Microsoft and Google: Another Wal*Mart and Amazon Type Battle Emerges
November 26, 2009
I missed the Information Week story “Microsoft Drops Prices of Cloud Apps”. The link to that Wal*Mart tactic appeared in “Microsoft Lands UK Cloud Deal”. The intriguing comment in the story about Wal*Mart / Amazon-type price competition. How did Microsoft nail the UK postal service contract? As I read the story, Microsoft worked overtime to retain the contract. The write up concludes with this comment:
Meanwhile, Microsoft has recently stepped up efforts to sells its online applications as Google intensifies its efforts to replace Exchange/Outlook and IBM Lotus Notes on desktops. Earlier this month, it dropped its prices by up to 50% on Exchange Online. Companies using or migrating to Exchange Online include GlaxoSmithKline, with 110,000 seats, and Aon, with 36,000 seats.
Great salesmanship? Price cuts? My hunch is that pricing may have a better sales personality than a professional salesperson. Will the same approach take place in enterprise search? I think it has in my opinion.
Stephen Arnold, November 26, 2009
I can’t resist. To the US Postal Service. I was not paid to write this postcard-sized article. Stamp it a freebie.
Zoom Master Node
November 26, 2009
A happy quack to the reader who took me to task for not writing about Wrensoft’s Zoom MasterNode. Wrensoft offers a low cost search system. I must admit I have been remiss in keeping pace with the firm’s enterprise system. You can download the system for free. If you want support, the charge is $250. You can get additional information from Wrensoft. We have not tested the system. According to the company’s Web site: The system
as a distributed search application with parallel searching and caching capabilities. It takes search request and divides the work amongst its slave node machines (where the index files of your web content are located). Dividing the work results in better search performance and greater search capacity. These slave machines can be local machines on the same LAN or remote machines on the internet. The slaves can be running Zoom Search or any other 3rd party search solutions, which support OpenSearch. MasterNode consolidates and ranks the returned search results from these nodes and present them on your web browser.
A table comparing the different editions of the firm’s products is here. A default results list looks like this:
I will try to get a test scheduled. The current version is 6.x. The firm’s Web site has a 2008 copyright date.
Stephen Arnold, November 26, 2009
Oyez, oyez, NASA! No one paid me to admit that we have an empty nest when it comes to Wrensoft. A freebie, I fear.
The Google Fear Bulb Lights A Decade Too Late
November 25, 2009
Magazine publishers are a clever group. The mass market titles which I loved when in grade school have gone. The magazine industry chased niches, but the Internet delivers niches. Now in an act of innovation, magazine publishers are going to form an alliance to tame the digital wolves. The idea is to have domesticated digitals in the content kennel.
I found “Time Inc.’s Squires Assembles Team of Rivals to Harness Digital Media” quite fascinating. The New York Observer reported:
Each magazine publisher now believes it’s too risky to go it alone to find new ways to get consumers to pay. If they all join together, the reasoning goes, they stand a better chance of producing greater revenue.
When I read this passage, my addled goose mind interpreted is as saying something along the lines, “Google is going to disrupt our business. We can make more money doing digital stuff ourselves.”
Please, read the original story because maybe I am either too tired or too jaded to dig deeply into this bold idea from the magazine mavens.
In my research for Google: The Digital Gutenberg, I came to the conclusion that the Google has a good head of steam built up. The infrastructure is mostly complete. The deal breaker engineering problems have been mostly resolved. The company has a heck of a user and customer base. The firm’s pace of new product and service introductions is increasing.
The magazine publishers have a problem similar to Microsoft’s with regard to Google. First, the “time’ needed to get the group organized, solve technical problems, and get revenues flowing is going to give the Google more time to move forward. In fact, if fate conspires against traditional publishers, Google may just go to authors and sign them up to write original news and analysis, research, and monographs for Googzilla.
Then what happens?
Google’s lead just get bigger. The publishers are starting to get in gear, but I think the 11 year head start might be a bit of a challenge. I advocate surfing on Google, not trying to fill a cup with a puncture in its side. Just my opinion.
Stephen Arnold, November 25, 2009
I wish to disclose to the Office of Citizen Services that I was not paid to send this public service message to the two or three readers of this Web log.
Microsoft CFO Moves On
November 25, 2009
Short honk: New Zealander Chris Liddell, according a Barron’s blog, is saying “Adios” to Microsoft. You can read the full news item “Microsoft Liddell Leaving; Replaced by Peter Klein” and get the scoop free of the addled goose’s honking. I don’t know the names of Microsoft’s various chief financial officers, but I will probably remember Mr. Liddell. He was CFO when Microsoft paid a remarkable $1.23 billion for the Fast Search & Transfer SA outfit in April 2008. In October 2008, the Norwegian police kicked off a formal investigation of Fast Search. Almost a year later, Microsoft Fast is available for download with a spiffy new interface and no reference to the legal questions that surfaced in mid 2007. I have no idea if Mr. Liddell and his team reviewed the Fast deal, performed the due diligence for the buy out, or have done the math to make the $1.23 billion investment pay off. One thing is certain: I will remember this most amazing acquisition and the person on whose watch the deal took place. Brilliant move? Misstep? I just don’t know.
Stephen Arnold, November 25, 2009
I wish to disclose to the Securities and Exchange Commission and to the Norwegian police that no one paid me to write about my association of Microsoft, $1.23 billion, and search technology. It’s a freebie.
De-Indexing: Word of the Week
November 25, 2009
Short honk: I gave up learning new words. Addled geese don’t have much to say or think. Cogito ergo quack. I read Taranfx.com’s “Microsoft to Pay for De-Indexing from Google.” The story was not new for me, but I did latch onto the word “de-indexing”. Great word. Maybe it will lead to great riches?
Stephen Arnold, November 25, 2009
I want to disclose to the Department of Agriculture that this turkey of a write up was not something I wrote for money or a leg. The word “de-indexing” is a turkey.
Paying for Traffic: Some Issues
November 25, 2009
Paying for traffic takes a number of forms. For example, the for-fee backlink is a nifty method. A person can pay a webmaster to put a backlink on a site and point to another site. At the other end of the scale, a big company can pay another firm to withhold content from a vendor. If that content is a magnet, that money hurts one company and benefits the person paying for an “exclusive”. When I read “Microsoft Tries To Silence Revelation Of Bing Cashback Flaws; Leads To Revelation Of Other Problems,” my understanding of the pay-for-traffic methods gained some useful insights.
For me the most interesting comment in the article was:
…various retailers that offer “cashback” via Bing purchases are showing higher prices if you search via Bing. In fact, the price people can pay if they do certain searches on Bing is higher than if they’d gone direct.
If true, perhaps there will be more fancy dancing as companies try to find a way to generate traffic. If you are not indexed, you don’t exist. I wonder if money can change this basic fact of online life. What was the Beatles’ line: “Can’t buy my clicks?” Well, something like that.
Stephen Arnold, November 25, 2009
Oyez, oyez, Department of the Treasury, no one paid me to write this article about paying people to do stuff for them.
Publishers Get the F Scott Fitzgerald Treatment
November 24, 2009
If you are a fan of F Scott Fitzgerald, you know he skewers his targets with a thin, sharp rapier. When the point finds its mark, often the victim does not realize at the moment that a fatal blow has been struck. I thought of F Scott when I read “Screening the News” by Mrinal Desai, founder of CrossLoop. the story appeared in TechCrunch and I think that that the publication used Mr. Desai as a sharp rapier. The victim is the traditional print media which seems intent on making the word “paywall” next year’s Oxford English Dictionary. Traditional publishers may want to “unfriend” people like Mr. Desai.
The guts of the story is that a motivated and sharp person like Mr. Desai can get along just fine without relying a whole lot on traditional publishing companies’ products. The write up is a tutorial on how to stay informed and use information instead of working the way people did in the Dark Ages. In case the clear explanation and links don’t drive the point home, a nifty diagram is included. I wanted to reproduce it, but the goose does not need a legal eagle darkening his Harrod’s Creek sky. Just navigate to the story on TechCrunch and scroll down until you see the headline “Social Distribution Channels.” You are there.
Several observations:
First, I think the article makes clear how traditional media faces an uphill battle in its slog against the digital environment.
Second, I like very much the method of Mr. Desai. I picked up a few good ideas too.
Third, TechCruch has used an F Scott Fitzgerald technical with a wonderful adeptness.
I wonder if the traditional media know that they have been run through with cold digital steel?
Stephen Arnold, November 24, 2009
I wish to disclose to the National Gallery of Art that I was not paid to write about this artistic piercing of traditional media.
Mashable Champions the Google Wave
November 24, 2009
I just read Mashable’s “How Google Wave is Changing the News” by Leah Betancourt. She points out that outfits like the Chicago Tribune are using Google Wave. One interesting comment was:
“That experiment was definitely an eye-opener. My understanding of Wave has always been that it’s a valuable tool for small-team collaboration. So to see it succeed as a larger-scale crowd sourcing tool was unexpected to say the least,” Nystrom [media person] said by email. “People quickly swarmed the wave and provided a ton of really smart insights. Things we had never thought of.” He added that they’ll definitely do more of this and that it’s just a matter of identifying which topics would benefit from collaboration.
She pointed out that users and traditional media are learning about the dips and rolls of Google Wave at the same time as traditional media. Who will be better able to surf on Google? I have seen older surfer dudes, but the youngsters seem to be more abundant.
Stephen Arnold, November 23, 2009
Reporting in that this was a freebie. I think I shall use a Vulcan mind meld to communicate freeness to those charged with monitoring geese at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Counting Wave use cases seems to be their responsibility.
Funnelback Contextual Navigation
November 24, 2009
Short honk: I just watched a video about faceted navigation. You can check out the Funnelback video here. What caught my attention was this title: “Funnelback Fluster Cluster”. Interesting. I have a friend who uses the word “fluster” in a most unusual way. Fluster connotes to me behaving in a confused manner. Search engine marketing has an internal rhythm.
Stephen Arnold, November 24, 2009
Dear Education Department, I was not paid to point out the interesting co-occurrence of “fluster” and “cluster”. What luck from a duck!
Google and Mobile Index Tricks
November 24, 2009
I am steadfastly against the search engine optimization baloney. However, when a substantive article finds its way to me I want to call my two or three readers’ attention to that write up. If you have a Web site with both a “regular” Web presence and a “mobile” version, you will want to read and save “Ensuring Your Site is Indexed in Google’s Mobile Search”. The article reminded me that “regular” search and mobile search are different. Then Chris Crum goes through the specifics of getting both the “regular” and the mobile sites indexed by Googzilla. Highly recommended.
Stephen Arnold, November 24, 2009
I want to alert the Kentucky State Police that I did not write this article on my BlackBerry whilst driving. And, almost as important, I was not paid for performing this act of “safe text creation”. These disclosures are better than hitting a Catholic church for confession several times a day.
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