Vadlo: New Bio Search Engine
August 6, 2008
In the last year, I’ve noticed that Google is doing less PowerPoint indexing. The cause may be lousy usage so the expense of dealing with the pick up sticks file formats is not worth the computational effort. Another idea is that more people–including me–are dumping PowerPoint decks to Adobe Portable Document Format files and saving some time while reducing bloated PowerPoint files to a more manageable size. Whatever the reason, PowerPoints do contain useful information. Vadlo, a biological-oriented vertical search engine, indexes PowerPoints, training classes, references to protocols, seminars, databases, and software. Like Dieselpoint, Vadlo is a product of Chicago. I think the city is trying to change its metaphorical association from “meat packer” and “big shoulders” to search and content processing. Vadlo is owned by two biology scientists and its mission is “to locate biology research related information on the Web”. The company may get a boost because Google is not doing a particularly thorough job in this area, and as noted, the Google is doing an even poorer job of keeping up its PowerPoint indexing. Vadlo includes cartoons which are undoubtedly real side splitters for biologically-enriched wizards. You can download them here or wait until these turn up in the New Yorker Magazine.
My recollection is that vádló is a Hungarian word which can be a name or mean “accuser”. My hunch is that clever biologists have unearthed this word to find a five letter domain name. I did a bit of poking around, and I found references to this system in comments appended to Cuil.com articles, in a couple of Google Groups, and on a handful of Web logs. One post was dated 2007, so this Valdo is not really a newcomer to search like the outfit I will be visiting later this month. Check out the system. Just don’t accuse me of having lousy language translation skills. I live in rural Kentucky, shoot squirrels, and eat burgoo.
Stephen Arnold, August 6, 2008
SiSense: Shows Good Sense
August 6, 2008
I am gathering information about Google’s slow but steady progress in the enterprise software sector. My research indicates that the tasty Gummy Bear that lures people to Googzilla is maps, satellite imagery, and the nifty overlays that a licensee can plop on a Google map. You may want to look at what SiSense–a business intelligence start up–is doing with the oft-reviled Google Spreadsheets. SiSense is in the business intelligence software business. A SiSense customer can navigate to http://www.sisense.com, learn about the tight integration between the SiSense software and Google spreadsheets as a data source, and download a software widget.
SiSense has concluded that some of its customers use Google spreadsheets to hold data which can then be crunched using SiSense’s business intelligence routines. One application is for a distributor with seven sales reps who use Google spreadsheets to hold various data. The SiSense licensee can such data from these spreadsheets, roll it up, and crunch away. SiSense hit may radar because it uses the Amazon S3 service as well.
Prices are not available. SiSense is gearing up. My hunch is that if Amazon introduces a spreadsheet, SiSense may jump from Google to Amazon. Conversely, if Google makes public its remarkable data management ecosystem, SiSense may say “Sayonara” to Amazon’s pretty darned exciting Web services.
Here’s my take on how Google is attacking the enterprise. In the hospital where my mother is recovering from a heart attack, there’s a sign in the elevator to the cardiology unit. It says, “Don’t stack boxes on the floor. In case of fire, the box may continue to burn. Water will also damage the contents of the cartons.”
Google is entering into deals that work like the fire in a carton. Once the base has been penetrated, top down efforts might not extinguish Google. Once the little Google flame starts to burn the entire box is at risk. IBM, Microsoft, and Oracle are quite happy with their big fire hoses. These hoses can put out any annoying Google fires, or so the assumption goes. I am not so sure. One part of Google’s enterprise strategy is to set a bunch of small boxes on fire with the excitement of Google functionality. Google can then sit back and wait for the heat to build and then cook some goose–hopefully not this Web log’s logo.
Stephen Arnold, August 6, 2008
SharePoint: Nah, Not Complex at All
August 5, 2008
Microsoft has made available additional SharePoint documentation. If you have been wondering what other Microsoft servers you need, Microsoft spells it out. As an added bonus, Microsoft helps you plan for the hardware you will need to get the most out of your SharePoint environment. To get this information, navigate to a “sharepoint archive” here. The information comes from the helpful crowd at the Microsoft SharePoint Team Blog, which is, of course, the official blog of the Microsoft SharePoint Product Group.
Two 30 page white papers were quite helpful to me. The first is “Search and Indexing” here and the second is “Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies Server Farm Architecture” here. Note: both are Word files with some code snippets but no diagrams. I had to visualize some of the constructs, and it gave me a headache. You will probably find the Microsoft explanation exactly what you need to build out your SharePoint server farm.
This Web page provides links to more white papers and videos in case you like to dig into SharePoint by kicking back and watching the tube.
The one comment that stuck with me was the reference to Microsoft Forefront, a security product I had forgotten about. Here’s the passage from “Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies Server Farm Architecture” that grabbed me:
Microsoft Forefront™ Security for SharePoint is a purpose-built product that you can use to protect your Office SharePoint Server 2007 or Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 deployment from malicious code, undesirable content, and disclosure of confidential information.
Like Oracle, Microsoft is urging licensees to get YASP; that is, yet another server product. One would think with the fleet of servers required to make SharePoint work, security would be baked in. Silly me.
Stephen Arnold, August 5, 2008
SuccessFactors Deal: More Little Googzilla Steps to the Enterprise
August 5, 2008
On my fun filled ride back from the sublime beauty of central Illinois, I had some time to think about Google and its enterprise ambitions. Dave Girouard, the wizard who runs this unit, looks like a movie star. He’s Googley, which most people forget. I don’t think a company with a stake in the enterprise market should underestimate Google or Mr. Girouard.
A recent example is Google’s deal with SuccessFactors. No, this is not the Dale Carnegie formula about knowing the prospect’s wife’s dog’s favorite snack. This SuccessFactors has about four million users worldwide for its performance management software. Like Salesforce.com, SuccessFactors in a cloud service, and it is a serious cumulus not the toothless mammatus that IBM’s cloud initiative invokes for me. You can read more about SuccessFactors here.
Network World has a good story about this Google – SuccessFactors tie up. Chris Kanaracus’ article is “SuccessFactors Integrates with Google Apps. You can read it here. The company has not focused on one or two Google applications. SuccessFactors has integrated:
- Google Talk
- Google Calendar
- Google Docs
- Google Book Search
- Google Maps.
The write up on the SuccessFactors’ Web site is at http://www.successfactors.com/google/.
Why is this important?
The complexity of on premises installations is rising. If you were starting your own company today, would you use your cash for servers, IT professionals, and big money software? Or, would you use cloud services and apply your cash and personnel resources to your core business? Unless you are in the information technology business, the cloud services make a great deal of sense.
I met with a young person working on a business plan as part of her MBA. I was amused to see that the company’s IT infrastructure was in the cloud.
The Google is working through Googley partners to seep into organizations. Other Google tie ups are designed to piggy back on an another company’s sales and customer support infrastructure.
This is an attack based on the strategy of allowing Roman soldiers to marry women in a country that Rome just beat in war. Rome became part of the natural course of events in that territory. Slowly, the territory was Roman. The strategy ran out of gas in the 4th century, but that’s plenty of time for most rulers.
Google is playing the same marry-and-conquer game. Their partners are thrilled and flattered. Suddenly the partners are Googley. And the progeny? Well, that’s going to be a problem for IBM, Microsoft, and Oracle in the future.
Stephen Arnold, August 5, 2008
SharePoint: Anyone Not Baffled, Please, Stand Up
August 5, 2008
For years–even before I wrote the first three editions of CMSWatch’s Enterprise Search Report–I have been pointing out that enterprise search in general is not so useful and Microsoft enterprise search in particular is in the bottom quartile of the 300 or so “enterprise search” offerings available.
In a sense, it’s gratifying that youngsters are starting to look at the reality of information in an organizational setting and asking, “What’s wrong with these vendors and their systems?” You can get a dose of the youth movement in what I call search realism here. Shawn Shell, embracing knowledge about enterprise search, identifies some of the wackiness that Microsoft employees routinely offer about enterprise search or what I call “behind the firewall” search. I am pleased with the well-crafted article and its pointing out that Microsoft has a bit of work to do. I find it amazing that four years after the first edition of Enterprise Search Report, that old information is rediscovered and made “new” again.
Even more astounding is the Microsoft news release about the Fast Search & Transfer acquisition, which became official, on August 4, 2008. You can read the full text of this news release, as reported in AMEinfo here. Quoting Patrick Beeharry, Server and Product Marketing Manager for SharePoint in the Middle East and Africa, AMEinfo reported Mr. Beeharry as saying:
‘With our companies combined, we are uniquely positioned to offer customers what they have been telling us they want most – a strategy for meeting everything from their basic to most complex enterprise search needs. We are pleased to have the talented team from FAST joining us here in the Middle East. Together we aim to deliver better technologies that will make enterprise search a ubiquitous tool that is central to how people find and use information.
Okay, Microsoft is offering a strategy. I don’t know if a strategy will address the problems of information access in an organization. Vivisimo’s white paper takes this angle, and I think that the cost issues I raised are fundamental to a strategy, but I may be wrong. Maybe a strategy is going to tame the search monster and the 50 to 75 percent of the users who are annoyed with their existing search and retrieval system.
I suppose I was not surprised to read in To the SharePoint: The SharePoint IT Pro Documentation Team Blog the essay, “Which Microsoft Search Product Is for You?” You must read this stellar essay here. For me, the key point was this table:
You can see the original here if this representation is too small. The point is not to read the table. My point is look at the cells. The table has 35 cells with the symbol Ö and seven cells with no data. In the table’s 54 cells only seven have data. For me, the table is useless, but you may have a mind meld with the SharePoint team and intuitively understand that High availability and load balancing is NULL for Search Server Express and Ö for Search Server 2008 and Office SharePoint Server 2007. How about a key to the NULL cells and the Ö thingy? (For more careless Microsoft Web log antics, click here. The basics of presenting information in tables seems to be a skill that some Microsoft professionals lack.)
Er, what about Fast Search & Transfer? The day this Web log posting appeared, Microsoft officially owned Fast Search, but it seems to me that either the author was not aware of this $1.2 billion deal, had not read the news story referenced above, or conveniently overlooked how Fast Search fits into the Microsoft search solution constellation. I can think of other reasons for the omission, but you don’t need me to tell you that communication seems to be a challenge for some large organizations.
The net net is that Microsoft has many search technologies; for example:
- Powerset
- Fast Search & Transfer (Web indexing and behind the firewall indexing)
- Vista search
- Live.com search
- The SharePoint “flavors”
- SQLServer “search”
- Microsoft Dynamics “search”
- Legacy search in Windows XP, Outlook Express (my heavens), and good old Outlook 2000 to 2007.
The word confusion does not capture the Microsoft search products. Microsoft has moved search into a manifestation of chaos. If I’m correct, licensees need to consider the boundary conditions of these many search systems. Hooking these together and making them stable may be fractal, not a good thing for a licensee wanting to make information accessible to employees. The cost of moving some of these search systems’ functions to the cloud may be resource intensive. I wanted to write impossible, but maybe Microsoft and its earnest Web log writers can achieve this goal? I hope so. Failure only amps the Google electro magnet to pull more customers from Microsoft and into the maw of Googzilla.
I am delighted to be over the hill. When senility finally hits me, I won’t have to struggle through today’s ankle biters making the old new again or describing symptoms, not diagnosing the disease. Don’t agree? Set me straight. Agree? You are too old to be reading Web logs, my friend.
Stephen Arnold, August 5, 2008
Search Options: Betting in a Down Economy
August 5, 2008
Paula Hane, who writes for Information Today, the same outfit paying me for my KMWorld column, has a very interesting run down of search engine options here. I agree with most of her points, and I think highly of the search systems which she has flagged as an option to Google.
But I want to take another look at search options and, true to my rhetorical approach, I want to take the opposite side of the argument. Ms. Hane who knows me has remarked about this aspect of my way of looking at information. Keep in mind I am not critical of her or Information Today. I want to be paid for my most recent column about Google’s geospatial services, the subject of the next column for KMWorld.
Here goes. Let’s get ready to rumble.
First, search is no longer “about search”. Search has become an umbrella term to refer to what I see as the next supra national monopoly. If you are looking for information, you probably use search less than 20 percent of the time. Most people locate information by asking someone or browsing through whatever sources are at hand. Search seems to be the number one way to get information, but people navigate directly to sites where the answer (an answer) may be found. I routinely field phone calls from sharp MBAs who prefer to be told something, not hunt for it.
Second, fancy technology is neither new nor fancy. Google has some rocket science in its bakery. The flour and the yeast date from 1993. Most of the zippy “new” search systems are built on “algorithms”. Some of Autonomy reaches back to the 18th century. Other companies just recycle functions that appear in books of algorithms. What makes something “new” is putting pieces together in a delightful way. Fresh, yes. New, no. Software lags algorithms and hardware. With fast and cheap processors, some “old” algorithms can be used in the types of systems Ms. Hane identifies; for example, Hakia, Powerset, etc. Google is not inventing “new” things; Google is cleverly assembling bits and pieces that are often well known to college juniors taking a third year math class.
Third, semantics–like natural language processing–is a hot notion. My view is that semantics work best in the plumbing. Language is slippery, and the semantic tools in use today add some value, but often the systems need human baby sitters. No one–including me–types well formed questions into a search box. I type two or three words, hit enter, and start looking at hits in the result list.
Fourth, social search sounds great. Get 200 smart people to be your pals and you can ask them for information. We do this now, or at least well connected people do. As soon as you open up a group to anyone, the social content can be spoofed. I understand the wisdom of crowds, and I think the idea of averaging guesses for the number of jelly beans in a jar is a great use of collective intelligence. For specialized work, let me ask a trusted expert in the subject. I don’t count jelly beans too often, and I don’t think you do either. Social = spoof.
Fifth, use a search system because a company pays you. Sorry, I don’t think this is a sustainable business model. Search is difficult. Search requires that a habit be formed. If the pay angle worked, the company would find that it becomes too expensive. The reason pay for search works is that not too many people search to get paid. When a person searches, there’s a reason. Getting a few pennies is not going to make me change my habits.
What’s this mean for Google competitors?
My contrarian analysis implies:
- Competitors have to leap frog Google. So far no one has been able to pull this off. Maybe some day. Just not today or for the foreseeable future.
- Google is not a search system. It’s an application platform. Search with the search box is just one application of the broader Google construct.
- Google will be lose its grip on search. As companies get larger, those companies lose their edge. This is happening to Google now. Look at how many of its services have no focus. Talk to a company that wants to get customer support. Google is losing its luster, and this means that the “next big thing” could come from a person who is Googley, just not working at Google.
So, Ms. Hane, what are we going to do with lame duck search solutions in a world dominated by a monopolistic supra national corporation that’s working on its digital arteriosclerosis. Dear reader, what do you say? Agree with me? Agree with Ms. Hane? Have another angle? Let me know.
Stephen Arnold, August 5, 2008
SharePoint without Microsoft: Alfresco’s Macho Move
August 4, 2008
Microsoft SharePoint is one of Microsoft’s most successful server products. I have heard that there somewhere between 65 and 100 million users. When I am stuck for a joke during a speech, I point out that there is an equal number of SharePoint consultants. One Microsoft wizard told me last year the Enterprise Search Summit West that SharePoint was content management, collaboration, and search.
I pointed out that the search system spawned an ecosystem of snap in products because the search was pretty awful. The document limit does not help too much either. Nevertheless, SharePoint is the answer to an information technology’s managers dreams. Sometimes, the dream becomes a nightmare, but that goes for most enterprise software.
Now SharePoint has a competitor. You can read a news release about this competitive product here. Alfresco Labs 3 can replace SharePoint, and you can download a version here.
Alfresco, according to the news release:
is the first ECM product to implement the SharePoint protocol and provides users with the same access from Microsoft Office, while giving companies the freedom of choice in their hardware, database, operating system, application server and portal products. Customers will experience the best of both worlds providing workers with an easy-to-use content management and collaboration tool that is integrated with Microsoft Office while lowering overall IT costs and increasing return on existing investments.
You can get more information about Alfresco and the SharePoint replacement at www.alfresco.com.
Stephen Arnold, August 4, 2008
Bamboo: Adding Flexibility to Microsoft SharePoint
August 4, 2008
The summer of ’08 may be known as the Summer of SharePoint. Bamboo Solutions here. The company has packaged its various SharePoint administrative tools, tossed in some new Web parts, and simplified its product line. Information Week has a useful description of this vendor’s controls and Web parts for SharePoint here.
In my opinion, SharePoint’s administrative tools are Byzantine. Bamboo’s engineers sat down and figured out how to smooth most of the rough edges in SharePoint. Functions such as routine administration to project management operations are easier. I find Bamboo’s marketing is a bit off center for me. For example, the Project Management Suite features more than a dozen Web Parts to help you manage SharePoint but the product name doesn’t tell me what’s in the bundle. Bamboo also offers a package of widgets to tame the password tiger. If you are not sure what you need, Bamboo will bundle all of its SharePoint gizmos in one package called “Ultimate Suite.” The package includes business intelligence tools, so you may not need Performance Point.
Bamboo offers administrative tools that should be in SharePoint but are not. Bamboo does not make its prices easy to find. You can buy the products here. The SharePoint components are worth a close look.
Stephen Arnold, August 4, 2008
Microsoft Demystified
August 4, 2008
Information Technology Sentinel ran an interesting essay on August 3, 2008. “The Poseidon Strategy: Seas of Internet Apps” is not focused on search, but it contains a number of interesting assertions. You can read the article by Techsentinel here. For me, the most interesting points in the analysis were:
- Microsoft uses its own tools to create its products
- If Microsoft is successful with WPF and XAML, the Internet Web page will become an “application based format”
- Google and Microsoft are in different businesses
Take a gander at Tech Sentinel. It’s a good mix of fact and speculation.
Stephen Arnold, August 4, 2008
Intel: Cloud Factoid
August 4, 2008
I tracked down an Intel presentation from 2006 and also used in 2007. The link is to ZDNet here. The presentation offers some interesting insights into Intel’s data center problem or opportunities in mid 2006; namely:
- Intel has 136 of these puppies with an average cost pegged in the $100 million to $200 million range
- Average idle capacity was about 200 million CPU hours with capacity at 900 million CPU hours, give or take a few hundred thousand hours
- In 2006, 62 percent of the 136 data centers were 10 years old or older.
- Plans in 2006 were to move to eight strategic hub centers.
My initial reaction to this 2006 presentation was that Intel’s zippy new chips might find a place in Intel’s own data centers. It would be interesting to calculate the cost of power across the old data centers with the aging chips versus the newer “green” chips. I expect that the money flying out the air conditioning duct is trivial to a giant like Intel.
More on this issue appeared in Data Center Knowledge in 2007 here. In 2007, according to Data Center Knowlege Google had about 93,000 servers in its data centers.
In April 2008, Travis Broughton, Intel, wrote here:
Our cost-cutting measures tend to be related to at least two of the three “R’s” – reducing what we consume, many times by reusing what we already have.
I’m not sure what this means in the context of the Cloud Two initiative, but I will keep poking around.
Stephen Arnold, August 4, 2008
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