Ballmer on Google
January 11, 2009
Richard Waters’ ”
Microsoft’s quest to beat Google” here is less about the Google challenge and more about a string of problems. You can read the story here. For me the most interesting bit in the write up was this paragraph:
And, while [Ballmer was] generally dismissive of Google’s venture into smartphones, he acknowledged it would be a long time before Microsoft would catch up with regards to search software. “Google’s a great company, they’ve certainly got great market share and a decent product,” he said.
Yep, decent. I wonder when Microsoft will close the gap between Live.com and Google.com. Time may be running out.
Stephen Arnold, January 11, 2009
Yahoo: Slipping and Dipping
January 11, 2009
I have deep skepticism about third party data. Nevertheless, when reports about Web site traffic and online advertising share appear, the data get snapped up the way Tess goes for a dropped chicken wing. Silicon Alley Insider’s “Yahoo’s Share of All Search Advertisers Drops 36% in QY (YHOO)” is worth reading. You can find the story and the scary red line here. Let’s assume the data are accurate. Bad news for Yahoo. Let’s assume the data are off a tad, say, down 18 percent in Q4. Slightly less bad news. If the Yahooligans continue to slip, the GOOG benefits. Yahoo started as a directory, became a portal, and then floundered. Like a person overboard in the Arctic waters off Nordkaap, even a strong swimmer succumbs. A weak swimmer, well, not much chance. Yahoo is now in the Arctic waters.
Stephen Arnold, January 11, 2009
Seattle Tree Ailing: Post Intelligencer Up for Sale
January 11, 2009
Short post. Click here to read about the financial plight of the Seattle Post Intelligencer. The newspaper may find a new owner. The newspaper may become a Web only publication. The newspaper may close. My call is for more floundering and then the lights go out. These resource sharing deals are a form of life support in my opinion. In the article, I fancied this statement:
Regrettably, we have come to the end of the line. Under the present circumstances, we see no opportunity for us to publish the P-I on a profitable basis.
Now that’s a way to find a buyer. If I had more interest in the dead and dying tree crowd, I would create a publication death watch. That’s too much work for me in 2009.
Stephen Arnold, January 11, 2009
Google: Search for the One True Way
January 10, 2009
I am not sure if this is 100 percent on the money. But the Bnet post about Google’s spirituality program warrants inclusion in this Web log. You can find the original story “Google Opens School of Personal Growth” here. The idea is to educate Googlers to keep their lives in balance. For me, the most interesting comment in the Bnet story was:
“Google wants to help Googlers grow as human beings on all levels,” Tan said in his presentation. “Emotional, mental, physical and ‘beyond the self.’”
Oh, one nuance: spiritually balanced Googlers are more creative and productive. That may be the real payoff for Googzilla.
Stephen Arnold, January 9, 2009
What about that Search Technology
January 10, 2009
In 2002, IBM acquired Pricewaterhouse Coopers here. In 2007 here IBM and PWC agreed to pay more than $5.2 million to settle allegations of false claims. In January 2009 here Times Online reported that PWC was “in the spotlight” with regard to the Satyam issue. IBM sells search and content processing systems. IBM sells text mining and business intelligence systems. Does IBM use these systems to identifies anomalies like the alleged Satyam anomalies. This addled goose wonders if these systems work. If not, would this addled goose buy a business intelligence or search system from IBM? Nope.
Stephen Arnold, January 10, 2009
Why Cloud Computing Is Right for 2009
January 10, 2009
The Standard ran Kathleen Lau’s ComputerWorld Canada story “Seven Reasons Cloud Computing Works in a Touch Economy” here. Most of the points are spot on. However, I was taken aback by the financial points: Lower up front costs, reduced financial risk, lower capital expense, and lower operational expense. On the surface, each of these points seem logical. But if one thinks about the generalization, the cost assertions may not work. A couple of quick examples:
First, a company shifts data and apps to the cloud. The vendor’s system craps out when a key proposal must be generated. The client loses the contract. This type of problem is tough to budget, so most people ignore the issue until it occurs. Those costs can be direct or time shifted. In order to prevent a single vendor from dropping the ball, additional money and effort are required to create a hot fail cloud environment.
Second, the notion that operational expenses will fall may also be easy to say but tough to achieve. High end data centers touch the machines and software. The customers don’t. When a system has been customized, the costs of troubleshooting and remediating can be high. In my experience, it only takes a weekend of overtime to blow the operational budget out of the water. Not all cloud apps will work this way, but when one does, the costs can be high indeed.
Finally, any financial assertion about cloud computing has to present assumptions and example costs. Telling me that the tree will cost about $500 to remove can become a $5,000 repair bill if the arborist manages to get the tree to fall on the neighbor’s bass boat.
More detail, please!
Stephen Arnold, January 10, 2009
Search and Get a Null Result
January 10, 2009
You will want to read, download, and save Stefan Gossner’s article about SharePoint content deployment. He does a much needed, clear write up about the issues of mixing incremental and full deployments. You can find the information here. To make a long and somewhat convoluted Microsoft procedure brief, think in terms of a source and a destination not having the same information objects. The search system returns a hit but the document is gone. Alternatively, a deleted document turns up in a search result list and it is available. What happened? One likely cause is the different behaviors of incremental and full deployment functions in SharePoint. The trick is to use full deployment only one time. Then only use incremental deployments. Need to redo a full deployment. Then deploy only to an empty site collection. A happy quack to Mr. Gossner.
Stephen Arnold, January 10, 2009
Business Week: All Over the GOOG
January 10, 2009
Business Week may want to rename one of its editorial sections “Google Week.” The editors at Business Week crank out articles about Google. Most are interesting, but some of the Google coverage is–well, let me be gentle–obvious. Here’s an example, “Small businesses Love Google, Even When things Go Wrong.” Now we know that search is not very good. I know that folks with multiple PhD’s and big IQs will beg to differ but I point to the research I have done, Jane McConnell in Paris has done, and that Martin White in London has done. Our data reveal that about two thirds of the users of a search system are dissatisfied. Now Business Week has embraced a Neilsen-WebVisible survey that says 92 percent of Internet users are satisfied with Web search. But–and this is an important “but”–“39 percent of them frequently can’t find companies they’re looking for.” Search doesn’t work too well. Imagine that. You must read the Business Week article here which includes a link to the news release from the big time research outfit here. In my opinion, the reason people love Google has to do with the imprint Google has stamped on two thirds of the people who look for information on Google. Google is search. Search is Google. If a free service works in a manner one can describe as “good enough”, that’s okay. The key is the brand power and magnetism Google possesses. Perception is a big part of a search system’s success. Google’s been working on perception for a decade, and the GOOG has done a bang up job. Now if we can shift people from their grip on the view of Google as an ad company, I would be a happier goose.
Stephen Arnold, January 10, 2009
Microsoft Innovation According to Network World
January 10, 2009
Mitchell Ashley wrote “Top 8 Microsoft Research Projects to Improve Our Lives” here. Straight away, let me remind you that I am a goose, an addled goose at that. I doubt very much that Mr. Ashley was thinking about geese when he penned his headline. What are the eight research project that may improve a human’s life? For starters, these eight “socio-digital systems (whatever that phrase means) include “I know it’s here somewhere.”
The idea is that big hard drives are available, economical, and sucking data into their depths. But wait, humans use other digital devices like SD cards and USB sticks. (Not this goose. I lose them.) So there are two socio-digital innovations that address this problem. You will have to read Mr. Ashley’s article for the other six innovations. I focus on search and content processing.
The first innovation is called “digital shoebox” and “family archive”. Here is what Mr. Ashley wrote:
It’s like the data management version of the cryogenic-freezing program: We all keep creating personal digital content and buying more disk drives in hopes that someday they’ll discover a cure for the information archiving, searching and retrieval of all that stuff before our time on earth is up.
Now I must admit that I had a tough time figuring out what these innovations are. I turned to Microsoft Live Search for elucidation. I noted a reference dated 2002 to this technology, and I saw a December 5, 2007, Business Week article here about this innovation. I jumped back to the 2002 reference to digital shoebox research here and then back to the 2007 reference. Same invention. I asked myself, “At what point does an innovation become JAT or just another technology. I think five years is a long time to move from innovation in one part of the R&D to the public relations office in another part of the R&D department.
From my quick scan of these documents, I think a server that indexes and points to where information objects are. I am not sure how the digital shoebox works on non-text objects, what metadata are generated, how the index update operates, or the indexing overhead.
The family archive proved to be easier to locate. Microsoft offers a brief description here. The key point for me was:
This project aims to understand the needs of families to interact with, manage, and archive materials which are important in preserving and sharing family memories. We are developing a system which allows the input and safe archiving of both digital and physical media, and which allows natural interaction with those media. This work has been informed by our in-depth studies of “photowork” and of “videowork“.
I think the archive adds smarter software to the digital shoebox.
My hunch is that Microsoft wants to make it easy for a Vista user to dump data anywhere. The Microsoft technology will sniff out the data and index it. When the user wants to find something, the “server” (probably a software component, not a power sucking six figure system) will allow the user to browse, search, and click metadata like a date or some other tag like Wesak and see hits that match.
A couple of thoughts.
These are interesting search and content processing ideas. I need to test these systems to see if my life becomes easier with them. My previous brushes with smart information object metatagging systems is a love-hate affair. Some systems I downright hate. Others I sort of love. So far none of Microsoft’s search technologies has made me swoon. I am thinking about search in Outlook, native search in XP, free SharePoint search, and the Byzantine Microsoft Fast ESP system.
Second, the notion of dumping data locally is out of step with what my research suggests young people want to do. The notion of dumping stuff is viable. The last set of interviews I did revealed that dumping should be automatic and the data dump should be located on a server somewhere. The idea was that when the device dies, a new device can suck data from the dump in the sky.
Finally, with Microsoft’s share of the search market slipping, Microsoft needs to make market share gains. R&D is okay when it yields more than words about innovation. I want innovation.
Stephen Arnold, January 10, 2009
Microsoft and Yahoo: On Again
January 9, 2009
Sitting at the eye doctor with my trusty Kindle (ruining my eyes, I know) I read “Ballmer Says Now Is time for Yahoo Search Deal” on the CNBC Web site here. Yahoo is not going anywhere. The CEO void remains. The Yahoo stock is in the run off stream from Old Faithful. If the CNBC report is true, the cyclic eruption of interest in Yahoo search is again visible. For me, the most interesting remark in the article was:
“We had a deal on the table that they didn’t choose to take, but I still think that makes sense,” Ballmer told the FT. “For us, the value to the customer, the value to the advertiser, all gets created around the search partnership.”
Since that time, Microsoft has lost Web search share as Yahoo treads water. Google continues to lead by a wide margin in the Web search NASCAR race. In my opinion, the Google vehicle is a tuned 2008 build. The Microsoft and Yahoo search systems are more like 1998 Chevrolets.
The deal may “save” Yahoo or deliver much needed emergency life support. But the Web search gap between Microsoft and Yahoo combined is too great to close with this deal. A leap frog play is needed. If this alleged deal goes through, I don’t think there will be a substantive change in Web search. Google, despite its numerous faults, remains more focused on search and its infrastructure. Microsoft and Yahoo have to catch up with today’s Google. Google is now leveraging its infrastructure to attack new markets. More is going to be needed to deal with the Google.
Stephen Arnold, January 9, 2009
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