The recent launch of Cuil was accompanied by a blaze of publicity and PR posturing, and the initial response seemed to suggest the site could grow to be a potential rival to Google.  However, the search engine’s capabilities are spectacularly failing to live up to the hype, and Google’s dominance in the consumer internet search space looks set to remain untouched.  

What this really highlights is not necessarily that Google is the best option, but that it’s essential to look beyond the marketing hype when choosing the best technology to suit your needs.  This not only applies to consumer technology, but also to business applications where the wrong choice can have severe repercussions. 

This is especially true when it comes to enterprise search – the search engine requirements within a business differ significantly to those required when searching the internet for entertainment and diversion as a consumer.  More specifically, the lottery of keyword search and a revenue-driven advertisement-based approach will never return the most relevant set of results.  The upshot is that staff won’t be able to find what they need when they need it, wasting valuable time and resources, and making the average employee’s life much more complicated than necessary.  Despite this, there is a danger that organisations won’t recognise these drawbacks and will simply opt for the brand they recognise or the one they have heard the most about.

When you consider how much data the average business is now storing and how this information is taking on many different forms – for example email, IM, wikis and blogs – all of which is stored in different locations, this is worrying.  And, with many firms now recognising that information is their most valuable asset, it is crucial to provide employees with the ability to quickly find the most relevant piece of data no matter what its form is or where it is stored.  Only by achieving this can businesses ensure their information works to their advantage.

One of the major difficulties in choosing the right option stems from the fact that many consumer search brands are now trying to make their way into the enterprise market with solutions that attempt to woo business users, but in reality offer a paucity of ‘enterprise’ search features.  All organisations need to watch out and make sure they fully consider their requirements rather than being influenced by established consumer brands such as Google or hype for products such as Cuil, that may have greater brand recognition, but that ultimately rely on simplistic technology that might not be up to the business task.

Simon Price is UK director of Recommind

http://www.recommind.com/