Enterprise search treads water

The market may have gone off the boil, but a fundamental split is emerging

The enterprise search, or information access, market continues to evolve despite the onset of recession. Even though many of the key players have been digesting and assimilating technology acquisitions or putting the brakes on the development cycles of their own products, there is still plenty of activity for information professionals to keep their eyes on.

Few industries are recession-proof, but enterprise search seems to have a better chance than many of weathering the storm. A large number of search vendors reported record profits at the end of 2008, and, according to estimates by analyst firm IDC, the revenue for the search and discovery market in 2008 was $2.2bn, which includes licence and maintenance fees but not services.

Growth falls back

According to IDC analyst Susan Feldman, this year the market is unlikely to match the 22% growth that it notched up last year.

“Strong growth continued into the first quarter of 2009, but we have seen companies delaying orders – not cancellations, but delays,” she explained. “So we’ll see a significant downturn in Q2 and Q3, with conservative growth estimated at 9% for 2009.”

Feldman said over the last few years many customers had changed their perception of search. They no longer saw it as a technology that integrates disparate systems (by putting a search layer over the top of them) but as “the next great computing platform”. She said this new paradigm would lead to the convergence of information access, document and content management, business intelligence and other capabilities to provide the ability to access and make sense of the overwhelming amount of structured and unstructured data residing in multiple internal and external sources.

However, most analysts believe that customers are likely to hold back on any major new investments until the economic situation improves, despite the recognition among many businesses that effective information access can be a valuable cost-cutting aid, and help users meet e-discovery and other compliance requirements.

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Source: pcw.co.uk
By: James Atkin