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Can Google dominate enterprise search?

October 14, 2008 — 10:08am ET | By Ron Miller
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Stephen Arnold
Michelle Manafy
Mark Bennett
Google
Enterprise Search
Consumer Search

Michelle Manafy wrote a piece on EContent Magazine's website summarizing the recent Enterprise Search Summit West. 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. In a recent conversation with Mark Bennett, CTO at New Idea Engineering, 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 on EContent
- and this article from The Goose Quacks

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Comments (5) | Post a comment

Comments

By Daniel Tunkelang | Posted 9:07am | October 15, 2008

Ron, I wholeheartedly agree with you, though I'll admit I'm a bit partial to the approach we've developed at Endeca. But others have raised similar points, e.g., Chris Sherman at the Enterprise Search Source Book. I'm with you and Sue Feldman on this one.

BTW, I've blogged about this a fair amount myself at The Noisy Channel.

By Peter Thusat | Posted 12:19pm | October 15, 2008

Thunderstone Software LLC pioneered simultaneous searching of both structured and unstructured data with the Texis RDBMS optimized for full-text search. Since 1981 Thunderstone has continued to develop well-proven solutions to some of the world's toughest challenges in information access and retrieval, including a powerful and flexible line of Thunderstone Search Appliances that deliver dramatic TCO advantages over Google's products.

Don't look for us to raise the white flag anytime soon.

Peter Thusat
Communication Director & CMO
Thunderstone Software LLC

By rmiller | Posted 5:50pm | October 15, 2008

Gentlemen:
Thanks for your comments. I'm happy to see that folks like you, who are in the industry, are finding the newsletter and taking the time to leave comments.

Thanks again.

Ron

By Jean Ferre | Posted 8:41am | October 21, 2008

Enterprise Search vendors can learn valuable lessons from the success of search engines online, but to triumph in the corporate environment it is not simply a case of tailoring online search engines for the enterprise. Whereas online content is designed to be found, with meta tags and key words, the enterprise is a different beast entirely. Documents are saved in silos, saved in no particular format and are rarely where you expect them to be. This makes finding information extremely difficult. A search tool that was originally designed for the consumer market, rather than the enterprise, is going to struggle on three fronts - firstly to find information, secondly to return relevant information and lastly to adhere to internal security policies. With innovative and nimble tools coming to market, the battle for supremacy in the Enterprise Search market is far from a forgone conclusion.

By Rob Cells | Posted 11:39pm | November 26, 2008

Enterprise search is more about relevance to and association with business processes and transactions than pure content itself. Admittedly, there is a certain amount of pure content required to support decision-making, but the majority of daily decision-making revolves around business transactions and the conextual information that surrounds it.

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