SharePoint Revealed

September 23, 2015

Microsoft SharePoint. It brings smiles to the faces of the consultants and Certified Experts who can make the collection of disparate parts work like refurbished John Harrison clock.

I read “Microsoft SharePoint ECM Suite for Content Management.” The write up explains that SharePoint became available in 2001. The write up does not reference the NCompass Labs’ acqusition or other bits and pieces of the SharePoint story. That’s okay. It is 2015. Ancient history in terms of Internet time. Also, what is content management? Does it include audio, video, and digital images? What about binaries? What about data happily stored on the state of Michigan’s mainframes?

Jack Benny’s Maxwell reminds me of Fast Search’s 1998 approach to information access. With Fast Search inside, SharePoint delivers performance that is up to the Maxwell’s standards for speed, reliability, and engineering excellence.

The write up reveals that SharePoint evolved “gradually.” The most recent incarnation of the system includes a number of functions; specifically mentioned in the article, are:

A cloud based service
A foundation for collaboration and document sharing
A server. I thought there were multiple servers. Guess not.
A designer component for creating nifty looking user experiences. Isn’t Visual Studio or other programming tool required as well?
Cloud storage. Isn’t this redundant?
Search

I prefer a more modern approach to information access. The search systems I use are like a Kia Soul. The code often includes hamsters too.

Here’s what the write up says about search:

Microsoft FAST Search, which provides indexing and efficient search of content of all types.

I like the indexing and “efficient” description. The content of “all types” is interesting as well.

How well does Fast Search in its present incarnation handle audio and video? What about real time streams of social media like the Twitter fire hose? You get the idea. “All” is shorthand for “some” content.

I am not captivated by the whizzy features in SharePoint and its content management capabilities. I am not thrilled with building profiles of employees within an organization. I am pretty relaxed when it comes to collaboration. Phones work pretty well. Email is okay too. I work on documents alone and provide a version for authorized individuals to review. I need no big gun system necessary needed. Just a modern one.

What about Fast Search?

Let me highlight a few salient points:

The product originated in Norway. You know where Trondheim is, right? Oslo? Of course. Great in the winter too. The idea burst from academia prior to 1998, when the company was officially set up. That makes the architecture an agile, youthful 17 years old.
In 2008, Microsoft paid $1.2 billion for a company which was found wanting in its accountancy skills. After investigations and a legal proceeding, the company seems to have had revenues well below its reported $170 million in 2007. Until the HP Autonomy deal, this was a transaction that helped fuel the “search is a big payday” belief. At an estimated $60 million instead of $170, Microsoft paid about 20 times Fast Search’s 2007 earnings. After the legal eagles landed, the founder of Fast Search found himself on the wrong end of a court decision. Think lock up time.
Fast Search is famous for me because its founder told me that he was abandoning Web search for the enterprise search market. Autonomy’s revenue seemed to be a number the founder thought was reachable. As time unspooled, the big pay day arrived for Google. Enterprise search did not work out in terms of Google scale numbers. Fast Search backed out of an ad model to pursue an academic vision of information access as the primary enterprise driver.
The Fast Search solution which is part of SharePoint has breathed life into dozens of SharePoint search add ins. These range from taxonomy systems to clustering components to complete snap in replacements for the Fast Search components. Hundreds upon hundreds of consultants make their living implementing, improving, and customizing search and retrieval for SharePoint.

Net net: SharePoint has more than 150 million licensees. SharePoint is the new DOS for the enterprise. SharePoint is a consultant’s dream come true.

For me, I prefer simpler and more recent technology. That 17 year old approach seems more like Jack Benny’s Maxwell than a modern search Kia Soul.

Stephen E Arnold, September 23, 2015

Written by Stephen E. Arnold · Filed Under Enterprise search, News, Technology

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Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.