Thunderstone Rolls Out Government Promotion
March 25, 2010
A happy quack to the reader who alerted me to a new Thunderstone promotion targeting state and local government clients. Thunderstone, a long-time player in search and content processing, was one of the first, if not the first, search vendor to offer a plug-and-play search appliance. As I gathered information for my various research reports about search, I kept learning that other vendors had licensed technology from Thunderstone. One example was the Thunderstone stemmer which turned up in Personal Library Software I wrote in one of my notebooks. PLS went to AOL and then became an open source product by the way.
The link from the reader pointed to “State and Local Governments Offered Search Appliance Savings Program.” The idea is that state and local governments will get the same discount that Thunderstone offers the US Federal government. The General Services Administration itself encourages states to use the GSA schedule.
You can read an interview with a Thunderstone executive in the Search Wizards Speak information collection on the ArnoldIT.com site.
The state and local government market sector is one that has been on the sidelines for a number of years. Perhaps this is changing?
Stephen E Arnold, Mar
SAS Teragram in Marketing Push
March 25, 2010
Two readers on two different continents sent me links to write ups about SAS Teragram. As you may know, SAS has been a licensee of the Inxight technology for various text processing operations. Business Objects bought Inxight, and then SAP bought Business Objects. I was told a year or so ago that there was no material change in the way in which SAS worked with Inxight. Not long after I heard that remark, SAS bought the little-known specialist content processing firm, Teragram. Teragram, founded by Yves Schabes and a fellow academic, landed some big clients for the firm’s automated text processing system. These clients included the New York Times and, I believe, America Online.
Teragram has integrated its software with Apache Lucene, and the company has rolled out what it calls a Sentiment Analysis Manager. The idea behind sentiment analysis is simple. Process text such as customer emails and flag the ones that are potential problems. These “problems” can then be given special attention.
The first news item I received from a reader was a pointer to a summary of an interview with Dr. Schabes on the Business Intelligence network. Like ZDNet and Fierce Media, these are pay-for-coverage services. The podcasts usually reach several hundred people and the information is recycled in print and as audio files. The article was “Teragram Delivers Text Analytics Solutions and Language Technologies.” You can find a summary in the write up, but the link to the audio file was not working when I checked it out (March 24, 2010, at 8 am Eastern). The most interesting comment in the write up in my opinion was:
Business intelligence has evolved from a field of computing on numbers to actually computing on text, and that is where natural language processing and linguistics comes in… Text is a reflection of language, and you need computational linguistics technologies to be able to turn language into a structure of information. That is really what the core mission of our company is to provide technologies that allow us to treat text at a more elaborate level than just characters, and to add structure on top of documents and language.
The second item appeared as “SAS Text Analytics, The Last Frontier in the Analysis of Documents” in Areapress. The passage in that write up I noted was this list of licensees:
Associated Press, eBay, Factiva, Forbes.com, Hewlett Packard, New York Times Company, Reed Business Information, Sony, Tribune Interactive, WashingtonPost.com, Wolters Kluwer, Yahoo! and the World Bank.
I am not sure how up to date the list is. I heard that the World Bank recently switched search systems. For more information about Teragram, navigate to the SAS Web site. Could this uptick in SAS Teragram marketing be another indication that making sales is getting more difficult in today’s financial climate?
Stephen E Arnold, March 25, 2010
A no fee write up. I will report this sad state of affairs to the IMF, which it appears is not clued in like the World Bank.
Management: The Google Weakness?
March 24, 2010
I was surprised at the coverage of Google’s decision to change its approach to China. I think that Google may face more scrutiny from shareholders than from the “Sergey and Larry eat pizza” type of coverage that this subject is receiving. My newsreader is stuffed full of comments about this and that about Google’s most recent management decision. A good example of this type of analysis appears in “Google’s China move: A compromise?”
Would other public companies have followed the same trajectory? Made the same decisions? Taken the same squabble to seats of legal and political power? I don’t know, but I recall reading that Microsoft suggested that it would follow the rules that China set forth. Microsoft, regardless of what one thinks about the company’s products and services, is obviously looking out for its shareholders. The name of the game is to generate revenue for pension funds and others with a stake in seeing assets grow.
And China is a big market. I visited for 17 days in 2007, and I understood why the Chinese say the “crane” is the new symbol of China. The country is the market for the 21st century, and stakeholders have a right to expect publicly traded companies to figure out a way to tap into that revenue stream in my opinion.
Of the many management decisions that I monitored in the search sector, the Google – China decision has been remarkable. It reminded me of how some students and teachers interact in Eastern Europe. The professor lectures. Small groups get drilled by assistants. Students do exactly what’s in the curriculum. That works for some things, but I don’t think that’s how publicly traded companies should deal with countries that could, when managed correctly, generate big upsides for stakeholders.
Then I noticed a string of stories and comments about a Valleywag story called “Exclusive: How Google’s Eric Schmidt Lost HIs Mistress, His Partner and Steve Jobs.” I find the Valleywag writing entertaining, certainly more clever than what the addled goose presents in this Web log. What struck me is that this type of story is another management-centric issue. I don’t know anything about the accuracy of the story, but it is obvious that Google’s management are public figures.
The implications to me are:
- Google is a publicly traded company and the senior managers need to focus on business tactics that maximize shareholder value. I am not confident that this public profile is going to translate into payoffs for stakeholders. I may be wrong, but this type of visibility may make it tough to work the type of moves required in today’s business climate.
- The trajectory of Google’s management decisions over the last few months has been interesting. I think that a number of business school case studies will be generated to explore such topics as Google Buzz, the China deal, and the oddities of the Google Viacom legal matter. Lost emails? Fascinating.
- I know that when I am distracted, I have a tough time making events flow. Whether I am writing another of my dense, obscure monographs based on patent document analysis or just trying to remember where my lunch meeting is, I need to focus. Google’s executives are much smarter than I am, but I wonder if the distractions from the massive media attention is distracting.
In short, the question I want to consider, “Is Google’s management the key weakness at Google?” Since patent documents don’t address management issues, I have no answer. But that is a pretty good question for the pundits, poobahs, mavens, and “real” journalists to explore in the days and weeks ahead. Has the National Enquirer type of analysis merged with the world of high technology? And what about replacing that China revenue? What is it? 1.3 billion people and 400 million Internet users? That’s a lot of potential revenue.
Stephen E Arnold, March 24, 2010
Nope, a freebie. I will report my questioning approach to the National Intelligence Center, where questioning is an art form. I just do the questioning without compensation. Sigh.
People Search in SharePoint
March 24, 2010
A happy quack to the reader who alerted me to phonetic search in SharePoint. I must have overlooked this function which I think of as a variant of fuzzy functions or what I once heard described as “soundex” functions.
“A Quick Look at Phonetic People Search in SharePoint 2010” provides a run down of this feature. The author is Corey Roth, and he is moved to tears of gratitude with some of the new Microsoft SharePoint search features. We are pleased, but geese do not weep.
For me, the most interesting comment in the write up was:
To work with People Search, you must first have successfully configured user profile synchronization, set up a connection, and then done a full crawl on your Local SharePoint Sites content source. If your user profile synchronization service isn’t working, do yourself a favor and just reinstall because you will never get it to work. The content source still uses the sps3 protocol to crawl user profiles. If no people are returned when you search make sure you have a content source setup using that protocol handler. I’ll probably write another post on how to set this up pretty soon.
Consultants love SharePoint. Some vendors’ systems deliver this feature, no coding required. Microsoft’s approach is to allow others to create “glue” code. My view is that this approach creates more opportunities for slips twixt cup and lip. Just my opinion.
Stephen E Arnold, March 24, 2010
Free, free, free. I will report this writing for free to the National Archives. I think that access to most documents is free as well. Might be wrong about this in the present economic climate, however. Reporting done anyway.
IBM and Its Do Everything Strategy
March 24, 2010
I read an unusual interview with Steve Mills. The story was “Q&A: IBM’s Steve Mills on Strategy, Oracle, and SAP.” What jumped out at me was that there was no reference to Google that I noticed. Odd. Google seems to be ramping up in the enterprise sector and poised to compete with just about everyone in the enterprise software and services market. When I noticed this, I decided to work through the interview to see what the rationale was for describing companies that are struggling with many “push back” issues from customers, resellers, and partners. The hassles Oracle is now enduring with regard to open source and the SAP service pricing fluctuations are examples of companies struggling to deal with a changing market needs.
Please, read the original interview because I am comfortable highlighting three comments in a blog post.
First, Mr. Mills said:
Our technology delivers important elements of the solution, but there are often third-part application companies that add to that solution. No one vendor delivers everything required. The average large business, if you went into their compute centers around the world, runs 50,000 to 60,000 programs that are part of 2,000 to 4,000 unique applications.
Yes, and it is the cost and complexity of the IT infrastructure in those companies today that are creating pressures on the CFO, the users, and stakeholders. IBM’s engineers helped created the present situation and the company is now in a position where those customers are likely to look for lower cost, different types of options. If I have a broken auto, would I go to the mechanic who failed to make the repair on an earlier visit? I seek a new mechanic, but perhaps IBM’s cash rich customers don’t think the way I do.
Second, Mr. Mills offered this “fact”:
But in the enterprise, for every dollar invested in ERP, there will be five dollars of investment made around that ERP package to get it fully implemented, integrated, scaled and running effectively.
My view is that the time value of the dinosaur like applications are likely to be put under increasing pressure by new hires. The younger engineers are more comfortable with certain approaches to computing. Over time, the IBM “factoid” will be converted into a question like, “If we shift to Google Apps, perhaps we could save some money?” The answer would require verification, but if the savings are accurate, the implications for Oracle and SAP are significant. I think IBM will either have to buy its way into the cloud and “try to make up the revenue delta” on volume or find itself in the same boat as other “old style” enterprise software vendors.
Third, Mr. Mills stated:
It’s money. That’s the No. 1 motivator. And money is not a single-dimensional factor because there’s short-term money, long-term money and money described in broader value terms versus the cost of a product. The surrounding costs are far in excess of products. Every month, customers convert from Oracle to DB2. Why do they do that? Well, Oracle is expensive. Oracle tries to use pricing power to capture a customer and then get the customer to keep on paying. Oracle raises its prices constantly. Oracle does not provide a strong support infrastructure. There are many customers who have decided to move away from Oracle across a variety of products because of those characteristics.
I agree. The implication are that IBM is a low cost option. Well, maybe in some other dimension which the addled goose cannot perceive. My view is that time, vale, and cost will conspire to create a gravity well into which the IBM-like companies will be sucked. IBM’s dalliance with open source, its adherence to its services model, and its reliance on acquisitions to generate revenue may lose traction in the future.
And finding stuff in IBM systems? Not mentioned. Also, interesting.
I don’t know when, but IBM’s $100 billion in revenue needs some oxygen going forward. The race is not a marathon. It’s more like a 200 or 440. Maybe Google will be in the race? Should be interesting.
Stephen E Arnold, March 24, 2010
No pay for this write up. I will report this to the GSA who has tapped IBM to build its next generation computing infrastructure. I think IBM will be compensated for this necessary work.
Dominoes Circa 2010
March 24, 2010
I was a college student when the “domino theory” was the firewood for many heated conversations. My memory is dim, but I recall that the idea was that if one country fell to a non-democratic, non-market based system, then other adjacent countries would go the same way.
Source: http://community.middlebury.edu/~scs/maps/oilnames.gif
The metaphor is that a line of dominos can be converted into a brief, but somewhat entertaining, event. I never played dominos so I did not relate to the metaphor.
But when I read “Remaining Google Units Exposed: Analysts”, I had a flashback, saw an image of Robert McNamara (Ford executive and strategist par excellence), and a row of dominos set up by a bright 10 year old on the kitchen table. Weird how the mind makes associations that defy time and logic.
The article appeared in The Globe and Mail, which is a pretty good newspaper but not available in hard copy in Louisville. Online reading is hard on my 65 year old eyes but I worked through this article. The most important segment in my opinion was:
Other stakeholders exposed to Google’s actions include cell phone makers like Dell and Lenovo, which are both developing Android-based phones for China, as well as the hundreds of people who independently sell ads and develop software for Google’s products. Spokeswomen at Lenovo and China Mobile, which is planning to offer the Dell Android phones on its network, had no immediate comment. Meantime, other search sites operators stand ready to benefit most form Google’s withdrawal, most notably Baidu – which has 60 per cent of China’s search market – and others such as fast-growing Tencent, analysts said.
What happens if other and unanticipated interactions among Google, China, its partners, its suppliers, and its customers take place?
Source: http://www.insidesocal.com/clippers/dominoeffect.jpg
Vamosa and SchemaLogic
March 24, 2010
A happy quack to the reader who took me to task for not covering SchemaLogic more diligently. I check out my Overflight service and I can tell quickly if a search and content processing vendor is making some marketing tracks. Autonomy is on the ball; many of the vendors I track are either lacking in marketing savvy, marketing resources, or marketing energy.
I want to point to SchemaLogic’s tie up with Vamosa. SchemaLogic makes a controlled vocabulary server. The company has other technical capabilities, but I want to highlight the server product. With it, an organization can tame the wild ponies of uncontrolled tagging. SharePoint offers this users-can-do-it approach, and I think that uncontrolled tagging creates some interesting retrieval challenges. SchemaLogic’s server is a traffic cop, authority file, and repository. The software enforces some order on indexing or metatagging as the 20-somethings prefer.
Vamosa is a services firm and it is one of the many companies that offer consulting and information governance expertise to organizations. The idea is that in a SharePoint environment, people learn pretty quickly that there are problems “finding” information. Vamosa to the rescue.
The tie up allows Vamosa to offer a solution and SchemaLogic to get some marketing support. You can get details about the deal in the write up “Vamosa Adds More Content Governance Capabilities via MetaPoint.”
For information about Vamosa navigate to the firm’s Web site, www.vamosa.com. For information about SchemaLogic, you can find information at www.schemalogic.com.
Stephen E Arnold, March 24, 2010
Nginer, Timesaving Metasearch
March 23, 2010
I find that for certain types of queries, I need a metasearch system. I have mentioned Devilfinder before, and I like that service because it generates the top 100 hits for queries. I can scan the list and get a good sense of what’s available. That type of overview is useful because I prefer to hit the Web before using the for fee services.
A reader sent me a link to Nginer.com, a system that displays results from Google, Bing, Yahoo, Clusty and several others in one window. I ran several queries and found the service quite useful. Here are the points I noted:
- A drop down list lets me confine the query to a collection; for example, blogs, books, and social bookmarks, among other subsets.
- A tabbed display which lets me look at the top hits across a number of search and metasearch systems. I like this approach because I can tell at a glance which system is indexing certain content quickly.
- A tag cloud that shows me what is getting traffic at the time I ran the query.
I did not like two things. First, there was no button to let me clear the results and run another query. No big deal, just annoying. Second, I want way to eliminate systems that in my experience rarely yield any useful results for my types of queries. Otherwise, I was a happy camper.
My recommendation is for you take a test drive.
Why a Monopoly Is a Good Thing
March 23, 2010
Andrew Carnegie, Leland Stanford, good old JP Morgan, and lots of Rockefellers knew one thing: monopolies are a good thing. The reason is that when a company controls the market, consumers do what the monopolist wants. Like what’s the choice.
I thought about this quirk of capitalism when I read “Microsoft’s Browser Loses Market Share in Europe.” Usage data is fuzzy at best. This write up suggests that when European users when given a choice of browsers choose something other than what Microsoft once offered as * the choice *. For me, the interesting comment was:
According to web statistics firm Statcounter, Internet Explorer’s share of all Web surfing has in March dropped in France by 2.5 percentage points from February, in Britain by 1 percentage point and in Italy by 1.3 points.
I wonder what JP Morgan would do if he were running an Internet company? Would he focus on good or would he work to build a walled garden and put his customers inside? We will never know. My hunch is that JP would go for the monopoly even though he had to do some extra negotiating.
Stephen E Arnold, March 23, 2010
No one paid me to write this article. I like JP. He loaned money to the US government. What a guy. I will report my getting zero money for this article to the Treasury Department, which as I recall, seems to have a no money situation as well. Not even JP could print the stuff.
Google Beyond Text Sample Chapter
March 23, 2010
Stephen E Arnold’s new monograph about Google technology is just about complete. The study will be available in May 2010 from Intellas Press. The monograph focuses on Google non-text technical disclosures. Like Mr. Arnold’s previous three Google studies, the focus is on Google’s technical capabilities. Mr. Arnold’s 2009 study, Google: The Digital Gutenberg examined the company’s infrastructure as a digital River Rouge; that is, information goes in one end and complete content objects come out the other. Google Beyond Text tackles rich media, including images, audio, and video. The research has consumed more than one year and relies upon Google’s open source disclosures in technical papers, financial filings, and patent documents. You can get a sense of the type of information in this important new study by requesting a sample chapter from the monograph. The chapter that is available in draft form and without charge discusses the gap in Google’s non-text capabilities. Among the companies discussed are Catch Media, La La Media, and DoubleTwist. The book is intended from technically inclined individuals, investors, Google competitors, and those interested in a book that skips the “Sergey and Larry eat pizza” approach to Google’s technical systems and methods. You can request the sample chapter by navigating to http://www.theseed2020.com/gbt/. A PDF will be sent to you without charge. The hope is that you will either provide some constructive criticism and maybe order a copy of the monograph when it becomes available.
Ken Toth, March 23, 2010
This was a sponsored post supported by ArnoldIT.com. This is a marketing article.
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