Quite a Tagline from Microsoft
July 23, 2010
The marketers sometimes stroke the fur of the azure chip cats and evoke purrs. Once in a while, an azure chip cat will try to bite with tiny little incisors. I am waiting for the purrs and snarls when consultants, mavens, satraps, and unemployed CMS and ERP professionals react to Microsoft’s new tag line.
It is:
Be What’s Next
Not long ago, tag lines irritated some experts. I think I know what the legacy giant is trying to communicate. I agree with “‘Be What’s Next’: New Microsoft Slogan (and Branding?).” This is a branding play.
The azure chip folks may want to engage in a Clintonesque analysis of the verb “to be”. Then there is the delicious ambiguity of “what”. That is worth one of those $500 two page reports that get indexed by NewsNow.co.uk. And, finally, the promise of “next”. That was a computer once, wasn’t it?
The issue for this addled goose is the relatives of the Kin’s kin. The Google six week cadence played to a rousing Sousa march provides the audible context. Finally, there is the panting of the Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter folks.
To be what’s next, one needs to be sure one is not trampled in the rush to the future. Slogans are not reality even if those creating them are brands.
Stephen E Arnold, July 23, 2010
Freebie
Lucid to Stretch Across Scandinavia
July 23, 2010
Yet another company has stepped up and embraced open source Lucene technology, showcasing quite a trend. Scandinavian IT consultant, Findwise, recently announced a partnership with burgeoning open source giant, Lucid Imagination. (You can read the news story here.) The partnership will allow Findwise to be the official reseller of Lucid’s products and services across Scandinavia. The partnership also provides customers with exciting search-enabled apps at affordable rates. Findwise, according to the article, “enables its customers to reach business goals by maximizing the ‘Findability’ of information. Utilizing the full potential of enterprise search technology, Findability creates value by enabling easy and secure access to desired information.” This news is an exciting addition to the waves of companies taking full advantage of Lucene technology.
Stephen E Arnold, July 23, 2010
Index Engines Polishes Platform
July 23, 2010
Index Engines recently announced they’ve made enhancements to their 3.2 platform that will better the system to allow for indexing of multiple streams of data from backup tapes. A significantly larger amount of tape data can be processed with these new developments in tight time frames.
Up to six streams of data can be processed now at a speed of one terabyte per hour. The process can save a company millions in storage costs and the stockpiling of these tapes can be a liability according to a company spokesman. We did not test the new system, so you may want to run some benchmarks on your own before whipping out your American Express Platinum card.
This is, according to Index Engines, the only product of its type on the market that directly indexes stored data. Index Engines is involved with enterprise discovery solutions. The company was founded in 2003 and their mission is to organize enterprise data assets, making them immediately accessible, searchable and easy to manage.
Rob Starr, July 23, 2010
Facebook Shocker: Email Doomed?
July 23, 2010
In Businesses Must Gear Up As Social Networking Services Are Set To Replace Email,Recommind is saying that although a percentage of UK firms are seeing the increased use of social networking tools as a new relevant feature that needs to be addressed, only a small percentage are actually doing anything about it. The numbers play out this way.
- 42% of UK businesses see that social media platforms are as necessary part of doing business
- Only 7% are factoring this into their budgets for the next year
So what does the research mean?
According to the study the fact that as wireless email starts to integrate with social networking, social networking is biting at the traditional email’s heels for interpersonal business communications. This is confusing to the goslings at Beyond Search. We need more than search marketers reaching for attention and azure chip consultants and firms specializing in legal search to sell us on this idea.
Rob Starr, July 23, 2010
July Google Becoming Bing?
July 23, 2010
It seems that Google isn’t immune to adopting good ideas when it sees them in other places. Reading Google Positively Bing-Like With New Image Search Capabilities we see they’ve updated their search technology to view over 1000 images on each page. It shows that even Google knows when they need to change and keep moving ahead and it shows that they’re not immune to influences from the likes of Microsoft.
There are other noteworthy changes and these include increasing the density of the search results page and the ability to get a bigger preview of an image by hovering a mouse over it.
Of course no changes would be complete without some kind of advertising friendly features as well. Hence the new image format called Google Search Ads. Still the Microsoft influence makes us wonder whatever happened to innovation at Google? Strange for a company where searches are the lifeblood.
I don’t like the endless page “thing”. Latency remains an issue with certain network connections. How about a button to reclaim the “old” image search. Better yet, do something original.
Stephen E Arnold, July 23, 2010
Vivisimo Chases Call Center Sales
July 22, 2010
One of the most frustrating things for a call center agent is not having the information that a customer needs right at their fingertips. Any business knows that they can lose customers when they have agents fumbling around through applications looking for answers, and no one really has the resources to be constantly updating this kind of information.
Sometimes the solutions come from unlikely sources. Vivisimo started by supplying applications for the military and academia but is now tackling the more practical problems that call centers face with Velocity. Here’s a real company on the move and they swear by this new information platform which they say optimizes fragmented information with any easy to use interface.
Vivisimo’s history begins with an on-the-fly clustering function, veers into Web indexing, jumps to enterprise search, embraced integration, and now flirts with call center search. Agility or chasing revenue? The goslings and I are not sure.
Now is most definitely the time for some of the world’s best companies to apply their knowledge to practical economic solutions.
Vivisimo may have to show some Autonomy-style innovation to make a quantum leap in revenue in my opinion.
Stephen E Arnold, July 22, 2010
Big Surprise Department: Free Is Popular
July 22, 2010
It turns out that a paywall was a bad idea for times.co.uk. Almost three weeks after they decided to get a little saucy and charge for their online content, web traffic has plummeted. Sounds a little like an attempt to get blood from a stone when there are so many other free places to get your news.
When all the calculations were exposed in Times loses almost 90% of online readership, the numbers work out to a loss of about 90% of the people who first stopped at the site. The recent totals also work out to just 16% of the pre registration numbers.
Maybe this is about trying to get apiece of cake from a bankrupt bakery. Maybe in a bigger sense it’s about the fact that people like free online stuff only. Either way, the times needs to stop charging.
Rob Starr, July 22, 2010
Microsoft Comes on Strong at July Partner Conference
July 22, 2010
Well, it was not Thai kickboxing, but it was close. The July partner conference touted the cloud, the losers at Apple characterized as “Apple’s Vista”, and that old time lock in religion.
It seems that Microsoft is anything but intimidated by the iPhone4 and ready to put all their collective weight behind cloud computing. That was the message it appears the IT giant wants out there if the article titled Microsoft Talks Up Cloud, Slaps Google, Apple in the InternetNews.com is any indication.
COO Kevin Turner was unwavering in his emphasis of the cloud theme and anyone that attended the conference couldn’t miss the fact that was to be the major point. He even went on to explain that the firm is ‘rebooting’ as they move more and more toward cloud technology.
He was by all accounts firm in his emphasis, even going so far as to say he understands the process will necessitate major changes for Microsoft partners. He also mentioned the fact that Bing’s share for the search market has gown by 51% since the Google rival debuted.
With partners paying for the privilege of becoming a “real” partner, the showmanship and bravado are exactly with those with dollar signs in their eyes want to hear.
Rob Starr, July 22, 2010
Freebie
Lucene Moving Ahead with New Projects
July 22, 2010
Now here are a few grand ideas from the good people of Lucene. First off there’s the Apache JMeter that’s been designed to measure performance and test functional behavior. Both dynamic and static resources can both be tested here. There are more products listed in the post Lucene Announce New Sub-Project Lucy and a New, Open Source Definition for Hardware
Online now is the Version 0.3 of the Open Source Hardware (OSHW) Draft Definition and a new sub project ‘Lucy’. Keep in mind that OSHW, according to one reader, has “nearly nothing in common with Lucene.” Another source for this post suggested that the KinoSearch codebase has been retrofitted to use Lucy’s core.
All these items are more good work from the people of Lucene who are dedicated to bringing the best in open source to the business community and beyond. Like all Apache projects Lucene has a PMC that is responsible for the oversight and management of the Lucene project. Lucene consists of several sub-projects, each of which have their own diverse communities and distinct groups of committers. The PMC relies on the guidance of the committers from each sub-project, particularly in regards to voting on releases, and in nominating new committers.
If you are interested in Lucene / Solr, you will want to attend the Lucene Revolution in Boston, Mass., on October 7 and 8, 2010. The conference is sponsored by Lucid Imagination.
Rob Starr, July 22, 2010
Is Facebook Stalled on the Railroad Tracks?
July 22, 2010
Legal hassles may be escalating. The Google is – slowly, I admit – gearing up for a social push. And according to an article “Are We Reaching Peak Facebook”? in Future Tense, written by Jeff Horwich, we might be seeing the beginning of the decline of Facebook. It seems to be the social media site had a terrible June and only had growth that approached the population size of Minneapolis. That’s 330,000 people that month alone.
If the tone here sounds snide, read on…it’s not necessarily so. Facebook had a May where they logged in almost 8 million new users. The dip seems to be a result of the some users getting disgruntled with some of their policies and some other hash media attention, but to think they are hitting the brick wall is a little fanciful. Bad attention for Facebook only has a temporary effect. They’ve been able to listen for any trains approaching in the past and step away to let problems pass. That could account for the fact they are matching Orkut in India and Brazil.
Rob Starr, July 22, 2010
Freebie
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
