Mobile Search
January 4, 2009
One of the ZDnet Web logs presents snippets of data. I read “Top US Web Sites Accessed over Mobile Phones in October 2008” here. I then went back to the chart and looked at the data more carefully. What did I overlook in my first scan? The combined traffic of Google Search, Gmail, and Google Maps was twice that of the number one most used mobile site–Yahoo. So what? In my addled goose brain, the dominance of Google in mobile is moving toward the same “game over” type of market share Google has in Web search. Who is going to knock off the GOOG. Yahoo? I am not sure what Yahoo will be doing. Microsoft? Again, I am in the dark. I have given up trying to figure out who is in charge of search. The revolving door spins too quickly for me. AOL? Snort, snort. Weather, sports, news? Nope, the GOOG has nifty technology to make its traditional offerings more interesting by creating its own information. Maybe I am reading this Nielsen data incorrectly? If I am, let me know.
Stephen Arnold, January 4, 2009
Enterprise Search: The Batista Madoff Syndrome
January 4, 2009
Two examples flapped around my aging mind this chilly and dark Sunday, January 4, 2009. I am not sure why I woke up with the names Batista and Madoff juxtaposed. I walked my dogs, Tess (my SharePoint expert) and Tyson (my Google Search Appliance dude). I asked, “How can experts be so wrong?” Both looked at me. Here’s a picture of their inquiring minds directing their attention toward me.
Forget Batista and Madoff. We want breakfast.
On our walk in the pre-dawn gloaming, I thought about Felix Batista. In mid-December 2008, Mr. Batista (a security consultant and anti-kidnapping expert) was kidnapped. Although tragic, I wondered how a kidnapping expert in Mexico to give a talk about thwarting kidnapping could get himself snatched that day. I was reminded of search experts recommending a system that did not work. I have been in some interesting situations where kidnapping and mortar attacks were on the morning’s agenda. I am no kidnapping or mortar blast expert. But I figured out how to avoid trouble, and I just used commonsense. I am not as well known as Felix Batista, of course, but the risk of trouble was high. I did not encounter a direct threat even though I was in a high risk situation. I wondered, “What was this expert doing in the wrong place and the right time anyway?” (Please, read this brief and gentle account of Mr. Batista’s travails here.)
Now Bernard Madoff, the fellow who took a Ponzi scheme to new heights. I am not concerned about Mr. Madoff. What I thought about was the headline on the dead tree version of the Wall Street Journal: “Me, Madoff and the Mind: How a Gullibility Expert Was Scammed.” Another expert, another smarter-than-me person proven to be somewhat dull. I suppose that the notions of trust, ethical behavior, and honesty get mixed into the colors of expertise and knowledge. Mr. Madoff is colored a most disturbing shade of brown.
Common Themes
What do these two unrelated incidents have in common? That was the question I pondered on my early morning walk. Let me capture my thoughts before they flap away:
First, the cult of the expert has been a big part of my work at Nuclear Utility Services (a unit of Halliburton) and Booz, Allen & Hamilton (the pre-break up and messy divorce version, thank you). Experts are easy to find in nuclear energy. A mistake can be reasonably exciting. As a result, most of the people involved in the nuclear industry (classified and unclassified versions) are careful. When errors occur, really bad things happen. The quality assurance fad did not sweep the nuclear industry. Nuclear-related work had to be correct. Get it wrong and you have Chernobyl. Nuclear is not a zero defect operation. Nothing done by humans can be. If a nuclear expert were alive, that was one easy and imperfect way determine that the expert knew something. When nuclear experts are wrong, you get pretty spectacular problems.
Visualization of the Chernobyl radiation. Source: http://www.gearthblog.com/blog/archives/2006/04/chernobyl_radia.html
At Booz, Allen & Hamilton in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the meaning of the word “expert” was a bit softer than at Halliburton NUS. BAH (as it was then known) had individuals with what the firm called “deep industry experience”. I learned that a recent MBA qualified as an expert for some engagements. The clients were gullible or wanted to believe that Mr. Booz’s 1917 could work its magic for International Harvester or the Department of the Navy. Some BAH professionals had quite a bit of post graduate training in a discipline generally related to the person’s area of expertise. I am still not clear what a Ph.D. in business means. Perhaps I can ask one of Mr. Madoff’s investors this question? The problem was that a BAH expert was not like a Halliburton NUS expert. My boss–Dr. William P. Sommers–told me that Halliburton NUS was a C+ outfit. BAH, he asserted, was an A+ shop. I nodded eagerly because I knew what was required to remain a BAH professional. I did not agree then nor do I agree now. Some of the consultants from the 1970s, like consultants today, have awarded themselves the title of expert. I can point to a recent study of enterprise search as evidence that this self-propagation is practiced today as it was in 1970.
Google Now Officially Microsoft-esque
January 3, 2009
Matt Asay’s headline caught my eye. “Google’s Microsoft-esque Landgrab for IE’s Market Share” discusses the erosion of Internet Explorer’s market share. I commented on this so I won’t review the implications of this market share decline. I want to focus on the word “Microsoft-esque.” I respect CNet, and I think its editors make a effort to choose headlines that are accurate and catchy. The use of the word “Microsoft-esque” makes official that the old order has been by passed. Microsoft snookered IBM. IBM today is a weird amalgam of “to be” software and consulting. The company generates about $100 billion in revenue so its brain trust knows how to make money. But IBM is not on my short list of companies to watch in 2009. Microsoft is now a version of IBM, outpaced and out maneuvered by Google. Google, therefore, is the “new” Microsoft. If CNet sees Google as “Microsoft-esque”, so do I. The hitch in the rope is that I don’t think Google is a Microsoft. Google is different creature, and its competitive impact is disruptive in a way that is different from Microsoft’s in the 1980s. I like “Microsoft-esque”. I just think it is misleading. The GOOG is fission compared to Microsoft’s lubrication function. The differences are more subtle than market grabbing.
Stephen Arnold, January 3, 2009
The Polymorphic Android
January 3, 2009
PC World reported here that Matthaus Krzykowski and Daniel Hartmann of Mobile-facts.com have used Chrome and other bits and pieces of Google to build a desktop operating system. The article by Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols reports that the two wizards (who appear to be cartoon characters) created an operating system in a very short time. for me, the most important comment in the article was:
Google, not just some technically adept users, is already thinking about using Android as a desktop operating system. Krzykowski and Hartmann don’t see Google making its desktop move very quickly though. They believe that Android-powered netbooks, thanks to Android’s already existing hardware partners in the Open Handset Alliance, could arrive as early as spring this year.
Check out the article. One observation: the Google telephony play including Android, Chrome, and the Google phone is old news. Google’s data management play which few are giving much credence is even more profound than Google’s various telco activities. To his credit, Mr. Vaughan-Nichols acknowledges that the GOOG has been operating in misdirection mode. Good point. The misdirection mode has been in play for a decade, however. Now some folks are noticing. Problem is. Might be too late.
Stephen Arnold, January 3, 2008
Google Free Security Monograph
January 3, 2009
The Google press machine has churned out a security monograph. The Browser Security Handbook is typical Google. Terse, basic information designed to make life easier for Google is available without charge. You can download a copy from the Google Online Security Blog link here. Enjoy.
Stephen Arnold, January 3, 2008
Google: Security of Its Cloud Applications
January 3, 2009
CSO Security and Risk published a mini interview with two Googlers here. “Four Questions on Google App Security” contains little of the lava lamp and Odwalla disingenuousness and some useful information about security for Google Apps’s users. The author bill Brenner is to be commended for ignoring the usual fluff that distracts most of the journalists writing about the GOOG. The Googlers make a passing reference to the problem of multi tenant computing, a topic that warranted some deeper probing in my opinion. The Googlers lay out the Google view of delivering applications from the cloud. Google is not viewing cloud services as Virtualization. Nope. For the GOOG, cloud computing is build around “message application, security, and compliance.” For me the most important comment in the article was:
We have taken a big chunk of Postini’s technology and incorporated it into the Gmail client.
Google has a presence in secure hosted email. If you dig around on the Google Web site, you will find a very reasonably priced email archiving service. The present service is a tiny step away from more robust eDiscovery services. The “hook” between Gmail and Postini is an important signal that Google is beginning the process of rationalization; that is, why have two services. Blend the technology and go with one branded service. I am inclined to reassess Gmail as a more important enterprise service that it now is.
Stephen Arnold, January 2, 2009
Quote to Note: Google on Books from the Voice of America
January 3, 2009
I had lost track of the Voice of America. In fact, I am not sure how the various US government information services interoperate these days. I navigated to a VOA story with the catchy title “Google Plans to Put All World’s Books Online”. Categorical affirmatives interest me because most of the usage of categoricals is logically imprecise. I was also interested in why this story ran on December 31, 2009. I gently pinged the VOA and got no response.
The write up summarizes the Google Book project. Not much new in the article, but there was a quote to note. Here’s what caught my eye:
Google insists the project is about more than money.
If not about money, perhaps the project is about information. The more information Google has, the more benefits accrue to the company. With “all” knowledge, some interesting opportunities arise for Google. I like that “more than money”.
Stephen E. Arnold, January 1, 2010
A freebie. I will report this to the Department of the Army.
Google Is a Telco–Maybe
January 2, 2009
This posting is for the dozens of US telecommunications executives who told me that Google was not adept in telephony, would never be a telephone company, and lacked the experience to deal with a specialized, sophisticated business sector. Yeah, right. I won’t mention the spectrum play, Android, or the Google phone. Nope. The big news appears in Telecom-paper.com here. You have to pay to read the short article. I won’t quote from it because I don’t need a legal eagle flapping in my face. I have not been able to confirm this story from the Netherlands. Hopefully, the item will be picked up by other Web logs and maybe a newspaper, if someone on the staff takes time off from polishing résumés, selling advertising, or building Web input forms for reader submitted articles. The headline tells the tale: “Google Authorized to Offer Voice Services in Spain.”
Stephen Arnold, January 3, 2009
Browser Share Drop for Microsoft Is Bad News
January 2, 2009
The netbooks have arrived in rural Kentucky. Beyond Search now has two of these devices. Nothing beats the IBM mainframe in my opinion, but even old geese have to adapt. Netbooks can run applications, but we find ourselves using portable applications and services available via a WiFi or the Verizon wireless service. Once Firefox is up and running, we have found that over time cloud-based services such as Google Apps are good enough. As fond as we are of the MVS/TSO approach to computing, the browser or browser like environments seem to be the future. Victor Goinez’s “Internet Explorer’s Share of the Browser Market Fell below 70% in November” here struck us as bad news for Microsoft. The article contains a nifty graphic showing the vendors’ respective market shares too. Data reported second or third hand can be wide of the mark. Let’s assume that these figures are spot on. So what? In our opinion, a decline in Internet Explorer share of the market means that other vendors have sucked some oxygen from the Microsoft ecosystem. Microsoft can keep on breathing, but the company needs to address the problem. Other browser developers may ramp up their attack on IE, which has lagged Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Opera in some key features. If the shift is evident to computer users in rural Kentucky, the more informed folks in more intellectually astute areas will be even more aware of the importance of the browser and browser like environments. Chrome, in our opinion, only looks like a browser. Chrome is a software airlock that connects a computing device to the Google mothership. If Chrome succeeds in snapping its airlock on more computers, Microsoft’s share of the browser market may continue to experience labored breathing.
Stephen Arnold, January 2, 2008
Dot Net Issues: Help Is Here
January 2, 2009
A happy quack to the reader who sent me the link to Red Gate here. The company owns a free Dot Net assembly explorer. With the software you can browse assemblies, see relationships between classes and methods, and check to make sure your own Dot Net code is obfuscated. But the feature that the geese at Beyond Search quacked happily about is that you can find where types are instantiated and exposed. There are more than two dozen add ins available; for example, two separate dependency analyzers. The software is called Dot Net Reflector. Snag a copy now.
Stephen Arnold, January 2, 2009
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