Quote to Note: Steve Jobs on Google
February 2, 2010
Short honk: the Wired Epicenter’s story “Google’s Don’t Be Evil Mantra Is Bullsh*t, Adobe Is Lazy; Apple’s Steve Jobs” was fun to read. The alleged quote attributed to Apple honcho Steve Jobs was:
We did not enter the search business, Jobs said. They entered the phone business. Make no mistake they want to kill the iPhone. We won’t let them, he says. Someone else asks something on a different topic, but there’s no getting Jobs off this rant. I want to go back to that other question first and say one more thing, he says. This don’t be evil mantra: “It’s bullsh*t.”
So “This don’t be evil mantra: It’s BS” is like Beyond Search, whose acronym is also BS. Honk.
Stephen E Arnold, February 1, 2010
A freebie. I will report this apple related item and it freeness to the Department of Agriculture, an outfit involved in farming, its outputs, cattle, etc.
Yandex Factoids
February 2, 2010
TechCrunch Europe wrote about the Russian Web search and advertising outfit Yandex. You can read the article “Russia’s Leading Search Engine Yandex Sees Decline in USD Revenue for the financial discussion. My interests are different. The factoids that I seized upon included:
- In a lousy market, Yandex’s revenue was trending upwards
- Like Google, Yandex is having difficulty getting non search and ad revenues to generate big dough
- Even though the Russian ad market was slumping, Yandex was growing.
My take is that Google has its hands full with Yandex. Furthermore, the shift from traditional media is not a US only issue. Russia refused Google founder money for a space ride. Is Russia the next China for Google? What happens if Yandex gets more aggressive outside of Russia? Interesting.
Stephen E Arnold, February 2, 2010
No one paid me to write this. I will report non payment to the Council on Foreign Relations.
Oracle Sun Will Try to Roadblock the Commodity Hardware Bandwagon
February 2, 2010
What’s the difference in cost between commodity hardware and branded hardware? The answer depends on how you count. I unearthed some old Google data years ago that suggested the Google could deliver orders of magnitude more performance with its home brew approach than it could achieve with name brand gear. The data were sufficiently obscure that my client at BearStearns was reluctant to include a 17X performance increase in one of our reports. I had enough Googley charts and tech articles to get the risk loving BearStearns’ crowd to go with a 4X benefit, but it was a tough discussion. My hunch is that Google won’t update or comment on how fast its home brew system goes. If these Google data were accurate, the implications for commodity hardware with the Googley fairy dust translates to a name brand stocked data center, running name brand gizmos would be more expensive than a Google equipped data center. Stated simply, if Google spends $1,000 dollars for a chunk of performance, a competitor would have to spend $4,000 or more to match Google’s performance. Big difference. Now you see why the 17X type of number made the BearStearns’ wizards nervous. $1,000 of Google gear translates to a whopping $17,000 of branded gear for comparable performance. With data centers hitting $650 million or more for outfits like Microsoft, the price tags to match Google become quite large.
When you say, RDBMS and performance, I see this technical diagram for addressing petascale data management challenges.
Now shift to the Oracle Sun deal. The Cnet write up “Oracle-Sun Versus Commodity Hardware” got my tiny goose brain turning in circles. Performance has been an issue with Oracle installations in my experience for a long time. The standard solution has been to throw hardware at the problem. Other RDBMS systems require the same remediation. Adding machines boosts the Oracle license revenue. For many years, the Fortune 1000 cheerfully pumped money into hardware and Oracle in order to keep response time within acceptable limits. Some companies such as the financial institution with which I worked a decade ago wanted me to find an alternative to throwing hardware at an Oracle system to speed up performance. I hooked the outfit up with a company called CrossZ, which has morphed into QueryObject. But most Oracle customers are happy to follow the recommendations of their Oracle DBA and the Oracle sales professionals.
The Cnet story included this interesting passage:
…with its newly acquired Sun hardware business, announced last week that it would go in the opposite direction and start selling direct in order to gain back the profit margin lost to VARs. As CNET’s Stephen Shankland wrote, Oracle is now a hardware company and needs to offset the fact that it owns a number of commodity products, including not just Sun servers but also MySQL and other pieces of software. By eliminating the middleman channel, Oracle can bump up margins. But it’s not clear that the market will be willing to pay a premium for Oracle-Sun products.
I disagree with Cnet’s belief that Oracle can make this variant of throwing hardware at a performance problem. Here’s why:
- The economic meltdown has reminded CFOs that the free spending days of yore are not appropriate for the present business climate. This means pushback from some Oracle clients who used to roll over like a dog under the ministrations of Caesar Millan, the dog whisperer.
- Hardware fixes to aging Oracle technology won’t do the job in the present world of big data. The Oracle database is not the right tool for big data. If it were, perhaps Google’s engineers, many of whom had some Sun experience on their bios, would have embraced Oracle. Google went a different direction, and I think it was a wise one as do the people who have suitcases of money from the Google home run.
- Innovators like Mark Logic are forcing Oracle to write quasi technical papers to point out that Mark Logic’s performance metrics are wrong. Nope. Oracle is wrong, and the problem is not Mark Logic. The problem is a variant of the Microsoft and other aging architectures. Just as the Model T cannot win a drag race against a hopped up Honda, Oracle cannot outperform a Mark Logic system. Old is to be respected. Old is not a solution for certain data management problems.
In short, Oracle purchased Sun for some good reasons. I am not sure hardware – software bundles and Sun servers offered to clients with tortoise like Oracle systems are among the best reasons. Just my opinion.
Stephen E Arnold, February 2, 2010
No one paid me to write this. A year ago, Mark Logic bought me a bagel. Since then, zip. I will report the food payment to the FDA in the morning.
Exclusive Interview: Digital Reasoning
February 2, 2010
Tim Estes, the youthful founder and chief technologist, for Digital Reasoning, a search and content processing company based in Tennessee, reveals the technology the is driving the company’s growth. Mr. Estes, a graduate of the University of Virginia, tackled the problem of information overload with a fresh approach. You can learn about Digital Reasoning’s approach that delivers a system that “deeply, conceptually searches within unstructured data, analyzes it and presents dynamic visual results with minimal human intervention. It reads everything, forgets nothing and gets smarter as you use it.”
Mr. Estes explained:
Digital Reasoning’s core product offering is called “Synthesys.” It is designed to take an enterprise from disparate data silos (both structured and unstructured), ingest and understand the data at an entity level (down to the “who, what, and wheres” that are mentioned inside of documents), make it searchable, linkable, and provide back key statistics (BI type functionality). It can work in an online/real-time type fashion given its performance capabilities. Synthesys is unique because it does a really good job at entity resolution directly from unstructured data. Having the name “Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab” misspelled somewhere in the data is not a big deal for us – because we create concepts based on the patterns of usage in the data and that’s pretty hard to hide. It is necessarily true that a word grounds its meaning to the things in the data that are of the same pattern of usage. If it wasn’t the case no receiving agent could understand it. We’ve figured out how to reverse engineer that mental process of “grounding” a word. So you can have Abdulmutallab ten different ways and it doesn’t matter. If the evidence links in any statistically significant way – we pull it together.
You can read the full-text of this exclusive interview with Tim Estes on the ArnoldIT.com site in the Search Wizard Speak series. You can get more information about Digital Reasoning from the company’s Web site.
The Search Wizards Speak series provides the largest collection of free, detailed information about major enterprise search systems.Why pay the azure-chip consultants for sponsored listings, write ups prepared by consultants with little or no hands on experience, and services that “sell” advertorials. You hear in the developer’s, founders, and CEO’s own words what a system does and how it solves content-related problems.
Stephen E Arnold, February 2, 2010
No one paid me to write about my own Web site. I will report this charitable act to the head of the Red Cross.
Google Doubts Competence of Outsell Survey Team
February 2, 2010
I don’t know much about newspaper news click through rates or azure chip consultants, but I know when a Googler awards a failing grade for research. First, read the story “Google Exec: We’re Here to Help Newspapers.” Then read this passage:
And last week, digital marketing firm Outsell released a report claiming that 44% of Google News users don’t click through to the original sites. Mr. Varian dismissed Outsells’s report, claiming the survey design is “not very impressive,” and a Google spokesperson said Google sends more than 4 billion clicks to publishers worldwide each month. “It’s a symbiotic relationship,” Mr. Varian said. “As a search engine, we want rich content out there for our users to find.”
When I read these words, I understood Google’s economics whiz to be underwhelmed by the work of Bay Area consulting firm “Outsell”. (I am not sure what this word means I must confess. I know “up sell” but not “outsell”.) Now don’t get me wrong, I think some of the Googler economist’s ideas were likely to be less than helpful to the troubled newspaper industry. Traditional publishing and Google come from different domains, well, maybe different planets. Technology means one thing to publishers and in my opinion quite another to Googlers. My hunch is that “Outsell” won’t displace Gartner’s super consultant as the Google’s go-to azure chip consultant. Maybe that is “moonbeam azure” consultant?
Stephen E Arnold, February 2, 2010
No one paid me to write about the color of consultants. I am not sure which agency in Washington is responsible for blogs that write without pay about color. Maybe HUD. I think there is a Porter Paint color called “moonbeam azure” and I know there is a “fail red.”
SSN Launched
February 1, 2010
Strategic Social Networking is now live. You can visit the site by pointing your browser to http://ssnblog.com. The Beyond Search team developed SSN to cover the management implications and strategic applications of social networking to business and professionals. The blog will provide commentary, brief original videos, links, lists, news, and information.
SSN will include original articles and opinions from social experts like Craig James (CatStrat) and experienced executives like Jerry Constantino, author of the popular ItsNutsOutThere blog. Jerry is a deeply experienced publishing executive, author, and entrepreneur. We will also feature original research which will bring you new insights into the strategic implications of social media.
The SSN blog wants to give you a way to see the strategic angles social media use introduces to business. We want to write for a business professional who needs to generate sales leads, build a brand, and jump start a consulting opportunity. And we want to provide examples, tips, and useful sources for the individual working in an organization embracing the social networking revolution. We offer an RSS feed, and we will have a Facebook and Twitter presence. The comments section of the blog is available to you. Editor Jessica Bratcher and her team want to hear from you.
Stephen E Arnold
February 1, 2010
This is a sponsored post paid for by Stephen E. Arnold
More Mainframe Woes; IBM STAIRS Where Are You?
February 1, 2010
“The Great Mainframe Shakeout”, which appeared in Ecommerce Times, had some harsh words for mainframes. For example: “IT budget planners are using the strident economic environment to force a harder look at alternatives to inflexible and hard-to-manage legacy systems, especially as enterprises seek to cut their total and long-term IT operations spending.” The write up seems to run counter to the PR that IBM has been generating about the importance of mainframes, their economic payoff, and their uptake in Namibia. The article includes a link to a podcast. Some gems from this article in my opinion were:
- An analyst recently looked me in the face and said, “People want to get off the mainframe. They understand now that the costs associated with it are just not supportable and are not necessary.”
- By not needing to touch the mainframe code or the business rules, we were able to complete this project in a period of six months, from beginning to end. The user tells us that they are saving over $1 million today in avoiding the large costs associated with mainframe software, as well as maintenance and depreciation on the mainframe environment. …
- Just within the past few months, there was a survey by AFCOM, a group that represents data-center workers. It indicated that, over the next two years, 46 percent of the mainframe users said that they’re considering replacing one or more of their mainframes.
These quotes come from different participants in the podcast, so listen to the audio before recycling their message.
Not a peep about the STAIRS and Search Master users? A platform switch means a new system will be needed. I received a New Year’s message from Exalead yesterday. That email explained that Exalead could handle industrial strength applications. Maybe Exalead can help those abandoning the mainframe for new, more economical methods? Why not walk the STAIRS to CloudView?
Stephen E Arnold, February 2, 1010
No one paid me to write about mainframes. I love mainframes. That’s why I will report not getting paid to the Pentagon, an outfit with some big iron according to the DC rumor mill.
Harsh Words for Microsoft from Pundit
February 1, 2010
I found this article quite interesting: “Admit It, Microsoft: You Suck at the Web.” The key point is that Microsoft’s Web products and services leave a big name pundit cold. The most interesting comment in the write up in my opinion was:
Bing’s search share grew to reach nearly 11 percent in January from 8 percent in May 2009, the month before Bing was launched. But look where it’s stolen its search business from — AOL and Bing’s own partner, Yahoo. Meanwhile, Google’s market share during that period inched up to 66 percent. Unless Bing can start eating away at Google’s share, its prospects for growth are limited.
I don’t pay too much attention to the Web search silliness. I use Devilfinder.com and am a happy camper. Microsoft’s real weakness is that its dependence on Windows and Office are its core flaw. Bleeding cash is okay when the money is rolling in. When the money flow slows, then implosion is likely to start.
The article says that Microsoft is not too good at the Web. The “DNA” of Microsoft leaves it vulnerable to a serious infection of Google-itis.
Stephen E Arnold, February 1, 2010
No one paid me to write this article. I will report this to the the director of the Bethesda Naval Hospital. I have an illness metaphor and no compensation. These flaws must be reported.
Futurist Predicts the End of Writing
February 1, 2010
You have to read “Could Written Language Be Rendered Obsolete?” and the source article “Could Written Language Be Rendered Obsolete, and What Should We Demand In Return?” Kids in Kentucky no longer learn to write cursive. That means that kids may not be able to read notes handwritten. The death of written language is a bold thought. I think it is baloney. Make you own decision, but it may be tough to search content generating text from SMS, videos, and email systems that nuked themselves. Is Google worried? Probably not too much. Am I worried? No, I don’t care.
Stephen E Arnold, February 1, 2010
A freebie. I will report this to the Railway Retirement Board.
Squiz Funnelback Releases New Version
February 1, 2010
The Australian firm Squiz Funnelback has released Version 9 of its enterprise search system. The article “Funnelback Version 9 Released – Includes New Reporting System, Pattern Detection and Numerous Feature Improvements” said:
Funnelback 9 includes new features and functionality improvements which enhance the performance and usability of its Internet and Enterprise search solutions, and enable organizations to use pattern based strategy to expose search query trends which could impact their business.
The new version includes a Reports Dashboard, a Pattern Detection and Alerting System, faster contextual navigation, improved spelling suggestions, and near duplicate detection.
You can get more information from the Funnelback Web site at http://www.funnelback.com. Squiz is an Australian slang term for have a look at something; for example, open source solutions.
Stephen E Arnold, February 1, 2010
No one paid me to write this article. I will report this fact to the Australian embassy when I am next in Washington, DC.
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