Can Google dominate enterprise search?

Michelle Manafy wrote a piece on EContent Magazine's website summarizing the recent Enterprise Search Summit West [1]. According to her report, Stephen Arnold's keynote predicted that Google, the definitive consumer search, is so popular that we might as well raise the white flag and just start building add-ons to support Google in the enterprise. Arnold thinks Google will eventually dominate enterprise search just as it has consumer search. I'm not ready to concede the enterprise search market to Google just yet.

Whenever I talk to people in the search industry, they are quick to point out that while Google works well on the open web, it's less reliable in the enterprise. In fact, I wrote about this recently in Enterprise search is not a simple matter [2]. In a recent conversation with Mark Bennett, CTO at New Idea Engineering [3], a search consulting firm, he pointed out that Google loses its advantage inside the firewall. Bennett says their ranking algorithm, what he calls the "secret sauce," really doesn't apply and Google is left using the same search techniques as other vendors.

Sue Feldman, an IDC analyst also spoke at the Summit, according to Manafy. Feldman pointed out that people tend to ask lousy questions, which is really important when considering Google in the enterprise. Bennett explains that when people don't enter very good search queries on the open web, you can still find the right answer because there are a myriad of possibilities, making it more likely you'll find the correct document. But when you move into the enterprise there may only be a couple of good results. Without a good query, it's much easier to miss.

Enterprise search is still a tough nut to crack. Users may demand Google-like functionality, but I don't think Google is necessarily the final answer to search in the enterprise.

For more:
- read the full Manafy article [4] on EContent
- and this article [5] from The Goose Quacks