Recommind Predicts 2008 Enterprise Search And eDiscovery Trends: Search Becomes The Information Foundation Of The Enterprise

2008 To See Continued Surge in eDiscovery and Enterprise Search Markets as Companies Increasingly Leverage Sophisticated Search and Categorization Solutions

SAN FRANCISCO, January 8, 2008–According to the enterprise search and eDiscovery technology experts at Recommind, 2008 will be the year that enterprise search and eDiscovery converge to become top areas of focus for enterprises worldwide, creating substantial growth and evolution in the management of electronic information.  

Forecasting the year ahead, Recommind executives predict that:

• Keyword-only search will go the way of the dinosaur 
• Enterprises will “go green” by embracing (data) recycling 
• “EDD trolls” will increasingly plague enterprises 
• Centralized, remote-access legal holds will spread like wildfire
• “Folksonomies” will go corporate
• “Good enough” search will no longer suffice
• Enterprise applications and litigation support platforms will get hitched

“As notable cases such as Qualcomm v. Broadcom and AMD v. Intel have shown, under the revised Federal Rules of Civil Procedure the ramifications from eDiscovery mistakes can be far-reaching,” said Craig Carpenter, VP of eDiscovery Solutions and General Counsel for Recommind. “The ability to sift through vast amounts of data quickly, accurately and irrespective of keywords is critical.  The good news is that the same tools needed to address today’s eDiscovery challenges – especially sophisticated conceptual search and automatic categorization – are already available and are dramatically improving information and expertise retrieval for knowledge workers.  As a result, Recommind predicts that the focus on enterprise search and eDiscovery will accelerate throughout 2008, with enterprises proactively seeking the legal and productivity benefits from search and categorization information management tools.”

Forecasting the year ahead in enterprise search and eDiscovery, Recommind executives predict that:

• Keyword-only search will go the way of the dinosaur.  Enterprise users will insist that their search technologies work the way users work – and will require accurate search results without having to contort queries into something only Boolean logic can understandor scroll through pages of irrelevant results a la Google.  A more sophisticated approach to finding information using advanced algorithms will be a necessity in eDiscovery as well as general search functions within the enterprise. 
  
  
• Enterprises will “go green” by embracing (data) recycling.  Enterprises are beginning to realize that “saving everything” is not a good approach because it is too expensive to manage, creates far too much litigation exposure, and additionally, electronic storage comes with a high energy price tag.  Enterprises will increasingly seek to preserve only what data they absolutely need for legal, compliance or business purposes, while having the rest subject to the corporate retention policy (which they will enforce more and more rigidly).  Effectively recycling data requires both the ability to categorize data automatically (to know what needs to be kept), and a fast, replicable and accurate legal hold process to ensure defensibility in court. 
  
  
• “EDD trolls” will increasingly plague enterprises.  As rising eDiscovery costs garner more and more attention, Recommind predicts there will be an increase in frivolous lawsuits and related out of court settlements.  Unscrupulous opportunists know that many large companies may be unprepared to meet the eDiscovery requirements mandated by the revised FRCP, and/or would rather settle out of court than incur the costs of litigation, even for meritless suits.  Similar to “patent trolls” who use lawsuits to extort money from enterprise victims, these EDD trolls will pose a serious and expensive challenge to companies and enterprises.  By implementing an eDiscovery solution before litigation arises, companies and their law firms will be able to respond quickly and effectively with great confidence and can avoid arbitration and expensive out-of-court settlements.
  
  
• Centralized, remote -access legal holds will spread like wildfire. Law firms and general counsels increasingly recognize the need for centralized, “remote access” legal holds, the ability to surgically identify, preserve and collect ESI remotely – without having to send people out to image each custodian’s laptop/desktop and entire drives, which creates huge potential litigation exposure.  Such centralized, remote-access legal hold capability will make litigation holds easier, more accurate, more efficient and far less expensive.
  
  
• “Folksonomies” will go corporate.  Enterprise users will increasingly look to incorporate peer feedback and usage habits to determine the relevancy of information.
  
  
•  “Good Enough” search will no longer suffice.  Enterprise search customers will increasingly realize that the only way they can avoid drowning in data is to employ sophisticated, effective search and categorization systems across and within their businesses.  With search occupying such a critical role in enterprise networks, customers will demand that their search technology be secure, scalable, customized, and deliver highly relevant results, which are all requirements at which “one-size-fits-all” search applications fail miserably. In 2008, enterprise customers will become increasingly leery of using simplistic, insecure search systems for fear of security/privacy breaches, among other shortcomings.
  
  
• Enterprise applications and litigation support platforms will get hitched.  At the request of their customers, vendors will increasingly seek to integrate their applications/platforms with complementary and legacy platforms from other vendors because no single technology provider has a complete, end-to-end solution. 

About Recommind
Recommind’s enterprise search and categorization platform automatically organizes, manages, and distributes large volumes of information from multiple sources. With faster access to the right information, organizations can save time, enhance the quality of work product, increase the value of information assets, and improve competitiveness and profits. Recommind customers include the Australian Government, Bertelsmann, BMW, Cleary Gottlieb, Davies Arnold Cooper, Lewis Silkin, Shearman & Sterling.  Recommind is headquartered in San Francisco and has offices in New York, Chicago, Boston, Atlanta, London, and Bonn, Germany.

For more information, email info@recommind.com, or go to www.recommind.com.