Lucene / Solr to Bite the Big Search Dogs
July 26, 2009
Matt Asay’s “Open Source Lucene Threatens Microsoft, Google Enterprise Search” is a thought-provoker. The hook for the story is a chart from Indeed.com that shows hiring for Lucene, Solr, and Hadoop experts is on the rise. Matt Assay reported that he spoke with Lucid Imagination’s chief technical officer. Lucid Imagination is a hybrid company. The core is open source, and in my opinion, the firm will “wrap” proprietary services and possible products around the open source core.
The question is, “Is open source a threat to Microsoft and Google?” Several observations:
- Google plays the open source card. One might suggest that if open source wins, then Google will benefit. Google, after all, is plumbing, not just search. The fact that search is part of Google’s plumbing has some interesting implications. I, therefore, don’t buy the open source threat to Google.
- Microsoft is another kettle of fish. Microsoft faces a challenge from itself, Google, and open source. If the Microsoft Fast Enterprise Search Platform flops, Microsoft will bundle it with SharePoint and give it away as a utility. Microsoft-centric shops and those who see a steady paycheck as a SharePoint engineer will jump at this offer.
Where does open source search fit? I think there will be interest from organizations suffering cash crunches. The notion of no license fees and cafeteria style, open consulting is appealing. Start ups will find open source attractive as well. Some government agencies will follow the Obama administration’s suggestion that open source is good.
But—and this is a big “but”—open source firms must demonstrate that they can market, sell, deliver, and generate revenue from engineering and consulting services. The future to me looks like small open source search outfits that will be gobbled up by giants looking to control their ecosystem. Lemur Consulting is one acquisition opportunity. The lesser known Tesuji is another. Oracle pulled this trick with the Sun Microsystems buy out. Whither MySQL? Maybe no where. IBM is an open source champion. The company can sell services and tons of quasi-proprietary software, hardware, and partner services.
In short, open source is important. There are some twists not covered in Matt Asay’s write up, which strikes me as an article that could benefit from more analysis of the Google, Microsoft threat assertion. I don’t buy it.
Stephen Arnold, July 26, 2009
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6 Responses to “Lucene / Solr to Bite the Big Search Dogs”
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Having an real open source option in the enterprise search space is great for enterprise customers since it’ll keep pressure on cost & value. Still when you start calculating in the cost of support & staff attention open source ain’t free either otherwise who would be funding Lucid Imagination, not that anybody doesn’t understand this now. But it highlights the point that really Solr/Lucene joins MS & Google in putting the heat on the free-standing enterprise search vendors who look like they are going to have some real challenges ahead, right?
Stephen, when you say “Google plays the open source card”, what exactly are you referring to (that touches on search)?
I’m happy to say that Sematext satisfies the “…open source firms must demonstrate that they can market, sell, deliver, and generate revenue from engineering and consulting services…” part, as mentioned in the last paragraph on http://www.sematext.com/about/index.html
Otis,
Too bad you missed my talk at iBreakfast in New York on the 23rd.
Stephen Arnold, July 26, 2009
I ,too, do not understand what is “open” about google search
Steve, if our brief (6-month) history/experience is any indication, there seems to be a widespread exodus of Fast customers towards open source Lucene/Solr. And I’m sure a majority of them do not even know of Lucid Imagination. Most of them seem to have made the decision to switch way before we came on the scene. One can view it as a threat or just a minor irritant, if you are Microsoft.
With Lucid Imagination selling lucene based consulting services and companies like SearchBlox selling lucene based products, lucene is sure set to make inroads in the enterprise market as more companies get comfortable with a supported open source package/product. Compared to the enterprise search market leaders, the productized version of lucene is very attractive.