Exclusive Interview with SurfRay President
September 29, 2009
SurfRay has come roaring back into the search and content processing sector. SurfRay, like many other companies, had to tighten its belt and straighten its tie in the wake of the global financial turmoil. With the release of new versions of Ontolica (a search system that snaps into SharePoint) and MondoSearch (a platform independent Web site search solution), SurfRay is making sales again. ArnoldIT.com spoke with Søren Pallesen about the firm’s new products. In a wide ranging interview, Mr. Pallesen, a former Gartner Group consultant, said:
SurfRay’s mission is to deliver tightly packaged search software solutions for businesses to provide effective search for both internal and external users. With Packaged we mean easy to try, install and use. Our vision is to be our customer’s first choice for packaged enterprise search solutions and to become the world’s third largest search solution provider in the world measured on number of paying business customers by 2012. The last six months have been an exciting time for SurfRay. I took over as CEO; we significantly increased investment in product development and an ambitious expansion of the organization. This has paid off. SurfRay is profitable, and we have released new versions of our core products. Ontolica is now in version 4.0, including a new suite of reporting and analytics, and MondoSearch 5.4 is in beta for a Q4 release. As a profitable company we are in the fortunate position to be able to fund our own growth and we are expanding in North America among other by hiring more sales people as well as formation of a Search Expert Center in Vancouver, Canada that will serve customers across the Americas. We are also expanding in Europe most recently with formation of SurfRay UK and Ireland, allowing us to expand sales and support with local people on the ground in this important European market.
When asked about the difference between MondoSearch and Ontolica, Mr. Pallesen told me:
Customers that buy our products typically fall into a number of usage scenarios. Simply put Ontolica solves search problems inside the firewall and MondoSearch outside the firewall. Firstly customers with SharePoint implementations look for enhanced search functionality, and turn to our Ontolica for SharePoint product. Secondly, businesses that do not use SharePoint but have the need for an internal search solution on an intranet, file servers, across email, applications and other sources buy Ontolica Express and use it in combination with Microsoft Search Server Express for simple single server installation or Micro Search Server for multiple load balanced server installations. Thirdly, customers with the need for robust and highly configurable web site search buy MondoSearch. Especially popular with businesses that want to implement up- and cross selling on their search results page.
You can read the full text of the interview in the Search Wizards Speak series on ArnoldIT.com. For more information about SurfRay, visit the company’s revamped Web site at http://www.surfray.com.
Stephen Arnold, September 29, 2009
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This October, come visit SurfRay at the SharePoint Conference in Las Vegas, NV. This will be a great opportunity to network with executives from the search industry leaders. You will be able to demo the latest enhanced search offerings for SharePoint with Ontolica 4.0. We can be found in the exhibit hall at booth 827, just across from the MindSharp booth on the rear exhibit wall. Make sure to check out the new Search Intelligence Module exclusive to Ontolica, as well as the new functionality for Search Server Express at http://www.surfray.com. If you would like to schedule some time for a personal demo or meeting, please feel free to let us know in advance by contacting us at sales@surfray.com . We look forward to seeing you there!