When Lucene first hit the scene five years ago, it was nothing short ofamazing. By using this open-source, highly scalable, super-fast search engine,developers could integrate search into applications quickly and efficiently.A lot has changed since then-search has grown from a "nice-to-have" featureinto an indispensable part of most enterprise applications. Lucene now powerssearch in diverse companies including Akamai, Netflix, LinkedIn,Technorati, HotJobs, Epiphany, FedEx, Mayo Clinic, MIT, New ScientistMagazine, and many others.