Beyond Search Published by the Gilbane Group
April 7, 2008
Stephen E. Arnold’s newest search and content processing study is now available for purchase. Beyond Search: What to Do When Your Enterprise Search System Doesn’t Work is an electronic book in Adobe PDF format. is available for purchase and immediate download.
This study contains a discussion of how-to’s, so you can fix your broken enterprise search system. You will also find a detailed discussion of today’s market for search and content processing systems, profiles of 24 vendors (many from outside the U.S.), and a plain-talk glossary that cuts through the verbal fog characterizing much of the analysis of search and content processing.
Enterprise Search–A Problem Reaching Its Boiling Point
Mr. Arnold, author of the first three editions of the Enterprise Search Report and the 2007 monograph Google Version 2.0, reveals actionable information about remediating “broken” enterprise search systems. He said, “Most vendors and IT professionals won’t talk openly about their users’ satisfaction with the incumbent search-and-retrieval system. The reason is that as many as two-thirds of a system’s users are dissatisfied with that system.”
He continued, “More significantly, the cost of some branded search system installations is almost impossible to control. Old-style key word search systems are expensive to maintain, upgrade, and optimize. New vendors are poised to take business from some of the best-known companies in the search business.”
Beyond Search explains why key word search is not as useful as it was five years ago. He says:
In 2003, when I started work on the first Enterprise Search Report, search in an organization was a novelty. Almost any system was an improvement over hunting for information by traditional methods. Today, most search users in an organization are familiar with Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo Web search. These systems work well for consumers, deliver results in less than a second, and are extremely intuitive. Enterprise search systems have been unable to keep pace with user demands. As a result, many of today’s search systems are missing the mark with users.
Beyond Search aims to provide a road map to fixing a broken search system and a guide book to vendors who provide a system or solution that moves a licensee “beyond search”. Mr. Arnold says:
Users don’t like to guess the magic word combination that unlocks the information needed to do work. Users want systems that are smarter, provide assistance, and deliver answers–not laundry lists of links that may or may not point to what the employee needs to do his or her job.
The 270-page study–a first in analysis of search and content processing–represents more than a year of research into text processing and information access. Enterprise search has become devalued and is “misleading, out-of-date, and a cause of the on-going confusion about information access.” He adds, “Who wants a system that is expensive, slow, and makes the employee with a real information need do more work. Shouldn’t search should make the employee’s job easier?”
Mr. Arnold’s previous work on Google’s engineering– The Google Legacy (2005) and Google Version 2.0 (2007) provided a foundation for Beyond Search’s most remarkable revelation about Google. Sidestepping the routine description of the Google Search Appliance and Google Apps, Beyond Search reveals important, little-known information about Google’s dataspace technology. This technology – if commercialized by Google – has the potential to transform search and retrieval, adding greater potency to the “beyond search” idea. In 2006, Google bought Transformic, Inc. With this technology, Google could trigger a major upheaval in information access, metadata manipulation, and the way in which queries themselves are framed. This new approach allows a user to see results ranked by certainty and lineage. In effect, Beyond Search argues, “The dataspace technology allows a user to see information in new ways. With this technology, you can see at a glance a certainty score. This calculated value gives you a way to determine the reliability of an item of information or a data point.”
Beyond Search – A Revolution in the Making
How can an organization fix a broken system? Mr. Arnold identifies two approaches. The first makes use of software and systems from companies who can “wrap” an incumbent system with some new functionality. In many cases, this type of fix is just what the doctor ordered. Profiled in the study are software from companies such as Bitext in Madrid, Spain, and Siderean Software, in El Segundo, California. Chances are, these companies’ products are likely to be new to the readers of Beyond Search.
In the profiles of up-and-coming vendors, Mr. Arnold provides candid evaluations of each vendor’s technology plus practical comments about what the vendor’s core competency is. He says, “Each profile contains what I call a ‘net net’ section. I try to sum up in about 100 words exactly what you need to know about each vendor. There’s no ‘pay for coverage’ in this study. Vendors had a chance to push back on my assessments, but no vendor paid for an inclusion in this report. IT professionals struggle to figure out if report is objective. There’s no confusion in Beyond Search. Vendors are included on merit alone.”
The market, in general, is moving away from key words into more sophisticated business processes, including business intelligence. Marketing, not technology is more important than ever. And search vendors are becoming more skilled in the ways of Madison Avenue, so “buyer beware” becomes an important catchphrase. Classification, entity extraction, and point-and-click access to related content are quickly becoming “must have” features. However, many organizations find themselves unable to afford the seven figure price tags of some of the higher profile systems.
Where to Buy
When its time to make sure history does not repeat itself, how can you determine if you are seeing a “real system” or a a “demo system”? You can’t so you have to ask.
You can order the study from the Gilbane Group and download it immediately. An abbreviated table of contents is available on the ArnoldIT.com Web site.
Stuart Schram IV, April 7, 2008
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