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Could IBM Shake up the Search Engine World?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the slow-approach-then-wham-wham-wham dept.

overshoot writes "IBM has just tossed a bucket of chum into the whole search showdown, which Microsoft thought was between them and Google. Apparently, IBM Research has developed a 'key facts' search technology (as distinct from 'key words') over the last several years. Now they're going public with it -- by putting it on SourceForge under an OSS license!" (According to the article, it's expected to show up on SourceForge by the end of this year, not immediately.)

35 of 193 comments (clear)

  1. Slow down IBM ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    The search bar on your site barely works as it is.

  2. SourceForge proposal... by RoadkillBunny · · Score: 2, Funny

    It will be funny if sf.net denies them. But then, I guess they got a deal with them already.

    --
    Cheers,
    RoadkillBunny
  3. ok but by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'll stick to letting Google know every single detail of my life thanks.

  4. Yay. by Sinryc · · Score: 4, Funny

    Yay, now EVERYONE can make their own Search Engine and say how they are SO much better then everyone elses!

    --
    Yay, I have a sig.
    1. Re:Yay. by TheOtherAgentM · · Score: 2, Funny

      I plan to make mine far inferior, but drive people to use my search engine with spyware.

    2. Re:Yay. by b0r1s · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Size of index, speed (requiring hardware, content nodes, etc), tuning (algorithms may be alike, but small tuning makes all the difference with the SEO spam going around), and anti-abuse (worms searching for phpBB urls are bad, m-kay) will keep this from being a 'free perfect search for everyone' tool.

      --
      Mooniacs for iOS and Android
    3. Re:Yay. by gstoddart · · Score: 4, Interesting
      Yay, now EVERYONE can make their own Search Engine and say how they are SO much better then everyone elses!

      Well, let's just hope it becomes one big, honkin' FOSS project.

      Search technology is huge. Having it available which apparently can index conceptual links as opposed to literal links is astounding.

      I say smart move on IBM's side. Get all the publicity of opening up really cool tech to the open-source community, then proceed to make a gazillion dollars in professional services gigs, and get the added benefit of everyone making your tech better because it's useful.

      Provided this isn't steamingly fresh technology (unlikely from IBM realy) they should see some interest in this.

      I for one, can imagine a nice bunch of associative content, and am wondering how much resources this might require to run on a machine and I'm going to go RTFA. =)
      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  5. http://almaden.ibm.com/cs/crawler by Urgo · · Score: 5, Informative

    wfp2.almaden.ibm.com - - [08/Aug/2005:15:48:34 -0400] "GET /robots.txt HTTP/1.0" 200 69 "-" "http://www.almaden.ibm.com/cs/crawler [fc7]"
    wfp2.almaden.ibm.com - - [08/Aug/2005:15:48:38 -0400] "GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 41317 "-" "http://www.almaden.ibm.com/cs/crawler [fc7]"

    I've been getting once a day connections on my server from ibm for quite some time now (a year or so). Doesn't surprise me in the least. :)

    --
    Belive in Technology and AMAZE yourself. -- RIP ZDTV/TechTV
    1. Re:http://almaden.ibm.com/cs/crawler by johnnytv · · Score: 2, Funny

      /usr/local/bin/laden

      --
      Install, Then Run
  6. not a web search engine by sled · · Score: 5, Insightful

    From TFA: "While simple but powerful keyword searches have revolutionized how Internet users locate and retrieve information, IBM is looking to transform how office workers sift through the piles of data stored inside organizations."

    The posting implies that IBM is entering into competition with MS and Google. I saw no indication that IBM intends to launch a web search engine.

    1. Re:not a web search engine by b0r1s · · Score: 3, Informative

      The Google appliance is marketed (if not in the online docs, at least in person) as an enterprise tool for organizations to search their internal data. While this ceratinly isn't their primary revenue stream, this tool would in fact compete with that aspect of Google's business.

      --
      Mooniacs for iOS and Android
  7. Finally some competition by Device666 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Now I think Microsoft has a big problem... Now they really should start becoming innovative... And google finally could have a nice open source competitor. This will increase innovation in giant leaps and ofcourse would make it hard for microsoft ever to beat Google.. This will be a worthy test of the power of open source!!!

    1. Re:Finally some competition by Donny+Smith · · Score: 2, Insightful

      > Now I think Microsoft has a big problem...

      How's that?
      This software has 0% market share (and that was with all the IBM's sales, support and development efforts).
      They couldn't make a dent in the market (why do you think they're releasing it to open source if it's so good)?

      >And google finally could have a nice open source competitor.

      I don't think so. Those search engine guys are mean mother fuckers - thousands and thousands of full-time engineers working on solely one task - imporoving their search products/services.
      On the other hand, IBM tosses out a semi-working product to the loosely connected community to debug.
      My guess is that they simply realized they're unable to compete so now they just hope to prop up DB2 or WebSphere sales.

      Come on, have you ever tried to find anything on IBM's own site? It's laughable - they can't make it work on their own fucking web site!
      When was the last time you heard about their open source ViaVoice (or whatever that thing they released to open source few years ago was)?

      >This will increase innovation in giant leaps and ofcourse would make it hard for microsoft ever to beat Google.

      Oh - the open source search software will finally push Google to innovate, which in turn will leave MS in dust.
      Until that happens (and while Yahoo indexes 2.5 times more docs than Google), Google's engineers will be on collective vacation, taking it easy while allowing this open source search engine to get its shit together.

  8. IBM has so much unpublished advanced research by snotclot · · Score: 2, Interesting

    IBM is pretty crazy when it comes to advanced research in any of its fields.

    I have heard of stories from researchers there that IBM has its own terminology for alot of technical EE/CS stuff, as they discovered it way before the world did but were so secretive they didn't publish any of it.

    I'm not surprised if IBM has enough tech in search to seriously knock down Google!

    This OSS thing comes as a surprise, as it contradicts their secretiveness about their research.

  9. chum and guns by Burz · · Score: 4, Funny

    a bucket of chum into the whole search showdown,

    This is an awful mixed metaphor. How does Slashdot expect its readers to navigate the treacherous IT seas with such poorly-seasoned and half-baked information?

    1. Re:chum and guns by overshoot · · Score: 5, Funny
      This is an awful mixed metaphor. How does Slashdot expect its readers to navigate the treacherous IT seas with such poorly-seasoned and half-baked information?

      It's easy when you're three sheets to the wind, even if you pepper your reply with editorial condiments. Anyway, the goose is sufficiently sauced to be worth a gander.

      --
      Lacking <sarcasm> tags, /. substitutes moderation as "Troll."
    2. Re:chum and guns by CaptainCarrot · · Score: 5, Funny
      I know! It throws a monkey wrench into that entire kettle of fish! There's no foothold you could sink your teeth into! It blows your mind from the ground up!

      ...and so forth.

      --
      And the brethren went away edified.
  10. what about yahoo!? by dezmund · · Score: 5, Insightful

    MSN thought it was between them and google?
    http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/cmp/20050 722/tc_cmp/166401634
    sorry bill, but if anything its between yahoo (22% share of all searches) and google (47%).

    Not to mention most of those MSN searches (12%) are from IE users who don't know how to change their browser's start page.

    1. Re:what about yahoo!? by Punboy · · Score: 3, Funny

      Plus, those who think that the address bar are for system commands (and are thus afraid of it) and the search-bar is where you type in the website address o.O

      My grandparents are weird.

      --
      If you like what I've said here, and want to read more, go to http://www.krillrblog.com
  11. Get it now by QuantumG · · Score: 3, Informative

    Unstructured Information Management Architecture SDK. The UIMA SDK (Software Development Kit), is an all-JavaTM implementation of the UIMA framework, and it supports the implementation, description, composition, and deployment of UIMA components and applications. It also supports the developer with an Eclipse -based development environment that includes a set of tools and utilities for using UIMA.

    Go you crazy Java dudes, go.

    --
    How we know is more important than what we know.
  12. I, for one, ... by kaan · · Score: 2, Funny

    I, for one, welcome our new chum-tossing search-engine overlords...

  13. Just ignore the link in the slashdot item by hackwrench · · Score: 5, Informative

    The important information is simply the url http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com/tech/uima/

    1. Re:Just ignore the link in the slashdot item by SnprBoB86 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Definitely read/skim the SDK User's Guide http://dl.alphaworks.ibm.com/technologies/uima/UIM A_SDK_Users_Guide_Reference.pdf

      The annotator premise is almost too simple; it's brilliant.

      --
      http://brandonbloom.name
  14. Re:Google? by confusion · · Score: 2, Informative

    I'm guessing that IBM has a 50% higher market cap, 30X Google's revenues and $110B in assets doesn't come into play here?

    Jerry

  15. Re:IBM? YOU SERIOUS? by oopsdude · · Score: 2, Interesting

    IBM has always been cozy with eBay; as I recall, eBay's logo said "powered by IBM" for quite a long time.

  16. Big Blue Marbles by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So Google and MS will incorporate the "key facts" code into their products. That won't exactly shake up the search engine world. It will (possibly) improve it for everyone, and maybe (if "key facts" works better than their proprietary "key words" functions) even let another engine compete in their category. The latter might shake something up. But, like every other mass human activity, this competition is fought over brand names. Google clevery established a terrific brand, through careful simplicity and consistency in graphic and info design. This IBM release would merely grant more substance to the existing brands, and some substance to any newly emerging one. Which new brand would have to establish its own competitive value, largely through style.

    IBM's move does have the power to shake up the open/proprietary software jihad underway. If Microsoft used their open code, it would be hard for MS to claim that open source is inherently bad, or proprietary code is inherently superior. Google would demonstrate the same argument, but no one complains about Google's code remaining proprietary, because it mainly runs on their servers, which few people yet demand should be opened to outsiders. These are the kind of subtle strategic moves that let IBM continue to pull the strings of the entire industry. Success that generates more business and flexibility for IBM, in the mixed open/proprietary space it's carving for itself, will also demonstrate another powerful idea. American corporations can achieve market influence through strategic deployment of basic R&D. Not just through proprietary products, but also through manipulation of competitors who adopt open tech they create.

    All in all, this looks like a smart move by IBM. Let's hope 1> this rumor is true; 2> the tech is really good; and 3> we're not already too far gone down the entrenched lines between our corporate jihadis to get the benefit of the mutual cooperation that this tech could enable, to great mutual benefit.

    --

    --
    make install -not war

    1. Re:Big Blue Marbles by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The evolution of GPL software into embedded apps that interop with other, non-GPL apps, shows that one basic premise of the FSF worldview is wrong: users and programmers actually have different values, not identical ones, at least where getting the source code is concerned. Practically no users, and even only few programmers, and , have expressed any desire (beyond mere whining) to get the source code for apps with which they only want to interop. So GPL requirements to release new code that hasn't actually changed the GPL code really go too far, in the practical scheme of things.

      However, a new GPL seems appropriate for APIs. Just like there's a different GPL for libraries to which code is linked, with less compulsory release requirements than the GPL on included/derivative code. The APIs of GPL code to which new code isn't even linked, but interops via the APIs, should require reciprocal release of their documentation. That is: call an API, and the calling API side must be as documented as is the called GPL API. As well as the entire callable API of the calling app. With that "GPAL" just as viral as the original GPL: calling a GPL'ed app's API puts the new, calling app also under that GPAL. But not under the original GPL, which would require all the new code to be published. Just because it maybe called a single API, totally disproportionate to the value released by the new coders. Otherwise, the new coders will more likely write their own version of the code they could otherwise just call by API, if the called app weren't GPL'd. That reinvention of the wheel to avoid the GPL is not good for the GPL code, the GPL, or coders - and therefore not for users. We can have the fair exchange, that keeps the innovation flowing, by requiring fair disclosure proportionate to the value derived from the GPL'd code. Or we can have an unfair system that the GPL accelerates into unuseablity.

      --

      --
      make install -not war

  17. Little to do with opponents... by AutopsyReport · · Score: 4, Informative
    From the article... "I don't see any of the major players moving into this area," Arthur Ciccolo, head of search technology at IBM Research, said of how major consumer Internet search companies such as Google, Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft have focused on the public Internet instead of private record data retrieval.

    And from the Slashdot summary... IBM has just tossed a bucket of chum into the whole search showdown, which Microsoft thought was between them and Google.

    No, IBM's technology has little to do with Google, Yahoo or Microsoft's search technology. This isn't a competition until either three introduce similar technology. Reading the article's third paragraph would clarify this, and would make the summary a little more accurate, too.

    --

    For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.

  18. Why wait for SourceForge? by r_jensen11 · · Score: 4, Informative

    It's available now. As the article says:

    UIMA technology is expected to be made available through open-source software site SourceForge by the end of 2005. The UIMA framework can currently be downloaded free of charge from IBM AlphaWorks at http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com/tech/uima/.

    So, I ask, why wait for it to appear on SF if we can get it now?

    1. Re:Why wait for SourceForge? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      um, because it's closed source right now

  19. Re:Spotlight! by FLAGGR · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Damnit, are you talking about spotlight in Tiger? There's a huge goddamn difference between a desktop indexing search and an internet search engine. My god. The scale is like, so insanly different (and if the Apple PR has said anything about it being scallable to the likes of an internet search, then I'm selling my mac, NOW) How does this compare to spotlight? How does an apple compare to an orange? How does the color red compare to the number 7.623? How does 6 in the afternoon compare to the goatse man?

  20. Re:What is still missing... by nostriluu · · Score: 2, Informative

    You could start with this: http://www.yacy.net/yacy/

  21. Re:LOL - Google is more than an algorithm by pogson · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Google is a search engine farm. It would take a while for anyone to catch up even with a better recipe. If IBM's stuff is FOSS, Google could use it.

    This is good news anyway. Keyword/phrase searching becomes less useful as the universe expands. I have 11000 texts fully indexed with swish-e and I get way too many hits unless I use phrases. If I knew what phrase was in the books I sought, I would not need the search engine.

    I love search engines because I cannot figure out how to organize a file cabinet or a hard drive...

    --
    A problem is an opportunity http://mrpogson.com
  22. eBay runs on Sun, not IBM. by NeoBeans · · Score: 2, Informative
    Is that why powerhouses such as Ebay use it as well as other IBM products such as Websphere?

    That was a long time ago in a galaxy far, far, away. eBay now runs on Sun.

  23. Just for Reference by AoT · · Score: 4, Funny

    10 tads = 1 few

    10 fews = 1 some

    10 somes = 1 alot

    10 alots = 1 load

    10 loads = 1 buttload

    10 buttloads = 1 assload

    10 assloads = 1 shitload

    10 shitloads = 1 fuckload

    I do not have the book here or I would give the non-metric chart, you know how hard it is to remeber how many hogsheads are in an imperial buttload?

    --
    A blog about stuff.