WebProNews

The four-month cycle between the launch of the IBM Omnifind Yahoo Edition enterprise search and the latest release represents something of a land speed record for Big Blue. We recently chatted with Aaron Brown, IBM program director for Search and Content Discovery, about their free enterprise search product and the update to version 8.4.1.

The new release shows an international flavor, with 14 new languages available. The management interface and documentation have been translated, allowing more people globally to work with the Yahoo-branded Omnifind.

It should be noted that there are actually 16 languages in this update. There may not be a great deal of demand for Pig Latin or Klingon, however.

Brown said many of the top requests for updates from users were for the ability to further customize the user interface. Some Omnifind users wanted to embed it with other applications.

There were also requests to search metadata as well as keywords. Visitors can now construct focused searches that sift through such metadata as tags, authors, and subjects among others.

Getting this done in four months, with some 60 features added and nearly two dozen bugs fixed, is remarkably fast for IBM. Brown said IBM made a "conscious choice to be more responsive" with this Omnifind product, resulting in the swift development time.