Chorus + Activities

"EXPLORING THE FUTURE OF ENTERPRISE SEARCH" reports now available

13-14 October 2011, Seville, Spain

The aim of this workshop was to gain insights into the techno-economic trends in enterprise search and to study how they will impact the European economy and society.

The workshop report is now available to be downloaded online! 

The workshop aims to contribute to a better understanding of the following issues:

• Market Dynamics: by painting the landscape of enterprise search, including the current and future business models of providers of enterprise search solutions and services (e.g. strengths, entry barriers, differences amongst them, etc.).

• Future Prospects: by identifying emerging techno-economic trends, discussing likely developments and the market structure of tomorrow in the domain of enterprise search.

• SWOT Analysis: by exploring the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) for the EU with respect to enterprise search. The discussion will focus on the economic drivers and challenges influencing the future of search engines, as well as any other impediments (of regulatory, technical, economic, or social nature) that may hamper successful deployment in Europe. 

 Some of the main themes of the "Exploring the Future of Enterprise Search" will be: 

• Enterprise search in the cloud

• The link between enterprise search and mobile search, i.e. mobile access to enterprise resources

• Convergence between enterprise search and database technology

• Enterprise search in unstructured data

• The link between enterprise search and semantic search

• The social elements of enterprise search

• Enterprise search and web search (tracking products and customers after they have left the enterprise)

This expert workshop is regarded as an important part of the ongoing IPTS efforts to study the evolution of enterprise search at a time when this field is rapidly changing. Given the multi-disciplinary nature of enterprise search, it was deemed necessary to bring together at the workshop experts from different backgrounds, i.e. people from industry, academia and policy-making bodies, to discuss these important issues.   

A Think-Tank Roundtable discussion on the future trends and directions of Enterprise Search was also organised during that event. 

The Think-Tank gathered 15 Enterprise Search experts - vendors, integrators and analysts - mainly from Europe. In a first stage, the discussions aimed at establishing an assessment of the techno-economic aspects of the Enterprise Search market. The second part of the discussion concentrated more precisely on EU. Several options for improving the situation of European vendors were examined and a series of recommendations and suggestions were issued to the European Commission.

The notes coming out this discussion can be downloaded here.

 Agenda

Thursday 13 October
13:30 – 14:00	Registration
14:00 – 14:25	Welcome and Introduction David Broster (IPTS, EC), Ramón Compañó (IPTS, EC), Stavri Nikolov (IPTS, EC)
14:25 – 15:00	Invited keynote speech Enterprise Search and Search Based Applications Gregory Grefenstette (Exalead)
15:00 – 15:50	Session 1: Technologies, solutions and research issues (50min) Semantic Enterprise Search and Content Intelligence Matthieu Jonglez (Smartlogic) (10min) Open Source Techniques Push Enterprise Search & Search Driven Applications, Especially the Application of Text Analytics Christoph Goller (IntraFind) (10min) An Approach to Overcoming Obstacles to Enterprise Search Research David Hawking (Funnelback) (10min) Visual Search for Enterprise Documents Mika Könnölä (Documill) (10min) Session 1 Q&A (10min)
15:50 – 16:20	Coffee break and informal discussion
16:20 – 17:10	Session 2: Services, applications and business models (50min) Cloud-based Enterprise Search: Future or Reality? Kathrine Hammervold (Microsoft) (10min) Google as a Role Model for an Enterprise Search Team Harald Kirsch (Raytion) (10min) Visual Asset Search: Application Areas and Business Models Ray Owens (LTU Technologies) (TBC) (10min) Technologies for Mobile Application Development Andrew Terry (Toumetis) (10min) Session 2 Q&A (10min)
17:10 – 17:30	Break and informal discussion
17:30 – 18:20	Session 3: Techno-economic aspects of enterprise search (50min) Enterprise Search – A Gap Analysis? Martin White (Intranet Focus) (10min) Search and the Contraction of Markets - Lessons Learned from the Catholic Church, Railroad Tycoons, and Oil Magnates Hendrik Speck            (University of Applied Sciences Kaiserslautern) (10min) The Future for Enterprise Search in Europe Based on Altered Demographics Henrik Strindberg (Findwise) (10min) Visioning Enterprise Search in Future Enterprises Man-Sze Li (IC Focus) (10min) Session 3 Q&A (20min)
18:20 – 18:30	First Day Concluding Remarks Stavri Nikolov (IPTS, EC), Henri Gouraud (INRIA)
21:00 – 23:00	Enterprise Search Think Thank dinner (by invitation only) Pieter van der Linden (Technicolor)
Friday 14 October
9:00 – 9:15	Summary of First Day Henri Gouraud (INRIA), Stavri Nikolov (IPTS, EC)
9:15 – 10:40	Workshop and Think-TankRoundtable discussion of the future trends and directions of Enterprise Search (covering technological and techno-economic aspects) Stavri Nikolov (IPTS, EC), Henri Gouraud (INRIA) & Pieter van der Linden (Technicolor), and all previous speakers What have we learned: technologies and business models
10:40 – 11:00	Coffee break and informal discussion
11:00 – 12:30	Workshop and Think-TankRoundtable discussion of the future trends and directions of Enterprise Search (covering technological and techno-economic aspects) Stavri Nikolov (IPTS, EC), Henri Gouraud (INRIA) & Pieter van der Linden (Technicolor), and all previous speakers What does this mean for Europe?
12:30 – 13:00	Summary of Second Day/Workshop and Close Henri Gouraud (INRIA), ), Pieter van der Linden (Technicolor), Stavri Nikolov (IPTS, EC)
13:00 – 14:00	Lunch

For more information about the workshop, please contact:

Stavri Nikolov Information Society Unit, IPTS Tel. +34 954 488 385 stavri.nikolov(at)ec.europa.eu

Henri Gouraud INRIA Tel. +33 608 45 34 21 Henri.Gouraud(at)inria.fr

For more information about the Think Thank, please contact: