For SharePointers in Enterprise or FAST search then this book is fantastic. It provide insight not only into governance and business understanding but the technology pinnings as well. Great book and great authors with significant knowledge and credibility in this area.

When I do a Google search, all too frequently I get 54,286 "hits" and can only hope that what I need is in the first page or two. I have wasted literally hours trying to find that "right" hit. That's OK since I have more time than money. A successful business, however, will have more money than time and cannot afford spending an hour, or even a few minutes, trying to winnow out the "right" hit from all the chaff. Enter Fast Search, Sharepoint, and Search Server, come to save the day, able to intelligently pop up the correct result quickly and effeciently without the chaff. This book explains the value and approaches of these modern tools, introducing some of the strategies for their implementation in the 21st century business milieu. Well worth the few dollars.

More than a decade ago, Microsoft announced Normandy as a suite of Internet products. Buried in the list was Microsoft Search Server. A few years later, Microsoft gave us Full Text Services for SQL Server. A couple of years after that, a confusing product list included Microsoft Desktop Search, SharePoiont Search, SQL Search and a handful of other products tied to Live. Then, Microsoft acquired FAST and added another search product in the quiver.

This book covers a very broad range of topics. If you are trying to make sense of how Microsoft is selling all of these search products, I would recommend reading Chapter 3 - "Overview of Microsoft Enterprise Search," Chapter 5 - "FAST Search Within SharePoiont 2010," and Chapter 7 - "Introduction to FAST ESP." These three chapters are a fantastic field guide and map to Microsoft's fleet of search products. Armed "Customizing Search with SharePoiont 2010," will provide good coverage of what is possible and even spark some ideas of using these Microsoft products for different projects. Chapter 10 - "Enterprise Search is Social Search," Chapter 11 - "Search and Business Intelligence," and Chapter 12 - "The Future of Search," provide some interesting perspectives on the edge cases where search can be called to duty including some coverage of emerging products from Microsoft including "SearchTogether" and " LookingGlass."

This book will provide some tips as a day to day operations guide, but the book's strength is in navigating so many powerful products from an enormous software portfolio.