Google certainly want’s you to believe this, judging on a post by Google’s Rodrigo Vaca :
… Last week’s developments in the enterprise search market are sure to bring confusion and uncertainty to many customers. Customers of existing enterprise search solutions will start wondering about the future of the investment they made in the past. Is their product still going to be developed and improved? What about support for a diverse enterprise IT landscape? How long before they’re asked to do a painful -and costly- migration? …
This obviously refers to the announcement of Microsoft to acquire Fast. Google apparently wants Fast customers to believe that there’s no future developments and that current Microsoft Enterprise Search solutions don’t operate in a diverse enterprise IT landscape … well they do.
And let’s face it Google Enterprise Search does not provide the capabilities Fast Search solutions provide, so exactly how does Google envision a switch to Google’s platform, because there’s simply no way they can fill the holes.
Microsoft acquired Fast because of the fact that it compliments its Enterprise Search capabilities and not with the intent to move clients over in any form …
… On the other side, customers of some content management systems just realized that an enterprise search “feature” – or an “express” product, for that matter – is just not enough. Good enterprise search requires a dedicated, specialized system that is secure, returns relevant results quickly, and most importantly, is able to find all content throughout the enterprise, regardless where it is located. …
Again a little (intended?)confusion about Microsoft’s solutions in Enterprise Search. Maybe some external independent research might not hurt : Burton Group, Forrester, Forrester, Gartner.
Google is tempting you to make a fast switch. I would recommend, think first and ask Microsoft to inform you about its Search strategy and solutions (and not trust the competition to do this for you ;-)) and then make a sound decision …
