IBM offers Krugle, Koders search-off
Today a release came out from rival Koders stating "it has been selected to search source code from developerWorks."
Sounds like a nifty little search-off. Both companies offer solid search capability and community features. Both have enterprise editions so you can use them to handle your own code. Maybe, in this case, both will end up winners.
It represents proof, if any was needed, that there remains plenty of room in the niche of code search, despite the looming presence of Google in this market.
Why is that? I think it's because code search is a solid enterprise market, narrow and deep, where a "one size fits all" approach is sub-optimal and where there is cash to be earned from serving individual customers.
What is true in this niche is also true in enterprise software generally. As customer demands narrow-down, and the value you get from each engagement goes up, smaller, specialized vendors can gain a big advantage.
What were once big concessions -- opening the source code, tweaking it to fit specific corporate systems -- are standard practice in the enterprise open source space. Now these customers are demanding even more specialized attention and small open source firms are giving it to them.
These companies are the backbone of the open source industry, but they don't get the credit or the attention they deserve, especially from reporters, because readers don't seem to care.
Thanks to the transparent nature of this blog, which counts page views and comments, I have data to back that up. Readers prefer subjects like Microsoft and license spats to success stories.
But every once in a while I'll insist on giving these smaller, successful vendors an attaboy. You should, too.