Enterprise Search

Market Trends in Embedded Search

Are you trying to find an embedded search solution that meets your users’ needs and your specific application requirements?  Have you tried to embed search into your application, but found it difficult and expensive to customize and integrate? Have you already embedded a solution only to find that it lacks the performance and functionality your customers are demanding? Would you like to learn about how you can cost-effectively give your customers access to search that has been architected for ISVs, offers value-added features, and scales?

View a brief video interview about the webinar with Miles Kehoe.

If so, we’d like to invite you to join our webinar, “12 Leading Insights on Embedded Search for ISVs.” Learn about:
•    Major Market Trends for Embedded Search
•    Key Challenges Facing ISVs with Embedded Search
•    5 Most Important Embedded Search Requirements
•    What Works and What Doesn’t
•    Overview of Exalead CloudView OEM Edition
Moderator
•    Eric Rogge, Senior Director of Marketing, Exalead

Featured Speakers
•    Ranjeet Vidwans, VP of OEM, Exalead
•    Miles Kehoe, President, New Idea Engineering

Date/Time
•    Friday, December 5, 2008 at 11am PST

Registration:
To register for the webinar, please click here.

To download the Exalead whitepaper "The ISV Challenge: Satisfying the Demand for Better Search,” 

Some Good News in Tech Support

With all the complaints about customer service these days, we wanted to give a shout out to FAST Tech Support for a recent set of positive interactions.  Very professional, very patient, and they were able to "track the sun" by reassigning the call to various call centers around the world to continue working the issues beyond local business hours until everything was resolved, real team effort.  Ironically we had attempted to do this back at Verity in the early 1990s, but back then the technology wasn't quite up to it.

Come to think of it, we've also had some good interactions with some other companies' tech support and customer service folks recently, also worth a mention: AT&T (voice line), Verizon (in-store wireless card), GoDaddy, Dell (on-site service), GE (on-site service), Apple (in-store iMac and iPhone), HP (new HP tablet) and Tivo; HP is still working with with us on the new tablet, but they've made some progress and I'd give them an "A" for effort, and to be fair this is a brand new product.  Lest you think we live in some alternate universe, rest assured we've had less pleasant experiences with a few other household names lately, but calling those folks out in public is not our style!

And thinking about this a bit more, some higher level points come to mind:

1: As technology products get more and more complex, all products will have issues; zero problems is not a reasonable expectation when you're living on the crest of a technology wave.  But having a reputable company to call when the tech hits a glitch, and having the option of speaking to an actually being when none of the automated tools can handle it, is what sets these companies apart.  The open community support model can also work, albeit in a different way, if there's a critical mass of people, but not all technologies have this critical mass of energetic expertise.

2: We've noticed that many of the companies we've had good interactions with do conduct customer satisfaction surveys, either on an ongoing bassis, or after a specific tech support or customer service issue.  They seem to actually care about customer service.  To his credit, Bob Bramley had started a similar program back at Verity in the early 90's, which I inherited after he left.

3: Miles tells an anecdote about IBM customer service back in the day, also being content if something minor occasionally went wrong, seeing it as an opportunity for prompt and positive customer interaction, to help solidify customer loyalty.  This is still true today.  I've suggested Dell to many friends and colleagues because of their onsite support options, which do cost extra, but which are well worth it.

Yes, staffing with humans is more expensive then not doing so, but advanced technology really needs it.  And it's fine to try offering automated service as a first line of defense, if it's done well, and if there is clearly an escape hatch to talk to an actual person if the customer wants.  And if you already knew all this, forgive the platitudes.

So again, kudos to FAST, AT&T, Verizon, GoDaddy, HP, Dell, Apple, Tivo and GE for giving customer service a good name.

Call for papers for Enterprise Search Summit East 2008

Michelle Manafy of InfoToday and the Managing Director of E-Content Magazine has sent out a call for speakers for the Enterprise Search Summit in New York City in May 2009. The deadline is coming up November 10, and we've been negligent in getting the request our sooner.

The ESS NY show is always a great event - great speakers, great venue, and a great way to meet and talk shop with hundreds of people who are facing the challenge of making search work. If you have an idea for a presentation, or want to share your success with others, submit your idea electronically before Monday the 10th.

Her note follows:

 - - - - - - - - - -

Call for Speakers

Enterprise Search Summit: Enabling Information Access

[Deadline for Submissions November 10, 2008]

 

We are now accepting proposals to speak at the Enterprise Search Summit East 2009, which will be held May 12-13 in New York. (Pre-conference sessions May 11). Proposals are now being accepted at  http://www.enterprisesearchsummit.com/2009/CallForSpeakers.shtml

The deadline for submitting proposals is November 10, 2008.

 

We seek dynamic speakers who can talk knowledgeably about detailed aspects of how to implement and maximize search within an organization. Search can no longer be viewed as a stand-alone application. It is increasingly part of everything we do and has become the de facto gateway to information in the enterprise. This year’s Summit will examine the ways to leverage search tools, information architecture, classification, and other strategies and technologies to enable information access.

 

Ours is a well-informed, tech-savvy audience, so proposals should be specific and detailed. Consider topic such as:

 

·         Search as the gateway to enterprise information

·         Integrating search into other enterprise systems

·         Customizing your search solution/ Task-specific search

·         Compliance, records management, and eDiscovery with effective search

·         Migrating your search engine

·         Social search and social tagging strategies & solutions

·         Search-enabled decision making

·         Business intelligence, data mining

·         Optimizing your interface

·         Navigational tools—context, facets, entity extraction, clustering, and visualization

·         Emerging trends, the future of search

·         Improving human-computer interaction/ Good interaction design

·         Overcoming information overload

·         Categorization techniques

·         Specific strategies for enhancing an existing solution

 

If you represent a company that has an enterprise search software product, your best bet to be on our program is to collaborate with a customer to submit a case study to be presented by them, following the guidelines above and on the website.

 

Thank you. I look forward to receiving your proposals.

 

Michelle Manafy

Enterprise Search Summit Conference Chair

Editorial Director, Enterprise Group, Information Today, Inc.

michelle.manafy@infotoday.com

Do it now!

Grep is not a search engine

I actually started out to write an entry on the weird search terms we've seen, but that will have to wait. As I was doing some research for that entry, I ran into yet another annoyance we often see: a 'search engine' works just like grep.

For those of you who don't know the pleasures and utility of grep, I feel both regret and envy. After all, I've spent years relying on that bizarre Unix & Linux utility - so much so that I use the MKS Toolkit on all of my Windows PCs. But as useful as grep can be, it is not a search engine.

Consider Adobe Acrobat. I found a PDF on the web, and viewed it with the Adobe Acrobat Version 7.00 add-in for Firefox. I am looking for a phrase popular in the management service consulting business that describes a process: 'as is, to be'. Now, all of these are typically stop words which is the point of my 'weird searches' entry to come.

When you search a PDF file with the built-in Search feature, the built-in engine will return all instances of the sequences of characters you enter. Search for the phrase view and you'll see all of the instances of the term as well as the term views. Cool - stemming! But wait! Dig a bit further and you find it also returns review, interviews viewpoint, and any other terms whose only similarity to the original query is that it contains the same letter sequence. How about a phrase? Adobe doesn't seem to support quoting a phrase; but it seems when you enter multiple space-delimited terms it assumes you want a phrase search. But even in a phrase search, the last term only seems to start with a partial. Thus, a search for switch vendors will find the term; but it will also work if you search for switch v.

This capability can be cool - for example, if you want to find the instant of the string 30/60/90, you can do so. Heck, just type 30/ and you're there. And if you have really weird error numbers or status codes (0x00ffdd07) it works great!

In fairness, Adobe does let you specify whole words only and case-sensitive search. But often we see companies that provide grep-like search in their product or service and eagerly claim 'search included'. I guess companies for whom search is a check-box feature and not really seen as contributing to corporate success will accept such an attitude. 

And by the way - we don't think the SQL LIKE operator counts as a search engine either. But that's a rant for another day.

Gartner Magic Quadrant 2008 Now Available

If you have not seen it, the new Gartner Magic Quadrant for Information Access - their name for intranet and customer facing search - has been published and is available for viewing on the Gartner web site thanks to a pointer from Microsoft's Analyst Relations page.

The big story, one which must have them fuming in England, is that Autonomy has dropped down a bit, and the combined Microsoft-FAST offerings have moved up a bit. This puts Autonomy a bit higher up on the 'Completeness of Vision' scale - by a few pixels - but a decent quarter-inch below Microsoft on the 'Ability to Execute' scale. Endeca, IBM, ZyLAB and Vivisimo squeaked into the upper right quadrant, while Google moved right to the link splitting the 'Challengers' from the 'Leaders', but ever so close - one could say the Google dot is on the line. It's odd that Google is not higher on the 'Ability to Execute' scale, since that usually means how well funded the company is. Perhaps they are looking at the budget/sales for only the Google appliance; but even then, Steve Arnold's numbers put them above the others on the scale.

Some excellent search products fell off the list this year, as Gartner has changed their methodology. The products we feel still qualify for the report include Dieselpoint, SLI Systems, and X1 Technologies, as well as newcomer Attivio. The article has more details. And as the con artist Fagan said in the play base don Dicken's Oliver Twist, '...if you happen to pass the Tower of London, have a look at the Crown Jewels'.

New Idea Engineering Helps Orange County offer Residents Innovative Enterprise Search Technology to Community Web site

New search engine powered by FAST delivers quick and reliable search results allowing OC residents to easily find services

SANTA ANA, Calif. – September 10, 2008 – New Idea Engineering, Inc. (NIE) www.ideaeng.com and its partner InfoSolutions (www.infosolutions.com) today announced that they have helped the local Orange County, California government implement FAST Search & Transfer’s (FAST) Enterprise Search Platform© (ESP) technology for the county’s new and improved web site.

The County of Orange Information Technology Group, a public agency responsible for vital services to residents of Orange County, completed the first phase of the new site, implementing new Vignette portal and Fast Search technology, as well as converting several pilot agencies to the new site, in just four months.  FAST ESP will allow community members the ability to search the site more easily to locate information and interact with the county to reserve books, find park and recreation services, receive social services, and find quick and reliable answers to questions that arise in everyday life.

“With the support of the NIE / InfoSolutions team backed by FAST technology, our new search retrieval capabilities will have a significant impact on the delivery of information and services to our constituents,” said Satish Ajmani, Orange County's Chief Information Officer. “Our residents demand – and our staff provides – first class service. Since our comprehensive Web site encompasses online resources from numerous departments and agencies, we needed an infrastructure that seamlessly connects residents with essential information and services.”

The Web site’s new design and search platform connect Orange County’s 3.1 million residents to online services and individualized content for each of its departments. From paying property taxes online to locating information on animal care services or acquiring a business license, residents can now benefit from one of the most robust and user-friendly community Web sites available on the Internet.

Orange County selected NIE / InfoSolutions to implement FAST’s ESP technology due to the team’s extensive knowledge of the enterprise search industry as well as the complexity and scope of the project. The new search design required mapping each department’s and agency’s internal language and acronyms into user terms and building drill-down navigation to ensure users can quickly find accurate and reliable results. 

New Idea Engineering's President, Miles Kehoe, credits the project's success to the Orange County staff and the county’s visionary information technology team. According to Kehoe, “Migrating the old static Web pages to Vignette and FAST saved development time and cost, but ruled out a simple, ‘generic’ search solution. Ensuring that the search engine focused on the central Web page content rather than solely on the built-in navigation keywords was critical for providing relevant information to end users.”

InfoSolutions’ President, Bob Berberich, added, “On a project as complex as this, it helps to have a diversified team with deep skills to draw upon. It allows for much more than connecting the technical dots; it enables a creative synergy that allows us to truly address the client’s needs in both the short and the long term.”

To see the new site in action, please visit the Orange County Web site at: http://www.oc.ca.gov. 

Do You Plan to Attend ESS West 2008 in San Jose this month?

The Enterprise Search Summit - West starts Monday September 22 with  pre-conference workshops, and the show kicks off Tuesday the 23rd. We'll be exhibiting once again- please stop by and say hello at Booth 229! 

Early bird pricing ends  Sept 3!

  You can register here and get a special rate through New Idea Engineering. Use promotion code VIPIDEA.

Don't miss our sessions.

• Tuesday Sept 23 2008 at 11:45 - 12:15 pm
  A101:  The Nuts and Bolts of Selecting a Search Engine
  Companies often spend huge sums of money and months of work effort to replace an existing enterprise search engine only to find they still are not happy with the results. With a little planning you can avoid this disaster. Kehoe will outline a phased approach for selecting an enterprise search engine, verifying quality of results against your existing solution, and transitioning to your new infrastructure. This talk takes a hard look at the fix vs. buy decision by focusing on methodology as well as on technology.
• Wednesday Sept 24 2008 at 3:00 - 3:45pm 
  B206: Search and the Virtual Machine
  Enterprise search is incredibly demanding on hardware resources. Virtualized solutions allow server consolidation and higher server utilization. Virtualization also allows the IT staff to better allocate resources—processors and memory—to optimize performance, yet there are trade-offs to be considered with any approach. This session will examine virtualized solutions in the context of real-world implementations to help attendees understand how this approach can impact operation and performance.

Search Vendor Pricing Models: Top Techniques for "Right Sizing" the Final Invoice

Do you remember your Dad telling you not to fill up on the free bread at the restaurant because "that's how they get you!" ?  We're generally a bit more trusting than your dear old dad, but we are still talking about software sales here, so being a bit more educated couldn't hurt.  Like any industry, some vendors are very creative when it comes to their pricing models.  Of course if you're reading this and you happen to work for a vendor, we're not talking about your employer, we're obviously talking about those other guys.

Many vendors make a guess about how much money you can probably spend, regardless of what you tell them.  Then they make their initial bid based on their own estimate  If you see the number and pass out, they offer smelling salts in the form of "special discounts" they just remembered you might be eligible for, and they chide themselves for not having thought of this before.  Preserving the deal at a lower margin is usually better than having you walk out the door. (An aside: if you look for "flinch test" on the net, most of the content tells the sales guy how to deal with your response so they can maintain their price! Check out the posts on  sales2.com and on eyesonsales.com!)

But there's a flip side: what if they show you the initial number and you don't pass out? Then you passed their "flinch test", but to the vendor, this might mean they left money on the table.  This is where the creative models come in so darn handy! ("You do want undercoating with that, right?")

Read on for our cheat sheet of creative search engine pricing "metrics" ...

New site for quality search tools and components

We're happy to announce that we've kicked off the beta of a new site to help the community of intranet, customer facing, and local search by proving a directory to the best of open source, no cost, low cost and commercial software tools, components, and products.

That site, mentioned by Steve Arnold this morning in his interview with Mark and I, is

SearchComponenetsOnline

We're beginning to post the tools we've been following for a few months now, and will have many more over the coming days, weeks, and months. Let us know if there's a tool you want to see listed by replying with a comment.

Outside of the Box

Last week I spent four days in Houston Texas, enjoying humidity in the 90s with temperatures to match. The event was the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference, the first since Microsoft acquired FAST Search and Transfer, and the first sporing several pretty good search solutions from Microsoft across a wide range of capabilities and cost.

At one of the final sessions, Rob Lancaster of FAST, like many others nowadays, described search as having gone "beyond the box" to the point that search is everywhere - it is the platform that enables collaboration, customized content, and a wide range or "web 2.0" capabilities. I certainly don't disagree.

The sign of a true visionary is being ahead of the curve. Philippe Courtot, CEO of Qualys, pretty much saved Verity on his own in 1991 with his management skills and drive. His mantra back then? "Search is ubiquitous". It's just taken the rest of the industry 15 years to catch up.