Search Expert Predicts Search Market Shrinkage
October 15, 2010
Years ago, I pointed out that enterprise search was a gone goose. (No pun intended.) There were many structural reasons, which I pointed out in various monographs, talks, and “real media” articles. The highlights of the obituary includes:
- No big oomph in precision and recall on such tests as the NIST TREC annual dive into the frosty waters of a controlled tests of search systems
- Lots of dissatisfaction among users who bleat about their inability to find a document “that I know is in the system” to having to use three, four or more systems and then crack a search soduku to find a document
- Big, big costs that no matter how many IT wizards and junior wizards the organization hired just kept on doing the French “gonfler” thing
- Stuff that never really worked
- System professionals who got a system up and running and then turned over management, administration, and hubcap washing to consultants
“A Search Market Craters – Welcome to the App Diaspora” saddles up the Pony Express and delivers the news, saying:
Hadley Reynolds, a senior analyst at IDC, said in a presentation last week at Lucene Revolution that the enterprise “OEM” search market is expected to drop from more than $100 million in 2007 to $50 million by 2011. The market has traditionally included companies such as Autonomy and FAST, which was sold to Microsoft and is now integrated with SharePoint. “We see the OEM search market as essentially cratering,” Reynolds said.
Eeek. I track a couple of hundred search and content processing outfits. Many of these are funded by IPO and BMW craving investment types. My hunch is that some of these search and content processing outfits may be shivering in their cubicles.
Is open source the Grim Reaper? In my limited view, nah. Search and content processing are chugging along, with a number of companies doing quite well. Search is being embedded in other enterprise applications. Vertical applications like those from Exalead are selling in the US, Europe, and elsewhere. Big dogs like Autonomy don’t have their ribs and haunches poking from an emaciated framework. In short, open source search is growing, and my hunch is that the total market for “findability” is getting bigger not smaller. Search is not longer called search. Synonyms range from data fusion to discovery to facets and odd coinages that baffle me like information optimization. Still search. Still growing. And those flaws? Those five issues will be around for a long, long time. Just my opinion from the goose pond.
Stephen E Arnold, October 15, 2010
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Hadley Reynolds’ presentation is available on line, along with the rest of the Lucene Revolution presentations, at
http://www.lucidimagination.com/events/revolution2010