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The Search & Information Access Report looks at... Storage Considerations

"Nevertheless, storage is a key consideration. The number of documents and the average size of the documents increase each year. Electronic mail can pose special challenges because a mail message can include an attachment that may be several megabytes in size. An example is a short message containing a PowerPoint deck or an Adobe Portable Document Format of a 16 page four-color brochure. A good rule of thumb is to plan to increase storage capacity for a search system by 50 percent each year. The search architecture should accommodate plug-and-play storage devices. Mirroring, RAID technology, and clusters are storage approaches that a search system requires. Loss of an index means that a new index must be built from ground zero if a current back up or fail-over mirror is not available."

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There are hundreds of products in the search and information access marketplace. To make your life easier, we list a subset of them, divided into 8 categories. These are not the "best" search and information access tools, simply -- in our judgment -- the most significant.

You can find a longer discussion of these categories -- along with independent profiles of these products -- in The Search & Information Access Report.

Platform Vendors

After various mergers, there are just three, each with multidimensional information management and access technology platforms. The platform vendors offer customers comprehensive (read: complex) frameworks on which search applications can be constructed.

• Endeca - Endeca Information Access Platform
  - HQ: Cambridge, MA, US -- Mentions: 14
• Microsoft - FAST ESP
  - HQ: Redmond, WA, USA -- Mentions: 39
• Autonomy - IDOL Server
  - HQ: San Francisco, CA, USA & Cambridge, UK -- Mentions: 31

Infrastructure Vendors

These are names you recognize, and your enterprise probably licenses products from them. Each wants to "own" the information management domain at their major customers, and each now recognizes the importance of search in that strategy.

• SAP - NetWeaver Enterprise Search
  - HQ: Walldorf, Germany -- Mentions: 8
• Open Text - Discovery Server
  - HQ: Waterloo, Canada -- Mentions: 5
• Microsoft - Search Server 2008
  - HQ: Redmond, WA, USA -- Mentions: 33
• IBM - OmniFind Enterprise Edition
  - HQ: White Plains, NY, USA -- Mentions: 12
• Oracle - Secure Enterprise Search 10g
  - HQ: Redwood Shores, CA, USA -- Mentions: 11

Specialized Search Vendors

A plethora of specialized suppliers have emerged to fulfill more specific needs, and some have now grown into large, thriving companies. With some exceptions, they tend to be higher priced and implementations can range from $50 - 250k or more.

• Omniture - SiteSearch
  - HQ: Orem, UT, US -- Mentions: 4
• Vivisimo - Vivisimo Velocity
  - HQ: Pittsburgh, PA, US -- Mentions: 7
• Recommind - Mindserver Enterprise Search
  - HQ: San Francisco, CA, USA -- Mentions: 4
• Exalead - CloudView
  - HQ: Paris, FR -- Mentions: 8
• Sinequa - Sinequa CS
  - HQ: Paris, France -- Mentions: 4
• Apache Project - Lucene
  - HQ: Global project -- Mentions: 13
• dtSearch - dtSearch
  - HQ: Bethesda, MD, US -- Mentions: 3

Turnkey Search

If you don't want the hassle and expense of installing and tuning a high-end search system, you can always turn to a hosted ("SaaS") solution, or a search "appliance" that you plug into your network.

• Google - Google Search Appliance
  - HQ: Mountain View, CA, US -- Mentions: 55
• Thunderstone - Thunderstone Search Appliance
  - HQ: Cleveland, OH, US -- Mentions: 6

Basic Search Vendors

Do you really need a lot of fancy search bells and whistles? Maybe not, and in fact, they could just get in the way, especially for simple Website or SharePoint search. Those are the scenarios these vendors target.

• Coveo - Coveo G2B
  - HQ: Quebec, Canada -- Mentions: 10
• ISYS - ISYS Search Suite
  - HQ: Sydney, Australia -- Mentions: 10
• SurfRay - MondoSearch
  - HQ: Copenhagen, Denmark -- Mentions: 11

Emerging and Niche Products

These vendors are either niche or new. It will be interesting to see how newcomers and niche vendors fare in today’s turbulent economy.

• Attivio - AIE
  - HQ: Newtonville, MA, US -- Mentions: 1
• Q-go - Customer Information Management
  - HQ: Amsterdam -- Mentions: 1
• Dieselpoint - Dieselpoint
  - HQ: Chicago, IL, US -- Mentions: 1

Wondering how we compile these lists? Review our criteria.