More quiet than the news of Microsoft's acquisition of FAST Search & Transfer was the recent announcement that enterprise search vendor Endeca has received $15 million in funding from the venture arms of Intel and SAP. As we'll point out in the upcoming update of our Enterprise Search Report, where we add an in-depth review of SAP's NetWeaver Enterprise Search, SAP has a legacy of its own search technology -- so why would they invest in someone else's?

Though $15 million is chump change for the likes of Intel and SAP, and Microsoft will have no problem writing the $1.2 billion check for FAST, acquisitions and investments speak volumes to the diversity of the technology in play, even within supposedly "niche" categories of products. SAP clearly doesn't see Endeca in the same target market, or addressing the same information findability problems, as their NetWeaver search product -- and neither should you. NetWeaver is tailored to search content that's part of a larger SAP platform; Endeca, on the other hand, focuses on more traditional enterprise search scenarios -- e-commerce, and website search in particular. Despite Microsoft claiming search is a core technology of MOSS 2007, they acquired FAST. Despite the debut of the new SAP NetWeaver Enterprise Search, an investment in Endeca is made. It only reinforces to you, the buyer and implementer, that one technology doesn't fit all. In fact, it seems Endeca is trying to convince Oracle they could also fill gaps for them that Oracle's SES doesn't currently fulfill.

Our suggestion to Endeca for the $15 million investment: how about adding search to your own web site?