This post was written by Daniel Halloway
Microsoft has done better, with the all-new Windows Desktop Search 3 (WDS) built upon the same engine as Instant Search in Outlook 2007. Search refinement is better than Google, although it doesn’t provide the best levels of instant result information. Where WDS does score is in performance: it’s quick to index and return results, and system resource use is low too. We also like the attention to detail, such as when laptop battery life drops to 25%, the indexing stops to save power, and that the indexer runs as a system service.
Yahoo Desktop Search lets you fine-tune indexing by setting idle time-outs ranging from 15 to 240 minutes, although a simple throttling algorithm would be preferable. Having to download an extension filter pack to index all 300 file types is bizarre in this broadband age as well. The default double-paned interface looks a little messy but, once you configure it to your taste, it becomes hugely usable. It even lets you set different layouts for every file type, ensuring you always get the view you want.
Exalead has dared to be different with its One:Desktop product, most noticeably with the interface. Document previews show near-perfect formatting and, by moving the filtering and refinement to the sidebar, Exalead has created room for the presentation to dynamically adapt to the content of current search results. The search technology is good as well, with options including Boolean, phonetic, forced stemming and even “approximation” that allows for letter substitutions in keywords. But high system resource usage, slow indexing and an index limit of 100,000 documents spoils this utility.
Siderean Seamark Navigator lets you establish roles and then limited results based on a user’s authorization. Not only does this allow you to reference certain pages in future searches, but it helps in building communities within your organization. For instance, experts within a department could tag certain documents and then those results would be elevated in results for anyone in a certain role. For large enterprises with the bulk of information in databases, Siderean Seamark Navigator 4.0 should be a very good fit, because structured information is processed — and then presented for searching — with relative ease.
OpenPipeline is an initiative proposed by search engine company Dieselpoint to begin development of standards in the enterprise and customer facing search marketplace. Dieselpoint Search is a powerful product, and has many ‘Enterprise Search 2.0′ capabilities designed in from the start. For example, it has a web-based control panel for business and IT managers, and provides great support for features like dynamic facets, activity reporting, and powerful data crawling capabilities. It has an elegant and clean interface which is extremely scalable. Dieselpoint Search integrates OpenPipeline for crawling, parsing, analyzing, and routing documents.
Recommind has launched a version of its enterprise search product designed to boost the relevancy of searches and find internal and external documents with a single query. MindServer Search 6.0 could help improve relevancy by offering the ability to screen results by history, author, length, or other specific factors found in the metadata. The new version also lets users prioritise ‘Best Bets’, or preselected files linked to particular queries, as well as files created by the user or those close to that user, so that these documents appear higher in the results list.