For instance, National Instruments used four search tools before standardizing on FAST. Other organizations also implement multiple applications targeted to particular business needs.

Sutter Health, a nonprofit organization in Sacramento that operates 26 Northern California hospitals, is using Autonomy's software for competitive research. It analyzes newspapers, professional journals, health care industry Web sites and information on the group's internal bulletin boards. Jim Harrison, Sutter's vice president for business intelligence, says Autonomy is automating what had been a resource-intensive and manual process.

"It is significantly improving our ability to respond as a group to questions people are asking us," he says. "It gives us more time to sit down and analyze the data because we aren't sitting around figuring out where we need to file an article or where it was located after we filed it."

World Book Inc. uses search engines to provide content to customers. The Chicago-based encyclopedia publisher uses Endeca's search engine to improve customer service. Since the company is competing with free information services on the Web, it must provide a significantly better customer experience, says Chief Technology Officer Tim Hardy.

"Attracting and retaining subscribers requires that we offer an experience that helps users quickly and easily find desirable information while showcasing the breadth of quality content available," says Hardy. "High-failure search rates, slow performance and an inability to showcase the different types of available content with a homegrown solution were hurting our ability to scale the business and attract new subscribers."