SAP: We Hardly Know Thee
October 29, 2008
SAP seems to be in a pickle. I profiled the company’s aging TREX search system in one of the Enterprise Search Reports I wrote between 2004 and 2006. The system had a number of interesting linguistic features. One of the SAP search wizards was quite helpful, and I was confident that SAP would make TREX into a higher profile service. SAP, however, left TREX to improve without publicizing the system. You can see SAP’s search system in action. Just navigate to SAP.com and enter a query. I heard that the company, like Microsoft, uses it own technology. I found it interesting that the investment arm of SAP pumped money into Endeca. SAP seemed to be taking a step toward acquiring Endeca but stopped short, preferring to make a strategic investment. Endeca, like much of the SAP system, requires configuration. Unlike the Google Search Appliance or the Thunderstone appliance, Endeca requires a bit of tweaking and configuring to deliver its full payload to a licensee. The pairing of the tweaking and configuring champion SAP with the Endeca system made sense to me. I could see license fees supplemented with consulting fees where SAP deployed Endeca’s system.
I was surprised when I downloaded the SAP white paper “Realizing Maximum Benefits from SAP NetWeaver XI/SAP NetWeaver PI”. You can download the paper from Bitpipe.com, but you have to jump through the wacky Bitpipe.com hoops. I use my dog’s name and sign up for whatever option I am offered, download the paper, and let the mail go to a dummy email account. Also, I can’t keep the SAP lingo straight. R3 is the “regular” SAP system. NetWeaver, acquired years ago from an outfit in Israel, is the Web services component. TREX ran in NetWeaver, and to access TREX search in R3, you had to license both R3 and NetWeaver.
In the white paper, search is mentioned only in passing. The white paper tells me that search is part of the dashboard on page 11 and that’s about it. The remainder of the 14 page paper talks about magical benefits that seem to accrue to having data at one’s fingertips. Information access seems to be presumed in this “boil the ocean” approach.
NetWeaver block diagram. Copyright SAP 2007.
I did not buy the argument in this white paper. In my crawler I hit upon a story that suggests others are having the same doubts about these pie in the sky assertions from SAP. For example, Lionel Laurent, a Forbes’ Magazine writer, painted SAP bright red in “SAP May Need More Cuts to Survive.” You can read the full text of the article here. The main point of the article is not that SAP has to tighten its belt. I understood from Mr. Laurent’s write up that SAP may have to undergo a colectomy and a foot amputation to extend its life.
Sham Wow.
Authors, Orphaned Books, and the Kinder, Gentler Googzilla
October 29, 2008
On October 28, 2008, Google’s posted on “The Official Google Blog” a summary of a deal to assuage some of those aggrieved–even threatened–by Google’s Book Search service. You must read the posting here. Right from the git go, the Google Web log reminds me that Google’s founders wanted to make information in books available to the world. (I now see a red applause sign flashing in my addled goose brain.) Next I am reminded how Google Book Search helped millions, including those curious about the physics of Star Trek and wood carvings in English churches. (I feel a goosely tear in my eye.) Finally, the announcement:
This agreement is truly groundbreaking in three ways. First, it will give readers digital access to millions of in-copyright books; second, it will create a new market for authors and publishers to sell their works; and third, it will further the efforts of our library partners to preserve and maintain their collections while making books more accessible to students, readers and academic researchers. The agreement also resolves lawsuits that were brought against Google in 2005 by a group of authors and publishers, along with the Authors Guild and Association of American Publishers (AAP). While Google, the Authors Guild and the AAP have disagreed on copyright law, we have always agreed about the importance of creating new ways for users to find books and for authors and publishers to get paid for their works.
The story has ignited that part of the blogosphere not transfixed by the Microsoft demo of Windows 7. One of the more interesting analyses is Richard Koman’s write up for ZDNet. “Will Google Book Settlement Solve Orphan Works?” is here. An orphan is a title that no publisher can squeeze money from without pulling a Penguin. Those are titles recycled in homogeneous covers and offered up to students with a preface by an expert in medieval literature or a specialist in the early writings of James Joyce. For me, the most interesting comment was this statement:
According to Google, the deal with be great for everyone.
My take on this deal is that Google is deciding to make peace with publishers. Since the tie up with the abstracting colossus Cambridge Scientific Abstracts, Googlers are figuring out that publishers own communication channels that can grouse, complain, and make life generally miserable for the math club denizens. So, now there’s a revenue sharing deal.
I have several observations that are, of course, my own opinions:
- Publishers are now in the lair of the GOOG. The scent of money has brought them into the Googleplex. Once inside, it will be like the Hotel California.
- Google has made a tactical move. My thought process generates one question, “What’s next?”
- Google is ever so close to becoming a publisher. When will the company reveal its content assembly invention by Andrew Hogue and others. Google can slice and dice content, whip up a report, and sell it with a marketing mechanism that puts network TV in the 1950s to share.
I am thrilled for the publishers. I am happy for libraries. I guess I am excited about people curious about wood carvings in British churches. Only art and architecture students seem to visit the churches in Malmesbury, where I stay each year, but that’s a small sample. But most of all, I am thrilled for myself because the GOOG is going with the flow. I think once the euphoria dies down, it will be Nelly, bar the door. Google’s going to generate new information constructs and share the millions with the publishers eating in the Google cafeteria.
Stephen Arnold, October 29, 2008
ZipLocal: Another Search Engine in Red Ink
October 29, 2008
ZipLocal, according to the Canadian Press here, continues to lose money. ZipLocal is a local search engine. The company was founded in 2006 and focuses on Canadian cities. The content is available in English and French. The company was formed as a result of the merger of redCity Search Company and Zip411.net. The company says:
ZipLocal provides relevant search results from over 1.3million businesses with maps and capability for users to review, rate and tag business listings. ZipLocal is focused on creating the most comprehensive and engaging search experience at the neighborhood and city-wide level… ZipLocal is the only “made in Canada” local search site to successfully bridge a traditional business directory with the consumer-generated input required to be the next go-to search destination.
For me, the most interesting comment in the Canadian Press article was:
The full-year loss was $6.3-million, nine cents a share, compared with a prior-year loss of $6.3-million, 14 cents per share. Revenue was $4-million, down from $5.7-million.
Consistent losses and declining revenues are disappointments for investors. Beyond Search will root for ZipLocal. Let’s hope the company gets back on track, avoiding the fate of Entopia, Delphes, and the other companies I’ve suggested are struggling to survive in the search, content processing, and text mining market. Competing with Google Local is tough. Google’s free service allows a business to post information about the business and a coupon for free. Ah, the GOOG, and it’s not a directory publisher, right?
Stephen Arnold, October 30, 2008
Google and Viacom: Legal Fancy Dancing
October 29, 2008
John Letzing’s “Google Turns Tables on Viacom’s Copyright Cop” is a must read. The story appeared in MarketWatch on October 27, 2008. You can find the full text here. The hook for the story is that Viacom’s copyright analysis service, a firm called Bay TSP, has itself become a issue in the legal matter. Mr. Letzing navigates the legal thickets gracefully. I have simplified the Google thrust as pinning Bay TSP like an insect on a pin. For me the most interesting comment in Mr. Letzing’s write up was:
In its filing, Google complains that BayTSP “remained silent” about the infringement of Viacom’s content on YouTube for a months-long period in late 2006 — then deluged it with more than 100,000 requests to take down infringing material in a single day as a prelude to Viacom’s lawsuit. Google says that it has unsuccessfully negotiated on its own behalf with BayTSP during the past year for the release of its internal documents. “The need for court intervention has become obvious,” Google says in a court filing
Remaining silent is a fancy way of suggesting that Bay TSP did not disclose information when requested through normal legal procedures. When Bay TSP did not cooperate, Google took legal action.
In the big legal matter with Viacom, Google’s position is that it is not in the business of figuring out what videos may or may not violate copyright as users upload videos at the rate of one million a month, which may be a bogus figure. When a potential copyright violation is brought to Google’s attention, Google removes the video. Google’s position as I understand it is that the GOOGÂ complies with applicable copyright regulations. Viacom says Google does not and wants $1.0 billion from Google.
I am finishing a monograph about Google as a publisher. On one hand, I understand the respective viewpoints of Google and Viacom. On the other hand, I think there are a number of examples of Google’s activities in publishing. I am not an attorney, not employed by Google, and not working on this matter for Viacom. I am sitting in Harrod’s Creek, Kentucky, thinking about Mr. Letzing’s article.
My conclusion: the GOOG is a clever beastie. But this is a skirmish. The decisive battle is yet to be fought.
Stephen Arnold, October 29, 2008
Microsoft Azure: The Cannibal
October 28, 2008
I wanted to steer clear of the Microsoft cloud computing announcement until more concrete information became available. I have mentioned the Monsoon paper that describes some of the engineering effort that is behind the Microsoft cloud computing play. This is the ACM paper dated January 8, 2008, by Albert Greenburg and four other authors. That write up raised a number of yellow flags in my thought processes.
I did spend some time with the excellent write up by Richard MacManus of ReadWriteWeb.com. You can read the full text of his article “Microsoft Azure Aims to Redefine the OS” here. The essay includes an official looking diagram showing the principal components of Windows Azure. Mr. MacManus does a good job summarizing the features of the system presented in a round table with Ray Ozzie, Microsoft’s top technical honcho.
For me, the most interesting point in the article was this headline, “Cannibalizing Desktop Windows?” Mr. MacManus raises an obvious and important business question; namely, will Azure suck money from more lucrative revenue streams? Mr. MacManus reports that Microsoft will have a “range of different licensing” options. To me that’s not an answer.
In my experience, a new product can cannibalize an existing product’s revenues. The effect is to pull some customers from the existing product to the new product. The result is that the established product flatlines or requires more marketing investment to regain the losses from cannibalization. At the same time, the new product is cash hungry for technical fixes and more marketing. Unless an organization is careful in its positioning, the one-two punch of investing in the new product’s technology and marketing and the increased spending for marketing the old product produces a cash squeeze. Accountants can smooth out this problem, but it is a race against time. The new product’s revenues have to come online quickly and then grow rapidly. If the new product is delayed or the revenue doesn’t flow, the “innovator’s dilemma” and business commonsense come into play.
Will Microsoft be able to handle this balancing task? Mr. McManus lets Microsoft speak for itself. Amazon has moved to secure its role in cloud computing. Google seems to be moving toward the Amazon and Microsoft model. In the wings are IBM and dozens of others who want a piece of the clouds in the sky–some would say “pie in the sky”–vision of a new growth market. Cloud computing will be like one of those playoffs between top rated teams. A cloud super bowl or world cup perhaps with digital thunder and lightning perhaps?
Stephen Arnold, October 28, 2008
Search Coincidence in a Comic Strip
October 28, 2008
I received a telephone call early this morning. The caller asked me, “Have you seen the Dilbert comic strip in this morning’s paper?” It was 6 45 am on October 28, 2008. I hadn’t seen anything except the blinking of the mobile phone next to my nest of reeds in Harrod’s Creek, Kentucky. You can view the strip at the official Dilbert.com site here. The set up is a meeting with an employee suggesting that the company make a plan. Then a policeman arrives with the picture of the employee who made the suggestion. The punch line is “Sigh. There goes another employee of the month.” The humor is that an employee is wanted by the police. Imagination or reality? Sadly, I think it is a reality and in the business sector known as enterprise search.
My early morning caller asked me, “Do you think that the Dilbert comic strip was about the Microsoft Fast police raid?” I said, “Nope.”
I thought about this question and realized that I was not amused with the suggestion. Enterprise search–despite efforts to sidestep the user dissatisfaction issue–has fallen on hard times. Mercado recently sold for a bit more than its 2007 revenues and what appears to be less than its seed money from investors. ZipLocal.com seems to be struggling. Entopia and Delphes have encountered sales friction. Rumors abound about other search and content processing companies gasping for oxygen. One US company tallied $6.0 million in sales in the July, August, September quarter with more than 30 sales people beating the bushes. The $6.0 figure is less than 10 percent of the company’s 2007 annual revenue, which may or may not be indicative of a problem to the owners. The $6.0 million just looks modest from my hollow in Kentucky. That $6.0 million in revenue may not cover the cost of the sales team’s salaries, benefits, and expenses. Anther vendor in the UK is allegedly losing half of its sales staff every few months due to punishing sales quotas which cannot be met. Instead of adjusting the prices or the offer, the company gets a new batch of peddlers. Conferences devoted to the subject are superficial, leaving attendees and exhibitors disgruntled. One conference is alleged to have attracted 60 paying attendees. That’s okay for a shindig in Louisville, Kentucky, but not in a major city. In fact, a weekday business conference rural Kentucky attracts nearly as many attendees. Efforts to revivify the subject of “enterprise search” end up showcasing isolated examples of a search success.
And one major vendor of search appliances is now using a major consumer products company as a sales vehicle, glossing over the time and technical challenges required to make the system deliver jaw dropping cost savings the system allegedly delivers. I wonder if that consumer product company’s legal counsel knows about this interesting marketing tactic? Most large firms don’t talk about their software systems to keep competitors from finding out what’s in use and some vendors’ license agreements stipulate that the customer cannot talk about the vendor’s system.
Search is a utility, and a search success is often an isolated example in the midst of many problematic installations. As long as the pipes don’t leak, the plumbing is declared okay. My hunch is that high profile vendors will enter 2009 without a backward glance at slow payments, legal actions, and annoyed licensees. The October 28, 2008, Dilbert cartoon is a reminder that vendor impropriety is now a matter for the comics.
Stephen Arnold, October 28, 2008,
Microsoft Fast Want a Search Health Check
October 28, 2008
Obscured by the roll out of Azure, the Microsoft cloud made it hard to spot a new survey. A happy quack to a savvy reader in the UK for this information. If you did not get an invitation to this “The Health of Enterprise Search”, click here, and you ca participate. The survey engine is Zoomerang’s or Market Tools. I did not want to spend much time figuring out whom Microsoft Fast hired for this important data collection effort. I was more interested in the 11th questions which asks about vendors and then provides no guidance to the survey participant.
The invitation says,
Search has come a long way over the past 10 years, and many organizations are now using Search to improve customer experience, drive innovation, manage risk, reduce costs, build communities and share intelligence. We would like to hear your opinions on the Health of Enterprise Search and its impact on business performance by asking you to complete this 12 question on-line survey.
I would agree. In a decade Fast Search & Transfer dumped its advertising and Web indexing business, leaving the field clear for Google. Fast Search then asserted that it would become the world’s leader in enterprise search. Autonomy objected and turned in financial reports that made clear that Fast Search was not the only dog in the kennel. By 2007, Google outperformed Fast Search and, based on my data, surpassed Autonomy as well. Fast Search had a lousy 2007 and sold out to Microsoft in April 2008. In October 2008, Microsoft Fast started one day with several Norwegians with police authority. The police gathered up “evidence” of alleged wrong doing. Yes, it’s been an eventful decade.
Sometime in 2006 I concluded that enterprise search was dead. And, if not dead, enterprise search was not in the best of condition. Now, two years later, Microsoft Fast is doing a search health check. I find this remarkable.
Stephen Arnold, October 28, 2008
Amazon’s iTunes Like Interface
October 28, 2008
Amazon has developed a new interface. You can read the news story on TechCrunch here. The graphical presentation is intended to make it easier and more fun to browse Amazon’s products. Jason Kinkaid’s article does a very good job of explaining the features of this interface. For me, the most important comment in the write up was:
The site seems geared towards shoppers who are just looking for ideas, as there isn’t a search feature. Users can scroll through the site using their arrow keys, zooming in on individual products by hitting the spacebar. Each product includes a demo video (in the case of movies, songs, and video games) or an excerpt (from books).
I have often asserted that search is dead. I did not say that search was not useful. Amazon believes it has cracked the code on information retrieval without asking the user to type in the title of a book or an author’s name. Amazon wants to be a combination of Apple and Google. Amazon may have to keep trying to manage this transition.
Stephen Arnold, October 28, 2008
Microsoft Azure
October 28, 2008
The most useful write up about Microsoft’s cloud computing play is Mary Jo Foley’s. You can find “Microsoft’s Azure Cloud Platform: A Guide for the Perplexed” here. Her approach is to describe the layers of Azure, highlighting important components like Red Dog, the base operating system. Please, read her write up. It’s an excellent summary. On the other hand, Azure might be a big demo. Click here for this view. The Microsoft Azure splash page is here.
The questions that I have about price, licensing, service level agreements, and deployment data remain unanswered. I watched a couple of videos today, but the Microsoft engineers were too cheerful for me. I tuned the programs out, but I do recall the word “great” being used several times. The layers are not surprising at all. The engineering details about resolving bottlenecks, eliminating manual tasks and moving them to smart software, and getting away from expensive, high performance data center gear are lacking. I remain baffled about SharePoint search running from Azure. In my experience, performance is a challenge when SharePoint runs locally, has resources, and has been tuned to the content. A generic SharePoint running from the cloud seems like an invitation to speeds similar to my Hayes 9600 baud dial up modem. I am taking a wait and see approach. Clouds are wonderful as long as the user has bandwidth, the cloud does not crash, and unexpected software problems don’t make an application sit and wait while the operating system tries to figure out what to do what an unexpected event occurs. Some of the engineering issues are described in the Monsoon paper by Albert Greenberg, et al, which is available from the ACM as 978-1-60558-181-1/08/08. Azure has some interesting engineering short cuts baked into it if this paper “towards a Next Generation Data Center Architecture: Scalability and Commoditization” is accurate.
Stephen Arnold, October 28, 2008
Oracle Benefits from Microsoft’s Obsession with Google
October 28, 2008
Gulf News reported that Oracle is deriving a benefit from Microsoft’s obsession with Google. Scott Shuey wrote “Oracle Dominates Enterprise Software as Peers Step Aside” appeared on October 25, 2008, here. My interest in Oracle is narrow. The company offers Secure Enterprise Search 10g or SES10g, but it has been off my radar for more than a year. I look for information about SES10g in my crawlers, and I find little substantive information. I even visited OracleWorld and came away with a plastic bag but no new information about SES10g.
Mr. Shuey’s article caught my attention because it asserted:
[Oracle] the company “already has a higher market share here than any other area in the world.”
The “here” is the middle east. The source of the information is Charles Philippe, Oracle’s president for the middle east. For me, other interesting items from the article were:
- Microsoft is obsessed with Google and by implication dropping their guard in the enterprise market. Microsoft also chases consumer markets.
- IBM is shifting to become a services company.
- Oracle is considering acquisitions in the middle east.
The one thing that Oracle’s Mr. Philippe did not address was enterprise search. My thought is that SES10g is a utility that will be tossed in with other, higher value Oracle sales. The assertion that Oracle is the dominant enterprise software vendor was a surprise to me. I quite like the point about Microsoft’s obsession. That phrase has a nice ring to it.
Stephen Arnold, October 27, 2007
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