CMS Watch says enterprise search vendors are opening up

In a new CMS Watch report on enterprise search, the content management consulting firm points out that search is opening up in the enterprise. CMS Watch Principal Theresa Regli says, enterprise search was once a mysterious black box where indexing went on behind the scenes, out of the view of the enterprise IT staff. Now, enterprise search vendors are joining other enterprise applications in providing more transparency through web interfaces that let administrators access back-end processes.

"Historically search has often been seen as 'magic'--and vendors encouraged secretiveness around their indexing processes and algorithms," Regli said. "But that's changed quite a bit, and everyone from Endeca to the notoriously secretive Autonomy now has web interfaces to control and modify the infrastructure and indexing approaches, and even to fine-tune details of what used to be known as a 'black box.'"

The Search & Information Access Report 2009 looks at 20 enterprise search products. Among the findings in this year's report is evidence that vendors are providing easier set up and maintenance, and they are including more functionality out of the box instead of requiring customers to deal with long, custom development cycles. As we move into 2009, customers are going to be looking for products that solve their search issues for a good price and with the least amount of pain. This guide could be a starting point for you to help you make your enterprise search purchase decisions.

For more information:
- see the press release

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AIIM study: Enterprise search needs work