RE: Internal site search applications?

Hi Jon

We don’t have any direct experience ourselves (though we too are currently looking at our own site search, largely as it is too slow...) but we have looked at the vendor market place. Our own list of ’players’ in this space is as follows:

• Endeca - http://endeca.com/
• EasyAsk - http://www.easyask.com
• Fredhopper - http://www.fredhopper.com/
• Verity - http://www.verity.com
• Autonomy - http://www.autonomy.com/
• Google - http://www.google.com/enterprise/
• Fast - http://www.fastsearch.com/en/
• APR Smartlogik - http://www.aprsmartlogik.com/solutions/
• Convera - http://www.convera.com/
• ISYS - http://www.isys-search.com/
• Entopia - http://www.entopia.com/solutions/search/index.html
• Torchbox - http://www.torchbox.co.uk/ (open source solution)
• Atomz - http://www.atomz.com/ 

We did recently try to arrange one of our Supplier Showcase events to bring some of these players together but unfortunately we couldn’t get enough of them interested. Which is a shame as we’ve had plenty of our large corporate members interested in just such an event. Part of the problem is that few of the above actually have that strong a commitment to the UK market at the moment.

Another interesting develoment with regards Site Search is that some of the players are teaming up with web analytics companies in order to seamlessly integrate the two applications - for example WebSideStory’s purchase of Atomz (see http://www.websidestory.com/news-events/press/release.html?id=244) or Endeca partnering with Coremetrix (http://endeca.com/partners/partner_directory.html#technology).

Indeed, I was discussing the above approach yesterday with one large retailer who has a "green field" opportunity to build the ideal web platform from scratch. Of course, we’d all like things to be ’seamless’ and ’integrated’ - particularly all our data. So the question is do you go for a single, integrated "suite" (BroadVision style) or do you get best-of-breed for each element and stitch them together?

My view, increasingly, is that the ’best of breed stitched together’ approach is the right one. Particularly now that data exchange standards are more established so ’seamless integration’ is more of a reality than just sales speak. I think it makes eminent sense that the best of breed vendors should partner to present a complete solution.

Coremetrics are perhaps most interesting in this regard. Have a look at their partners at http://www.coremetrics.com/partners/partner_directory.html - there are e-mail specialists, affiliate marketing specialists, search specialists, content management, ad serving, rich media... Could make for quite a compellling offering if those components really can be deployed as an integrated platform...

Ashley