Lexalytics Pushes into Pharma
May 26, 2010
Once a search and content processing vendors finds success in a niche market, other vendors are going to follow. I remember listening to Temis executives explaining how that firm’s technology benefited organizations engaged in the type of content processing favored by big pharma.
As the market for basic search continues to face challenges, specialty vendors are looking for ways to pump up their growth. The pharmaceutical industry is one of a handful of business sectors that understand the value that can be derived from structured and unstructured data.
I received a link to a PRWeb item title “Lexalytics Continues Growth Trend with Expansion into Pharmaceutical Search Solution and PR Management and Media Intelligence Markets”. For the life of a may fly, you can read the item on the Web. Once the PR may fly goes to the big picnic in the sky, you will have to hunt for a copy of this document. The company has made a concerted effort to move into advertising and marketing niches. So the push into big pharma is not a surprise to the Beyond Search goslings.
Lexalytics has become a “go to” partner for companies who need to get a Microsoft Fast search implementation off the ground and then into orbit. Now Lexalytics has teamed with another search integration company – Raritan Technologies – to get Lexalytics’ functions into Raritan’s pharmaceutical clients.
Here at the goose pond, the most interesting passage in the news release was:
Raritan Technologies is implementing Lexalytics’ text analytics into its PharmaLytics platform, geared at providing fast, efficient and smart search of the fire hose of medical information available to practitioners, research and development and medical affairs professionals.
Our view is that blurring of search and content processing vendors with consulting businesses is a path that may lead to a treasure chest. However, that path can also lead into a digital everglades. Who is responsible for what feature and function? becomes an important question.
If Lexalytics implements functions within Microsoft Fast, who has to work on the details? Who pays? If Raritan blends Lexalytics with Raritan functions, who works out the glitches? And, of course, who pays?
The easy answer is, “The customer.” Now the tricky bit, “Who is the customer?” With search and content processing becoming more important and, in some cases, more frustrating to licensees, the blurring of product and service presents management challenges to each party in the transaction. I remember a call to Verizon last week about its high speed Wide Area Network service. One customer support engineer told me that Verizon’s Novatel modem was working. Verizon’s network was working. Therefore, the laptop with Windows XP was at fault. It is so easy to absolve oneself of responsibility unless the statement of work and contract are in sync. Then the lawyers get to decide.
Stephen E Arnold, May 26, 2010
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