SurfRay Round Up: Herd Them Doggies, Pardner
February 5, 2009
I am not contributing any information that I have personally verified. What I want to do in this article is quote from the comments that have flowed into the mine run off pond here in Harrod’s Creek in the last week or so. If you have a beef with one of the quotes, please, navigate to the comments section of the Web log and object or you can use the Blossom search system to locate the person who posted the comment, and you can trade barbs there.
Background
More than five years ago, I did a job for Mondosoft. Even longer ago, I did a job for Speed of Mind. Both of these companies were rolled up into an outfit called SurfRay. SurfRay also got the Ontolica SharePoint fixer upper which came with the Mondosoft purchase. I sort of paid attention to SurfRay, but I was out of the loop when the financial and management pressures made the roll up possible.
What’s Happened?
To make a long and convoluted story short, SurfRay couldn’t generate enough cash to grow. When financial pressures mount, folks get angry. SurfRay followed this well known trajectory, which appeared to have ended with the most recent set of company filings in Sweden. At this point, I am going to excerpt the SurfRay information from the comments to my various SurfRay articles. These were to date:
- August 29, 2008: SurfRay: Has the Company Missed the Search Wave. Nope : Beyond Search here
- October 24, 2008: SurfRay Round Up : Beyond Search here
- December 4, 2008: SurfRay Update : Beyond Search here
- November 23, 2008: SurfRay Update: Beyond Search here
- January 17, 2009: Financial Woes Swamp SurfRay here
- July 6, 2008: SurfRay AB Update here
- December 3, 2008: SurfRay Rumblings and Questions here
- December 9, 2008: Danish Software Excitement here
- January 27, 2009: SurfRay More Change here
Selected Comments Posted to the Beyond Search Articles
Below I am quoting from some of the submitted comments. You will need to verify the information and make your own decision. I am presenting what I received from readers who posted via the comments function on this Web log. If in doubt about how this Web log works, read the About section and its disclaimer and editorial policy. If uncomfortable with this goose pond, flap away now.
My story SurfRay: Has the Company Missed the Search Wave. Nope, August 29, 2008:
Bill Cobbs, then SurfRay CEO, wrote on August 29, 2008
I can assure both our clients and our partners that SurfRay is alive and well. It’s unfortunate that a minor phone glitch would lead to speculation regarding the viability of the company.
SurfRay is continuing our mission of providing cutting edge search technology to help our clients drive business results. Moving forward we are focusing on working with our clients to specifically identify business opportunities where they can create competitive advantage. We intend to provide search based solutions that have a very focused impact on driving bottom line results in both revenue generation and cost containment.
SurfRay is alive and well and launching the next wave of Search technology.
My story SurfRay Round Up on October 24, 2009
From Lars Petersen, wrote on October 30, 2008:
Related to the speed index I fully understand that this is an indexing engine, but the question was WHY haven’t SurfRay used this overfull hyperoptimising index instead of just relying on the slow index engine in SharePoint. And by not integrating and improve a little on the SharePoint search why do any organization need to buy it and why buy it from SurfRay (small company who may or may not provide service) when it can be bought from a must bigger company like BA-insight???
The attached roadmap for 2009 also gives me a bad feeling as I can see that Reporting now is postponed another 6-9 month!!! And at the same time SurfRay state that Ontolica has first priority on R&D resources??!! Can someone explain this for me….
Torben explained that second priority is Mondosoft Site Search, which I personally liked and it was also what my company used until bad service from the new owner got us to change search engine, but again later he state no plans yet to upgrade or replace the Enterprise Search offering. Could anyone at SurfRay please tell me again WHY we should go back to your Site Search when we have Omniture Site Search from a NASDAQ company providing more key functionality – Better relevancy etc, than Mondosoft’s 2 year old site search and the cost is a 1/10 of what SurfRay offers?
I have been a loyal fan of Mondosoft’s search and the support and maintenance back in 2006-7 unfortunately nothing on this site has proven to me that SurfRay is on the right track and it doesn’t make me “want to come home”.
Anyway Bill stated “Let me say unequivocally that I am now the CEO of SurfRay”, and you properly are Bill, but on surfray’s Web site under executive team, Martin Veise is mentioned first in a very long line of Member of the GROUP MANAGEMENT?! Is it normal that Chairman of the board is heading Group Management or ?
Entropy Soft and Kazeon Deal
December 10, 2008
Entropy Soft is a company that codes connectors. A “connector” allows one enterprise system to tap into the data and information in another enterprise system. Kazeon is one of the companies involved in providing information systems for eDiscovery and enterprise content applications.
Kazeon’s system can discover, search and index, classify and act on electronically stored information. Kazeon provides a full spectrum of Information Management solutions, including proactive and reactive eDiscovery, information security and privacy, records management, governance, risk & compliance, and data management. The Kazeon Information Server software automates key eDiscovery functions – identification, collection, preservation, processing, analysis and review for corporations, service providers, and law firms. The company is an end-to-end vendor which means that hard copy documents can be processed and then moved through the eDiscovery pipeline.
Entropy Soft provides connectors to a number of companies; for example, Coveo and Endeca. Kazeon will add support for content in systems developed by Alfresco, FileNet P8, Hummingbird DM, Interwoven TeamSite, Microsoft SharePoint, and IBM Lotus Quickplace.
With Entropy’s connectors, Kazeon is making clear its intention to move more aggressively into enterprise search. At a time when some search and content analysis vendors are moving from enterprise search into eDiscovery. I think search and information access companies are looking for new markets. Customers may be confused as vendors flip flop from market to market in pursuit of revenues.
Stephen Arnold, December 10, 2008
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