SAP Tibco Tie Up
August 10, 2009
Short honk: SAP, according to Thomson Reuters, may be doing a bit of high school prom planning. “Germany’s SAP Considering Offer for Tibco” reminded me that I have not been updating my information about SAP’s TREX search system. What? You are not using this tool in your SharePoint centric implementation of SAP R/3?
The Thomson Reuters’ story stated:
German software maker SAP (SAPG.DE) is considering bidding for US software firm Tibco (TIBX.O), German weekly Wirtschaftwoche reported on Saturday, citing a source close to talks between the two companies.
Tibco does plumbing and it works. Tibco’s technology has been kept current but it, like Google, has its roots in the late 1990s. There may be alternatives that Tibco cannot embrace because of the engineering costs. SAP, on the other hand, is an enterprise software vendor of interesting complexity, cost, and resource consumption.
Will a tie up with Tibco put SAP on a growth track? I think it would have in the pre-2008 financial meltdown era. In today’s business climate, I am inclined to assert a gentle “No, no, I do not think so.”
Stephen Arnold, August 9, 2009
Google’s Data Center Strategy Questioned
August 10, 2009
Google fired up its engineering engines in the period between 1996 and 2002. As the company entered its run up to its initial public offering, Google had locked and loaded on some core principles. I am sure you have internalized these by now. It has been more than a 11 years since the Google came on the search world’s radar.
The Register’s headline “Will Google Regret the Mega Data Center?” raises an interesting question. The story was written in August 2009, more than a decade after the GOOG launched itself. Can decade old technology remain viable in today’s wild and crazy technical world? Cade Metz reported:
In the wake of Microsoft’s decision to remove its Windows Azure infrastructure from the state of Washington – where a change in local tax law has upped the price of building out the proverbial cloud – the company’s former director of data center services has warned that Microsoft and other cloud-happy giants may soon find that the mega data center isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. “[Large cloud providers] are burning through tremendous amounts of capital believing that these facilities will ultimately give them strategic advantage,” reads a blog post from Mike Manos, who recently left Microsoft for data center outfit Digital Realty Trust.
Yikes! Google. A fat and out-of-step dinosaur?
Google has three dozen data centers, a model that Microsoft has emulated. Google has according to chatter about a million servers humming along. What is The Register’s take on this important issue? You will have to read Mr. Metz’s article.
My view:
Google Gets Sentimental
August 10, 2009
I got a briefing from a company called Lexalytics. The firm, as I recall, was explaining its sentiment based content processing technology. I thought it was interesting. I subsequently learned that Lexalytics’ system would be part of the Financial Times’s online service, but my recollection is fuzzy. I thought of this company when I learned about the Google patent application US20090193328, “Aspect Based Sentiment Summarization”. You can find this document at the ever so powerful USPTO via its patent search engine. The abstract for the patent application, which some wizards believe are little more than the equivalent of my mother’s making Christmas tree ornaments for her friends stated:
Reviews express sentiment about one or more entities. Phrases in the reviews that express sentiment about a particular aspect are identified. Reviewable aspects of the entity are also identified. The reviewable aspects include static aspects that are specific to particular types of entities and dynamic aspects that are extracted from the reviews of a specific entity instance. The sentiment phrases are associated with the reviewable aspects to which the phrases pertain. The sentiment expressed by the phrases associated with each aspect is summarized, thereby producing a summary of sentiment associated with each reviewable aspect of the entity. The summarized sentiment and associated phrases can be stored and displayed to a user as a summary description of the entity.
Now Lexalytics and other companies with sentiment sniffers are only part of what this document sparked in my mind. The other low voltage arc was in the Endeca “Guided Navigation” department of my addled goose brain. As I read the exciting patent document and its droll legalese, I realized that the Google is claiming that its performs the same magic that Orange Julius does when it mixes fruits in fruit shake.
Will Lexalytics and Endeca shiver their timbers? Nope. My hunch is that both companies will see their technology as light years ahead of the Google’s. I also assert that both companies will not see Google’s claims as having much impact on their enterprise and ecommerce content processing applications.
In my opinion, this type of “Google does not have what we have” thinking is going to lead to unfortunate circumstances and quickly.
Stephen Arnold, August 11, 2009
Washington Post Riffles Google Books
August 10, 2009
First, the source: the Washington Post. A traditional newspaper. Presumably the Washington Post is aware that Google has become the poster child of the network-centric world in which traditional media must operate. Second, the Google: a company that has destabilized Yahoo, annoyed telecommunications executives, and operates by playing three D chess in a world happier with Tic Tac Toe.
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The editorial “Google’s Fine Print” identifies one of Google’s chess moves in a Tic Tac Toe world. Traditional media want the game to be Tic Tac Toe. There is an elegance to it and the business model predicated on taking intellectual outputs, putting them on paper, selling ads, and charging enough money to build information empires like those enjoyed by William Randolph Hurst, among others.
The problem, however, is that in order to win at Google’s game, the folks on the other sides of the 3 D chess board have to know what game is being played. Google has been grinding away at indexing and archiving information for quite a while. The Books interest kicked in a year or so before Google hired a wizard and Caere executive to move the Google parade toward books.
Then Google invoked fair use and started digitizing with some partners who were sufficiently Googley to figure out that playing Google’s game was a reasonable undertaking. Folks objected. Google negotiated. A deal emerged. Now, after the fact, the Tic Tac Toe crowd wants to play their game.
I have written many times that dealing with Google requires a different understanding. The traditional media are one group of Google contestants lagging in the game playing expertise. Keep in mind that Google is an “as is” outfit. The Tic Tac Toe crowd is working on the “to be” scenario. Publishing will be in the same two person raft as Microsoft and Yahoo. That craft is not going to close the gap, let along leapfrog the Google.
Let me think. Google said it would index the world’s information 11 years ago. Since that time, Google has been playing its game of 3 D chess. Now more than a decade later, the Washington Post wants to play Tic Tac Toe. Well, maybe the lawyers will pull off the Greek deus ex cathedra play. Will that change the fact that no other entity can do what Google is doing to preserve and make accessible books and research information. A national library? Right, good luck with that one. How about a commercial database company? Fat chance. Some of thsee outfits would sell out to Google in a Kentucky Derby minute so the lawyers and accountants who run these information sweat shops can buy a house in France.
Tell me how wrong I am. Just keep the “as is”, the signed deal, and the available archive in mind. “To be” arguments will not hold the addled goose’s attention. The Christian Science Monitor has weighed in as well.
Stephen Arnold, August 10, 2009
Publishing Fantasy: The Hybrid Solution
August 10, 2009
I can visualize the meeting that sparked the idea for “Staving Off A Spiral Toward Oblivion”. You can read the essay by Mary Tripsas in the hard copy of the New York Times in the Business section, August 9, 2009, page 3, or poke around online until you locate a link to a digital version.
The argument references hot metal typesetting, sailing ships, and other chestnuts from the buggy whip approach to business analysis. In today’s world, these examples are intriguing. I recall meeting a talented professional writer named Fred Czufin, who used history to illustrate modern technology. We used his firm to create a remarkable historical view of energy for Eric Zausner, then the head of Booz Allen’s energy practice. This was in the era of a single Booz, Allen & Hamilton at a time when the firm was competing to be among the top two or three management consulting firms in the world.
Ms. Tripsas has used the same method to explain that publishers can save themselves by becoming hybrids. The idea is that by bolting on whizzy new functions to the proven methods, an organization has time and opportunity to make further changes.
Wrong.
Hybrids are at best a bit like Frankenstein’s monster, neither fish nor fowl.
Consider Google. The company focused on solving fundamental problems using available hardware. The company’s focus was on solving known problems and using quite different business methods and processes to achieve the firm’s objective of making the world’s information available.
Google along with Facebook and a handful of other companies have come to define the next generation in information services and systems. Sure, these outfits use established technology but the companies have blended technology with business methods, processes, and models.
The New York Times’s Web site renders its content incorrectly in Firefox. The page displays in Internet Explorer. Perhaps the New York Times will make it possible for Firefox users to view a properly rendered page generated from its hybrid system? I know that’s a detail and probably not meaningful to a company embracing Frankenstein methods.
The problem for publishers and other last-generation information companies is that kicking the habits formed in the past is proving really tough.
I want to mention a couple of examples that hit my radar this week. You may, of course, agree or disagree. Keep in mind I am not in the same kettle of fish as the information companies that are fighting for their lives:
ITEM 1: A large organization cannot deploy a Web site that works. The fix was to ignore the business management and process issues and fix the blame for the problem on the information technology contractor.
ITEM 2: A publisher has reduced its work week from five days to four days. In order to save money, the accounting department makes “errors” that delay the payment process.
ITEM 3: A tabloid publisher cannot create a new online service because the editorial procedures are set up for print and management lacks the appetite to make changes.
ITEM 4: A new media company exits one technical field which makes money to focus on electronic content which does not make money.
What does each of these “items” have in common? Management problems. Hybrids don’t fix management problems. Period.
Each of these outfits has whizzy new technology. Each of these outfits is a hybrid. If that’s the way to save publishing, I must be missing something.
Stephen Arnold, August 10, 2009
Microsoft May – Would – Could Derail XML for Documents
August 9, 2009
I may have misunderstood the article “Storing Text Docs in XML May Run Afoul of Microsoft Patent.” The “may” is a word that gives Ars Technica a wide scope. Nevertheless, I am not sure a Web news agency is going to the be the definitive source for an issue about infringement. The statement I found interesting was:
The key question going forward is what Microsoft chooses to do with this patent now that it has been granted. The company is under pressure in both the US and EU to increase its software’s interoperability with that of its competitors, so a rigorous enforcement of this patent would seem like an express lane to further legal trouble, something the company has seemingly been anxious to avoid.
Another phrase that allows the author to have flexibility is “would seem”. My question is, “Why not let the patent abstract speak for the patent itself in a brief write up?” I think there may be a desire to whip up some excitement. I suppose I could use the word “may” and the phrase “would seem” so that I too have wiggle room. Attorneys’ opinions, please.
Stephen Arnold, August 12, 2009
Google Backs Out of Radio Ads
August 9, 2009
Radio is one of the old media businesses that seems to be the victim of a real life vampire attack. iTunes and Internet radio have made the business unattractive to the Google. RadioWorld’s “WideOrbit Buys Google Radio Automation” explains the details of the deal. There is not much to add. Google bought a property that does not have lift. That property and the money are now gone. Move on.
Stephen Arnold, August 7, 2009
SharePoint Thesaurus Builder
August 9, 2009
Short honk: want to build a thesaurus. No joy in SharePoint itself. A built in utility like Framemaker’s Table of Contents’ function would be useful. Navigate to “Creating Thesaurus Files” and copy the provided script to your computing device. Perform the normal ballet of SharePoint tricks to create a macro. Knock yourself out. Some Certified SharePoint developers will prefer to code their own for job security or self satisfaction. Not the goslings. We rely on solutions from real SharePoint wizards.
Stephen Arnold, August 11, 2009
Kindle Murdoch Show Down
August 9, 2009
The theme for News Corp.’s top dog is that great journalism is expensive. Mr. Murdoch has that right. The Daily Online Examiner ran a story that makes this goose nervous: “Clueless Murdoch Move: Without Subscribers Names, Might Break with Kindle”. The “clueless” surprised me. I bet it surprised Mr. Murdoch even more. Money equals brains, and Mr. Murdoch has a lot of money. Therefore, Mr. Murdoch is a smart person. Wendy Davis wrote:
In a statement that appears tone deaf to the privacy concerns surrounding digital media, the head of News Corp. recently announced that the company might stop allowing its material to be sold on the Kindle because Amazon doesn’t disclose subscriber names. “Kindle treats them as their subscribers, not as ours, and I think that will eventually cause a break with us,” he said this week.
I would like to have access to some of the individuals whom I research reading lists. That is difficult information to get. My hunch is that because digital systems make it possible to have new types of data, then some folks want that data for their own purposes.
Mr. Murdoch is particularizing a need for data. Other entities have the data, don’t talk about it, don’t explain what can and is done with those data, and reflexively throw a fog of obfuscation over these data. Mr. Murdoch is forcing a show down. He is getting older. His traditional business methods are becoming less reliable. He is fighting back.
This and the charging for content will be an interesting lab test and IQ test.
Stephen Arnold, August 9, 2009
Murdoch Spam
August 8, 2009
Short honk: Just wanted to document that I continue to receive at my mail email address Wall Street Journal spam. I am a print subscriber, yet the company despite my phone calls, my email, and these “short honks” continues to bombard me with email offering me a discount to subscribe to the newspaper. Too bad you are not my customer so I can return the favor. I guess the rich are different.
Stephen Arnold, August 8, 2009
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