Oracle launches search tool

By Jessica Twentyman

Database giant Oracle is planning a major entry into search technology with the announcement of Secure Enterprise Search 10g, a search engine intended to make business information available to authorised users while rigorously enforcing corporate security policies.

Scheduled for availability before June 2006, the product will deliver search results from sources such as databases, portals, enterprise applications, and systems for managing files, content and e-mail.

Oracle chief executive Larry Ellison unveiled the software at the Oracle Open World conference in Tokyo in March, claiming that it will fill the gap left by Google, which dominates online searches and has pushed into individual computers with its desktop search software.

Ellison said: “What Google does not do well is search private data. It searches public data very well… But most data we deal with is not public data; it’s private data, personal data.”

Ellison said that his company was, “very excited about Secure Enterprise Search 10g. It’s one of our biggest announcements for many, many years. It’s the result of years of innovation and hard work,” he enthused.

However, Gartner Group analyst Rita Knox’s enthusiasm is more tempered. The search product may offer “standard information access capabilities”, she pointed out, but it does not provide the personal desktop search or broader web search capabilities found in competing offerings.

“Oracle had to enter the search market to keep pace with moves in this area by vendors such as IBM and Microsoft. However, it will need to build up its reputation in this market and enhance its functionality (for example, by adding classification, taxonomy management and other functions typical of full-featured information access offerings) to compete with specialists in this market,” she concluded.