The Future Is Search. Hmmm
December 17, 2017
I read an unusual chunk of content marketing. Navigate to “In the Rush to Big Data, We Forgot about Search.” Who’s the “we”? I think the “we” are customers who are migrating next generation information access systems. Lawyers have relativity. Manufacturers have SAP and Dassault solutions. Folks without much faith in commercial search vendors have Elasticsearch or low-cost systems which deliver a list of results which match a query. The “we”, therefore, seems to refer to the Lucid Imagination outfit now doing business as Lucidworks.
The write up explains that “we need to look at search to be the glue that lets us find the data and analyze it together no matter where it lives.”
That sounds super.
I think there are companies delivering this type of service as they have been for a number of years.
The reason is that vendors who are anchored in search and retrieval like Lucidworks have been bypassed.
In Dark Cyber I write about a stealthy outfit called Blackdot. The company complements the Relativity eDiscovery platform. Sure, there’s a search function, but Relativity does analytics, clustering, and functions which fit the needs of those engaged in eDiscovery. Search is part of the game, which for big cases, involves big data.
Blackdot enhances Relativity. You can learn about some of the functions of this company in the December 26, 2017, Dark Cyber video program.
So what?
The so what is that the services provided by Relativity and Blackspot deliver high value outputs that provide outputs which are immediately useful to analysts, investigators, lawyers, and others who use the integrated systems to solve problems.
A company which wants to deliver this type of service is likely wade into high water and thrash for purchase. The reason is that building a solution from open source tools and home brew scripts is a tough job.
Specialists have been using open source and proprietary code to roll out information access solutions. Relativity is just one example. By the way, Relativity has been plugging away for more than a decade.
A column which makes a case for a customer to let a vendor of open source search build from ground zero a next generation information access solution is going to be a vendor with a smile. However, once the solution fails to meet expectations, those smiles will turn to frowns.
Maybe that’s why Lucidworks has burned through one original founder, several presidents, and $59 million?
Search is a utility. It is not a headliner. Search works when it complements higher value functionality such as those delivered by Relativity and Blackdot or any of the other firms we track for our CyberOSINT research.
Search had its fling, but the glory days faded. When we look at the landscape of enterprise search or Big Data for that matter, we see winners. From our vantage point in Harrod’s Creek, the company leading the much smaller search parade is Elastic. Yep, it’s Lucene, but it has a following.
Guess who one of the followers is. Give up. Lucidworks. The technology is based on Lucene.
Selling consulting services is one thing. Selling search is another.
Today’s forward looking companies want next generation access, and they can get it from dozens of vendors. No starting from scratch. Sign a deal and begin processing data (big or small).
I highlighted this statement from the write up:
So if you move some of your data to SaaS solutions, move some of your data to PaaS solutions, move some of your data to IaaS solutions and across multiple vendors’ cloud platforms while maintaining some of your data behind the firewall—yeah, no one is going to find anything!
Sure. Solve problems. Don’t create them. One can search for solutions using a search engine. Let me know how that works out for your next big decision which you have to make in 10 seconds or less.
Stephen E Arnold, December 17, 2017
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