Microsoft Enterprise Search Blog on SharePoint Search
October 25, 2009
Short honk: Zip. That’s right. The SharePoint sold out shin dig is history. I expected to read on the Microsoft Enterprise Search Blog a run down of what was announced. The last post I saw had the date September 22, 2009. I navigated to the FastForward Web log which also covers Fast search from the perspective of Enterprise 2.0. As you may know, I don’t know what the heck Enterprise 2.0 is. I do know that Enterprise 1.0 has not been performing all that well in the last 18 months. The most recent post on the FastForward blog was on October 16, 2009. No word about SharePoint search or how Fast addresses some of the challenges organizations encounter when trying to access information in a SharePoint environment.
My mind generated several questions:
- Why isn’t there some information about SharePoint search and the Fast technology? (I posted some information in this Web log but I had to do some Easter egg hunting. I could not find much substantive news.)
- When will more information about Fast ESP and SharePoint become available?
- What will the “forking” of Fast ESP mean for legacy Fast Search & Transfer customers?
No news is good news I suppose. The addled goose thinks that Microsoft is discovering some interesting things about the Fast ESP technology. Microsoft acquired Fast Search & Transfer in the spring of 2009. Leaves are beginning to float on the surface of the mine run off pond here in Harrod’s Creek. The Fast brand seems to be drifting to the back of the pack. I read more about Xbox and Zune than Fast ESP. Expensive buy and low profile: I cannot reconcile these two data points.
At the same time, SharePoint gets more features and functions. XQuery! Okay. What about information access and findability for the average user? I don’t have an answer but those SharePoint conference keynote videos have not provided me with the information I need.
Stephen Arnold, October 25, 2009
Yep, another freebie.
YAGG: Blogger.com Allegedly Goes South
October 25, 2009
Short honk: The report in Australia’s TechWorld may be right. It may be wrong. I will let you read “Google’s Blogger Service Suffers Widespread Outage” and decide for yourself. The Google has some nifty technology, but if the outages continue, the goose asks, “Has Google wandered into the woods and gotten lost in cleverness?” Users want a service to be up and running. Talking about a service being up and running is not exactly the same.
Stephen Arnold, October 25, 2009
Dear Department of Agriculture, this is an uncompensated post.
SharePoint and Its Origin
October 25, 2009
One of the articles I set aside to review when I was in Beltway Land last week was “Meet the Father of Microsoft Share Point: Jeff Teper”. I have an interest in SharePoint. The US government finds SharePoint a Swiss Army knife of possibilities. Any information that helps me understand where this product’s roots are anchored is of interest to me. The first thing I noticed about the article was the eyes. You can click here and draw your own conclusion. I see in these eyes a certain intensity. Remarkable. The second impact on me hit me when I read:
Bringing the idea for SharePoint to Gates and Ballmer resulted in two different takes from two different high-level Microsoft managers, Teper reminisced. He said Gates asked a lot of questions about the long-term architecture (SQL Server, .Net, etc.) behind what evolved into SharePoint. Gates also asked a lot of usability questions, Teper said. Ballmer, on the other hand, used his classic “I don’t get this” line of questioning to bring SharePoint’s charter into focus. “Ballmer said we need to make it simple, simple, simple,” Teper said. “He wanted to keep the message very simple.” So how did all this talk about simplicity yield a product that even Teper himself acknowledges is quite ambitious and complex? (He called it this week the “ultimate Swiss Army Knife.”)
SharePoint was to be simple. SharePoint consists of six servers and is, in my opinion, more complex that most enterprise applications. I think the story of SharePoint’s origins provides some insight into how large companies permit products to evolve. The focus is not upon better; the focus is upon more. The idea that problems can be ameliorated by adding additional features and functions is the DNA of SharePoint.
The subhead “A Great Success Born from a Great Failure” struck me as ironic. The ZDNet article stated:
With SharePoint 2003, Microsoft replaced the Exchange data store with a SQL one. Microsoft also purchased NCompass Labs during this period, and integrated its web-content-management technology with SharePoint. In 2007, Microsoft morphed SharePoint yet again, this time developing and realigning it to be more of an intranet and Internet focused tool. Microsoft launched the SharePoint Server 2007 release shortly before it made yet another related acquisition: enterprise search vendor FAST Search & Transfer. The upgrade process between the 2003 and 2007 versions was anything but smooth, the Softies acknowledged this week.
I am not sure what the meaning of “success” is. Perhaps it is the revenue, estimated at more than $1 billion out of Microsoft $65 billion in revenue. Okay. Perhaps it is the large number of alleged SharePoint licenses that are in the use. There are, I have heard, 100 million licenses. How many are in use? How many are freebies, bundled with other Microsoft products? Perhaps it is the legions of certified Microsoft professionals who earn a living making SharePoint work? I have heard that SharePoint consulting is a very solid business for some companies.
After reading the article, I think I know more about the zig zag path of SharePoint from its inception to the present day. With CFOs worrying about costs, I wonder if the costs of customizing and scaling SharePoint are a consequence of its DNA or of the nurturing Microsoft has given the product.
And search? What about search? A work in progress because of the complexities perhaps?
Stephen Arnold, October 25, 2009
No, no, another essay for no dough.
Charging Backward by Charging for Content
October 25, 2009
In my years in the commercial online business, I learned a few things the hard way. When I got rolling in the commercial database business, there were few examples of proven money making methods from digital content. As a result, one had to do some thinking, devise tests, and then go forward. Today there are some models to examine. For example, the idea of the third party payer is a useful one. Originated by GoTo.com (I think), Google looked at the model and used it as the lifeblood of its revenue approach. Another model is what’s called “must have” information. A lawyer engaged in patent litigation knows the USPTO system is less than perfect. Commercial services such as those available from Derwent and Questel provide an alternative but an expensive one. In fact, these services are sufficiently costly to keep most online users in the dark about what the services contain and how they work.
This is an image of Stephen E Arnold when he worked at a traditional publishing company. The environment and the business processes created a case study in the nature vs nurture debate.
One lesson I learned was that an online company has to find a mix of business methods that produce revenue. There is no one size that fits all. Even the Google is pursuing subscriptions, license fees, and partner upfront payments as ways to keep the money pumping.
This is a picture of Stephen E. Arnold when he focused exclusively on electronic publishing. His Neanderthal characteristics have become less evident.
It is, therefore, not surprising that publishing companies want to charge for content. What I find interesting is that some of the publishers are taking a somewhat war like stance to what is little more than a business problem. For example, read “WSJ Editor: Those Who Believe Content Should Be Free Are Neanderthals”. The idea that I took away from this article is that ad hominen arguments are in vogue. I am not sure that I am upset with the possibility that I am prehistoric.
The question I had when reading the article was, “Why are publishers so late to the pay for content party?”
I know that publishers have been trying to crack the online revenue code for a long time. I was a beta tester of the original Dow Jones desktop software. The idea was that I could use the software to search for content on the fledgling Dow Jones service in the 1990s. The Wall Street Journal is still trying. In fact, a person with whom I spoke last week told me, “Dow Jones is the only publisher making money from its online service.” That’s not true. One of the most successful online publishing companies is Thomson Reuters. Others include Reed Elsevier and Consumer Reports.
Google Getting Goverphobia?
October 24, 2009
I found the article in the Washington Post amusing. After several grueling days laboring in the Federal vineyard, I know the joys and sorrows of public service work. “Google Chief Favors net Neutrality but Is Wary of Regulation” struck me as one indication that Google is getting smarter by the minute in Beltway Land. In some ways, Google has been floating above the normal commercial traffic jam in DC. Now the company has a number of tough-to-manage situations taking management time. There’s the grousing about copyright. The FCC is asking questions. Competitors are putting itching powder on the swivel chairs of certain highly placed officials. On and on. The story by Mike Musgrove revealed:
As for Google’s relationship with Washington’s power structure, Schmidt said the tech industry is still not as strong as others in its lobbying representation on Capitol Hill, but that that’s fine with him. Google, and the tech industry, does better for itself when it focuses on ideas and innovation — and not politics, he said. “The part of politics in Washington that’s ‘who you know’ and all that kind of stuff, it’s just not very interesting,” he said.
Based on my research into Google, when something is not “interesting”, there is a subtext. Unfortunately, Google cannot make the political and legal processes go away. I think Google is getting a touch of goverphobia which is one way to prevent Potomac Fever.
Stephen Arnold, October 24, 2009
MySpace: Keep Moving or Fall Behind
October 24, 2009
I don’t pay much attention to MySpace.com. When I looked at the service years ago, I was amazed with the graphics and weird interface. The fact that some demographic segments found the service useful made me happy that I was old. I thought I should pay attention to “MySpace Stopped Innovating Says News Corp.’s Jonathan Miller”. The write up promised a flash of insight about the dog eat dog world of social network services. For me the most significant statement in the write up was:
Miller [a MySpace executive] said, “Everybody in the company is upset that we didn’t keep going when we had the real momentum. Regaining momentum is always much harder than keeping momentum going.”
Has News Corp. learned a lesson after school was closed for summer vacation? The changes in any online service must be meaningful. In my experience the changes must increase a service’s magnetism. No change or the incorrect change repels users. My view is that MySpace.com may have its magnetic poles flipped.
Stephen Arnold, October 24, 2009
Microsoft and Web Revenue
October 24, 2009
Mashable, a Web publication tracking new technology, ran an interesting business feature on October 23, 2009. The story was “Microsoft Still Isn’t Making Money on the Web”.
First, I thought the write up was substantive, certainly as good as much of the business writing found on Web sites that know less about technology than the exciting realms of the MBA fun house. For example, I liked this paragraph:
Specifically, the company’s online division reported a loss of $480 million in the quarter on revenue of $490 million. That’s less revenue than last year, when it pulled in $520 million, and a bigger loss as well versus the $321 shortfall in the first quarter of 2008.
Pretty clear.
Second, if Mashable continues to run business articles, I think the idea of charging for similar information will be less interesting to a certain segment of the online market. I for one am losing my enthusiasm for paying for content that I can find using a bit of ingenuity and new services such as real time search systems like Collecta and Topsy.
Stephen Arnold, October 24, 2009
Google Revealed; Pundit Progress Evident
October 24, 2009
If you want to “know” what Google is doing, you will want to read “Google Competes for the Future; Microsoft, the Past”. The write up uses the word “legacy” which I find heartwarming. The notion of a “legacy” is an important one. Furthermore, without the burden of “legacy software”, Google can move more quickly than Microsoft at least in certain business and technical sectors. For more information about the Google “legacy” metaphor, you may want to take a look at this monograph, written in 2004 and published in the UK in 2005. I think there’s a picture in the monograph showing how legacy software creates some challenges for Google’s competitors.
Stephen Arnold, October 24, 2009
My publisher promised to send me a royalty check, so this is a paid-up promotional write up. Should I notify MARAD or whatever agency regulates my blog posts?
A New Page in Google Books
October 23, 2009
Short honk: How do I know Google Books is important to Google? One clue is available when I look at the inventors of Google’s scanning technology, systems, and methods. Take a gander at US7,605,844, “Imaging Opposing Bound Pages at High Speed Using Multiple Cameras”. granted on October 20, 2009 and filed in November 2003. The inventor? Larry Page. Here’s the abstract:
Systems and methods for capturing images of opposing pages in a bound document at high speed using multiple cameras are disclosed. The system generally includes a cradle preferably tilted toward an operator for holding a bound document having two opposing sides, and two cameras each positioned to capture an image of a corresponding side, each camera having an image capture size approximately the size of each side. The cameras may be high definition and store images via direct high speed data communication interfaces, e.g., firewire. A controller and/or foot pedal may provide control of the cameras. The controller may control flashes to selectively light each side simultaneous with each camera capturing the image of the corresponding side. A positioner may position a light-absorbing page between opposing sides.
My research suggests that the inventions of Google founders are significant, acting like beacons in a sea of innovations. In short, Google Books is an important project.
Stephen Arnold, October 22, 2009
No dough from the Google for this write up.
SharePoint 2010 Keynotes
October 23, 2009
Short honk: If you hate Vegas, you did not go to the SharePoint shin dig. If you need to know what Microsoft said at the SharePoint shin dig, then you have to watch the videos. I would prefer to have a PowerPoint deck and a transcript, but I am a very old addled goose. The world of MSFT is ruled by those who go down the video trail. You can while away a few hours by navigating to Arpan Shah’s Web log and reading “SharePoint Conference Keynotes.” Enjoy. Learn. Think about the consulting revenue you can generate getting this collection of six servers and their many features, functions, and services. Even my goslings are excited.
Stephen Arnold, October 23, 2009
Not even a crust of bread for this write up.
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