Attivio Upping Its Profile
November 2, 2010
First, I received a copy of the Attivio newsletter. Then Overflight delivered “Attivio’s Active Intelligence Engine (AIE)” to me this morning (October 31, 2010). IntraLinks, a leading provider of software as a a service for managing content has licensed the Attivio Active Intelligence Engine to tame some unruly data lions. According to the write up:
AIE has workflow and alerts for a more proactive user experience. It empowers IntraLinks’ permissioning model, enabling users to find and examine critical information, while maintaining strict access rights. Unlike legacy enterprise search software that stores ACLs as a field in each document, Attivio’s real-time fields are indexed separately, so they can be updated instantly without having to re-index entire documents. Attivio also gives us the ability to execute real-time tagging and commenting. AIE retrieves all types of information – content and data – with one query. Information is linked when a query is submitted, using patented SQL-style JOINs that connect entities extracted from content to relational data ingested from databases. AIE also dynamically generates facet recommendations, enhancing navigation and information discovery.
The article provides a summary of Attivio’s strengths. The “only weakness” is AIE’s ability to process video searches. IntraLinks wants a system that does more than index the metadata attached to a video.
If you are interested in a client’s analysis of Attivio’s system, check out the article. Information about Attivio is available at www.attivio.com.
Stephen E Arnold, November 2, 2010
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Blekko, Curation, and American Searchers
November 2, 2010
I agree with most of the points in “Sorry, Blekko Is Doomed.” Here’s an example of a comment similar to one I made to the worms and ants around the goose pond earlier this year:
Yes, search engines could do a much better job of telling you which restaurants you should eat at, which cameras you should buy, and many other things–but, again, the reason search is weak on those queries generally isn’t a Demand Media problem. It’s an imperfect information and subjectivity problem (which is where social media comes in.)
I think that bright young people recognize that search is generally good and often pretty lousy. I can’t figure out if I am lucky or unlucky to get a chance to see new search systems, decision support solutions, and data fusion implementations. There are new search systems coming down the dirt road that comprises America’s online infrastructure.
The challenge is making money. Google has been unchallenged in a meaningful way for more than a decade. As a result, Google fervently hopes that it will be able to maintain the charade that it accounts for about 60 percent of the search traffic. I believe that Google wants another vendor to capture some market share. Once the Google’s actual dominance of search becomes known, the “m” word becomes an even bigger deal. M, in this case, means monopoly.
However, the Google killer will not appeal to a small subset of American searchers. In my view, Google is doomed to become a $100 billion a year company and less and less important. Think about IBM or Microsoft. Neither company is that important to the average person. Google’s on the same path.
There are four reasons:
- Google is effectively neutralized at this time in some important markets. China? Russia? India?
- Google has lost the cachet of THE hot company. Say what you want. Facebook is the next big deal. Orkut? The Google Facebook killer? Buzz? Wave?
- Google has diluted its brand’s impact with legal hassles, executives who say and do things that make the residents of Harrod’s Creek ask, “What? I have to move?”
- Google is now perceived as an advertising company that has after 12 years been able to diversify into more advertising. Google Search Appliance? Knol?
I wish Blekko well. I think another search engine will help me in my research. However, I am not Chinese or Russian. I don’t live in Mumbai. Those and similar non US sectors that will spawn an alternative to Google. Google’s problem, like Blekko’s, is that it is a company designed for American searchers. That’s not where the future is pitching its tent. American’s want a Happy Meal for finding information. Complex queries and real synthesis are like a day old McRib.
Stephen E Arnold, November 2, 2010
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Google May Not Get FAR
November 2, 2010
Do you know about FAR? Most folks don’t. After working for a couple of Beltway Bandits, I came to love FAR. You can get a glimpse of the FAR out guidelines, rules, and procedures at this tasty US government Web site: https://www.acquisition.gov/Far/. You will need to set aside some time to work through the information, and I won’t make this post too cryptic. Some of the readers who know me may spot the in jokes, but I promise to impart some basic info.
First, in order to sell to the US government, the US government has some rules. Even the president has to follow them, although some slack is given to a president whom government professionals like. If a government professional does not like a president or you, for example, you can experience some bureaucratic friction. Lots of friction, in fact.
Second, price is only part of getting a government contract. If you are an Inuit, you get some grease on your skids. If you are a giant Beltway Bandit outfit with a general on your team, you have some know how that can help move a deal forward. After all, a retired general looks, walks, and talks like a duck even when wearing business casual. Spend a weekend with a general and you will get my drift. I did quite a bit of work for a general and also an admiral. Retirement does not alter the influence in my experience.
Third, statements of work, affectionately called SOWs, have many parts. When a person or company responds to a SOW, it is a good idea to answer every single point, sub point, and sub sub point. Writing a memo to a procurement officer telling the procurement officer that a SOW is stupid is a waste of time. Address the points in the SOW.
Where Wilbur drove Fanny.
I could share with you some other basics such as getting on the GSA schedule, getting great press and buzz from those inside the Beltway, and acting like a normal human being. Ignore these factors at your peril. Washington accepts craziness from guys like Ev Dirkson and Wilbur Mills, but Washington is not too keen on folks who show up looking like a college software after a tough weekend of partying. Trust me on this.
Now you can navigate to “Google Files Suit Against U.S. Govt. Over Contracts.” For me, this is a nifty passage:
On Friday [October 29, 2010], Google filed suit against the U.S. government, alleging that the process by which a government agency evaluated a request for a new software suite unfairly gave preference to Microsoft.
Now let’s consider some questions.
- Is Google itself on the GSA schedule?
- Is Google’s pricing competitive with other vendors’ pricing?
- Did Google respond to the dot points, sub points, and sub sub points in its proposal?
- Did Google participate in the informal and request for information process that often is part of the run up to an official SOW?
- Does Google have a subsidiary set up to respond to SOWs regardless of how good, bad, or indifferent their requirements?
- Did Google employees generate positive buzz and act like regular folks?
- Did the team responsible for the response to the SOW ingest FAR and absorb it positive aspects?
I don’t know the answer to these questions, but I do know after doing a couple of small jobs in Washington for Halliburton, Booz Allen & Hamilton, and a couple of so so government. There’s more to winning a contract than just being there. Hey, that’s the name of a comedy, right? Maybe this legal saga will be “Being There: Part II”?
I think this legal action is intended in part to put the US government on notice. Don’t mess with the GOOG. Will the government take heed?
Stephen E Arnold, November 2, 2010
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Apologia 2010: Tech Giants and Their Public Exit Interviews
November 1, 2010
Short honk: You have seen the Ray Ozzie cloud ambiguity exit memo “Dawn of a New Day.” I don’t think Mr. Ozzie was effusive in his praise for Microsoft. In fact, the references to the muffed bunny in the mobile space struck me as a dart aimed at the heart of Microsoft’s stakeholders. Microsoft’s job is to generate big money, not fumble fast growing market sectors.
Then I read “Why I Quit Goggle to Join Facebook: Lars Rasmussen”. Same deal. Rocket scientist, exit comments. The pundits are buzzing about what this means. I look at exactly what the fellow said. Not too hard to figure out:
It feels to me that Facebook may be a sort of once-in-a-decade type of company,” Rasmussen said in a telephone interview last night, explaining how he decided to end his six-year tenure at Google after a “compelling personal pitch” from Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg.
From the goose pond, life appears simple. Mr. Ozzie disappeared for years, popped up to quit, and then explained that Microsoft was an upside downside outfit. The obvious fact is that Mr. Ozzie is a gone goose. Bad fit, tired, unhappy with Windows 7 file manager? Who knows? Who cares. The statement communicates dissatisfaction to some degree.
Same with the Google wizard. Nothing annoys more than being reminded that one’s place in the sun has been usurped by someone younger, more fleet, more fair. Repeat of the Microsoft situation. The wizard keeps a low profile and then quits, suddenly becoming a loquacious rocket scientist.
My interest is not that Microsoft is making lots of dough doing the same old, same old. My interest is not that Googlers are jumping ship for a bigger potential payday.
Nope.
I find that this disconnect expressed in these two smart men’s parting shots is now a feature of our technical environment. From the wild and crazy statements of some presidents to out-of-blue lawsuits, from petty annoyances about an executive who pursues change to convicted criminals who want early probation, the use of different communication methods for personal message delivery is interesting.
I think that technical wizards and former Enron executives believe they are really important. Not just vital for their coding or business problem solving. These individuals are vital in a sense that society pivots around each of them. The technologist seems to be morphing into a media star.
Quick who won Dancing with the Stars in Season Three? How fleeting is fame. How easy the global dissemination of information that makes not one whit of difference. I know another exit flame will be roaring along in the near future. Technology in a desperate economy is spawning a new generation of Robert Downey Juniors and Mel Gibsons. HP triggered a Lindsay Lohan moment when one of its senior females left the HP way.
I am okay with the freedom to make these statements. I am not so okay with the attention given folks who have to find their future elsewhere. I just don’t have much interest in these oddball apologia from the theologists of technology. Dissonance.
Stephen E Arnold, November 1, 2010
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Coveo Connects
November 1, 2010
Knowledge and information are directly related to a company’s success. Coveo taps on this aspect as a leading provider of enterprise search and customer information access solutions. The PR-USA.net article “Coveo Announces New Information Indexing Connectors Including Support for Microsoft SharePoint 2010,” tells the story of how “Coveo offers a richer, more integrated view of enterprise knowledge and information compared to what’s available with Microsoft’s native search.”
The article further discloses that through its Enterprise Search 2.0 approach, it is possible for Coveo to “bring the benefits of unified information access to customers faster, and less expensively, than is possible with traditional solutions including SharePoint Search or Microsoft FAST.” Since Coveo dynamically indexes the data and presents it in a unified view, it helps the organizations with instant value of the information and knowledge stored in form of structured and unstructured data across the enterprise, in any system without moving data. Thus, the extended Coveo offers superior functionality and integration. Our recommendation: connect with Coveo.
Harleena Singh, November 1, 2010
SDL Plugs in Online Translation
November 1, 2010
SDL is one of the go-to vendors for language localization. The idea is that a company working in Madrid wants to convert its Spanish documentation into English or another target language. SDL builds systems that handle this chore.
The company has released SDL BeGlobal, a cloud platform for real time automated language translation tool. SDL BeGlobal helps companies to manage and deploy the translation of their content in a seamless manner.
Swamy Viswanathan, SDL’s vice president of products, said that companies generate content to sell and inform. Identifying which content needs to be translated manually and which one has to march down the automation avenue is crucial in this aspect.
For more information, visit www.sdl.com.
Stephen E Arnold, November 1, 2010
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Search Musical Chairs
November 1, 2010
“Search” has acquired renewed importance in today’s enterprise. Acknowledging this, even BA-Insight, an enterprise information access solution provider, has searched an important leader for its new search engine optimizer. The TMCnet.com article “Former Microsoft and FAST Enterprise Search Expert Jeff Fried Joins BA-Insight as CTO,” recounts how the professional expertise and experience of the new development leader will benefit BA-Insight’s Longitude products for SharePoint Search and FAST Search.
The article enumerates the various positions held by Jeff Fried in different companies including Lingo Motors, FAST Search and Transfer, and Microsoft, “where he served as core product manager for FAST Search for SharePoint and then technical product manager for all Microsoft enterprise search products.” Banking on Jeff’s versatility, depth of knowledge of FAST and SharePoint, and a common passion to build search-based applications, the article expresses this development as “outstanding integration between BA-Insight’s Longitude and SharePoint.” It seems like a musical chair saga to us, but we hope BA-Insight is the last chair where Jeff can play first violin.
Harleena Singh, November 1, 2010
Arnold For Fee Columns, November 2010
November 1, 2010
Another month and another round of for fee columns from Harrod’s Creek. Keep in mind that you are reading a free Web log and it conforms to the editorial policy stated on the About page. The for fee columns are closer to “real writing” than the swizzle in this blog. Here’s the line up of topics for what I submitted for November publication. Keep in mind that some of these publishers require my write up two or three months before the article appears in print and on a Web site. For copies of these articles, you will need to hound the publisher, not me. I just write ‘em. I don’t archive work for hire.
- For Information Today, “Open Source Search: Revolution or Evolution?”. Open source search and content processing continues to gain strength. There are upsides and downsides, of course.
- For Information World Review, “HP, Oracle, and SAP: The Crankies.” Lots of hostility in the pleasant clime of Silicon Valley land. Nasty stuff in my opinion. I explore the motives and risks of big guns shooting at one another.
- For KMWorld, “Google Levels Up Its Search Appliance.” In this column I talk about the pricing of the Google Search Appliance, using publicly available data from the US government.
- For Smart Business Network, “Google Instant: A Reason to Buy AdWords.” Google’s new search approach is designed, in my opinion, to generate more money for Google.
- For Online Magazine (yep, a new customer), “A Bitter Cup of Java: The Oracle-Google Percolation”. This article looks at the uncertainty created by the Oracle assertion that Google allegedly used in an improper manner Oracle’s intellectual property. I have written for this publication before, and I am delighted to be contributing again. In year 2000, I received an award for an article I submitted. Winning an award, however, does not make me a good writer or a journalist. At age 66, I am pretty sure my flaws are non remediateable.
Once again, a suggestion to public relations stallions and fillies. Read the About information for this blog. I sell time, ads, interviews, and stories. Each story points out that it is a freebie or in some way sponsored. Beyond Search does not do news. I write this blog for myself and the fact that some outfit has named Beyond Search one of the top 500 technology blogs means zero to me. The blog is marketing, PR stallions and fillies. If you majored in journalism and wonder why the Courier Journal recycles content instead of hiring local reporters, look in the mirror and ask yourself, “Do I pay for a daily newspaper written by liberal arts majors?” If you are like most informed Web users, you just use online stuff like the baloney in this blog.
Stephen E Arnold, November 1, 2010
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Anti Search in 2011
November 1, 2010
In a recent meeting, several of the participants were charged with disinformation from the azurini.
You know. Azurini, the consultants.
Some of these were English majors, others former print journalists, and some unemployed search engine optimization experts smoked by Google Instant.
But mostly the azurini emphasize that their core competency is search, content management, or information governance (whatever the heck that means). In a month or so, there will be a flood of trend write ups. When the Roman god looks to his left and right, the signal for prognostication flashes through the fabric covered cube farms.
To get ahead of the azurini, the addled goose wants to identify the trends in anti search for 2011. Yep, anti search. Remember that in a Searcher article several years ago, I asserted that search was dead. No one believed me, of course. Instead of digging into the problems that ranged from hostile users to the financial meltdown of some high profile enterprise search vendors, search was the big deal.
And why not? No one can do a lick of work today unless that person can locate a document or “find” something to jump start activity. In a restaurant, people talk less and commune with their mobile devices. Search is on a par with food, a situation that Maslow would find interesting.
The idea for this write up emerged from a meeting a couple of weeks ago. The attendees were trying to figure out how to enhance an existing enterprise search system in order to improve the productivity of the business. The goal was admirable, but the company was struggling to generate revenues and reduce costs.The talk was about search but the subtext was survival.
The needs for the next generation search system included:
- A great user experience
- An iPad app to deliver needed information
- Seamless access to Web and Intranet information
- Google-like performance
- Improved indexing and metatagging
- Access to database content and unstructured information like email.
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