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3 - The search business

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 June 2018

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Summary

In this chapter:

How big is the search market?

■ The impact of Google, Microsoft and IBM

■ What is a search appliance?

■ The benefits of a hosted search application

■ Profiles of over 50 search vendors

The market for search

The challenge for the software industry is to develop robust and effective software products based on the principles set out in Chapter 2. Until the launch of the CMS Watch Enterprise Search Report the search business was very poorly documented and understood, unless the organization subscribed to services from companies such as Gartner, IDC and Forrester. The Enterprise Search Report was written by Steve Arnold and contains detailed evaluations of around 30 search products. The level of detail in the report, both on the basic technology of search and in the features of the main search engine applications, is substantial and is essential reading.

The search business is very fragmented, and compared to other software markets not very large in sales of standalone search products. In March 2006 the Gartner Group estimated that sales of new search software licences would total just under $370 million. The total revenues of the search software vendors is probably around twice this amount thanks to the support, maintenance and upgrade fees charged to existing customers, so that the total market value is perhaps around $700 million. Autonomy (including revenues from Verity) probably accounts for around 45% of this revenue, and Fast Search and Google for a further 20%. These figures can be no more than estimates, as many of the companies profiled below are privately owned and disclose little or no financial information. For example, one major search vendor announced in November 2006 that it had a 109% year-on-year revenue growth in the third quarter. This is certainly impressive, but no mention was made about the profitability of the company.

Over the last couple of years there have been some acquisitions in the industry, but only the Autonomy/Verity deal involved two quoted companies. Triple Hop was acquired by Oracle in September 2005, and a couple of months later IBM bought iPhrase, in both cases for undisclosed amounts.

Type
Chapter
Information
Making Search Work
Implementing web, intranet and enterprise search
, pp. 31 - 40
Publisher: Facet
Print publication year: 2007

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