FAST, Verity bolster enterprise search

Fast Search & Transfer (FAST) and Verity are strengthening their respective search offerings to help enterprises make the most of data.

This week Verity will unveil an updated version of its Ultraseek enterprise search software, featuring a new Web services interface for both .Net and J2EE platforms. The Ultraseek 5.2 release can communicate via WSDL and HTTP to other applications and systems.

The Web services link decreases integration time, said Scott Whitney, director of product management at Verity. “With Web services … it cuts the time in half to integrate search into applications,” he said.

FAST released its ESP (Enterprise Search Platform) last week, designed to provide a single point of access to all enterprise information regardless of data format, structure, or location. “On top of [finding] the information, the analysis of the information is what is important,” said John Rueter, vice president of global marketing at FAST. “ESP is a marriage of data mining and text mining.”

Through J2EE-, .Net-, and HTTP-based connector technologies, FAST ESP crawls structured and unstructured data in global databases, intranets, or on the Web. The ESP platform fuels search derivative applications, which focus on specific business problems, such as site search, compliance and e-commerce.

“The full power of search will not be involved in that little search button,” said Rob Lancaster, analyst at The Yankee Group. “It will be about back-end processes that the user never sees.”