More Fast Search Excitement: A View from London
October 16, 2008
The news buzzed through the Internet Librarian International Conference. Word of the Norwegian authorities’ actions hit a nerve. Not surprising. Many of the information professionals in attendance rely on Microsoft search technology in their organizations. Details, of course, were sparse. The International Herald Tribune has a write up online and one person had printed out the story. Here’s the link to the AP article “Norwegian Police Raid Microsoft Subsidiary.” I don’t want to quote from an AP story and then have to deal with accusations that I am using content without permission. You can find this story online in a number of places. Another good source is http://e24.no/boers-og-finans/article2716323.ece. You can translate this at http://translate.google.com. Select Norwegian as the source language. A helpful PCWorld write up “Microsoft’s Fast Search Charged with Fraud in Norway” by Jeremy Kirk here includes this comment: “Microsoft has said it has taken steps to align Fast Search & Transfer’s accounting practices with its own.” This suggests to me that Microsoft wants to work through this problem and move forward. That’s good news for Fast Search employees in Oslo.
I spoke with several people about this situation. One executive who does business with both Microsoft and Fast Search said, “That’s really bad news.” A Danish software vendor said, “This is a public relations disaster. Fast Search had worked hard to make itself the number one Scandinavian software company. Now that’s a joke if there was fraud.” An information professional in Germany told me, “We are looking at Fast Search for our SharePoint installation. I don’t know what today’s police action will mean. We are a very conservative organization so we will have to get more facts. We don’t like difficulties with our vendors.”
A black eye for those involved. Source: http://www.lonewolffx.com/images/large%20images/make%20up%20effects/black-eye-from-Flynton.jpg
After I heard about the economic crime division’s actions, I jotted down my thoughts about this incident. Feel free to comment about my opinions. You may have more detailed information than I can get at the conference venue:
First, this is a public relations problem for Microsoft. If the company conducted a thorough audit and missed something, we learn that the phrase “Microsoft audit” carries a connotation that is not too positive. If Microsoft did not do a thorough audit, we learn that when the company decides to buy something, the philosophy may be “Fire, Ready, Aim. Microsoft will have to deal with this “do you still beat your wife” situation.
Second, Microsoft just said that it would concentrate search research and development in Oslo, presumably with Fast Search engineers. If the authorities action is more than window dressing, what is the working situation in Oslo in the wake of this high profile action. Norway is a comparatively wealthy and small-town type of country compared to my own beloved US of A. Fast Search’s employees, the reputation of the Norwegian business community, and Norway itself have a black eye. How long will it be to remove the mark if a problem is uncovered?
Third, Microsoft sales professionals and partners are making Fast Search a big part of SharePoint procurements where large document collections must be indexed. How will some organizations react to finding the suggested solution the product of an engineering operation that has been the subject of this alleged action by the police? My thought is that in some government procurements, the police action against Fast Search could be a deal breaker.
Fourth, I have had little experience with investigations of this type. If the action results in more negative information, a court action may make the marketing and public relations task even larger. If I were a competitor, I would communicate to potential customers that the action reported by the Associated Press might be sufficient cause to shift the procurement effort from Microsoft Fast to an alternative without a similar issue.
As I thought about this information–assuming that it is true–I don’t see a silver lining to this particular cloud. Here’s why:
Yahoo: Pragmatic Advice
October 16, 2008
Silicon Alley Insider does a good job of identifying Yahoo’s weaknesses and pointing out some obvious remedies. The consultants racing around Yahoo will have to lay out options for Yahoo, prioritize them, and dress the painful ones in a Project Runway gown. Yahoo has big problems, and you can get up to speed by reading “Yahoo Cracks $12 , Valuation Now Officially Ridiculous” by Henry Blodgett here. I wanted to add one point to Mr. Blodgett’s analysis. Yahoo’s heterogeneous approach to platforms and software adds another, more troublesome problem to the mix. Some fixes can’t be made because the time, cost, and complexity mean the job is just too big. Other fixes work for one service, but the features can’t be made available seamless to other services. For an example, just navigate to Yahoo and run a shopping query. Now navigate to Google’s shopping service and run the same query. I am running these test queries from the UK, so you may have to rekey the search phrase I used, “quad core motherboard”.
Which set of results makes more sense to you? Yahoo has some bright people, but the platform is looking more like a major liability Yahoo or its eventual owner must address.
Stephen Arnold, October 16, 2008
Cloudera: A Red Hat for Hadoop
October 16, 2008
On October 13, 2008, I read a Web log post written by Amr Awadallah here. The title was “The Startup Is Cloudera, The Business Is Hadoop MapReduce.” The company seemed to be a services play. Then I read Valleywag’s “Bear Stearns, Facebook Escapee Set to Inflate Open Source Bubble” here and I realized that the company may get venture money and morph into another challenge to the Codd database champions IBM, Microsoft, and Oracle. You can get Network World’s take on Cloudera here. I have tracked Aster Data and InfoBright because the problems of information access are often not search; the deal breaker is the data management component. Hadoop is a variant of Google’s own technology. My research suggests that Google continues to improve its technology. A good example is US7437364 granted on October 14, 2008 “System and Method of Accessing a Document Efficneeintly through Multi Tier Web Caching”. Companies built on technology Google contributes to open source can generate a solid revenue stream, but the Hadoop technology is not Google’s technology. Cloudera can support Hadoop, but in order to turn in hockey stick type growth, the company will have to do more than rent engineers. I can’t get too excited about the Cloudera play until I know more about the company’s plans to differentiate itself from other engineering consultancies. I do like the Red Hat for Hadoop angle, however. It’s catchy.
Stephen Arnold, October 16, 2008
Google Yahoo: Boo Hoo for GooHoo
October 16, 2008
I don’t pay much attention to online advertising or the search engine optimization games. Ads are part of the furniture of living in the Wild West of capitalism. SEO is little more than people without the ability to create compelling content working hard to outsmart indexing robots. Dull, uninteresting, and crass work from my point of view. The headline in The AM Law Daily here “Five Firms Push for Google Yahoo Antitrust Settlement” by Nate Raymond caught my attention. For me the key point was not the litigation that Google faces. I noted the legal eagles enlisted by GooHoo to make the objections go away: Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, and Hunton & Williams. The price tag for the eDiscovery related to this matter is going to be a blockbuster just like the legal fees. No BS regarding the costs of this adventure. We have an aleph of eagles circling this GooHoo matter. Google and Yahoo do seem to be care about ads and SEO-related activities for traffic. In my opinion utilities are natural monopolies and will form one way or another. What’s your view?
Stephen Arnold, October 16, 2008
Yahoo Search: More Needed than an Ad Campaign
October 16, 2008
On October 14, 2008, Yahoo revealed new search features. You can read the story here. You can read ReadWriteWeb’s discussion here. The publicity suggests real change. I just see an ad campaign, including radio spots. With its share price below $14, Yahoo needs to deliver muscle, not window dressing. The economic downturn will exact a toll on Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo. Of the three, Yahoo will be least able to turn the dip into a scoop of ice cream.
That Microsoft buy out offer looks better than a new ad campaign for Yahoo search. I think it still looks good to some Yahoo shareholders. For Yahoo fans, this announcement may be a big deal. For this addled goose, it’s one more example of a company that went from leader to AOL clone in more ways than one.
Stephen Arnold, October 16, 2008
Beyond Search: New Acronym BS
October 16, 2008
A clever reader stopped me in the reception area of the Novotel Hotel in the gentrified section of Hammersmith and said, “You do the BS Web log, don’t you? I love the name.” I must admit that I named this Web log to promote my April 2008 study Beyond Search, published by the Gilbane Group. The Web log is approaching 1,000 posts and now has thousands of readers each day. Amazing!
I like the BS acronym so much that I will instruct Tess and the other crack analysts for Beyond Search to use the acronym BS whenever they feel it appropriate. With the addition of BS to our arsenal of goose droppings and inputs from deaf boxers, “BS” adds another weapon in our effort to explain what’s happening and what’s not in search, content processing, and information access. If we participate in a trade show, I have several ideas for booth swag.
Now some readers will assert that this Beyond Search Web log has been BS from its inception. I assure you that is not true. However, from this day forth, you will find BS a key ingredient in this Web log’s positioning. Consider yourself alerted. You are reading the real BS, but not the BS generated by some analysts. Our BS is working to improve.
Some examples of what we hope to achieve: Gartner on the IT economy here and the Kelsey Group on its October 6, 2008, buy out here. Agree or disagree on the value of “objective analysis” about information in its many flavors? Share your wisdom.
Stephen Arnold, October 16, 2008
Google: Building Its Knowledge Base a Book at a Time
October 16, 2008
Google does not seem to want to create a Kindle or Sony eBook. “For what does the firm want to scan and index books?” I ask myself. My research suggests that Google is adding to its knowledge base. Books have information, and Google finds that information useful for its various processes. Google’s book search and its sale of books are important, but if my information are correct, Google is getting brain food for its smart software. The company has deals in place that increase the number of publishers participating in its book project. Reuters’ “Google Doubles Book Scan Publisher Partners” provides a run down on how many books Google processes and the number of publishers now participating. The numbers are somewhat fuzzy, but you can read the full text of the story here and judge for yourself. Google’s been involved in legal hassles over its book project for several years. The fifth anniversary of these legal squabbles will be fast upon us. Nary a word in the Reuters story about Google’s knowledge base. Once again the addled goose is the only bird circling this angle. What do you think Google’s doing with a million or more books in 100 languages? Let me know.
Stephen Arnold, October 16, 2008
Google and Media Searching
October 15, 2008
Google seems to be serious about media searching. How do I know? Larry Page, one of Google’s founders, received US7,437,351 “Method for Searching Media” on October 14, 2008. What makes this invention interesting is that Mr. Page did not have any co inventors. The Google founders may be thinking about green energy and their real estate development at Moffett Field, but Mr. Page takes time to do real Googley work. Here’s the abstract from the patent document which was filed in 2003:
The present invention is directed to a computer-implemented method and apparatus for searching in response to Internet-based search queries using a search engine and an electronic database. According to one example embodiment of the present invention, data sets representing published items are input, for example, scanned-in or sent electronically, and stored in a searchable database. Each data set includes text from at least one published item. Responsive to the search query, a search engine searches for and identifies relevant Web pages and data sets representing published items and, in a more specific embodiment, ranked characterizations are returned for the relevant web pages and published items. An electronic path can be provided with the published item for accessing further information about the published item. In one embodiment, the electronic path is a hyperlink from a characterization of a relevant published item to a more complete electronic representation of the relevant published item. Publishers provide authorization to display copyrighted materials through a permission protocol.
You can obtain the complete document from the USPTO.gov Web site. My take on this invention is that it is plumbing to allow Google to operate on and manipulate binary objects so more sophisticated and newer methods can be used to unlock media files; for example, the voice to text system to permit searching within the sound in a video file. Sergey Brin invented that technology for Google, by the way. One final comment to Cyrus, the Googler who is somewhat unfamiliar with the conventions of Google patent documents. “This patent document has the same lousy diagrams that Google includes in most of its filings. Check it out if you have time between emails, SMS messages, and other Google sales activities. Try Google’s own patent service, but it is not as useful as some for-fee services, however.”
Stephen Arnold, October 15, 2008
Microsoft Prepares for War
October 15, 2008
Update October 15, 2008. MarketWatch points out that the Google threat is to make Microsoft irrelevant. Yoiu can read the analysis here.
Original Story
I am waiting for my flight to London, the world’s most annoying city. You probably love the place. Not me. Dirty, expensive, difficult to navigate, and equipped with lousy food. Samuel Johnson was wrong because he had never visited rural Kentucky.
I cruised the new headlines in my newsreader and I spotted this Bloomberg article, “Microsoft Exec Ready to Battle Google, Others.” You can read the full text here.
The hook for the story is that Google keeps making purring sounds in the enterprise. Some enterprise procurement officers are lulled enough to license Google’s products and services.
Microsoft, appropriately annoyed, is going to take action with Kevin Turner a young Microsoft superstar. For me, the most interesting line in the write up was this quote attributed to Mr. Turner. He was, I believe, commenting about Google and other competitors. He allegedly said:
They’re all trying to take food off of our plate.
I enjoyed this article but part of its halo is the thought it evoked that Microsoft has been fighting Google for a number of years. So far, Google keeps on winning skirmishes and in its incremental approach to wrap Microsoft inside a larger Google play.
I love these insights. What about you? Help me learn about these enterprise fire fights.
Stephen Arnold, October 15, 2008
What Sales Professionals Don’t Want You to Know
October 15, 2008
eCommerce Times’s “The 5 Things Your ERP Sales Rep Doesn’t Want You to Know” contains information I found useful. You can read the October 13, 2008, feature here. The five tips apply to enterprise search, information access, and content processing functions like the gravely defective content management systems many organizations license. I don’t want to recycle the five points. I would like to call attention to two and urge you to check out the other three in the original article.
For me, the two home runs in the article were:
- Integration is complex and expensive
- A vendor’s integration strategy might follow its own drum beat, not the licensee’s.
What I found interesting is that integration, not technology, haunts ERP and, in my opinion, information access. Let’s think about why:
First, most professionals hear XML and think that content conversion problems are no longer an issue. Wrong. XML is not a panacea. Plus, other types of data and information must be converted and transformed and moved into the enterprise system. Forget these steps and your budget is blown to bits and the project will be delayed by weeks, maybe months.
Second, vendors do what vendors want to do, not what the customer assumes the vendor will do. One example will characterize this problem. The vendor knows a problem exists in a sub system. The vendor has the engineering resources to address that problem. The customers who want connectors are out of luck. The vendor has to address the sub system problem. Then maybe the vendor will address the connector issue. Meanwhile the customer can’t transform some content. Engineering priorities and resources, not just money, are going to keep the vendor doing what the vendor must do, not what the customer assumes the vendor will do. Will the sales professional explain reality to the customer? Sure, obliquely.
Do you know other “facts” or “realities” a sales professional does not want a customer to know? Please, share them.
Stephen Arnold, October 14, 2008
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