Could IBM Shake up the Search Engine World?

overshoot writes "IBM has just tossed a bucket of chum into the whole search showdown, which Microsoft thought was between them and Google. Apparently, IBM Research has developed a 'key facts' search technology (as distinct from 'key words') over the last several years. Now they're going public with it -- by putting it on SourceForge under an OSS license!" (According to the article, it's expected to show up on SourceForge by the end of this year, not immediately.)

Re:Yay.

[b0r1s]

Size of index, speed (requiring hardware, content nodes, etc), tuning (algorithms may be alike, but small tuning makes all the difference with the SEO spam going around), and anti-abuse (worms searching for phpBB urls are bad, m-kay) will keep this from being a 'free perfect search for everyone' tool.

not a web search engine

[sled]

From TFA: "While simple but powerful keyword searches have revolutionized how Internet users locate and retrieve information, IBM is looking to transform how office workers sift through the piles of data stored inside organizations."

The posting implies that IBM is entering into competition with MS and Google. I saw no indication that IBM intends to launch a web search engine.

Finally some competition

[Device666]

Now I think Microsoft has a big problem... Now they really should start becoming innovative... And google finally could have a nice open source competitor. This will increase innovation in giant leaps and ofcourse would make it hard for microsoft ever to beat Google.. This will be a worthy test of the power of open source!!!

what about yahoo!?

[dezmund]

MSN thought it was between them and google?
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/cmp/20050 722/tc_cmp/166401634 [yahoo.com]
sorry bill, but if anything its between yahoo (22% share of all searches) and google (47%).

Not to mention most of those MSN searches (12%) are from IE users who don't know how to change their browser's start page.

Big Blue Marbles

[Doc Ruby]

So Google and MS will incorporate the "key facts" code into their products. That won't exactly shake up the search engine world. It will (possibly) improve it for everyone, and maybe (if "key facts" works better than their proprietary "key words" functions) even let another engine compete in their category. The latter might shake something up. But, like every other mass human activity, this competition is fought over brand names. Google clevery established a terrific brand, through careful simplicity and consistency in graphic and info design. This IBM release would merely grant more substance to the existing brands, and some substance to any newly emerging one. Which new brand would have to establish its own competitive value, largely through style.

IBM's move does have the power to shake up the open/proprietary software jihad underway. If Microsoft used their open code, it would be hard for MS to claim that open source is inherently bad, or proprietary code is inherently superior. Google would demonstrate the same argument, but no one complains about Google's code remaining proprietary, because it mainly runs on their servers, which few people yet demand should be opened to outsiders. These are the kind of subtle strategic moves that let IBM continue to pull the strings of the entire industry. Success that generates more business and flexibility for IBM, in the mixed open/proprietary space it's carving for itself, will also demonstrate another powerful idea. American corporations can achieve market influence through strategic deployment of basic R&D. Not just through proprietary products, but also through manipulation of competitors who adopt open tech they create.

All in all, this looks like a smart move by IBM. Let's hope 1> this rumor is true; 2> the tech is really good; and 3> we're not already too far gone down the entrenched lines between our corporate jihadis to get the benefit of the mutual cooperation that this tech could enable, to great mutual benefit.

Re:Spotlight!

[FLAGGR]

Damnit, are you talking about spotlight in Tiger? There's a huge goddamn difference between a desktop indexing search and an internet search engine. My god. The scale is like, so insanly different (and if the Apple PR has said anything about it being scallable to the likes of an internet search, then I'm selling my mac, NOW) How does this compare to spotlight? How does an apple compare to an orange? How does the color red compare to the number 7.623? How does 6 in the afternoon compare to the goatse man?

Re:Finally some competition

[Donny Smith]

> Now I think Microsoft has a big problem...

How's that?
This software has 0% market share (and that was with all the IBM's sales, support and development efforts).
They couldn't make a dent in the market (why do you think they're releasing it to open source if it's so good)?

>And google finally could have a nice open source competitor.

I don't think so. Those search engine guys are mean mother fuckers - thousands and thousands of full-time engineers working on solely one task - imporoving their search products/services.
On the other hand, IBM tosses out a semi-working product to the loosely connected community to debug.
My guess is that they simply realized they're unable to compete so now they just hope to prop up DB2 or WebSphere sales.

Come on, have you ever tried to find anything on IBM's own site? It's laughable - they can't make it work on their own fucking web site!
When was the last time you heard about their open source ViaVoice (or whatever that thing they released to open source few years ago was)?

>This will increase innovation in giant leaps and ofcourse would make it hard for microsoft ever to beat Google.

Oh - the open source search software will finally push Google to innovate, which in turn will leave MS in dust.
Until that happens (and while Yahoo indexes 2.5 times more docs than Google), Google's engineers will be on collective vacation, taking it easy while allowing this open source search engine to get its shit together.