Business Users Gain Control of Search

August 12, 2003

Ultraseek 5.1 is the first upgrade of this enterprise search software since Verity (www.verity.com), Sunnyvale, CA, bought Inktomi in December. The 5.1 upgrade sports new features for business managers, administrators and end users.

A new layout manager lets business users and other nontechnical personnel choose how they want search results to look: what colors to display, whether spell check should be turned on, whether or not the URL and summary should appear, how many search results per page — features that were previously controlled exclusively by IS departments.

"We're trying to provide ease of use for the business user so that the IT department doesn't have to get involved," explains Scott Whitney, Verity's director of product management. "We think of it as deputized administration."

A second new feature offers reporting and analytics. "Customers like www.irs.gov have wanted to look at things like which queries have dead ends [so they can redirect users to a more fruitful query], what are the top documents people are clicking on, and what are the queries that make those documents popular," Whitney explains. The most popular documents might get moved to a more prominent spot on the home page.

Ultraseek 5.1 also offers title extraction for those times when an author writes a document but doesn't populate the title field. Ultraseek will search for and pull up the most likely file name.

Ultraseek ranges in price from $10,000 for a relatively small installation up to $100,000, but existing customers on maintenance pay no incremental cost for these enhancements.

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