Search’s Old Chestnuts Roasted and Crunched
February 14, 2008
Once again, I’m sitting in the Seattle – Tacoma airport waiting for one of inconvenient flights from the cold damp Northwest to the ice-frosted coal tailings of rural Kentucky.
Chewing through the news stories that flow to me each day, I scanned Nick Patience’s article “Fast Solutions to Lost Causes.” Dated February 13, 2008, Mr. Patience provides CIO Magazine’s readers with his commentary on the Microsoft – Fast Search deal. The subtitle of the article reads, “Nick Patience examines how Microsoft’s acquisition of FAST could help CIOs get to grips with the useful storage of elusive information.”
For the last 48 hours, I have dipped in and out of the Seattle business community where chatter about Microsoft is more common than talk about the US presidential primaries or the Seattle weather. After listening to opinions ranging from “the greatest thing since sliced bread” to “the deal was done without much thought”, I was revved and ready to get the CIO Magazine’s take on this subject.
Several points strike me as old chestnuts; that is, familiar information presented as fresh vegetables. For example, let me pull out three points and then offer a slightly different take on each of them. You can judge for yourself what you want to perceive about this deal.
First, the title is “Fast Solutions to Lost Causes.” As I read the title, it seems to say, “Microsoft has a lost cause.” So, how can an acquisition offer a “fast solution” to a “lost cause”? If a cause is lost, a solution is not available. A “fast solution” to a big problem is almost a guarantee that the fast solution will amplify the original, unsolved problem. Puzzling to me. I think this is one of those catchy headlines so liked by editors. Google’s indexing robot will be challenged to tag this story correctly based on the metaphor-charged word choice. But that’s a grumpy old man’s viewpoint.
Now, the second point. Mr. Patience asserts, “But Microsoft has done very little — even after the introduction of SharePoint in 2001 — to help CIOs not only get their arms around all this unstructured information, but more pertinently, to figure out what it is, where it is, how valuable or risky it is and how most effectively to store it.” Based on the research I did for the first three editions of the Enterprise Search Report and my regular consulting business, I don’t agree. Microsoft’s apparent disinterest in search does not match what I know. Specifically, in the early years of this decade, Microsoft relied on its partners to develop solutions using Microsoft tools. These solutions would “snap in”, amplify, and expand the ecosystem for Microsoft products, services, and certified vendors. The existence of dtSearch, Mondosoft (now part of SurfRay), Coveo, and other search systems that integrate more or less seamlessly with SharePoint are examples of a Microsoft strategy. I’m not saying Microsoft chose the optimal strategy, but to suggest that the company lacked a strategy misrepresents one of Microsoft’s methods for delivering on its “agenda”. Could Microsoft have approached behind-the-firewall search differently? Sure. Would these unexercised options worked better than the ecosystem approach? Who knows? The acquisition of Fast Search & Transfer is a new strategy. Coveo, for example, has expanded its operating system support, added functions, and looked into non-Microsoft markets because Microsoft seemed to be shifting from one strategic approach to a different one. But at the same time some vendors were decreasing their reliance on Microsoft, others like Autonomy created adapters to make their systems more compatible with the SharePoint environments. This is not a grumpy old man’s view; these are the facts of one facet of Microsoft’s business model.
Third, Mr. Patience references implicitly the search initiatives at Oracle (SES 11g, Triple Hop acquisition, Google partner deal) and IBM (Omnifind, WebFountain, the iPhrase acquisition, X1 tie up, deals with Endeca and Fast) as examples of more satisfying market tactics than Microsoft’s. No grump, just stabs in the dark the way I perceive reality.
As I stated in the three editions of Enterprise Search Report done on my watch, none of the superplatforms implemented effective behind-the-firewall strategies. Each of these companies tried different approaches. Each of these companies pushed into behind-the-firewall search with combinations of in-house development and acquisitions. Each of these companies experienced some success. Each of these companies’ strategies remain at this time works in progress. I’m not grumpy about this. This is just plain old corporate history. IBM and Oracle have been trying to crack the behind-the-firewall chestnut (metaphor intended). So far, both companies have only chipped teeth to show for their decades of effort.
I urge you to read Mr. Patience’s article and take a thorough look at other reports from the 451 Group. You will find some useful insights. Keep in mind, however, that when the chestnuts are broken open, the meat revealed may be quite different from the shell’s surface.
These three companies — IBM, Microsoft, and Oracle — have deep experience with behind-the-firewall search. Oracle’s efforts extend to the late 1980s when the database company acquired Artificial Linguistics. IBM’s efforts reach back to mainframe search with the STAIRS system, which is still available today as System Manager, and Microsoft’s search efforts have been one of the firm’s R&D centroids for many, many, many years.
Success is a different issue altogether. There are many reasons why none of these firms has emerged as the leader in behind-the-firewall search. But it is much more comforting to grab a handful of chestnuts than go find the chestnut tree, harvest the nuts, roast them, and then consume their tasty bits. What we know is that Microsoft is willing to pay $1.2 billion to try and go faster.
Stephen Arnold, February 14, 2008
Comments
One Response to “Search’s Old Chestnuts Roasted and Crunched”
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Hi Stephen,
I enjoy your blog – you know more about this industry than most people have forgotten. That said, I wanted to comment on your posting re the column I wrote for CIO magazine.
Dealing with your three points in the same order:
1) I see you point, but I didn’t write the headline; I’m assuming either the editor or copy editor did.
2) Was that Microsoft’s strategy or a case of it having gaps in its functionality – gaps it presumably has filled now with the FAST acquisition? Presumably it wouldn’t have paid $1.3bn in cash to fill those gaps if it didn’t have to? Until the proposed Yahoo deal MSFT has been a pretty conservative acquirer, when compared with IBM and Oracle, at least. It strikes me that it has spotted a gap in its functionality and has moved to fill it; the same gap spotted by those smaller companies you’ve mentioned – I’m sure they’re feeling a little less comfortable right now than they were before the deal was announced.
3) Yes, none of these vendors has seen the path from cradle to grave as it were in terms of enterprise search – none of them could be said to be optimal, in my view. But IBM at least has done a better job of identifying the gaps in its portfolio and building or buying to fill them – it’s certainly doing more in text analysis than any other vendor, purely in terms of search none of them are streets ahead of any of the others in terms of delivering useful enterprise search functionality, Meanwhile they’ve all ceded the low end of the market to Google, as you know.
Finally, I’d ask you – and your readers – to bear in mind that this was a word-restricted column pitched at a very high level for CIO audience, one of the primary concerns of which is the relationships with their suppliers – and judge it on that basis.
We do a lot more in-depth research every day of the week in all sorts of areas within enterprise IT, but search and the broader sphere of information management as a whole is one of our key focus areas.
(btw, the website I included here – an new 451 Group blog about information management – will be live later this week, apologies if it isn’t when someone reads it.)