’t think of InQuira in the same way I perceive the Microsoft Fast type of solution. In my experience, there are some interesting parallels in the trajectories of the two firms that merged to create InQuira and the fusion of Microsoft and Fast Search & Transfer. InQuira, therefore, is a search system but it is one that has been shaped to somewhat special purposes.
KANA is a help desk vendor. In a meeting with the firm years ago, I was told that KANA had state of the art search technology. The demo showed that a customer support rep could enter a product name and see information about that product from different repositories. This is indeed search. In my opinion, it was primitive but it worked. Since that demo, I have not considered KANA a search vendor. In fact, I have resisted KANA as a vendor of knowledge management solutions. The firm builds and maintains customer support system for a large number of companies. Some of these companies have multiple search and retrieval systems plus KANA.
nGenera says that it is a vendor with systems that power “the collaborative enterprise.” One function of some nGenera applications is search. Search is like the hubcap on a Hummer, and I am not sure that nGenera itself would describe the company a search vendor. The company says, “Our solutions combine strategic insight, onsite services and the most comprehensive suite of collaborative applications on the market.” I have no problem with nGenera, but I think that describing this firm’s products and services as “search” is just misleading.
Q-Go says that it delivers “relevant online answers, better customer service.” I suppose I could interpret this phrase as meaning enterprise search or an Intranet and Web combined search, but I think that would be a real stretch. The company, like others in this list, focuses on customer support. Search is one facet, but it is not the complete system the firm delivers. In fact, the company asserts, “Q-Go guarantees a six month return on investment. Not many search vendors can make this type of statement in my opinion.
RightNow, a TSIA silver partner, is a customer support platform vendor. The company has moved into cloud computing and includes a search and retrieval function in its products. As one of the leaders in call center and related functions, search is important, but RightNow is not a vendor of enterprise search solutions. Maybe the company is moving into this sector? I know that when I hear “RightNow”, I think of the company’s push for “customer experience.” In my files I had a clipping that addressed the function of indexing a Web site with RightNow. The answer in the 2007 item here was that the Web indexer was a separate component. But since 2007, I haven’t seen much about the RightNow search system in the enterprise. Labeling RightNow as a search vendor seems to be a stretch. In 2007, a change to an indexed article required an index rebuild to pick up the change. Not exactly what I prefer.
My view is that the term “search” is used as an umbrella to cover a report about customer support vendors. Some of the vendors deliver full service solutions with search as an after through. Some deliver a specific type of content processing. Some deliver a package search solution tailored to the needs of customer support.
It is confusing to me and probably some potential customers to slap the word “search” on these vendors. Perhaps the report would be more compelling if a more informative title and description were used? Perhaps some of the vendors are stretching their own capabilities to cover this lucrative market for reducing the cost of providing customer service?
Stephen E Arnold, April 12, 2010
A freebie.
Lazarus, Azure Chip Consultants, and Search
January 8, 2010
A person called me today to tell me that a consulting firm is not accepting my statement “Search is dead”. Then I received a spam email that said, “Search is back.” I thought, “Yo, Lazarus. There be lots of dead search vendors out there. Example: Convera.
Who reports that search has risen? An azure chip consultant! Here’s what raced through my addled goose brain as I pondered the call and the “search is back” T shirt slogan:
In 2006, I was sitting on a pile of research about the search market sector. The data I collected included:
- Interviews with various procurement officers, search system managers, vendors, and financial analysts
- My own profiles of about 36 vendors of enterprise search systems plus the automated content files I generate using the Overflight system. A small scale version is available as a demo on ArnoldIT.com
- Information I had from my work as a systems engineering and technical advisor to several governments and their search system procurement teams
- My own experience licensing, testing, and evaluating search systems for clients. (I started doing this work after we created in 1993 The Point (Top 5% of the Internet) and sold it to Lycos, a unit of CMGI. I figured I should look into what Lycos was doing so I could speak with authority about its differences from BRS/Search, InQuire, Dialog (RECON), and IBM STAIRS III. I had familiarity with most of these systems through various projects in my pre Point (Top 5% of the Internet life).
- My Google research funded by the now-defunct BearStearns outfit and a couple of other well heeled organizations.
What was clear in 2006 was the following:
First, most of the search system vendors shared quite a bit of similarity. Despite the marketing baloney, the key differentiators among the flagship systems in 2006 were minor. Examples range from their basic architecture to their use of stemming to the methods of updating indexes. There were innovators, and I pointed out these companies in my talks and various writings, including the three editions of the Enterprise Search Report I wrote before I fell ill in February 2007 and quit doing that big encyclopedia type publication. These similarities made it very clear to me that innovation for enterprise search was shifting from the plain old key word indexing of structured records available since the advent of RECON and STAIRS to a more freeform approach with generally lousy relevance.
Get information access wrong, and some folks may find a new career. Source: http://www.seeing-stars.com/Images/ScenesFromMovies/AmericanBeautyMrSmiley%28BIG%29.JPG
Second, the more innovative vendors were making an effort in 2006 to take a document and provide some sort of context for it. Without a human indexer to assign a classification code to a document that is about marketing but does not contain the word “marketing”, this was rocket science. But when I examined these systems, there were two basic approaches which are still around today. The first was to use statistical methods to put documents together and make inferences and the other was a variation on human indexing but without humans doing most of the work. The idea was that a word list would contain synonyms. There were promising demonstrations of software methods that could “read” a document, but there were piggy and of use where money was no object.
Third, the Google approach which used social methods—that is, a human clicking on a link—were evident but not migrating to the enterprise world. Google was new but to make their 2006 method hum, lots of clicks were needed. In the enterprise, most documents never get clicked, so the 2006 Google method was truly lousy. Google has made improvements, mostly by implementing the older search methods, not by pushing the envelope as it has been doing with its Web search and dataspace efforts.
Fourth, most of the search vendors were trying like Dickens to get out of a “one size fits all” approach to enterprise search. Companies making sales were focusing on a specific niche or problem and selling a package of search and content searching that solved one problem. The failure of the boil the ocean approach was evident because user satisfaction data from my research funded by a government agency and other clients revealed that about two thirds of the users of an enterprise search system were dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with that search system. The solution, then, was to focus. My exemplary case was the use of the Endeca technology to allow Fidelity UK sales professionals to increase their productivity with content pushed to them using the Endeca system. The idea was that a broker could click on a link and the search results were displayed. No searching required. ClearForest got in the game by analyzing the dealer warranty repair comments. Endeca and ClearForest were harbingers of focus. ClearForest is owned by Thomson Reuters and in the open source software game too.
When I wrote the article in Online Magazine for Barbara Quint, one of my favorite editors, I explained these points in more detail. But it was clear that the financial pressures on Convera, for example, and the difficulty some of the more promising vendors like Entopia were having made the thin edge of survival glint in my desk lamp’s light. Autonomy by 2006 had shifted from search and organic growth to inorganic growth fueled by acquisitions that were adjacent to search.
Language Weaver in the World of Google Translation
January 6, 2010
Several years ago, I took a look at Language Weaver, founded in 2002 by some wizards from the Univ3rsity of Southern California. The company’s technology struck me as more up to date than Systran, the engine that powers Yahoo’s Babelfish. In-Q-Tel pumped some money into the firm as well. Then Language Weaver caught my attention with its 2008 estimate that the machine translation market would tap into a $67 billion market. I remember watching an interview with Mark Tapling on Fox. The video is still available here. There were not too many details, but the number not long after the start of the financial meltdown in 2008 was an eye catcher.
The firm’s positioning is:
Language Weaver provides trusted automated translation solutions for high-value, dynamic digital information to improve human communications. Delivering a trusted level of translation quality, Language Weaver ensures that organizations maintain and extend brand voice across global media types and audiences.
The company now has a Wikipedia entry which strikes me as quite useful. You can read it here, and I won’t recycle that information. The company offers translation for about two dozen languages, and it offers what I think is an interesting software method that aligns translated documents at the segment or chunk level. This works, in my opinion, a bit like a knowledge base with some semi autonomous functions improving the core translation system.
The system can handle rich media; that is, “listening” to a podcast and translating the content. Language Weaver uses algorithmic methods. As computing horsepower creeps up, the system improves. The underlying method is statistical, so fast computers yield better translations.
What caught my attention on a routine updating of my search and content processing files was the fact that a number of links on the company’s home page did not work.
I was able to access an article by CEO Mark Tapling called “Building Loyalty after the Sale with Customer Driven Support Channels and Languages.” and “Dissolving Customer Support Communication Barriers.”
Like other search and content processing firms, the one-size-fits-all solution seems to be expressed in terms of solutions that solve specific problems; for example, voice of the customer or customer support problems.
Kirk and a Klingon need to avoid a failure to communicate. Image source: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3380/3533169483_bae603ca18.jpg
When I reviewed various links on the company’s Web site, I located a list of the firm’s partners. This was interesting to me and included a number of firms whose marketing people had neglected to tell me that their employers’ translation functionality was licensed from Language Weaver. You can find this list on the Language Weaver current partners page.
Search Vendor Partner Tie Ups Reconsidered
November 13, 2009
I read a post by Rajan Chandras called “Informatica Scores Big with New Release Yet…”. The article triggered my memory about an October 26, 2009, article called “Endeca, Informatica Partner to View Enterprise Data”. Both of these source documents have wild and crazy urls, so the links may be dead if you are reading this after November 13, 2009.
I am delighted that Endeca, a vendor of high end search solutions, and Informatica, a data integration vendor, have hooked up. Search requires content transformation, which as many licensees of enterprise search systems discover, can be a expensive proposition. I have referenced data that suggests that as much as one third of an information technology department’s budget can be consumed with transformation costs. I won’t go into the importance of having filters, connectors, and transformers that work without stuffing the exception folder full of files that may require manual inspection. I will leave that to the simplicity seeking 20 somethings who often don’t know what they don’t know about enterprise search systems.
I did notice one comment in Mr. Chandras’ article that was particularly interesting to me:
Even with this stellar performance from Informatica, I expect more. Added data quality to data integration? Should have been done a long time ago. B2B data exchange? One (or even a few) verticals does not even dent the business requirement for data exchanges -– how far will Informatica keep trudging down this path into other verticals? Application lifecycle management? Need to know more about how Informatica will exploit the shared boundaries between ALM and ETL. CEP? Same thing. Cloud computing? See my previous post about cloud competitor SnapLogic. Informatica’s steadfast progress is great news, really, but quite frankly I am looking for more leadership from Informatica.
If Mr. Chandras is correct, Informatica may be under considerable competitive pressure. In this context, is the tie up with a search vendor a move that will address these competitive pressures. In my opinion, the tie up could benefit both firms. However, if the competition triggers a price and feature war with a pivot point ease of use, fast deployment, and acceptable performance, the deal might not address Mr. Chandras’ concerns.
Enterprise search and content processing is a volatile sector. The forces against which search and content companies compete range from database administrators who want something familiar based on IBM, Microsoft, or Oracle technology—whether the system works all that well or not. Other companies are on the rebound after having been burned by the hot fires of engineering and support costs. More organizations are taking a hard look at open source systems such as Lemur Consulting’s FLAX or the Lucene system. I prepared a list of almost two dozen European vendors with some really attractive systems on offer; for example, Exalead, an outfit that knocks me out with their implementations and a dinner at a good French restaurant.
European Search Vendor Full List Update
September 22, 2009
Updated on October 1, 2009. Exorbyte is in Germany. SurfRay is worth a close look.
Instead of updating the table in the original WordPress article, I have updated the table and reproduced it below. Please, locate the most recent table by using the Blossom.com search function on the Beyond Search Web log. I will post this list on the ArnoldIT.com Web site once the list seems to stabilize. I am reevaluating several vendors at this time. Watch for an update on SurfRay. The company provided one of my colleagues with some fresh information.
| Vendor | Function | Opinion |
| Autonomy | Search and eDiscovery | One of the key players in content processing; good marketing |
| Bitext | Semantic components | Impressive technology |
| Brox | Open source semantic tools | Energetic, marketing centric open source play |
| Empolis GmbH | Information management and business intel | No cash tie with Attensity |
| Exalead | Next generation application platform | The leader in search and content processing technology |
| Exorbyte | Ecommerce and database search | The German firm has a strong following for database and directory search. Blue chip clients. |
| Expert System | Semantic toolkit | Works; can be tricky to get working the way the goslings want |
| Fast ESP | Enterprise search, business intelligence, and everything else | Legacy of a police investigation hangs over the core technology |
| InfoFinder | Full featured enterprise search system | my contact in Europe reports that this is a European technology. Listed customers are mostly in Norway. |
| Interse Scan Jour | SharePoint enterprise search alternative | Based in Copenhagen, the Interse system adds useful access functions to SharePoint; sold in Dec 2008 |
| Intellisearch | Enterprise search; closed US office | Basic search positioned as a one size fits all system |
| Lemur Consulting | Flax is a robust enterprise search system | I have written positively about this system. Continues to improve with each release of the open source engine. |
| Lexalytics | Sentiment analysis tools | A no cash merger with a US company and UK based Infonics; |
| Linguamatics | Content processing focused on pharma | Insists that it does not have a price list |
| Living-e AG | Information management | No cash tie with Attensity |
| Mindbreeze | Another SharePoint snap in for search | Trying hard; interface confusing to some goslings |
| Neofonie | Vertical search | Founded in the late 1990s, created Fireball.de |
| Ontoprise GmbH | Semantic search | The firm’s semantic Web infrastructure product, OntoBroker, is at Version 5.3 |
| Pertimm | Enterprise search | Now positioned as information management |
| PolySpot | Enterprise search with workflow | Now at Version 4.8, search, work flow, and faceted navigation |
| SAP Trex | Search tool in NetWeaver; works with R/3 content | Works; getting long in the tooth |
| Silobreaker | Search plus intelligence analysis | The company’s system processes content in real time and generates actionable reports on people, events, or concepts. |
| Sinequa | Enterprise search with workflow | Now at Version 7, the system includes linguistic tools |
| Sowsoft | High speed desktop search | Excellent, lightweight desktop search |
| SurfRay | Now focused on SharePoint | Worth a close look |
| Temis | Content processing and discovery | Original code and integrated components |
| Tesuji | Lucene enterprise search | Highly usable and speedy; recommended for open source installations |
Any company on this list can sponsor a profile which I will put on the ArnoldIT.com Web site with a link from the entry in this table. For details, check the About link at the top of any page of this Web log. This Web log is not journalism, it is for marketing and my observations. PR people. Be aware. I am not your mother’s Web logger.
Stephen Arnold, September 21, 2009
European Search Vendor Round Up
September 16, 2009
Updated at 8 29 am, September 17, 2009, to 23 vendors
I received a call from a very energetic, quite important investment wizard from a “big” financial firm yesterday. Based in Europe, the caller was having a bad hair day, and he seemed pushy, almost angry. I couldn’t figure out why he was out of sorts and why he was calling me. I asked him. He said, “I read your Web log and you annoy me with your poor coverage of European search vendors.”
I had to admit that I was baffled. I mentioned the companies that I tracked. But he wanted me to do more. I pointed out that the Web log is a marketing vehicle and he can pay me to cover his favorite investment in search. That really set him off. He wanted me to be a journalist (whatever that meant) and provide more detailed information about European vendors. And for free.
Right.
After the call, I took a moment and went through my files to see which European vendors I have mentioned and the general impression I have of each of these companies. The table below summarizes the companies I have either profiled in my for fee studies or the companies I have mentioned in this diary / marketing Web log. You may disagree with my opinions. I know that the azure chip consultants at Gartner, Ovum, Forrester, and others certainly do. But that’s understandable. The addled geese here in Harrod’s Creek actually install systems and test them, a step that most of the azure chip crowd just don’t have time because of their exciting work to generate enough revenue to keep the lights on, advise clients, and conduct social network marketing events. Just my opinion, folks. I am entitled to those despite the wide spread belief that I should be in the Happy Geese Retirement Home.
| Vendor | Function | Opinion |
| Autonomy | Search and eDiscovery | One of the key players in content processing; good marketing |
| Bitext | Semantic components | Impressive technology |
| Brox | Open source semantic tools | Energetic, marketing centric open source play |
| Empolis GmbH | Information management and business intel | No cash tie with Attensity |
| Exalead | Next generation application platform | The leader in search and content processing technology |
| Expert System | Semantic toolkit | Works; can be tricky to get working the way the goslings want |
| Fast ESP | Enterprise search, business intelligence, and everything else | Legacy of a police investigation hangs over the core technology |
| InfoFinder | Full featured enterprise search system | my contact in Europe reports that this is a European technology. Listed customers are mostly in Norway. |
| Interse Scan Jour | SharePoint enterprise search alternative | Based in Copenhagen, the Interse system adds useful access functions to SharePoint; sold in Dec 2008 |
| Intellisearch | Enterprise search; closed US office | Basic search positioned as a one size fits all system |
| Lumur Consulting | Flax is a robust enterprise search system | I have written positively about this system. Continues to improve with each release of the open source engine. |
| Lexalytics | Sentiment analysis tools | A no cash merger with a US company and UK based Infonics; |
| Linguamatics | Content processing focused on pharma | Insists that it does not have a price list |
| Living-e AG | Information management | No cash tie with Attensity |
| Mindbreeze | Another SharePoint snap in for search | Trying hard; interface confusing to some goslings |
| Neofonie | Vertical search | Founded in the late 1990s, created Fireball.de |
| Ontoprise GmbH | Semantic search | The firm’s semantic Web infrastructure product, OntoBroker, is at Version 5.3 |
| Pertimm | Enterprise search | Now positioned as information management |
| PolySpot | Enterprise search with workflow | Now at Version 4.8, search, work flow, and faceted navigation |
| SAP Trex | Search tool in NetWeaver; works with R/3 content | Works; getting long in the tooth |
| Sinequa | Enterprise search with workflow | Now at Version 7, the system includes linguistic tools |
| Sowsoft | High speed desktop search | Excellent, lightweight desktop search |
| SurfRay | Now focused on SharePoint | Uncertain; emerging from some business uncertainties |
| Temis | Content processing and discovery | Original code and integrated components |
| Tesuji | Lucene enterprise search | Highly usable and speedy; recommended for open source installations |
Updated at 8 29 am Eastern, September 17, 2009
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