Search Vendors: Sniper Firefights Break Out
April 21, 2008
Yesterday, I posted an email containing a statement by a publicly-traded company’s intent to replace its incumbent search system. You can read the full text of this document, which I have verified as originating with a reputable company on the West Coast of the US. I deleted the references to the vendor whose search system is getting the boot. I also redacted the name of the company reaching its boiling point and the name of the hapless information technology manager who was responsible for the acquisition of the incumbent system.
Just three days before I received this email from the aggrieved licensee of a blue-chip search system, I spoke on the telephone with a leading European investment bank’s lead analyst for a publicly-traded company with a presence in search and retrieval. That call probed my knowledge of customers using the publicly-traded firm’s search system. I don’t have too much detail (what the analysts whiz kids call “color”) about expensive systems that are a pain in the neck. What I know I keep to myself. I was interested in why the zingy young MBA was calling me in my underground bunker in Harrod’s Creek, Kentucky. The reason was that the investment bank had heard that some high profile licensees of this publicly-traded company’s search system were going bonkers over costs, erratic search results, and performance. This is a hat trick of sorts, and I slithered out of the call.
Today I spoke with my partner in Washington, DC. She told me, “I have worked with most of the big guys. None of this stuff works without work–a lot of work. So what’s new?”
I guess not much when it comes to enterprise search (what I call Intranet search or behind-the-firewall search). What is new is that the public airing of complaints seems to be ratcheting upwards. A few years ago, an organization would assume that cost overruns, grousing users, and system flakiness was a problem anywhere except the search vendor.
Not today. Some licensees are savvier, and several licensees are not too shy about telling the world, “Hey, this stuff is a major problem. It doesn’t work as advertised.”
Contravellation: An Old Strategy Might Resurface
I am not sure if you are familiar with the word contravellation. Popular among the war college set, the term refers to a fortification set up to protect a besieging force from attack by the defenders of the besieged place. In short, a contravellation is a defensive shield designed to protect one party from another. The Romans apparently had an appetite for contravellations, using them keep their enemies from slipping out of a besieged town. The besieged wall themselves in. A contravellation makes sure no one gets away.
A Civil War Contravellation. It would fence me in.
My hunch is that we are about to see a number of defensive fortifications erected by search vendors to prevent licensees from escaping. Let me be clear. This is not a problem of one vendor. This is a problem created by many different vendors. This is not a problem that appeared overnight. The pot has been boiling for years, a decade or more in some cases.
The worsening economy makes an expensive search system more than a casual expense. Users and some information technology professionals have a much deeper understanding of what a search system can do. Some vendors make an attempt to “lock in” a licensee with a “perpetual license”, deferred payment schedule, bundles of maintenance and support available only with a multi-year deal, and other techniques. Others assume that an investment in a “platform” cannot be easily discarded. The sheer scope and complexity of an information processing system puts a licensee under a state of siege.
The vendors’ contravellation will be designed to prevent a licensee from breaking an agreement.
Some Possibilities
How can a vendor trap a customer? The easiest way is to get what consumer product companies call “shelf space”. The idea is that once a product is on the grocery store shelves at eye level or in an end cap, sales will surge. The consumer product companies are right, and some stores demand that consumer product companies pay for the right to be in the core of “buy zone,” the retail equivalent of a killing field.
Assert that a Vendor Is the Leader in Search
The escalation of marketing from search vendors is already underway. Not only am I bombarded with thinly-disguised studies that look objective but are little more than fancy brochures, not only am I invited to search vendor conferences on hot topics, and not only am I the recipient of personal emails from vendors’ public relations staff–I’m invited to webinars (usually a waste of time), briefings (sometimes a decent snack and a ginger ale), and meet ups (a very senior executive deigns to spend a few precious minutes “briefing” me). If you say you are number one, you may convince yourself and get others to go along for the ride. Who doesn’t like being number one?
Roll Out “New” Products Every Few Weeks
Search vendors are in a white heat of innovation. You can run a query on Google News for the terms “text mining” or “search” and unearth news stories about new search, content processing, and text mining systems. The current hot angle is business intelligence. The term sounds more valuable than vanilla search. Text mining is a potent buzzword in the spring of 2008 too. Procurement teams can see these faux announcements and jump to the conclusion that PR equals a good choice. I predict escalating marketing and PR in the months ahead. Some companies announce innovations and then move on to the next big thing. Like proliferating commercials on cable TV, these efforts clog some licensees’ willingness to act. A fix looks just around the corner I suppose. When a vendor has been in business for eight years or more, there’s no fix just around the corner. The system is what is is.
Use the “U” Word: Unique
My sixth-grade teacher told me, “Unique means one of a kind.” I tried to keep track of the search and content processing vendors who used the word “unique”. I began the list in 2002 and quit after a few months. Too many vendors used the term. Run a query on Live.com or Yahoo. Search vendors have unique technology. I don’t believe it, do you?
Grease the Squeaky Wheel
Vendors with deep pockets can build a contravellation out of funny money. Here’s how this works. A licensee has a search system that doesn’t work. The vendor offers to waive the balance of the present year’s fee and then offers a deep discount on the next year’s fees. Some vendors may kick in additional engineering and technical support. The hapless licensee knows that budgets are squeezed and takes the deal. The vendor has saved the account. Any revenue shortfall can be made up on upgrades, raising prices, or some other tactic. Some people do not realize that many search vendors’ license agreements prohibit the licensee from talking about how the system performed. In effect, turning a screwed up installation into a case study only occurs when the vendor gives the licensee the okay. That’s why the presentations at vendor sponsored search conferences are not just dull; the presentations may be biased, not objective.
Attack Anyone Who Criticizes the Search Vendor
This is a nasty tactic. Here’s how it works. A hapless person from the licensee’s company or a contractor struggles with a search system. The person now has inside knowledge about the warts and scars of an implementation. A conference organizer or a persuasive journalist weasels out of the person with the inside info some details of a screwed up search system, an unsavory deal to get the contract in the first place, or a “free'” installation in return for permission to use the installation as an endorsement. The vendor finds out and unleashes legal eagles to stop the bad news from spreading. I know of instances where this tactic has been used to brutal effectiveness. The outcome is that the facts of a problem are buried. Conference organizers wanting someone to talk about search problems have a tough time getting anyone to say anything substantive. The reason? Threats and intimidation. If you doubt me, you are not informed.
More Skirmishes Likely
We live in uncivil times. Organizations are struggling with an increasing volume of digital information. Users are unhappy, which you can read about here. Vendors are competing with one another and are likely to take whatever steps each deems necessary to retain a lucrative engagement. In-house information technology departments are overwhelmed with routine tasks and are less and less patient with complex, unstable systems. Angry email and phone calls from carpetland are not generally welcomed by these professionals. When the problem is search, the search administrator can go ballistic.
These factors, among others, lead me to believe that two things will become more evident before we stumble into 2009.
First, I see up-and-coming vendors of search and some new entrants making sales that would not have been possible a year ago. The cost and frustration with some brand-name systems is rising more quickly than a fire in a working whiskey still. The pressure will be released one way or another.
Second, I believe that more coverage of search and content processing screw ups will find their way to Web logs and conferences. There is a lot of yammering about how to boost Web site traffic and not enough about getting a search system to work so [a] there’s a measurable payoff for the licensee and [b] the users are happy.
What are your thoughts? Is search just ducky, or are we watching an ancient military tactic getting dusted off for use in 2008? Let me know.
Stephen Arnold, April 22, 2008
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