Archive for February, 2010

01: Ben Franklin and the Evolution of Enterprise Search

Posted by Dave Haucke on February 19th, 2010

Given how prolific he was, Ben Franklin could have very easily invented enterprise search in his day. That is, if he hadn’t been so busy with everything else. And even though he had an incredible mind, not even he could have fully appreciated what a game-changer electricity would be. Today, we only consciously acknowledge electricity when we have none; otherwise it’s primarily an afterthought, despite the fact that harnessing and generating this power remains one of humankind’s greatest achievements.

Reflecting on this brought to mind a conversation I had with Sue Feldman of IDC some years ago. During our discussion, she made a statement to the effect of, “Some day, search will be analogous to electricity. When you turn on a light, you don’t think about electricity; you just focus on the fact that something has been illuminated for you.” Perhaps others have viewed search in a similar fashion, but it’s an analogy that made perfect sense at the time and is even more fitting today.

While I can’t speak for the entire industry, the types of deals ISYS has been doing in recent months are more and more inline with this analogy. Whether we’re talking about embedded search, or search as an application, slowly but surely search appears to be moving away from just a blank search box and into a world where search is primarily an enabling technology. In that sense, enterprise search is neither the destination nor the journey … it’s merely the light that enables you to proceed with whatever it is you were doing in the first place.