The value of high-end search technology (Who Wins the Fight: Microsoft, Google or Yahoo!)

Ever timed how long it takes you to find a meaningful answer via Google? I admit: Google is mind-boggling fast but where is what I'm looking for in the 12.345.975 hits I got back? Thinking from a business perspective, we need transparent and meaningful searching and matching of all relevant enterprise information.

This should be regardless of its origin and modality, in order to survive in the age of non-information overload. And now even Microsoft knows it… The Microsoft bid to acquire Yahoo and FAST Search & Transfer for me is not just another event on the consolidation bazaar but a strong indicator that finding the right answer within the enterprise information maze is becoming a concern for even Redmond's finest.

The way and format of enterprise search shows very different approaches, quit normal for any market which initially was dominated by techno-driven early adopters and now becomes a prey for the big guns. Analyzing the market, I see four main groups of solutions:

1. Feature: Plug-and-play elements found by the dozen; simple either keyword or text search, found in almost any application. At best cheap or for free and handy to search a help-file.
2. Application: Solutions that manage the access to information; good presentation but search options not much better than feature level; scalability low and often a lock into a certain database environment. Pricey to implement and quickly outgrown by the sheer size and complexity of enterprise information needs, MS Sharepoint being the obvious example.
3. Suite: Dedicated application like solutions that can handle large sources of (legacy) information, can grow with the companies needs and can serve as plug-in to applications to provide consistent searching capabilities. FAST and Endecabeing the prominent ones. The limitations lie in the handling of multi-modal sources and the limited matching capabilities.
4. Platform: Purposely build database and hardware independent search and matching solution, enabling handling of vast amounts of information at high speed. Especially strong when combinations are needed of biographic, biometric and non-structured search criteria and fuzzy logic is required to re-create human like thinking. ELISE being technology wise the leading solution.

Staying on the Feature or Application level will not enable enterprises to fully exploit the combined intelligence hidden in the various sources. The required speed the sheer volume of information to scan will force the use of the suites, especially in single modality environments like eCommerce. When multi-modality becomes an issue (e.g., border control systems) or finding meaningful answers is the main driver (e.g. in high-end staffing systems), only a platform approach will be a future-proof choice.

Microsoft prove me right I guess: buying FAST brings them an enterprise savvy solution. I wonder when the platform suppliers are discovered by the infrastructure players…

As always: looking forward to your comments.

hans[DOT]van*DOT*nes{AT}results2match(DOT)com