RedDot LiveServer: Expensive, Broken, Pointless

What is RedDot LiveServer (other than a way for RedDot sales guys to pad their sales and make their commissions?). RedDot calls it:

• a personalization engine
• an integration interface
• a portal
• a search engine

I call it a java-based monstrosity. But that’s just me. In my experience, it isn’t any of the above (although it can be made to do a little bit of lightweight personalization.)

What really kills me tho is that RedDot is selling LiveServer as a search engine. “Mr. prospect, we’re very happy you like RedDot CMS but you should know you need to buy LiveServer if you’re going to search your site.”

ANNNGGGTT! Wrong answer. Ever hear of the Google Mini?

Problems with LiveServer as Search Engine:

• It’s crazy expensive. RedDot will ask for $50k+ for LiveServer. Google Mini costs you $2k. And, unlike LiveServer, it works.
  
  
• It is really just a crippled version of Verity. The licence only lets you index content managed by the RedDot system. So that fileshare of documents you want to make available. Sorry – out of luck. Want to let your employees search your personnel directory (the most used thing on an intranet?). Nope. Not managed by RedDot.
  
  
• No reporting. Want to know what your customers are looking for on your site so you can serve them better? The sort of report that every search engine in the world ships with? Uhm. No, that’s not part of the package.
  
  
• You can’t “tune” it. Disappointed by the way LiveServer ranks results (and trust me, you will be)? Want to override it so that popular searches return the best result? You’re out of luck. Go directly to jail – do not pass Go.
  
  
• Even CMS Watch knows it’s bad. The analysts at CMS Watch are explaining how little information RedDot/Opentext is sharing about product road map and support. They say
  
  search for "Obtree", you get nine documents all with 1% relevance. If you search for "Gauss", you find that the first ten results all have a 98% relevance but refer (as do a great many more) to the acquisition. (It is of note that Open Text does not actually indicate the number of results from a search, which is very poor practice. All you can do is click to the next ten. What impression does that give prospective customers?) http://www.cmswatch.com/Trends/1041-Obtree-obscured
  

I can answer that last question – an accurate impression. RedDot LiveServer isn’t a search engine. It’s a money grab targeted at naïve buyers.