Search thought leader/blogger Steve Arnold today features Lucid Imagination’s CEO, Eric Gries, on the well-trafficked Beyond Search blog. Beyond the dapper photo of our CEO at his nattiest, the story puts a sharp focus on the market opportunity for Lucene/Solr and Lucid Imagination:

“We are at 90 degrees to the typical search business model. We’re disruptive. We are making the competition explain a business model that is not matched to today’s financial realities. The handcuffs of traditional software licenses won’t fit companies that need agility and high value solutions,” he said. “ The software is already out there and running mission critical solutions. One of our tasks to to make sure people understand what is available now, and the payoffs available right now.”

To put not too fine a point on it: when killer open source technology meets the demands of the enterprise in the current open source environment, it creates a lot of opportunity.Then, there’s the other word for disruption: Revolution, as in Lucene Revolution. If you haven’t already, sign up for the conference in Boston October 7-8 (with two days of Lucene or Solr training available October 5-6). You’ll hear more from Mr. Gries, Mr. Arnold (he serves as conference chair), and more importantly, from a rich roster of technologists out there in the community and in the marketplace putting Lucene/Solr to work.