Predictions

A new year, and a chance to think about what might happen in the world of enterprise search over the next twelve months. I’ll make a stab at some predictions:

1. Price cuts – possibly driven by even harsher competition between Google and Microsoft FAST, I can see prices coming down for packaged enterprise search. Autonomy will probably raise theirs
2. Real time search matures – not just Twitter or Facebook, but real time data from many sources being part of enterprise search results
3. More geolocation-aware search – in the U.K. at least, we’re seeing signs that the source data is finally being freed up, which should make it a lot simpler and cheaper to build location-aware solutions
4. A few less second-tier players in the market – it’s still difficult out there, I’m afraid not every company will survive the next year.

You’re welcome to take any of these with a generous pinch of salt!