Yahoo & IBM launch free competitor to Google Mini

By Vivek | December 13th, 2006 at 02:05 pm ET         

Yahoo in partnership with IBM today launched IBM OmniFind Yahoo! Edition, which is a enterprise search product. The product is targeted mainly at SMBs and can be downloaded for free from the IBM web site. The search product which uses Lucene at its core instead of a proprietary IBM technology, has a capacity to index up to 500,000 documents and over 200 file types in 30 different languages. Supported operating systems include 32 bit Red Hat and Suse Enterprise Linux systems, and 32 bit Windows XP and 2003 server. IBM-Yahoo appliance does offer customization in terms of interface, and other features like ability to create features links. I am not sure how it compares to the Google Mini Appliance in terms of customization, document security, and access.

Comparing OmniFind with Google Mini in terms of cost, there is a difference in the initial investment required but is offset by the maintenance costs. As I mentioned before, OmniFind is free to download and install, while Google Mini costs $8995 for indexing 300,000 documents. But the maintenance for OmniFind is priced at $1999/year offered by IBM, while companies need to start paying Google $995/year for support from the second year. So over a longer period of time, like 5 years, I don’t see that big of an cost advantage in using OmniFind.

Features and pricing aside, I think Google Mini will scale better over time in terms of other integrated Google applications that will potentially be rolled-out next year. After Google launches Docs and Spreadsheets for enterprises, big to small enterprise products including MS Office, Documentum, FileNet, and OmniFind will have to run for cover. More on that some other time.

Links:
IBM OmniFind Yahoo! Edition