Exalead geselecteerd als zoekplatform voor La Bibliotheque Nationale de France

Exalead timmert nog steeds aan de weg als leverancier van Search technology. Sinds de overname door Dassault Systems is de toekomst van Exalead als merk onzeker.

Vorig jaar kon Exalead Nederland nog niets zeggen over de toekomst vanwege de overname, maar door deze grote opdracht laat Exalead zien dat ze het product ook apart staande kunnen houden.

Exalead staat bekend als de leverancier van “Search based applications”. Het gaat daarbij niet zozeer om het leveren van een stand-alone zoekoplossing, maar het integreren met bestaande applicaties om zodoende optimaal te integreren met bedrijfsprocessen.

Bron: http://sg.news.yahoo.com/bc-dassault-systemes-20110315-230027-652.html

Query-time JOIN operator

Everyone who is active in the information access business knows that it is sometimes very necessary to combine the data from two resultsets into one.

Example:
The main search focusses on finding information from within a document. A document can have relations with many other datatype like geographical data like authors. Authors can have metadata themselves, like age, hobbies etc.

Now let say you want to find documents that contain the keyword "snow" and that are written by authors that have the hobby "skydiving", or you want to show the hobby of the author of a book in the result list.

For this to be searched in a search engine that doesn't have the possibility to combine the two types of information, you have two options:
1. to make this kind of search the data has to be flattened. With this we mean that all the information that can be related to a document must be indexed along with that document. This means that the fact that author X has the hobby skydiving, this must be stored with every instance where the author is X, while we already know this. This can lead to a dramatic expanding index.
2. If you want to show information from another recordset, then you have to make 1 extra query for each result in your main resultset (documents and authors) to find the hobby of an author.

In this day and age we are trying to make information more accessible and usefull by showing relations that search results have with other types of information so that users get more insight.
Especially within BI applications this functionality is needed because the type of systems that have to be connected is very divers and the data can not always be flattened for reasons of diversity or just because this would mean that lot's of information has to be duplicated...

The query-time JOIN function is very powerfull to make this possible.

Not very many search vendors have this function in there product. I know that Attivio and Exalead are capable of doing this.

Google and making multimedia searchable

Today I saw the announcement "Google adds automatic captions to YouTube". I really like this addition to the possibilities of Youtube.

But as we all know Google as a gigantic eposure in all thing they do.

This feature seems a neat thing that makes it easier for consumers to upload there video's to Youtube regardless of language and eliminating the need for adding manual captions or descriptions to there video's: Google converts the speech to text automaticaly...

As i am more involved in information access and enterprise search I place this news in another context: The possibility of making video and audio searchable.

Within the enterprise this issue of making video and audio searchable is getting more attention. Autonomy as well as Exalead are also focussing on this part of enterprise search.

To see the capabilities of Exalead you can visit their labs on http://labs.exalead.com/experiments/voxalead.html.

Autonomy also is very active on the market of media indexing. They have solutions like Virage that to the same thing. I find it very disapointing that Autonomy has no demo of their capabilities.

Bottom line?
Google is doing the same thing as the large search technology providers. The "public" will say that Google is "ahead of the pack". The advantage that Google has is a large community that follows everything that they do and spread the word fast.
Other search providers like Autonomy and Exalead can do and are doing the same thing as Google is doing now (and are maybe better), but are not in the position to reach the audience that Google can.

Tactical choices for a FAST ESP / Sharepoint investment

A smart analysis of possibilities and choices you have when faced with an upgrade or change in requirements regarding your "old" Fast ESP (OEM) environment. The relationship with Sharepoint is an interesting one.

From: http://arnoldit.com/wordpress/2009/10/19/reflections-on-sharepoint-and-search/

What can customers in a SharePoint environment do with a Fast ESP legacy system? I know what I would do. I would ask that the Microsoft SharePoint engineers find a certified third party who can hook the Fast ESP system into the SharePoint 10 system once these products become available in November 2009. If these experts cannot do the job within the time and budget limits of the organization, I would get a newer system. I know I would look at high profile modern systems such as Exalead’s, and I would check out relative newcomers like Gaviri. In fact, I would do some proofs of concept and pick the best system for my needs. I know I would not consider the older systems that are on the market; for example, the BASIS technology or the Bayesian systems. I want 64 bit, smart systems, not the pains of the past.

I find it very interesting how Stephen Arnold favours the technology of Exalead over the "old" players on the market like Recommind and Autonomy that have based their "magic" on Bayesion probabilistic pattern-recognition.