Considerations of Microsoft’s new Enterprise Search vs UC Logic’s Sysero KM solution

 

In December 2007 Microsoft launched its new enterprise search product, Search Server 2008 (http://www.microsoft.com/enterprisesearch/serverproducts/searchserver/default.aspx).  This powerful product is aimed at organisations implementing SharePoint to give them a search engine that can search Sharepoint content as well as file and web based sources.  It also includes the ability to federate across other search engines from within SharePoint.

Obviously this application is of interest to law firms for use on Knowledge Management implementations.  The following list is designed to highlight the benefits of working with UC Logic and their Sysero product over the Microsoft Offering.  It is written from the perspective of UC Logic and is not designed to be an independent report.

Vendor Profiles

Microsoft develops package applications which they supply either directly or through resellers.  They are not specifically a supplier to the legal market nor will they customise their application to suite a client.  UC Logic is a specialist Document and Knowledge Management supplier in the UK legal market and integrates the conceptSearching engine as part of their Sysero Legal KM System.  UC Logic have many years domain experience of the legal market and work with conceptSearching to develop features that match the requirements of law firms.  UC Logic will, as part of their standard supply agreement, develop customisations and integrations unique to each firm giving both a tailored solution and competitive advantage.

Solution Profiles

Search Server 2008 is a web based search application which works within Sharepoint 2007 and includes the ability to federate against other search engines such as Live.com.  Sysero is a Knowledge Management solution which also works from with SharePoint 2007 and includes tools to build and manage a Knowledge Library including submission from with Word with auto classification, summarisation and citation checking (from Feb 2008); submission approval workflows; proven Know Who features, and out of the box federated integration with most major legal information suppliers and DM Systems.

Feature Analysis

Feature	Microsoft Search Server	UC Logic Sysero
Relevancy Ranking:	Uses a Boolean algorithm based on word frequency and designed for very high volume (50 million documents +)	Sysero uses conceptSearching which was designed as a high end research engine to overcome the scattergun approach of Boolean based search engines
DMS Integration with security model	Needs to be built and maintained by a third party	Out of the box and proven
Metadata Crawling	Needs to be built and maintained by a third party	Direct support by UC Logic
Related Topics and Controlled Vocabulary	No	Out of the box and proven
Know Who	Needs to be built and maintained by a third party	Direct support by UC Logic
Knowledge Library Submission	No	Included
Knowledge Workflows	No	Included
Taxonomy Support	No	Included
Support & Maintenance	Needs to be built and maintained by a third party	Direct support by UC Logic
Tabbed UI & Ajax	No	The basis of the Sysero search interface.  This one feature provides the smooth operation of the search interface with users not being affected by slow federated search sources
Search biasing	Needs to be built and maintained by a third party	DMS Folder biasing directly support by UC Logic

Conclusion

Search Server 2008 is a search application with federated search capabilities but it is not a KM Solution.  As an intranet search engine or single department search application, Search Server is excellent. If a firm were to implement Search Server as a KM application however, they would need to build and maintain the kind of KM functionality already built into Sysero, and have an in-depth technical understanding and on-going relationship with information suppliers such as Thompson and LexisNexis.