Authored by Nick Patience and Katey Wood, 451 Group
Attivio has the engineering pedigree to be a worthy FAST successor, now that FAST is part of Microsoft – indeed, it claims good replacement business in the OEM markets of both FAST and Autonomy. New capabilities in version 1.5 open up even more use cases for the product, including voice-of-the-customer and market research applications, publishing industry tools and e-discovery. But while other search companies are expanding into vertical search-based applications, Attivio has committed itself to not competing with its partners. This could be a wise move since much of the rest of the space continues to become more specialized. The firm's next goal is to replace databases; higher availability, better backup, improved security and a new SQL module will gird the platform for this, and Attivio has found several early adopters willing to make the leap. FAST had a similar aim with its Adaptive Information Warehouse a few years ago – could it be an idea whose time has come? |
