SAP Asserts that Databases May Be Dead
October 29, 2009
For a company whose business is based on databases, the SAP executive’s statement struck me as either prescient, uninformed, or fatalistic. According to ZDNet’s “SAP: Days of the Database Are Numbered”, an SAP executive board member named Hagemann Snabe made this assertion. According to the write up, Mr. Snabe asserted:
as businesses move increasingly towards an “in-demand” world, there will be more demand for solutions that enable information to be accessed faster and faster. “I can imagine a future where people don’t even need a database,” said Hagemann Snabe, who heads up the business solutions and technology division at SAP, one of the world’s largest database developers.
For a company whose technology relies on traditional architectures, I found the remark intriguing. The Google continues to chug forward with its Googley approaches to data management that include infinite rows and other fascinating methods. I have written about companies such as Aster Data, Exalead, InfoBright, and MarkLogic. Each of these companies have technologies that offer data manager options for their customers. Conferences on very large database systems poke into various methods for dealing with petascale data flows.
But SAP!
SAP reported its third quarter 2009 results. The company was able to show a profit but sales were down. How far down? About 31 percent.
Let’s think about this brave new world.
SAP which has had a challenging year will have to rejig its system to deal with a spiffier data management system. That takes money and time. As SAP moves to a different data management system, customers have to be convinced that SAP has what it takes to make this shift. Time is also an issue. SAP has not made significant progress in delivering some core functionality that licensees need and want. One example is an information access system that reduces the time and hassles of finding information within an SAP system. Price hikes won’t calm restive SAP licensees.
In short, I agree that for petascale data management, the Codd database is not the the wrench for the job. The problem is that SAP is getting pressure from different points on the compass. Time may be running out for this large software company anchored firmly to the methods of the past.
Stephen Arnold, October 29. 2009
Do you think someone paid me to suggest that SAP may be in a state of decline?
New Make Money with Google Video Now Available
October 29, 2009
Arnold Information Technology, http://www.arnoldit.com, has the second video of its six-video series called “How to Make Money with Google” outlining how people can tap the Google revenue-generating machine. This video, which focuses on Google and Search Engine Optimization, premiered today at http://www.arnoldit.com/video.
The purpose of this short video series–watching all six videos takes about 30 minutes–is to give clear, factual information on four specific ways an enterprising individual, a services company, or a diversified company can use the Google platform to produce revenue while meeting the needs of their customers and prospects. The videos are available for personal and educational use with no fee.
The newest video highlights how Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, consulting can become a source of income. SEO focuses on how a web site can be created and coded to increase its visibility in any browser searches, including Google PageRank. There are sections in the video on how to learn SEO, how to leverage it, and how to make it work for you and your customers.
“Google is an important company, and its technology opens doors to a number of legitimate money-making opportunities,” Stephen E. Arnold, president of Arnold Information Technology, said. Arnold has published three Google monographs and these videos are based on the information compiled for The Google Legacy, Google Version 2.0, and Google: The Digital Gutenberg. The monographs are available from Infonortics Ltd., in Tetbury, Glos., at www.infonortics.com.
Other videos include an overview of money-making opportunities, including why the Google opportunity is similar to the opportunity Microsoft created with its MS DOS software in the early 1980s; using Google’s Adsense advertising module; the opportunity Google presents programmers who can create applications for the Google platforms such as Android for mobile devices; the Google partner and reseller program; and a video titled “Google Creates Opportunity,” which emphasizes the opportunity to grow with Google as the company strives for $100 billion in revenue.
“I wanted to provide some basic, factual information about what I see as the Google revenue opportunity. Information about Google is everywhere, but the upside of Google as an opportunity is not widely known,” Arnold said. “The increase in “get rich quick” with Google e-mails I was receiving convinced me that a more measured discussion of the opportunities was needed. I will make these videos available without charge in the hopes that the Google revenue opportunities get broader dissemination.”
The series will be posted at http://www.arnoldit.com/video. Videos will be released on a 10-day cycle from today to Nov. 20. ArnoldIT.com has no relationship with Google. The information presented in the video represents the views and findings of ArnoldIT.com’s analyses of Google. The videos were directed by Chris Forrester, Perceality Productions, at http://twitter.com/perceality. The samba music is courtesy Sounddogs.com. For information about other uses of the videos, contact ArnoldIT.com at seaky2000 [at] yahoo.com.
Jessica Bratcher, October 29, 2009
Stephen Arnold paid Ms. Bratcher to write this brilliant news story. The Mr. Arnold published the brilliant news story in his personal Web log. Now that’s marketing.
Ask.com Twisting in the Wind
October 29, 2009
Nothing like knowing a unit of a big company is on the chopping block. I flashed back to a dinner with an azure chip consultant who spent time and energy explaining that Ask.com was the next big thing in search. I listened and dismissed the fellow and his firm as a bag of goose feathers. (This is an option reserved for an addled goose.) I think that dinner was in 2006 and 2007, and Ask.com has gone nowhere. According to this Reuters’ story (“Microsoft Seen as Diller’s Best Bet for Ask.com”), Ask.com’s optimistic owner may see Microsoft as the white knight for old AskJeeves.com service. What I also recalled upon reading this story was a statement by Jason Calacanis that a one percent share of a Web search market was worth a great deal of money. I think his assertion with a billion dollars per percentage point, but I may have that wrong.)
What I do know is that whoever buys AskJeeves.com is going to make it easy to calculate exactly how much a four percent share of the Web search market is worth. My thought is that four percent won’t amount too much because Web search share in and of itself is irrelevant. What makes Web search valuable is the monetization efficiency of that share. I am a simple goose and divide $22 billion by 80 percent and come up with an efficiency score. I can do more fancy math, but I don’t think numerical recipes will add a truckload of insight. If Ask.com were pumping cash, would its owner hint that the property is for sale? Maybe? Maybe not? Ask.com—no matter who owns it—is going to be a tough bird to fatten for Thanksgiving dinner. Will Microsoft buy Ask.com? After the stunning purchase of Fast Search & Transfer for $1.23 billion I would not be surprised if Microsoft cut down Ask.com and carted the service back to Redmond.
Stephen Arnold, October 29, 2009
Yahoo and Financial Fantasy
October 29, 2009
I was diplomatic when I mentioned Autonomy’s third quarter financial results. I try not to point out that most of the 300 search and content processing companies are in a financial swamp. But this story lured me into the interesting world of corporate financial prognostication. First, read “Yahoo CFO Vows To Boost Operating Margins To 15%-20% By 2012”. Okay, 2012 is 27 months away. Yahoo is not increasing in a significant way its share of the Web search market. The company’s deal with Microsoft has gone quiet. In fact, that deal puzzles me in light of Yahoo’s statements that it still is in the Web search game, an expensive game indeed, I wish to add. The most interesting comment in the write up was:
Chief Technology Officer Ari Balogh said Yahoo’s model is very simple: Engaging its broad audience and gathering insights about their behavior so the company can provide them with better online experiences and better targeted ads. “This is all about how we execute,” Balogh said.
Yahoo? Execute? With cost cutting delivering the financial oomph, Yahoo will have to make Panama into a world class power. Yahoo will have to get its shopping service to work. Yahoo will have to stabilize its interface. Yahoo will have to execute on the basics and maybe then the CFO’s “vow” will mean something to me. Just my opinion.
Stephen Arnold, October 29, 2009
Who would pay me for this tripe?
Chrome Alleged to Be Tarnished
October 29, 2009
A happy quack to the reader who sent me a link to the Network World story “Google Hit with Patent Suit Related to Chrome.” Patent litigation is an expensive activity. For me the most significant passage in the article was:
Filed in the U.D. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, the suit also charges Google with publishing and distributing the source code for Red Bend’s technology. That charge may stem from the fact that Chrome and the Courgette update system are open source. Red Bend claims that Google has known about the patent, which Red Bend filed for in 1998 and was granted in 2003, since Sept. 7 this year. As a result, Red Bend is asking for triple damages and attorney’s fees.
I am no attorney, but I recall reading a number of Google patent documents that explain various bits and pieces of the Chrome service. I also recall reading about Google compression methods. I sure don’t know if the Red Bend allegation is going to stand up in court. Google has cash, so any outfit with patents can examine Google and hope for a big pay day.
The other aspect of this dust up is the fact that some of the code is open source. I will be interested to see how this factor emerges from the lofty and admirable legal processes ahead. Yikes! Open source. Patents. Google. Quite a combination of ingredients.
Stephen Arnold, October 29, 2009
Tess licked me after I wrote this. Tell the USDA!
Silobreaker Nails Swedish Armed Forces Deal
October 28, 2009
Silobreaker is an interesting service. The company offers a system plus content that delivers customized reports, search, and real-time analytics. A number of companies have been working overtime to shift from a laundry list of results to more meaningful presentations of information. Readers of this Web log know that I have been enthusiastic about the Silobreaker approach.
i learned today via Marketwire that the company landed the Swedish Armed Forces as a customer. “Silobreaker Offers News Intelligence Software to Corporate and Government Customers. Delivers Silobreaker Enterprise Software Suite to Swedish Armed Forces” said:
Having built powerful search and analysis capabilities, Silobreaker’s software handles text, video, images, and other multimedia content and presents results to customers through a variety of rich graphics including Network, InFocus, 360, Hot Spots, and Trends. The robust software also links into existing and complex enterprise taxonomies, thesauri, languages, and other internal data to provide customers with market and industry specific results. To see a video presentation, please visit YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-B-08b7_ukY&hd=1.
For more information, point your browser to http://www.silobreaker.com.
Stephen Arnold, October 28, 2009
Alas! No one paid me to write this news story. Life is cruel.
The Risks of Personalized Search
October 28, 2009
Most online users are lousy searchers. These individuals don’t agree. In my research, In a study at a major trade association in July 2009, my team learned that most of the individuals in our sample perceived their search skills as excellent or superior. The perception that search is a slam dunk is widespread. The reality, of course, is that most people rely on public Web search systems. When it comes to locating data for a business decision, the actual work processes observed reveal inefficient and largely manual work methods. I was thinking about this interesting situation when I read about Google’s new real time and social search system. If you are unfamiliar with this “to be” service, navigate to the Google blog and read “Introducing Google Social Search.”
I think that the service can be quite useful for some types of research. On the other hand, I see three risks associated with this type of service:
First, users who think they are great searchers will rely on “recipes” (systems and methods) to deliver information tailored to their needs as determined by software agents. In short, the clueless will have no clue what their query has been interpreted to mean. The clueless searcher will get results and assume that their search expertise has returned exactly what the user wanted. Wrong. The smart system returns what the algorithms determine the user wanted. Perception is one thing; reality is another.
Second, searchers with confidence in their search skills often overlook the reality that sources may or may not be correct. Not even Google’s smart software can deliver phone numbers that match an organization’s current phone number. Even more egregious errors exist within any result set. Users who lack basic search skills are likely to accept information in a results list at face value. Users lack a foundation in determining what is reliable and what is not.
Third, training wheels in smart systems—whether in Bing.com’s slick new product displays or Google’s semiautonomous agents—foster users’ confidence in their search skills. Users don’t know what they don’t know, and the false sense of confidence can get some people in hot water. I recall reading about a person following a Google Map into a pond. The information from the search system took precedence over the fact that the maps were wrong.
i don’t know how to fix this mismatch between a user’s search expertise and the user’s perception of his or her search expertise. Schools are not doing much to educate users about online. In the meantime, the trade press happily ignores these and other risks of personalized search systems that shift the burden of knowing how to find accurate information from the user to software. Risky in my opinion.
Stephen Arnold, October 28, 2009
No pay, no way.
Online Pricing Twist
October 28, 2009
When I read something, I remember chunks of the information. I don’t think too much about how my memory works. I know that in high school, I would look at a test question, have zero idea of the answer, and then I would recall what I read. Weird. Even today I can dredge up chunks of information about Nero’s alleged murder of his mom and the bits of junk floating inside a paramecium. Saved my bacon lots of times. For me, the idea of “renting” information is peculiar. Once I read it or “see”, I have it.
What caused me to think of this mental quirk was the article “.” You can read about this information service at http://www.deepdyve.com. The idea, as I understand it, is:
DeepDyve’s new online rental service builds on our initial research platform. Using DeepDyve you can access a wide selection of more than 30 million articles from thousands of journals, all in one place. As of today you can read the full-text of many journal articles for as little as $0.99, or join a monthly plan and enjoy greater discounts and increased flexibility. Renting the articles is easy. All you need is a PayPal account. DeepDyve also has plenty of robust research tools and personalized recommendations that are there to foster your discovery of the science, technical and medical topics that interest you.
The business model is not dissimilar from that offered by Ebsco, one of the giants in the field of aggregated information, or Highbeam, among others. The twist is the notion of a “rental”. Renting in my mind applies to automobiles, apartments, and sidewalk edgers.
My concern with online business models is that most of them are not really new. Google emulated the third party payer model, which is different from the method of most commercial information companies. LexisNexis wants me to pay, and I won’t do that any more. Is DeepDyve breaking new ground or doing some clever marketing? The good news is that the company is making an effort to differentiate itself. When I read something – rental, fee, or just browsing in an airport newsstand – I capture the information which makes monetizing my behaviors more difficult.
Stephen Arnold, October 28, 2009
i wish I had been paid. I would have settled for a donut.
Baidu: Gets the Yahoo Panama Flu
October 28, 2009
I don’t want to make too much of the Baidu goof. The company indicated that its new ad platform has caused the firm to stub its toe. You can read the explanation in “Baidu’s Rare Stumble Offers Google Opportunities” and get the scoop. Last week I was asked to provide a breakdown of Google’s technical investment in its ad platform. I turned to my patent document analysis and reported that Google has continued to invest in the plumbing and numerical recipes that fuel its third party payer system. No big surprise to me. Ad revenue makes up 98 percent of the firm’s revenue. Even Google knows that it has to baby this system or Googzilla will shrivel up and die. What struck me is that Baidu has Panama flu. As you may recall, Yahoo’s oh-so-confident technologists promised that Yahoo’s new ad platform would enable the company to compete better with Google. Panama finally wobbled out of the starting gate after years in gestation. Yahoo continued to fall behind the Google. Now Baidu shows similar symptoms. What these two examples communicate to me is that Google’s ad platform is in place and working. The Google upgrades that platform with regular injections of wizardry and so far has not caught the Panama flu. Maybe the online ad systems are more tricky than some engineers believe. Now Baidu’s misstep may give Google a pry bar to use in the China market?
Stephen Arnold, October 28, 2009
Not even a dog treat for Tess for this write up.
Impromptu Shared Information Spaces
October 28, 2009
The USPTO published US 7,610,287, “System and Method for Impromptu Shared Communication Spaces”, filed in 2005, an invention by Jeff Dean, Georges Harik and Obeka Tallis Brown Bakin. This is a pretty significant invention in my opinion. The system and method works around some interesting technical precursors, yet gives Google a grasp on an important advance in data management. I discuss some of the invention’s implications in Google: The Digital Gutenberg, and I wanted to call to your attention this open source publication. The description of the invention is:
Communications between entities who may share common interests. For entities determined to be sharing common interests (e.g., searching using the same terms or topics, browsing a page, a site or a groups of topically related sites), options for communication among the entities are provided. For example, a chat room may be dynamically created for persons who are currently searching or browsing the same or related information. As another example, a “homepage” may be created for each query and contain various types of information related to the query. A permission module controls which entities may participate, what types of information (and from what sources) an entity can (or desires to) receive, what types of information the entity may (or desires to) share.
I anticipate that in a short time, various Google mavens and pundits will explain that this invention is related to the fun, friendly world of Google that makes up most of the services now offered from the GOOG. In my opinion, this invention moves into a new “space”. That’s as far as I will go in this free Web log. Maybe someone will be able to find search engine optimization gems in this invention. I don’t, but I am an addled goose.
Stephen Arnold, October 28, 2009
Google did not send me so much as a mouse pad for flagging this open source document as important. Spoil sports.
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