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What's New
Volume 3 Number 4 - Summer 2006
The relatively new forum for those involved in selecting and implementing enterprise search applications, http://www.searchdev.org , has grown to over 100 members since early summer. The group provides a way for people to share questions and answers with others in similar roles, and the participants this far have been discussing Autonomy IDOL, K2, Ultraseek, FAST, and Lucene.
Do you have a tip or a script that illustrates how you solved a problem with your installation? Have you hit a snag in your implementation, and want to talk to another user who may be a bit further along that you? Join SearchDev today and start posting today at http://www.searchdev.org.
In the last few weeks, both Autonomy and FAST have announced their second quarter results, and both have enjoyed significant revenue growth over the last quarter and in the last year. FAST announced revenues just over $38M with nearly 80% coming from license sales; while Autonomy announced revenue of nearly $61M; speculation is that 60% or so of the revenue was from licensing revenue. In comparing these numbers, remember that FAST is primarily a search technology company; while Autonomy has other businesses such as the Cardiff forms processing and voice technology businesses. In any case, it's clear that both companies continue to show strong growth thus far.
New Idea Engineering, Inc. (NIE) will be returning to KM World for the third consecutive year this Fall in San Jose, California. Mark Bennett of NIE will give a talk on integrating corporate security within enterprise search applicaitons; and Miles Kehoe will participate on a panel discussing enterprise search successes.
NIE will also be showing its updated SearchTrack cross platform analytics and reporting tool, as well as its Search Data Quality Audit and Search Best Practices Evaluation can improve relevance, increase user satisfaction, and help deliver the promise of enterprise search.
Microsoft COO Kevin Turner claimed the enterprise search crown at a recent developer conference when he was quoted as saying "Enterprise search is our business, it's our house and Google is not going to take that business". Now, Microsoft is making great strides ion search, especially within SharePoint portal and with it's SQL Server capabilities, but somehow we still think of Autonomy and FAST as the powerhouses of corporate search. Non one ever got fired for being paranoid about Microsoft - or Google for that matter - but it seems like a far cry to claim victory when the battle lines are jsut being drawn up. Time will tell, we guess.
We were sorry to see that Walter Underwood has resigned from Autonomy to begin a new career in Silicon Valley. He was one of the earliest engineers on the original Ultraseek product starting in 1998 through a number of acquisitions and mergers, and has always been a highlight of the various user group meetings because of his knowledge and expertise. When his company acquired Verity, Autonomy CEO Dr. Mike Lynch called Walter one of the key assets he was glad to have in the deal.
A number of engineers from the original Ultraseek team remains at Autonomy, and they have contiune to enhance the product since the acquisition, so we would expect that Ultraseek will continue to be enhanced. Thanks for everything, Walter!