The Search is On for Lotus

By JEFFREY SCHWARTZ

IBM's Lotus Development Corp. today made its first move toward extending the search capability of its Notes/Domino platform.

The company unveiled Domino Extended Search, which will let Notes users simultaneously query information in multiple repositories including legacy systems and public Web sites through search services, such as AltaVista, Excite, WebCrawler and Lycos.

The add-on software will let existing Domino shops (running version 4.5 and above) add extended search capabilities from an existing Notes client or Web interface to multiple Notes databases in a single domain, any database that supports ODBC and the public search services. The initial release, which will start shipping this Friday, will support the Verity Search engine, currently licensed by Lotus.

Although an application programming interface will be available to link to other search index servers, such as the Fulcrum Knowledge Network, Microsoft Site Server and Index Server and Netscape Communications' Compass Server, Lotus plans to offer those interfaces in subsequent releases.

The software consists of two components: ES Broker, which resides on each Domino server, handles routing, access control and parcels requests from the Notes or Web client; and ES Link, the interface which executes the searches from each data source, said Santosh Chitakki, a Lotus product manager.

"This product will let you search these different sources and get a single relevancy ranking," he said. Furthermore, the search results can be shared and modified.

Extende d Search Server fills a need to extend searches beyond a common Notes database but is only a first step in a broader knowledge management platform that will be available in Domino 5.0.

The key selling point for the Extended Search Server once Domino 5.0 ships is that users will no longer need to opt for third-party index servers from the likes of Verity and Fulcrum, said Bridget Regan, an analyst at Giga Information Group. Does that mean the established search engines will no longer be viable?

"They will have to offer more intelligent searching, support for linguistics and better navigation," Regan said. Indeed, those vendors have already made progress in that regard, she added.

The Extended Search Server will initially run under Windows NT. Pricing is $3,995 for up to four processors and $9,995 for servers with five or more processors. Client access licenses are $30 each.