Thomson Reuters Has a Question
December 13, 2009
It is not enough to ask a question. The idea is to know the answer to the question * before * one asks it. Just ask your friendly attorney who will know the answer and bill you to answer your question. Like that business model? You pay to ask someone a question and you don’t know if the answer will be correct. This is information without context. Information in context is worth a heck of a lot more money in my experience.
The article “How Will Journalism Survive the Internet Age?” is the text, presumably complete, of the president of media at Thomson Reuters. The speaker / writer is Chris Ahearn. The context is a workshop for the Federal Trade commission’s workshop on how the Internet has affected journalism. I am not sure that Thomson Reuters has the answer to this question. If it did, wouldn’t the firm’s financial performance be stronger. Click here for the recent financials of TRI. The company has its eye on Asia, but the firm continues to experience some executive shifts. All in all, the company has survived the financial shift, but going forward, I think Thomson Reuters will have its work cut out for itself.
Several points jumped out at me:
- Newspapers are a subset of journalism. The broader world of journalism will survive the Internet.
- The bold will survive, which is a Murdochism.
- Mr. Ahearn oversees an “indispensible news agency”.
- Thomson Reuters is building a B2B content network. (B2B means “business to business”.)
- This network is going to be open and Thomson wants to outsource the rest with a nod to college prof and popular media personality Jeff Jarvis, who is an expert on Google with a podcast on the subject of Google.
Now let’s think about this series of statements, keeping in mind that I am an addled goose who many years ago did some projects for the pre-merger Thomson.
First, the notion of the survival of journalism is an interesting one. I suppose if one abstracts at a sufficiently high level, then any communication qualifies as journalism. Thomson Reuters has been getting out of the commodity information business since the firm began dumping its newspaper properties years ago. I think it is interesting that a Thomson Reuters’ executive responsible for media is talking about a business that is like a wooden motor boat with a dead engine in rough seas. I am not sure that high value information, which is Thomson Reuters’ focus in my opinion, is journalism.
Second, the notion of the bold surviving is interesting. When I read the phrase I was waiting for the joke about “old and bold” soldiers. There are not that many because unnecessary risks usually associated with boldness contributes to a high attrition rate. The notion of “bold” and media could become a “bet the farm” strategy for the folks from the antique world colliding with the Las Vegas of digital information. This digital information stuff has been around a long time. Now there’s a rush to figure out digital information? Yep, because the phase change is happening and traditional information companies are likely to be casualties of this shift.
I like the idea of an “indispensable” anything, including a news agency. But is a person, a new items, or a system indispensable today. Sure, there are monopolies and there is convenience. But if something “indispensable” disappears will the stars go out one by one as they do in the science fiction story by Arthur Clarke? Probably not. What will go out are the companies and individuals who perceive themselves as indispensable and learn that indispensable they are not.
Traditional information companies gird themselves for battle with the digital enemy. The enemies include their children with iPods, anyone born after 1994, and companies with greater technical competency. Image source: http://media.timesfreepress.com/pg/2008/20080820%20anachronism/images/001%20anachronism.jpg
The notion of a content network is interesting. I think of content networks and I think of Akamai or Google. I don’t think of traditional information companies. The emergence of social networks which create a clique in an electronic space may provide to be more valuable than a single firm’s information outputs. By definition, companies have an agenda to create information that sells. The B2B angle is interesting, but it may marginalize some opportunities.
I find the notion of openness amusing. Large commercial enterprises, by definition, are not open. These outfits can talk about openness, but the focus is on getting a proprietary and significant competitive advantage. Once in hand, that advantage becomes the core driver of future revenue. I think talk about openness is baloney. Google has some very proprietary technology. It also makes * some * moves to be open. But I don’t think I can buy openness at Google, Thomson Reuters, or any other commercial enterprise. I prefer “selective openness.” Buzzwords help me identify marketing collateral in my opinion.
To conclude, why did I bother to comment on this write up? This article looks like “news” but it is primarily marketing and political positioning in my opinion. Its news value is secondary. Thomson Reuters is advancing its agenda.
I think that companies like Thomson Reuters are at a juncture. The methods of making money are changing. That puts the business systems and procedures under strain. When the revenue growth slows, companies like Thomson Reuters are in pickle. The old ways don’t work the way they did, and the new ways require a different mindset. Ouch!
Technology is not the core competency of a firm like Thomson Reuters. (In my experience, Thomson Reuters perceives itself as a technology adept. In my opinion, I don’t think the company is operating with the correct perception of its competencies.) Why? There are more lawyers, accountants, and business managers than engineers. Thomson Reuters and similar companies have to become more like companies that are making the digital opportunities pay off. A share price in the $30 range is not much different from a Microsoft’s or Yahoo’s share price. Amazon, Apple, and Google are where the action may be.
And without that technical competency, I think the future will be very difficult for traditional information companies trying to adapt to a world distorted by their own children, Google, Apple, and the shift to a digital Gutenberg. At companies like Thomson Reuters, the lawyers and accountants are the driving force behind business decisions. Those groups in my experience are ill-suited to deal with the technical challenges and opportunities in 2010 and beyond.
Just my opinion. Just my opinion, gentle reader.
Stephen Arnold, December 13, 2009
I wish to disclose to the Federal Trade Commission that I am offering my opinion without compensation. I think Tyson licked me awake at 5 15 am this morning. That’s either payment or a message that he wanted to go outside.
Google Content Assembly, the Result List Edition
December 12, 2009
I am burned out on the Google publishing angle. I was going to ignore this December 10, 2009, patent application “Displaying Compact and Expanded Data Items.” You can find the document on USPTO’s fabulous Web site at www.uspto.gov. If you are think about result lists, you may want to take a gander at this system and method for creating a shrinkydink result.
Cyrus, dear Cyrus, this is a fine Google patent diagram. (Cyrus thinks I make up these diagrams in Photoshop. Nope, this is a Google-generated screenshot with the nifty Google dotted line annotations.
When the user clicks, the shrinkydink transforms. Clever stuff. Here’s the Google golden prose, lovingly crafted by Google wizards and the legal eagles at Harrity & Harrity:
A system sends a search query to a search engine and receives from the search engine, responsive to the search query, a document comprising a first search result item and a second search result item. The system visually renders a portion that includes less than an entirety of the first search result item and includes the second search result item, where the portion is visually rendered in a region of the document. The system receives a selection of the first search result item from a user and visually expands the region of the document to a size sufficient to render an entirety of the first search result item based on the selection. The system visually renders the entirety of the first search result item within the expanded region of the document.
If on the other hand, you know everything about Google because you have read the Sergey-and-Larry-eat-pizza books, skip this 23 page document. I read these succinct, sizzling sentences from the Google and its advisors. I don’t know enough, which is why I am an addled goose.
Stephen Arnold, December 11, 2009
I am disclosing to the USPTO that I was not paid to use the USPTO system nor write this newsy item. I love working with patent documents. Money is secondary to the thrill I get from these easy-to-read gems of non-fiction.
Enterprise Software Giant Awakens to Enterprise Content
December 12, 2009
I read “Enterprise Content Meets Enterprise Business Processes”, an IDC white paper. In the past I have done some work for this big outfit. I love the firm, its analysts, and its analyses. I want to imagine that I don’t love IDC to death and in a hypothetical (as my attorney says), I want to think about this February 2009 write up as if I did not love the work just oodles.
First, for some reason a link to this February 2009 white paper just turned up in one of my newsreaders. I don’t know why, but I think some PR person for either SAP or Open Text figured that old wine in new bottles was one way to fight the winter chill.
Second, the two companies have had an interesting 2009. Open Text continues to grow by acquisition. The goslings and I had a brief meet up with RedDot (a CMS system owned now by Open Text). We learned that RedDot can make life pretty darned exciting when custom scripts run. In addition to having lots of time between screen refreshes, we were able to read a novel, visit the Lincoln Memorial, and defrag our laptop. To add to its overflowing stable of information products, Open Text bought Vignette. My assessment of this deal, “Wow.” RedDot is a marvel compared to the beasties that reside in Vignette-land. SAP has had an equally interesting year. After a bit of a dust up over fees, SAP settled in for a year-on-year revenue decline. The notion of two aging enterprise software companies teaming to integrate information into an enterprise is not a new concept. In fact, I recall reading in each vendor’s marketing collateral years ago that information integration and access was what their respective products and services did. I assume this is a 1+1=3 tie up. New math for sure.
Third, what about the write up? This is a Bitpipe deal, so you will need to navigate from this link on Line 56 and then jump through a bunch of hoops to get the “free” white paper. Believe me, the hoops are a good warm up for the intellectual challenge the white paper presents. In a nutshell, organizations do not have a unified content and enterprise application strategy. I would quote the passage but the IDC document states that quoting the report requires prior written permission from IDC. The addled goose is not going to chase voice mail late on a Friday afternoon.
My thoughts:
- The pairing of these two outfits is like matchmaking for two lone geese. After 10 months of pushing this idea, I have not seen much evidence of progress
- The economic downturn will not be gentle to vendors of enterprise applications that themselves are poorly integrated and less than friendly to other software in the corporate playground
- The IDC conclusion reminded me that arranging a marriage is different from making the marriage work.
Enough of the hypotheticals. I think the hook up of Open Text and SAP is a great idea. The team has made customers happy. The software in more integrated that the colors on a tweed jacket. The timing, well, the timing. Sending me 10 month old information is part of a larger, more subtle strategy.
Stephen Arnold, December 12, 2009
Oyez, oyez, I have to reveal the truth that I follow the path of SAP because it is a harbinger of what’s ahead for some other IBM-esque outfits. To whom do I report this freebie? Oh, I remember. the National Defense University. I have to protect myself when I write hypotheticals.
Google in 2019
December 12, 2009
I am not sure what I will look like tomorrow morning. Royal Pingdom moves outside a prediction envelope of 24 hours and targets 87,600 hours. The prognostication appears in “What the Google Web Will Look Like in 10 Years.” The hook for the article is Google and its public DNS service. Pingdom then touches upon a number of separate Google products and services, including Android and Wave. The wrap up is a discussion of the concept of the “technological Singularity”. Interesting stuff.
Several observations:
- The context for these separate pearls from Google is missing. That’s a common method when some folks discuss Google. These things seem so disconnected. Because Google does not connect the dots, the description of products and services hang like a lone ornament or two on my neighbor’s artificial Christmas tree.
- Google has been accelerating its release of these individual pearls since late 2006. Is that a coincidence or a consequence? Not much illumination from the Sergey-and-Larry-eat-pizza crowd in my opinion.
- The trajectory of these individual pearls warrants some physics. For example, are the pearls bee bees or are they ICBMs? Are the pearls scattered or are they the organic output of a construct?
I don’t want to get too philosophical, but I think it is easy to explain Google in 2019. Google becomes the Web for some folks, just one big Google dataspace. Just my opinion.
Stephen Arnold, December 11, 2009
Oyez, oyez, National Science Foundation, wake up. I am disclosing that no one paid me to write this opinion. The goose can too predict the future. There will be more mine run off tomorrow. 100 percent accuracy for free.
Google 2010: Speed Becomes a Competitive Advantage
December 12, 2009
In real estate, the keys to success are location, location, and location. In software, the keys to success are speed, speed, and speed. Which vendor is speed crazed, addicted like pro football players to the fawning of the media? The Google. In fact, the facet of Google which few appreciate is the giddiness a Googler experiences when he or she can point out how few milliseconds a process consumes, how quickly a bloated JavaScript function performs, and how rapidly petabytes of dross can be shoved through a hydraulic data mining system.
The dirty little secret of the major vendors is that their systems are piggy. Going fast is not in the code’s DNA. I can identify some examples that will make make vendors squirm. Ready>
How do you make Oracle, IBM DB2 and Microsoft SQL Server go fast? Easy. Throw hardware at the problem. The good news is that this solution is good for the economy, resellers, and the professional babysitters who work as apologists for these aging and ponderous systems. The bad news is that one never finishes throwing hardware at these members of the Kubanochoerus clan.
How do you make a content management system go fast? Easy. Throw hardware at the problem, strip out custom scripts, and reduce the number of users. This works like a champ but it means that already inefficient components remain inefficient. Sigh.
How do you make some enterprise search systems go faster? Easy. Throw hardware at the problem, chop out custom scripts, reduce the number of supported sessions, eliminate certain hog like sub functions, reduce the number of documents processed, and limit the number of queries supported in a time slice.
Bet you don’t hear this type of information from your ever optimistic and cheerful vendors.
The reason I want to call attention to the issue of performance is that Google in 2010 is going to ride the performance pony. It makes little difference if you try to ignore the Google’s pitch, your chief financial officer is going to look at the bills for the status quo. If that guy or gal makes the connection between the traditional approach to IT and the new methods advocated by Google, the Google is going to do a loop-de-doop around the Oracle DBAs, the Microsoft Certified Professionals, and the phalanxes of IBM sales engineers. Google’s marketing allies are CFOs who need relief from IT cost pressure and anyone born before 1994.
You can see some of Google’s method in “Google Updates Web App Toolkit for Speed.” There are other examples which range from the Chrome browser being faster than Internet Explorer 8 to the Google DNS play. Google not only wants to become the Internet.
Google wants to become the love child of the original business drivers of the original odd couple—IBM and Microsoft. Oracle, SAP, and other firms will be orphans in this brave new world unless:
- Established enterprise software vendors find out how to deliver speed at a very competitive cost
- Find a way out of the crazy Sergio Leone code that established vendors distribute as the next big thing
- Can embrace and adapt to the new economic realities, abandoning the sit-around-the-campfire approach of talking about the good old days.
There you have it. Google will attack using performance as the pointy end of its marketing. Once the pointy end sticks an established vendor in a vulnerable spot like the buttocks, the Google will move in with cost and ease of use. You can get lots of detail in my Google trilogy.
Okay, now tell me how wrong I am. Just bring facts. For example, I point out in my monographs specific Google innovations related to performance. Don’t tell me about SharePoint’s or Oracle’s legendary speed. Show me data not created by house pet consultants. I am waiting. Honk, honk.
Stephen Arnold, December 12, 2009
I wish to disclose to the US Department of the Treasury that I was not paid to point out the fool’s gold that is presented as the real McCoy by mainstream vendors. Yep, a freebie.
Google Search Appliance Speaks Tweet
December 11, 2009
In one of those odd Google technical lurches, the Google Search Appliance now speaks tweet. For the unknowing, a tweet is a Twitter message. If I think real hard, I understand that social communication is the “new” thing. It follows that the Google Search Appliance should index tweets. I think it would be nice to invest a bit of time in security, connectors, and access to structured data. Google’s wizards obviously don’t agree, finding tweet content more important. I think organizations have some pretty useful structured data, but I assume that the post 1994 crowd finds that type of corporate problem trivial, irrelevant, or (most damning) “not interesting.” If you want to know more about the speak tweet movement, you will want to read “Google Search Appliance Goes Tweet Crazy” in the Washington Post’s version of a the original TechCrunch article.
Stephen Arnold, December 11, 2009
I feel compelled to alert the MARC train schedulers that I was not paid to report on this timely enhancement of the Google Search Appliance. All aboard for real time search in the enterprise. No database access, allowed.
Quark and InDesign Niche Search
December 11, 2009
You work all day long in Quark. You love to jiggle font baselines in thousands of a pica. Maybe you build pages manually, running type around whizzy art and using colors to highlight dingbats. If so, you know that you don’t have a clue what’s in the Quark and InDesign files. Now you can turn to PageZephyr, a search system that can index these file types. You can download a trial edition from the PageZephyr.com Web site. Niche search engines are useful. I work in Framemaker 7.2, a product that my favorite software company (Adobe) produces. I gave up on the weird Version 9, and I like watching the system go online every time I have to open a file to make a last minute change. The only thing that is more fun is calling Adobe to find out why the software suddenly thinks that my very expensive copy is suddenly very unregistered. The Quark outfit’s files and the wonder IDD files are nuisances. So if you want to search these puppies and perform some modest editing tricks, have a go. Mac only for now.
Stephen Arnold, December 11, 2009
Ah, ha. The Government Printing Office has jurisdiction over this free write up. I love reporting to a big red building, hunting for the door, and walking around the city block structure because I always go the wrong way.
Sinequa Enterprise Search Jumps to Version 7
December 11, 2009
Sinequa has been a busy beaver in the last couple of months. The firm inked a deal with IBM, which seems to be a wise move for the Paris-based software and systems company. I learned today from ITBackbones Software News that Sinequa has released a new point release of their flagship software. You can get the details from “Sinequa Announces Release of Sinequa Enterprise Search 7.0”. According to the news story, the new version adds such features as:
- Advanced text-mining agents
- Improved relevancy
- Real-time multi-domain security management
- A scalable GRID based Search Bus architecture.
You can get more information at www.sinequa.com.
Stephen Arnold, December 11, 2009
I wish to reveal to the commissary at the US House of Representatives hat I was not paid to write this article about a French company. I do miss those American fries, though.
Editor & Publisher: Trade Publication Goes Dark
December 11, 2009
You have to admire the magazine sector. On one hand, the mainstream magazine folks in the US are creating an iTunes for magazine articles. On the other hand, according to CIO, “108 Year Old Editor and Publisher Going Out of Business.” The subhead is clear:
A going concern since 1901, Editor & Publisher — “America’s Oldest Journal Covering the Newspaper Industry” — is going away a time when that industry continues to get smaller by the day.
I wonder if Google could have saved this publication. I wonder if a mainstream magazine publisher could have saved this publication. I wonder if News Corp. could have saved this publication?
The answer must be “no” since the story said:
From a memo issued this morning by the publication’s owner, Nielsen Business Media: “We’ve made the decision to cease operations for Editor & Publisher and Kirkus Reviews. This move will allow us to strengthen investment in our core businesses – those parts of our portfolio that have the greatest potential for growth – and ensure our long-term success.”
The author of the story seemed to speak directly to the addled goose when he wrote:
Those media bashers who gloat over these losses are sadly misinformed, and, in some cases, cruelly oblivious to the pain being suffered by journalists and their families. Those who believe these losses won’t matter are simply wrong.
There are blogging opportunities galore in my opinion.
Stephen Arnold, December 11, 2009
I wish to report to the US Forest Service that I was not paid to write this short recycled news item. The trees in my backyard seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. Nah, just my imagination.
Improve the USPTO? Not Necessary
December 11, 2009
Short honk: I love the USPTO and its Web 23.245 search system. If * you * find the USPTO in need of a change, navigate to this Slashdot post, click the Request for Comments link, and send in your ideas. The addled goose wants you to add a sentence that points out how wonderful the present search system is. There is no need to make the full US patent corpus searchable. That is what lawyers are for!
Stephen Arnold, December 11, 2009
I want to disclose to the USPTO that I was not paid to praise the search system at this institution. I love it from the tip of my beak to the bottom of my web feet.
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