MOSS Enterprise or Standard Edition? Effects on Search

Here is the latest pricing from Microsoft http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointserver/FX102176831033.aspx

In terms of Search functionality, without the Enterprise License you will be forced to write custom protocol handlers ( see previous blog posts), custom web parts and/or the SharePoint designer to integrate external LOB applications into SharePoint.

The BDC provides a means of integrating your applications into every part of SharePoint including Search. The benefit of using the BDC for Search is that you have actionable results right off the bat as your search links will go to the profile of that entity it returns. Microsoft has also recently released a BDC editor tool in their latest SDK ( buggy though) and there is also the BDCMetaMan tool to help with your definitions.

There are of course other great reasons for choosing the Enterprise Edition besides the BDC ( Forms Server, Excel Engine ..), but it is not a requirement for Enterprise Search.

So how do you go about integrating LOB applications into SharePoint and Search then without the BDC? For the interface side many different options are available: Custom Web Parts, Smart Part Controls, iframes to external web apps, or my favorite; the SharePoint Designer. The SP Designer is a very powerful tool for creating integrations with databases, web services, or most any LOB data source and I have yet to find a scenario that can't be tackled (see http://sharepointsearch.com/pages/bigresourcelist.aspx for what I mean). For the Search part of the integration you can write your own protocol handler (see http://sharepointsearch.com/cs/blogs/notorioustech/archive/2007/06/19/contentenumerator-cs-for-stored-procedure-sample.aspx) or license a 3rd party connector from a vendor.(see http://sharepointsearch.com/pages/products.aspx)