Study of Search: Weird Results Plus Bonus Errors
December 30, 2016
I was able to snag a copy of “Indexing and Search: A Peek into What Real Users Think.” The study appeared in October 2016, and it appears to be the work of IT Central Station, which is an outfit described as a source of “unbiased reviews from the tech community.” I thought, “Oh, oh, “real users.” A survey. An IDC type or Gartner type sample which although suspicious to me seems to convey some useful information when the moon is huge. Nope. Nope.Unbiased. Nope.
Note that the report is free. One can argue that free does not translate to accurate, high value, somewhat useful information. I support this argument.
The report, like many of the “real” reports I have reviewed over the decades is relatively harmless. In terms of today’s content payloads, the study fires blanks. Let’s take a look at some of the results, and you can work through the 16 pages to double check my critique.
First, who are the “top” vendors? This list reads quite a bit about the basic flaw in the “peek.” The table below presents the list of “top” vendors along with my comment about each vendor. Companies with open source Lucene/Solr based systems are in dark red. Companies or brands which have retired from the playing field in professional search are in bold gray.
| Vendor | Comment |
| Apache | This is not a search system. It is an open source umbrella for projects of which Lucene and Solr are two projects among many. |
| Attivio | Based on Lucene/Solr open source search software; positioned as a business intelligence vendor |
| Copernic | A desktop search and research system based on proprietary technology from the outfit known as Coveo |
| Coveo | A vendor of proprietary search technology now chasing Big Data and customer support |
| Dassault Systèmes | Owns Exalead which is now downgraded to a utility with Dassault’s PLM software |
| Data Design, now Ryft.com | Pitches search without indexing via propriety “circuit module” method |
| Data Gravity | Search is a utility in a storage centric system |
| DieselPoint | Company has been “quiet” for a number of years |
| Expert System | Publicly traded and revenue challenged vendor of a metadata utility, not a search system |
| Fabasoft | Mindbreeze is a proprietary replacement for SharePoint search |
| Discontinued the Google Search Appliance and exited enterprise search | |
| Hewlett Packard Enterprise | Sold its search technology to Micro Focus; legal dispute in progress over alleged fraud |
| IBM Ominifind | Lucene and proprietary scripts plus acquired technology |
| IBM StoredIQ | Like DB2 search, a proprietary utility |
| ISYS Search Software | Now owned by Lexmark and marginalized due to alleged revenue shortfalls |
| Lookeen | Lucene based desktop and Outlook search |
| Lucidworks | Solr add ons with floundering to be more than enterprise search |
| MAANA | Proprietary search optimized for Big Data |
| Microsoft | Offers multiple search solutions. The most notorious are Bing and Fast Search & Transfer proprietary solutions |
| Oracle | Full text search is a utility for Oracle licenses; owns Artificial Linguistics, Triple Hop, Endeca, RightNow, InQuira, and the marginalized Secure Enterprise Search. Oh, don’t forget command line querying via PL/SQL |
| Polyspot, now CustomerMatrix | Now a customer service vendor |
| Siderean Software | Went out of business in 2008; a semantic search outfit |
| Sinequa | Now a Big Data outfit with hopes of becoming the “next big thing” in whatever sells |
| X1 Search | An eternal start up pitching eDiscovery and desktop search with a wild and crazy interface |
What’s the table tell us about “top” systems? First, the list includes vendors not directly in the search and retrieval business. There is no differentiation among the vendors repackaging and reselling open source Lucene/Solr solutions. The listing is a fruit cake of desktop, database, and unstructured search systems. In short, the word “top” does not do the trick for me. I prefer “a list of eclectic and mostly unknown systems which include a search function.”
The report presents 10 bar charts which tell me absolutely nothing about search and retrieval. The bars appear to be a popularity content based on visits to the author’s Web site. Only two of the search systems listed in the bar chart have “reviews.” Autonomy IDOL garnered three reviews and Lookeen one review. The other eight vendors’ products were not reviewed. Autonomy and Lookeen could not be more different in purpose, design, and features.
The report then tackles the “top five” search systems in terms of clicks on the author’s Web site. Yep, clicks. That’s a heck of a yardstick because what percentage of clicks were humans and what percentage was bot driven? No answer, of course.
The most popular “solutions” illustrate the weirdness of the sample. The number one solution is DataGravity, which is a data management system with various features and utilities. The next four “top” solutions are:
- Oracle Endeca – eCommerce and business intelligence and whatever Oracle can use the ageing system for
- The Google Search Appliance – discontinued with a cloud solution coming down the pike, sort of
- Lucene – open source, the engine behind Elasticsearch, which is quite remarkably not on the list of vendors
- Microsoft Fast Search – included in SharePoint to the delight of the integrators who charge to make the dog heel once in a while.
I find it fascinating that DataGravity (1,273) garnered almost 4X the “votes” as Microsoft Fast Search (404). I think there are more than 200 million plus SharePoint licensees. Many of these outfits have many questions about Fast Search. I would hazard a guess that DataGravity has a tiny fraction of the SharePoint installed base and its brand identity and company name recognition are a fraction of Microsoft’s. Weird data or meaningless.
The bulk of the report are comparison of various search engines. I could not figure out the logic of the comparisons. What, for example, do Lookeen and IBM StoredIQ have in common? Answer: Zero.
The search report strikes me as a bit of silliness. The report may be an anti sales document. But your mileage will differ. If it does, good luck to you.
Stephen E Arnold, December 30, 2016
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