IBM + Vivisimo = Big Data… REALLY?

Recently IBM announced they had acquired Vivisimo to enable search in their Big Data software stack. Reading the press reviews there were more than a few of us that where somewhere between skeptical to ARE YOU SERIOUS?? Having been in the search space for a few years now, Vivisimo was known to have a fairly good federated search capability (think tributary streams from different search engines feeding into the main river – Vivisimo) returning reasonable results and a few good sized US Government websites.  Big Data is all about 3 V’s – variety, velocity and volume. Vivisimo was never in the picture when the evaluation was about massive content, high refresh rates or a multitude of different file types.

But it does reveal an interesting issue in this new technology arena called Big Data. There are many suitors and relatively few dance partners. I realized recently that there have to be at least 10-15 major players that need to have a horse in this race. And I count only 4-5 (at most) legitimate players that can address the functional requirements to provide true solutions. The fact that Vivisimo could actually paint themselves with the Big Data brush and a smart, sophisticated group like IBM bought in reveals a pretty interesting phenomenon.  Was IBM too quick and grabbed the first thing that came along?  Or maybe IBM felt left out with their competition already having acquired popular search products.  BTW; this purchase has IBM with at least 3 or 4 search technologies.  It will be interesting to read about the positioning of these products.

In case you missed it, Lucidworks announced the beta for our (legitimate) Big Data solution, Lucidworks Big Data, recently at our Lucene Revolution Conference.  The response has been overwhelming.

How does that song go – The Future Looks So Bright I think I need Shades!!!!