The Discovery Hoax: Commercial Databases Make Big Promises
March 8, 2010
I was given a box lunch and a can of Pepsi as compensation for my one hour talk at a conference last week. I had an interesting conversation with a former big wheel in commercial database publishing. I thought the wizard was a retired poobah. I was wrong. The fellow had his shoulder pads on, a sweatband, and Gucci cleats. He’s back on a commercial company’s publishing team. I am an old, cowardly goose, and it is with trepidation that I get too close to big people garbed for quasi-military re-enactments related to electronic information.
I asked the industry titan what his new gig involved. I recall one word, which he repeated several times to me, the addled goose. The word? “Discovery.” I thought I was having a The Graduate moment. In 2010, plastic was a loser. The winner? Discovery.
Yep, the lingo of the search and content processing market has reached the world of professional publishing and for-fee database access.
The idea, as I understood it, is that this commercial company will allow a user to enter a keyword; for example, employee stock ownership. The system will crunch away and present:
- Results from the firm’s for fee databases. Not just anyone can run a search. The user has to have access to an institutional account or sign up and pay. There is some free stuff, but this is a real, live make-money-or-die operation.
- The system will also “discover” possibly related content and list that information in the form of links. I think the idea the titan was communicating is what Endeca calls “Guided Navigation” in 1999! Not exactly yesterday! To see the Endeca system in action just go to OfficeFurniture.com.
- Content from the public Web.
The idea is that a person using a commercial system will enter a search string and then see links to related content. This works for buying office furniture. I am not sure how a computational chemist would react to a suggestion she read a blog post about a meth lab that blows up.
Yep, our professional grade service needs those custom chrome wheels. Image source: http://www.up.ac.za/organizations/movup/images/minefun/indian_haul_truck.jpg
I asked what happened if I used one of the company’s business databases and entered the search term “management.” I got a bit of double talk and the titan backed up, trying to get away from me. The reason I asked about this type of search is that I know from hands-on experience that the use of a general controlled term in his firm’s databases does not generate a usable results list. Thus, any “discovered” information is likely to be wide of the mark. Broad queries don’t often work too well in the for-fee, quite specific content in certain commercial systems. A single word like “management” in a Google search box generates what is highly ranked by clueless millions like a link to the Wikipedia entry.
Autonomy and Its Single Platform
March 8, 2010
I read “Autonomy Interwoven First to Deliver Integrated Web Content Management, Search, Optimization, and Rich Media on a Single Platform” and realized that the Autonomy team was beginning a position campaign. The Cambridge UK firm explained that it is “a global leader in infrastructure software for the enterprise.”
The key word in the write up, in my opinion, is “integrated.” Autonomy offers an integrated bundle of Web content management, search, search engine optimization, and rich media on the IDOL platform. With enterprises struggling to hold down costs, the bundle may allow some organizations to reduce certain license fees, engineering and professional services costs, and the problem solving that goes hand in hand with complicated multi-vendor sets ups.
One added twist to the bundle is its support for targeting. The idea is that the Autonomy system can get the appropriate content in front of a specific target. The company said:
The platform provides the full spectrum of implicit and explicit targeting capabilities across all channels, including web, contact center, and social media. Unlike other marketing technologies, Autonomy automatically tags and forms a conceptual understanding of all content, inside and outside a corporation. This underlying capability allows businesses to instantly deliver more relevant, targeted content to customers.
My opinion is that integrated systems are of considerable interest to many CFOs. Information technology costs are difficult to control. When the money is rolling in, that’s not a big deal. When money is not so plentiful, IT becomes a problem. CFOs need solutions that jump over the hurdles an existing software system presents. Autonomy’s new bundle will get a close look. Will it resolve the problems that keep CFOs up at night? It’s too soon to tell.
You can learn more about this integrated system at www.autonomy.com.
Stephen E Arnold, March 8, 2010
No one paid me to write this news item. Since the company is based in the UK, to whom to I report my failure to get cash on the barrel head. Ah, the Department of State, a globally aware organization if there ever was one.
Social Networking, the Military, and Control
March 8, 2010
I don’t know if this item from Gizmodo is accurate. I will leave its veracity to you. Navigate to “Israeli Raid Cancelled After Very Stupid Facebook Post.” The alleged incident involves a soldier, Facebook, and a post. The upshot is that the soldier revealed information about an upcoming military action. In the context of the azure chip outfit Datamonitor urging banks to use social media and the US military relaxing its rules, the alleged Facebook post underscores how easily a single person’s actions can compromise a much larger group. I know the azure chip crowd and the poobahs are avid social media Kool Aid drinkers. Make sure that Jim Jones has not prepared the beverage. The posting was not stupid. The posting underscores how a command and control system does not work if one assumes social media is just super. One more example of a person who can make a browser work assuming he or she can navigate the information ecosystem. Clueless.
Stephen E Arnold, March 8, 2010
No one paid me to write this. I am not going to report non payment to anyone.
Surprise. Telcos Do Not Like Nexus One
March 8, 2010
Some chatter over the last two days suggests that Google plays favorites. Google does play favorites, but it does its head patting in subtle ways; that is, if you see the Nexus One roll out as a low key initiative. Navigate to the SP Trading Desk and the story “Google’s Nexus One Upsets Carriers.” You may have to do some work to see the story. The ads load slowly and then there is a weird pop over thing, but the content is still there.
The Financial Post said:
The launch of Google Inc.’s new Web-enabled smartphone, dubbed Nexus One, means the end of the Internet search giant’s Android software as we know it.
The insight comes from an analyst, Peter Misek.
The story points out that some telecommunications carriers are not jumping with joy over Google’s intrusion into yet another parcel of telco land. Google, the analyst and the telcos, now realize that:
Google is trying to circumvent their ownership of networks, spectrum and customers…Android is currently available on more than a 20 phones.
Now how can Google disadvantage competitors. My goodness, I am no Elizabeth Barrett Browning but let me count some of the ways:
- Applications. Some may not be available for non Google phones. This is the Apple approach and lots of other companies’ approach.
- Latency. Ah, more subtle. Google does prioritize certain network services. Maybe but some hard evidence is needed.
- Content delivery. My research indicates that Google’s CDN technology has some interesting technical capabilities. Even better, the CDN is smart and considers many factors which to one skilled in the art may be applied in other ways.
- Features. Ask Motorola about this angle.
- Metrics. Lots of metrics are available. The question is who gets what and when.
- Services. I can anticipate the real time translation service emerging as an interesting poker chip in the telco game.
Back to the gossip and rumors. Does Google advantage itself? Do Google employees use MOMA?
Stephen E Arnold, March 8, 2010
No one paid me to write this. I will report non payment to that most objective of US government entities, the FCC.
JustSystems in Flux?
March 8, 2010
I received a call about JustSystems, the Japanese company that figured out how to enter complex characters using a three digit code from a mobile phone keypad. A deal with a large mobile device company was the firm’s go-to revenue stream. With changes in mobile technology, that revenue began to dwindle. JustSystems turned to software development and consulting, which are difficult businesses to scale. When I visited the company for my key fob I noted that the firm had more than 500 employees in several locations. The information I reviewed this morning suggested that JustSystems had about 900 employees at the end of 2009.
The firm was of interest to me. I received a Japanese dinner and a key fob after giving a briefing to the company’s owners four or five years ago. I also reported in my story “JustSystems ConceptBase” that the company rolled out a search appliance in some sort of tie up with IBM.
I dug through my files and noticed a data point that I wanted to surface. In April 2009, JustSystems became a subsidiary of the Keyence Corporation. (Asiajin reported this story in April 2009.) Keyence makes a wide range of electronic gizmos. JustSystems pushed into search and content processing, purchasing a US content processing company called Clairvoyance, founded by wizard Dr. David A Evans. The push did not work and the company turned to Keyence, which bought 43.96 percent of JustSystems, valued at a about US$50 million. Six months later in 2009, the founders–Kazunori Ukigawa and Hatsuko Ukigawa, a husband and wife team—resigned as chairman and vice chairperson and quit the Board of Directors. Mrs. Unkgawa was one of the most visible female Japanese company heads in a very male Japanese technology sector.
On Friday, I was able to speak to a customer support representative on the firm’s North American hot line. I was not able to get much information about the status of the products, particularly the search appliance. I asked about the office in Pittsburgh, where Clairvoyance was located. I learned that the Pittsburgh office had been closed.
JustSystems is hosting Webinars and publicizing that it is one of the 100 firms identified as a “company that matters” by the prestigious, widely read KMWorld Magazine. The company lists as its customers, Amazon, Thomson, Symantec, Cisco, WIPO, Jaguar, and other high profile firms.
The company’s flagship product is XMetal and the firm offers a “maturity model” for an enterprise “semantic ecosystem.”
Several observations:
- JSERI–the original Claritech – Clairvoyance – JustSystems Evans Research–seems to have shut down. See drakesbaycompany.com/documents/JSERI_ExecSummary.pdf
- The USPTO published in November 2009 US, “Methods and Apparatus for Interactive Document Clustering.” The assignee is JustSystems Evans Research. The Wikipedia entry is here.
- There is no search function on the company’s English language Web site. A quick look at the Japanese site and I was not able to locate a search function. When I search Keyence’s Web site for the ConceptBase I got zero hits. Maybe the appliance is a goner?
To sum up, I don’t know if the ConceptBase appliance is currently for sale. I will keep poking around.
Stephen E Arnold, March 8, 2010
No one paid me to write this. I did get paid to go to Tokyo to get my JustSystems key fob. I suppose that counts for something.
Microsoft SharePoint: The CMS Killer
March 7, 2010
I read “Interesting Perspective on How SharePoint Is Capturing the ECM Market.” The write up references a post by Lee Dallas who writes the Big Men on Content blog. The idea is that SharePoint works seamlessly with Active Directory. As a result, access and identity are part of the woodwork, and no information technology staff have to futz around so employees can find and manipulate documents, presentations, or spreadsheets. Furthermore, SharePoint put a stake in the heart of enterprise content management systems by adding collaboration to the create it, find it, and use it approach of the traditional content management vendors. SharePoint won because it added these features and did a great job marketing.
I agree that Microsoft SharePoint seems to be everywhere. I also know that Microsoft has pumped Tiger Juice into its partners and resellers to push the SharePoint solution. The marketing message is reinforced with zeal and great prices. Keep in mind that SharePoint requires a dump truck full of other Microsoft software to deliver on the bullet points in the SharePoint sales presentation.
Now my view on this brilliant success is a bit different.
First, Microsoft SharePoint has been around a long time. It is a combination of products, features, functions. When I hear SharePoint, I see the nCompass logo, circa 2001. I also think “content server”. The current incarnation of SharePoint is a bunch of stuff that requires even more Microsoft stuff to work. A number of Microsoft partners have built software to snap into SharePoint to deliver some of the features that Microsoft talks about but cannot get to work. These range from search to content management itself. I wrote about a SharePoint expert who uses WordPress because SharePoint is too much of a headache. Age can bring wisdom, but I think SharePoint’s trajectory has been one that delivers mind boggling complexity. SharePoint consultants love the product. Addled geese like me see it as one more crazy enterprise solution that today’s top managers just pay for reflexively.
Second, the world of content management has become mired in muddy road after muddy road. Some projects make travel by donkey delightful. CMS was created to help outfits without any expertise in producing information post Web pages. Then the Web morphed into an applications platform and the CMS vendors were like the buggy whip manufacturers who thought horse powered carriages were a fad. Big CMS projects almost never worked without application of generous layers of money and custom engineering. At the same time, information management became important due to the fine work of the SEC, Enron, Tyco, and other outfits. Now many organizations have to keep track of documents, not lose them like White House email. It turns out that managing electronic information is pretty difficult. The bubble gum approach of Web CMS won’t work for a nuclear power plan engineering change order. Some folks are discovering this fact that a Web page is different from tracking the versions of a diagram for a cooling pipe in an ageing pressurized water reactor. Imagine that!
Third, companies lack the dough to spend wildly for information technology. The financial challenges of many organizations have not been prevented by fancy systems. Some might argue that fancy systems accelerated the impact of certain financial problems. The reason there are the alleged 100 million SharePoint users is a result of really aggressive marketing and bundling. If SharePoint provides job security, go for it. I have heard this sentiment expressed by an information technology company in Europe on more than one occasion.
The net net of SharePoint is that Microsoft is going to make a great deal of money, but there will be a gradual loss of customers. The reason is partly due to demographics and partly due to what I call SharePoint fatigue. When users discover that the fancy metadata functions don’t work, some will poke around. Metadata must be normalized; otherwise, fancy functions don’t work very well. Fixing metadata is expensive. When a cloud service comes along with the function that normalizes metadata transparently, then SharePoint will be behind an eight ball.
SharePoint, like other Microsoft software, is reaching a point where moving forward becomes more difficult and more expensive. That’s the signal for outfits like Google to strike. The death of CMS has given SharePoint a good run. Now that SharePoint may be difficult to scale, stabilize, and extend, SharePoint becomes catnip for Googzilla. Just my opinion.
Stephen E Arnold, March 7, 2010
No one paid me to write this. Since I mention Microsoft, I think I have to report non payment to the many SharePoint fans at the Department of Defense.
Open Source Tactics
March 7, 2010
Open source software has some teeth. In the enterprise search sector, Lemur Consulting continues to gain ground. Most recently, the firm’s wizards have been providing substantive comments about the role of semantic methods in content processing.
The story “iPhone Lessons from Google’s Nexus One” adds another factoid to my open source note card. The main idea is that Google’s open source play with the Android operating system, while not a slam dunk, but it is in the words of the article “a really good device.” The article points out that the Nexus One underscores the challenge Apple faces; for example, improving the screen resolution, giving the user a more flexible “home screen”, notifications (real time info), multitasking, a combined inbox with multiple email accounts, and similar tweaks.
I liked the article and I realized that with Android available as open source and to date Google’s less mom-like approach to developer and applications, Google’s use of open source play may put some worm’s into Apple’s core.
The kidney punch thrown by Google at Apple is reMail, a mobile search tool. Google has made that software open source. Mobile search is another weakness for the iPhone, and here comes Google with another open source thrust. See “reMail Is Now Open Source.” But the killer play is what Google calls device seeding. Yep, become an Adroid developer and get an Adroid phone for “free”. See “Google’s Device Seeding Program Underway—Free Phones Heading Out to Developers Soon.”
Stephen E Arnold, March 7, 2010
No one paid me to write this. Since I mention open source, I will disclose non payment to 16000 Pennsylvania, where open source has some supporters.
Microsoft and a Slow Recovery
March 7, 2010
I attended a conference last week and quite a few people in the information sector indicated to me that 2010 looked pretty good. Okay, nine weeks into the new year and “pretty good”. Then I read ChannelInsider.com’s “Microsoft COO Kevin Turner Predicts Slow Recovery.” Microsoft is somewhat optimistic, but the word “slow” is either a conservative spin on the Windows 7 cash bonanza or a hedge. For me, the most interesting comment in the article was:
In his speech, Turner said it was “time to get back to business” after what Microsoft has repeatedly called an economic reset, rather than just a recession from which the world economy would simply recover. He said Microsoft’s own spending would not return to previous levels in many areas after cost cuts, but Microsoft was at the same time increasing research and development spending to a record $9.5 billion this year, more than any company.
Seems reasonable. I suppose the realignment of the Microsoft Fast search project is part of the cost cuts.
Stephen E Arnold, March 7, 2010
No one paid me to write this. With my reference to cost cuts, I will report my unpaid status to the Office of Management & Budget.
Lexalytics Pushes toward PR Nirvana
March 6, 2010
I am easily confused when I read about “market intelligence”. I think this is different from “business intelligence” and “competitive intelligence.” I can’t put my finger on the exact meanings of these phrases. I read “Top Market Intelligence Companies Turn to Lexalytics for Powerful Sentiment Analysis” and I believe that “market intelligence” alludes to what customers and observers say in Web logs and other media. Figuring out if customers are happy or sad is important. I recall hearing a presentation by ClearForest about the importance of processing warranty information. In addition to cost savings, potentially dangerous problems with vehicles could, in certain circumstances, be identified from streams of information.
The Lexalytics’ spin on “market intelligence” hooks into text analysis and social media monitoring. The firm has two new projects. One is with a firm called Cymfony. I am not sure how Cymfony connects with people who have influence over others, but I accept the assertion “executive accolades” at face value. The second project is a license deal with Vocus. In both projects, Lexalytics will provide text analysis. Lexalytics is part of Infonics, UK based firm.
Search and content processing vendors are packaging their indexing and retrieval technology in many different ways. Sentiment analysis has been given a boost with the growing interest in monitoring real time streams of content.
Will niche plays generate enough cash to keep the many competitors in search and content processing afloat? With the high cost of sales, companies like Lexalytics will be among the first to provide real life case evidence about the strategy.
Public relations companies have been among the service sectors hit in the nose by the soft economy. The trajectory of these tie ups will be fascinating to watch.
Stephen E Arnold, March 6, 2010
No one paid me to write this short item. Because Lexalytics is part of a UK company as a result of a no-cash transaction, I am not sure which US authority requires me to report non compensation. Perhaps the Council on Foreign Affairs? I will give it a whirl.
Brainware and Hiring
March 6, 2010
I was genuinely puzzled when I read “Brainware Continues to Hire the Industry’s Best Sales Talent.” Brainware is a company that straddles scanning, optical character recognition, and search. In my first overflight of the company, I came away with the notion that the firm’s trigram technology gave the firm an edge in search, particularly the legal eagle type of query. In the last year, I have formed the impression that the company has moved down the information food chain to document scanning and forms processing. Now, I think of the company in the context of integration vendors who sell high-speed scanners and related software. One of Brainware’s PR people called me, but I am not too keen on telephone briefings, so I only know what I read in the news releases.
Here’s the main point of this news story I saw on March 3, 2010. I quote:
Brainware, Inc., the leading provider of intelligent data capture and enterprise search solutions, today announced the appointment of two new executive sales veterans to the company’s leadership team. Todd Hicks, formerly of Thomson Reuters Corporation, joins Brainware as the company’s Vice President of Worldwide Sales. Stephen Xeller, formerly of Experian, joins the company as Vice President of North American Sales.
Now here’s my impression of this type of headline and the phrase “hire the industry’s best sales talent” and the news release that provides mini-biographies of these sales professionals. First, I don’t know how to judge if a person is the “industry’s best sales talent.” I can accept “effective sales professionals” but I balk at “best.” I don’t consider either Thomson Reuters or Experian among the Top 10 information companies, maybe not even the top 50. Second, if a person is the best at sales, I think that person would be giving one of those talks along with Zig Ziglar or Tony Robbins. Those are sales guys who appear cheek by jowl with Colin Powell and similar high profile sales motivators.
My other concern is that Brainware is focusing on sales, not technology. I admit that I relate to news stories about a nifty innovation or a breakthrough in content processing technology. Hiring sales professionals is most a job for the sales and marketing side of a company. I steer clear of that group. What I take away from the story is that Brainware is investing more in selling and maybe not so much in technology. But without context in the news story or a rich flurry of tweets and blog posts to keep me up to date with Brainware’s R&D, I see sales only.
I would be a happier camper if the word “best” did not perch in the headline like a crow in my wife’s garden. Maybe “accomplished sales professionals?” Just my opinion.
Stephen E Arnold, March 6, 2010
No one paid me to write this. Since Brainware is located in the DC area, I will report a freebie to the Virginal governor who may have more free time than the governor of New York State.
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