Suvarna Garge (Editor)

Funnelback

Updated on
Edit
Like
Comment
Share on FacebookTweet on TwitterShare on LinkedInShare on Reddit
Type
  
Private subsidiary

Area served
  
Worldwide

Founded
  
2006

Parent organization
  
Squiz

Industry
  
Software

Headquarters
  
Canberra, Australia

Number of employees
  
50

Funnelback httpslh3googleusercontentcomRRpcWu4wmPUAAA

Key people
  
Dr. David Hawking Brett Matson

Products
  
Funnelback Hosted Funnelback Server for Web Funnelback Server for Enterprise Funnelback Platform

Subsidiaries
  
United States, United Kingdom

Motto
  
Search like you've never seen it.

Profiles

Stuart beil executive director of funnelback


Funnelback is both a search engine software product and the name of the company selling the technology. Funnelback software is typically deployed as a vertical search or enterprise search solution, and has been cited as suitable for search-based applications.

Contents

Funnelback's headquarters and research and development is based in Canberra, with additional offices in Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Hobart, Adelaide, London, New York City, Wellington, Edinburgh and Szczecin.

The company's name is a portmanteau of two Australian spiders - the Funnel-web and Redback.

History

  • 2001
  • CSIRO sponsors P@noptic research project, design and development headed by Dr. David Hawking
  • First version of P@noptic released
  • 2005
  • December: Funnelback spun off from CSIRO ICT Centre as Funnelback Pty. Ltd
  • 2006
  • April: P@noptic product renamed Funnelback
  • October: Funnelback version 6.0 released
  • 2009
  • July: Funnelback acquired by Squiz
  • August: Operations commence in United Kingdom as Funnelback UK Ltd.
  • 2012
  • February: Approved supplier to UK Government via G-Cloud
  • 2015
  • Operations commence in United States as Funnelback Inc.
  • Government

    Funnelback has been responsible for providing several whole-of-government search services including:  Australian Government, Queensland Government (Australia), Australian Capital Territory Government (Australia), and portal search services for New South Wales Government (Australia) and Tasmanian Government (Australia).

    Releases

    Major Funnelback product releases occur annually, and are generally aligned with year numbers. Versions of Funnelback prior to 6.0 are regarded as P@noptic releases.

    Funnelback Version 15 was released in early 2016.

    Technology

    The core of the system is based around the proprietary Parallel Document Retrieval Engine (PADRE) developed by the Australian National University and CSIRO to perform very fast data look-ups. Its relevancy ranking system uses a variant of the Okapi BM25 algorithm to rank document content and metadata. The company has also been granted patents for annotation index methods (used for generating search result snippets) and search result sub-topic identification (used in Funnelback's Contextual Navigation system).

    It has the ability to search a range of formats in addition to range of HTML files. These include PDF, Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, images, and XML. It also has the ability to connect to, and index databases. Adapters currently exist for MySQL and TRIM Context, and the design of the system allows users to create their own connectors should they not exist.

    Funnelback Server software is designed for operation on Windows and Linux platforms. Support for Solaris has been discontinued.

    Several open-source software packages are bundled with Funnelback, including the Tika and Mahout projects from the Apache Software Foundation, used for filtering, recommendations and enterprise repository connectors, respectively.

    Languages Used

    Funnelback's codebase uses several programming languages:

  • Groovy for filters, workflow commands and user interface scripting
  • Java for crawling, filtering and database connectors
  • FreeMarker for user interface templating
  • Perl for command-line utility tasks
  • Awards

    (as P@noptic)

  • 2003 - Search Engine - Editor's Choice (Network Computing)
  • 2004 - iAwards (AIIA): Innovation: eBusiness & Internet
  • Industry Analysts' Reception

    Ovum Ltd. summarised the product as being able to "deliver highly relevant, context-aware results, based on a user's location, interests, profile, or browsing history, to create a truly personalised experience". 451 Research Group noted the company's 30% revenue growth in 2010, primarily in the UK. Funnelback first appeared as a ‘niche’ vendor on Gartner’s Enterprise Search Magic Quadrant in 2015 as 'Squiz’. In 2014, Gartner's Enterprise Search Magic Quadrant mentions Funnelback in passing, but did not place it on the quadrant.

    Availability

    Funnelback software is currently provided as a Windows or Linux Installer software for installed customers or as a hosted service to subscribing customers, either through direct sales channels or Funnelback partners.

    Previous Versions

    Versions of Funnelback released prior to 2007 were available as 30-day trials, limited to 50,000 document indexes, supplied via CD-ROM or accessible via the Funnelback website. Trial versions are no longer available.

    In 2010, a now-deprecated OEM version of Funnelback, branded as SquizSearch, was bundled with Squiz's MySource Matrix product.

    References

    Funnelback Wikipedia