I notice this morning that Autonomy have created a rescue program for those unhappy with Microsoft’s decision to offer FAST search only as part of Sharepoint – slightly late to the party, considering this had been long predicted. Last year it was Autonomy’s rivals who offered similar trade-in deals after the bad press from HP’s acquisition of Autonomy. I now have the theme tune to Thunderbirds running through my head…
We’ve talked to a number of clients over the last month or so who are determined to move away from Autonomy IDOL itself, citing reasons such as a lack of ownership of code (so even tiny changes to a user interface need to be carried out by expensive consultants), scaling being difficult and expensive, and indifferent support even after the HP acquisition. As I wrote at the time moving from one closed-source technology to another doesn’t really reduce any risk that your supplier will change their roadmap, prices or corporate strategy to your disadvantage.
Perhaps it’s time to cut the strings and take control of your search.
