SharePoint – Six Servers Software Systems with Massive Cost Burden
October 18, 2009
SharePoint Sunday at Heathrow and was I surprised when I read Mary Jo Foley’s “What Makes Microsoft’s SharePoint Tick?” My thought was upon reading the story was that Ms. Foley was focused on explaining SharePoint and presenting its upsides and downside in an objective way. The article struck me as a clear warning to chief financial officers that sharp pencils are needed when figuring out the cost of a SharePoint installation. Get started at a great price and then learn:
It’s [SharePoint] not just a content management system or an enterprise social-networking product, or an intranet search system. It’s six different servers bundled into a single back-end for Microsoft Office. There are thousands of Microsoft employees working on 40 different teams contributing to the product. It has provided system integrators, consultants and other partners with a lot of business because it has been tricky to deploy, maintain and customize.
Okay, a bundle. Complexity. Lots of opportunity for slips twixt cup and lip. Bad in my opinion. Then I read:
…It’s not the cost of SharePoint server and the associated client-access licenses that are the biggest ticket items. He noted that a new InfoTrends survey found the biggest SharePoint-related expenditures were servers and storage, deployment/assessment services, development/maintenance services, i/o hardware (e.g. scanners, MFPs), and additional software.
CFOs are you paying attention. I am not sure you will read this statement and agree with me, but this means to me, “Hockey stick costs ahead now and forever more.” Complexity, burgeoning demands for storage, hunger for CPU cycles, maintenance, and technical support costs are part of the SharePoint package. Want to estimate these costs with confidence? I don’t. The cheerleaders for SharePoint are often engineers who have a job because SharePoint is a complicated beastie.
What this article makes explicit is that a deal for SharePoint today means uncontrollable costs tomorrow and then the day after. Six servers and 40 different teams! Demand for hardware. Need for technical expertise. The total cost of ownership is lots of money. Great for Microsoft and Microsoft Certified SharePoint partners. No so great for companies looking to reduce complexity and control costs in my opinion.
Stephen Arnold, October 18, 2009
Yikes, again no one paid me to share this opinion.
AT&T Now Thinks It Understands a Google Method
October 18, 2009
Keep in mind that Google is now 11 years old. The company has been zipping along, making explicit its technology in papers available from the Google Labs’s Web pages and disclosing its inventions in its patent applications.. Google executives turn up an technical conferences and watch as happy graduate students report on some Google experiment. In short, the Google has been quite forthcoming about what the firm does. The problem is that Google talks in equations, data analyses, and references to methods that require some experience in disciplines ranging from theoretical physics to psychology. Individuals lacking either the time, the motivation, or the intellectual tools fall back on the lowest common denominators when thinking about Google; to wit, search and advertising.
When I read “AT&T: Google Manipulates Media, is an Abusive, Power Hungry Monopoly”, I realized that this giant telephone company has been remiss in conducting basic analysis of Google’s business and technical methods. Now that Google is squeezing the oxygen tube for some telecommunications companies, AT&T is waking up to the brave new world Google has created around AT&T. AT&T makes clear, if the story is accurate, that it saw Google as a fish in the AT&T aquarium. The new perception is that AT&T is a fish in the Google aquarium. AT&T does not like this insight.
The article reported:
The letter claims that Google’s explanation that it is only blocking certain kinds of rural calls like adult sex-chat lines, to avoid high fees leveled against the free service, is a lie. The letter accuses Google of conspiracy, saying it also blocked calls to an ambulance service, church, bank, law firm, automobile dealer, day spa, orchard, health clinic, tax preparation service, community center, eye doctor, tribal community college, school, residential consumers, a convent of Benedictine nuns, and the campaign office of a U.S. Representative. According to AT&T, Google is “abus[ing] its market power”. AT&T insists Google is not exempt, either from being free or being internet-based, from federal regulations that prevent such call blocking. he letter also calls Google a monopoly, citing, “In preparing a complaint to challenge the Google/Yahoo arrangement, the [U.S.] Department [of Justice] reportedly concluded that Google had a “monopoly” in these markets and the proposed arrangement “would have furthered [Google’s] monopoly.” Furthermore, AT&T accuses Google of practicing broad-scale manipulation of the media. It says that Google blocked political advertisements from Senator Susan Collins, due to her criticism of Moveon.org, a Google net neutrality partner. It also accuses Google of blocking the Inner City Press from Google News, as the publication criticized the United Nation Development Programme, a Google-sponsored program.
Great stuff. Several comments:
When I was working with a high end consulting firm a couple of years ago, we did Google briefings at five or six telecommunications companies. One company told my partner, “We know what Google is doing. We don’t need a briefing.” If this article is accurate, not only did AT&T need our briefing, AT&T needed a more effective competitive intelligence and business analysis unit.
In my opinion, AT&T, among other telecommunications firms, have given Google plenty of time to build out its infrastructure, refine its technology, and enter traditional telco markets in unorthodox ways. Now that the window shades have gone up, the new day is well underway.
Like Microsoft, telcos are going to have to work overtime to find ways to leapfrog Google. Catch up won’t work. Not only is a catch up game going to cost lots of money and not slow Google’s forward movement, catch up means that Google will have more time to take advantage of customers who want Googley services.
Bad, bad news.
I find it amusing that the present day AT&T is complaining because Google has become the new GT&T; that is, Google Telephone & Telegraph. Instead of the wireless model, Google has taken some lessons from the “old” AT&T and added a
Googley twist. The result is that a company well versed in monopolistic techniques has recognized that Google has learned some tricks from the Zen masters themselves.
Google does not lock in customers with prohibitions on non Western Electric hardware. Google lets its products and services work like magnets. AT&T, reeling from the iPhone bandwidth challenges, is looking at Google in a more realistic way, but does AT&T understand the changes Google has made in the “old” AT&T’s business model. GT&T is just one unit of the real Google. There are five or six other units that are equally disruptive.
Eleven years. Is this a Rip Van Winkle approach to competitive analysis?
Stephen Arnold, October 18, 2009
Not so much as a call credit for this essay.
Image Search Headache Removal Service
October 18, 2009
Searching for images giving you a headache? We just might have found a golden goose.
Along with the data explosion on our hands comes a related problem: image explosion. There are just as many graphics out there as there are files, I bet, and searching through them is just as difficult a prospect, even not even more so. Graphics like .jpg, .tiff, .gif and others don’t necessarily have embedded data–so there’s nothing to catch in a search–and graphics that do carry some form of metadata end up top of the search pile.
Beyond Search was working on a recent project and needed a picture. Our top dog’s comment: “I just had an Easter egg hunt for an image. What a mess.” He’s referring to the mess of figuring what pictures can or cannot be used with securing rights. The Internet is just as visual as it is textual, and more images than you think actually belong to someone. But how do you know? And on the owner’s part, how do you know if your image is being ripped off?
As I learned in my years in journalism, you can’t just pick a pretty picture, slap it on a page (paper or pixel), and publish it. There are such things as digital rights. Yes, someone owns that picture. In a few cases, it may be a free-use image. In some cases, it may be free-use image that use can use if you give them credit. But in many cases, it is a copyrighted image–and you need permission or need to pay to use it. So when you enter your search term “blooming moonflower” into the browser box, beware that list of 1,443,873,899 images that is returned.
We were recently contacted by a representative of PicScout, http://www.picscout.com, a company that deals in image copyright solutions. She sent us a press release about several worldwide companies joining the effort to help safeguard digital rights. Her comment: “Until now, image ownership online was disregarded and disrespected, to say the least. Now that every image has the potential to be visibly associated and directly connected with its licensor or owner, value is restored.”
And it occurred to me that search is intrinsically involved in that effort. From a PicScout press release: “In 2008 an online survey from KRC Research, undertaken for iStockphoto, revealed that 33 percent of Americans use downloaded digital content, but nearly 30 percent are unaware that permission is required for its use.” In general, PicScout’s products produce a list of “tens of millions of images” that display online with the universal information symbol if a surfer is using the ImageExchange Firefox add-on (you can apply to beta test it at http://imagex.picscout.com). And ta-da! You can see right away which images you may or may not use without checking first. How simple is that?
So here’s the scenario: Say ordinary Joe Schmo goes to Google Images and does a search for “pretty pony” to use in a home-grown PR campaign. The GOOG does its thing and returns a billion search results. Joe chooses one and goes on his merry little way… until ImageTracker catches up. Joe fell into the digital rights trap. Any search browser will return results, and unless you have some serious search savvy (and if it’s possible at all), there’s likely no way you can refine your search results to keep that from happening. Well, PicScout’s got that fixed for you.
Now, keep in mind, I’m a lowly duckling dealing with this technology, so this is how I understand it to work. PicScout already had a program called ImageTracker, which searches and finds images based on the algorithms it employs for image identification, as a part of the Image IRC platform. The IRC is what programs the images with metadata (licensing information, owner, etc.) so that ImageTracker will work to police infringement. Those two products are connected by the ImageExchange Add-on, which lets you, a person searching for an image, connect with the owner.
It’s a nifty little idea, quite simple, and it can go a lonnnnnnng way to solving your image search nightmares. So if you deal with online images a lot, you might check PicScout out.
Jessica Bratcher, October 18, 2009
The PR lady did not even thank me for this item. Sigh.
IBM Has Cloudy Day with Air New Zealand
October 17, 2009
With cloud computing getting attention, the SiliconValley.com story “Air New Zealand Boss Lands Hard on IBM” provides one view of what a customer perceives when service goes out. The quote below is attributed to Air New Zealand CEO Rob Fyfe:
In my 30-year working career, I am struggling to recall a time where I have seen a supplier so slow to react to a catastrophic system failure such as this and so unwilling to accept responsibility and apologize to its client and its client’s customers… We were left high and dry and this is simply unacceptable. My expectations of IBM were far higher than the amateur results that were delivered yesterday, and I have been left with no option but to ask the IT team to review the full range of options available to us to ensure we have an IT supplier whom we have confidence in and one who understands and is fully committed to our business and the needs of our customers.
IBM is expanding its cloud services. Most recently it announced a low-cost alternative for email positioned to compete with such services from Google.
Stephen Arnold, October 17, 2009
Youth, the Web, and the Coming Work Process Upheaval
October 17, 2009
The BBC reported that 75 percent of young people in a survey sample cannot live without access to the Web. “Youth ‘Cannot Live’ without Web” included this comment, which I found interesting:
Probably the middle-aged are the most vulnerable,” said Open University psychologist Graham Jones. “I think children, teenagers and people under their mid-20s have grown up with technology and they understand it deeply,” he said.
As young people move into the work force, these individuals will bring different views, behaviors, and work methods. Established institutions face significant external pressures from financial, regulatory, competitive and technical externalities. Now virtually any organization adding young staff will find internal pressures increasing when new work methods collide with established work processes. This is not flattening or converging. This is a significant reshaping of the way certain types of work will be performed. Just my opinion.
Stephen Arnold, October 17, 2009
Google and Cloud Security
October 17, 2009
Google has a pretty good track record regarding its own security. The system is tough to hack. I know of a handful of events where outsiders have been able to finagle Google’s safeguards to see directory listings. My own tests of Gmail from public terminals revealed some oddities when the service first became available. Since those early days, we have found the Google’s engineers have done a good job. When it comes to Google’s approach to some products and services, security strikes the ArnoldIT.com engineers as a work in progress. The Google Search Appliance has, with each version upgrade, added security features. Some work remains to be done, but the company is moving forward.
I read with interest the story “Google Using ‘Double Talk’ on Cloud Security, Says L.A. Consumer Group.” If this line of inquiry gains momentum, security could become another problem that Google will have to address. In the last six months, Google has found itself in the spotlight on such contentious issues as copyright and Board of Director interlocks with Apple for instance. Although the Apple issue has been resolved, now government regulators are asking questions about some of Google’s telephony-related products and services. More problems Google does not need in my view.
The guts of the Network World article was, in my opinion:
The letter, by Consumer Watchdog advocate John Simpson, faulted Google for “blandly assuring” customers about the security of its cloud-based services while at the same time warning of multiple security risks in federally required 10-Q financial statements. “Google says one thing when trying to sell its products, but something else in federally required filings aimed at shareholders,” Simpson said in the letter.
The issue may not be of security itself. The issue may boil down to the potential for conflicting messages. These can be confusing and act like catnip when legal panthers prowl.
Stephen Arnold, October 17, 2009
Google and YouTube.com Real Time Search
October 17, 2009
On an exhausting slog through two European nerve centers, I emerged to learn that Google has tiptoed into real time search. The story that alerted me was “YouTube Launches Real-Time Discussion Search and Tracking”, which I read after a meal at McDo in Paris. The nugget in the write up was:
Real-time information is red hot all around the web but it made a surprise appearance on YouTube tonight in the form of real-time search for comments, of all things.
I took a quick look at made a mental note that Google’s engineers have tackled real time content of a specific type on the YouTube.com servers. Although big, the test bed is relatively narrow in Google’s scale of the world. The content provides a useful test for Google because many YouTube.com comments, in my opinion, are similar to the stuff that turns up on slang choked public message systems.
Is this an end game for Google and real time search? In my opinion, this is a beta test. My hunch is that there is more to come from the Google. This begs the question, “Is Google late to the real time search party?” My view is, “No.” A number of firms have useful real time search systems. I write a column each month for Information World Review, and I try to document some of the more interesting systems and their research use cases.
Compared to Google, most of these systems operate at a non Google scale. Google’s notion of scale means that the company must tackle engineering problems that some firms may not have to tackle. As a result, Google will take baby steps in real time search. When the toddler starts taking tween sized steps, Google will put pressure on some of today’s winners.
Therefore, Google is moving at an appropriate speed which gives today’s leaders in real time search to find ways to out innovate Google. Google’s baby steps in real time search helps ensure continued innovation. Good news.
Stephen Arnold, October 16, 2009
Google Wave Analysis: Closer but Not Quite Spot On
October 16, 2009
I found Daniel Tenner’s article one of the better discussions of Google Wave. If you have an interest in Google Wave, read “What Problems Does Google Wave Solve?”. Mr. Tenner addresses specific issues and points out how Google Wave approaches each. One example is lost attachments. The idea is that people read email, download an attachment, delete or file the original email, and then have a tough time locating a specific attachment. This is an annoyingly common problem for quite a few people. Google Wave is a digital plastic bag. Stuff in the bag is together so the lost email attachment is in the plastic bag and indexed by the Google. Ergo, no more lost attachments. This way of describing Google Wave is a lot better than most I have read.
The problem is that relating Google Wave to what is familiar is not exactly what my research suggests the Google is doing. Wave is a subset, like the programmable search engine or the trust method, of a larger data management issue on which
Google is working. Explaining that broader initiative is difficult because it leapfrogs over the “common problems” and delivers new types of queries and, therefore, new types of applications.
Wave is not a finished product or even a complete service. Wave is a component. Just as folks are learning that Chrome is not a “just a browser”, analysts have to step bag and put Wave into its Google context. Until that takes place, Wave like many other Google betas will be perceived as one thing. Then when the full picture is complete, the “one thing” morphs into a more complex suite of services.
Google is a clever beastie, allowing analysts to define their products while the broader picture remains undetected. Wave is such a creature.
Stephen Arnold, October 16, 2009
Web Search Usage Statistics
October 16, 2009
comScore has responded to earlier data from about Web search vendors’ September 2009 market share. I found the write up What 5% Drop? ComScore Says Bing Search Share Stayed Steady In September in TechCrunch thought provoking. For me, the meat of the article was this comment:
According to comScore, Bing’s U.S. search market share remained steady at 9.4 percent in September, up from 9.3 percent in August. That is not blowing the doors off of anything, but it is at least holding its own.
I find it interesting that the estimates of traffic are viewed as absolutes. Most of the companies creating league tables use proprietary methods to generate their data. Variances are to be expected. The margins of error can be significant. In one case in 2008, I looked at data for companies in one industry in Europe. I had “real” logs. I also had reports on traffic from a number of vendors. What I learned was that the variance between the actual logs of the sites’ traffic and the commercial league tables was a variance of as much as 20 percent.
I don’t have an answer for the usage variances. The advantage goes to the company that can count everything and avoid statistical methods. Estimates are going to create some false impressions in my experience.
Stephen Arnold, October 16, 2009
Government Attic
October 16, 2009
A happy quack to the reader who sent me a link to Government Attic. The Web site is a repository of US government documents obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request. The site uses a Google custom search engine, which works quite well. The site says:
Governmentattic.org provides electronic copies of hundreds of interesting Federal Government documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. Fascinating historical documents, reports on items in the news, oddities and fun stuff and government bloopers, they’re all here. Think of browsing this site as rummaging through the Government’s Attic — hence our name.
Useful.
Stephen Arnold, October 16, 2009
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
