Google Inc. is set to announce a deal with business consulting firm BearingPoint Inc. on Tuesday to apply Google’s simple keyword search to companies trying to manage their own information.
The market for so-called enterprise search is heating up as many companies are finding that the best way to locate information in databases, content management files and less structured systems may start by using simple keyword searches.
Making the task all the more complicated is that 85 percent of corporate data is unstructured information made up of images, pictures, or unorganized documents while 15 percent is tucked in tidy databases that make for easy searching.
“We know how the file cabinets are structured in different industries,” BearingPoint Chief Executive Harry You said. “Each file cabinet has a different set of keys for SAP or Oracle or EMC/Documentum,” he said of major corporate software systems.
Rivals in the corporate search business include Fast Search and Transfer of Norway, which last week introduced a sophisticated way to find relationships hidden among different types of corporate data it calls “contextual search.”
And late last year Britain’s Autonomy Corp. acquired Verity to create the biggest supplier of corporate search software. Meanwhile, IBM and Microsoft Corp., among others, are staking out their own positions.
IDC estimates the market for search software used inside companies was worth $1 billion in 2005, but accelerating.
“I see the BearingPoint announcement less as a competitive reaction to the other activity in the enterprise search space than as a logical move to improve Google’s position in that market,” Jupiter Research analyst David Schatsky said.
“(Google’s) credibility in the enterprise market is enhanced by the embrace of a leading enterprise integrator such as BearingPoint, who understands the needs of enterprise users much better than Google does,” he said.
BearingPoint extends Google’s search capabilities by offering companies customized search technology tailored for specific business settings in industries such as pharmaceuticals, banking, brokerage, high-tech and aerospace.
BearingPoint, which was formerly known as KPMG Consulting, is based in McLean, Virgina, and had nearly $3.5 billion in revenue in 2004. The bulk of its revenue comes from Fortune 2000 clients, while 40 percent is government sector clients.
The company plans to train more than 100 people to install various Google search technologies for corporate clients, You said. Several hundred of BearingPoint’s 3,000 technology specialists will be trained to work on Google search in 2006.
