Evil, Crafty Consultants Exposed
April 20, 2011
Short honk: If you aspire to be a consultant, you will want to read “Seven Dirty Consultant Tricks (and How to Avoid Them).” On the other hand, if you are trying to improve your dirty consultant tricks, you will want to implement each tactic. With unemployed Web masters, journalists, and art history majors in abundance, it is nice to think that an information technology publication focused on “real” information would run this type of how to. Once in a while the goose and goslings in Harrod’s Creek sell a consulting job. I will double check, but I think we are just back woods’ experts lacking such sophisticated tricks. Maybe a training session is needed? I will print out a copy of the Atlantic article published in 2006 which explains how a person became a highly paid consultant with a degree in 19th century philosophy. Art history majors, rejoice! Consulting may be a variant of art forgery.
Stephen E Arnold, April 20, 2011
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Online Addiction: Will Search Be a Controlled Service?
April 20, 2011
TechEye.net reports that “Kids Go Cold Turkey When You Take Their Technology Away.” We never agreed 100 percent with Marsshall McLuhan and his hot and cold thing. We do understand dependence, involvement, and digital magnetism. If the good Dr. McLuhan were in Harrod’s Creek today, he would sit up and take notice at this story.
Researchers at the University of Maryland subjected participants ages 17 to 23 to 24 hours without cell phones, the Internet, and TV. They could use landlines and read books. (Our view is that digital addiction can take place much, much earlier.)
The subjects’ diaries show that such restrictions threw many of them off their game. For a generation raised with such devices, unplugging is apparently unnerving, according to the article:
“[The study] found that 79 percent of students subjected to a complete media blackout for just one day reported adverse reactions ranging from distress to confusion and isolation… One of the things the kids spoke about was having overwhelming cravings while others reported symptoms such as ‘itching’. . . .One in five reported feelings of withdrawal like an addiction while 11 percent said they were confused. Over 19 percent said they were distressed and 11 percent felt isolated. Some students even reported stress from simply not being able to touch their phone.
And on the plus side, one in five enjoyed the experience, and some found they had more in-depth conversations during that day.
For a busy one parent family, hooking a child or adolescent means some blissful moments of peace. But what about other effects? How will these dependencies change search and content processing. Can an addicted user discern whether information is accurate or inaccurate? Will the user notice? Will the user care?
The study has me wondering about the future—will our grandchildren have chips in their heads that keep them wired 24-7? Will in-depth conversation, even in-depth thought, go the way of bound books? Key word search seems less likely to appeal to those who find the warmth and comfort of online so appealing. Facebook, on the other hand, offers a warmer place. Is this the McLuhan “hot”?
Will the solution be to make search a controlled service.
Cynthia Murrell April 20, 2011
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Xoom Sales and the iPad
April 20, 2011
“Digitimes: Meager Xoom Sales Shake Tablet Makers’ Faith in Honeycomb Share” presented some information with which I was not familiar. In the aftermath of Google’s reorganization and its quarterly results, I had ignored the Android based Xoom tablet. I looked at one and concluded that my first generation iPad was good for more book reading and Web content perusal. The iPad continues to work and has been hassle free for about a year. I wish I could say that about my BlackBerry and its weird software and ball thingy.
The nub of the story is:
…the Motorola Xoom — the first tablet running Android 3.0 Honeycomb — has been a bust, largely thanks to the simultaneous launch of the iPad 2. It is estimated that Motorola has sold less than 100,000 Xooms since the tablet was launched in February, compared to a million first-month sales of the first-gen iPad (and much higher if unreported unit sales of the iPad 2). Now, manufacturers preparing their own Honeycomb tablets are bracing for their own failures, with at least two upcoming tablets postponing their launch dates as their faith in Honeycomb as a viable platform upon which to mount a true iPad killer wanes.
I have no way of knowing if this report from Digitimes, a service I browse periodically is accurate. The fact that the story appeared is not enough to validate the information. Nevertheless, I find it interesting that Apple’s device which looks pretty simple appears to be a tough for the me-too crowd.
Will Google nuke the iPad? Great question. I would run a query on Google for the answer, but the relevancy is just not what it used to be. Me-too work can detract from the main event I assert.
Stephen E Arnold, April 20, 2011
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Asia Technical Services
April 20, 2011
An Interview with Patrick and Jean Garez
In Hong Kong in late March 2011, I met with one of the senior officers of Asia Tech. The company’s official name is “Asia Technical Services Pte Ltd.” I learned about the company from Dassault Exalead. For eight years Asia Tech has been the partner for Exalead in Asia and has become the “go to” resource for the Dassault Systèmes team covering South Asia regarding Exalead after the acquisition. Based in Singapore, Asia Tech is hours away from Dassault clients in Thailand, China, and Viet-Nam, among other countries whose thirst for Dassault technology continues to increase. In my initial conversation with Jean Garez, the person who appears to be the heir apparent to the firm his father founded, I learned that Asia Tech is now responding to a surge of inquiries about Exalead’s search based applications.
Patrick (founder) and Jean Garez (senior manager), Asia Technology Services Pte Ltd.
Upon my return to the US, I followed up with Mr. Garez via Skype for a more lengthy discussion. On the call, Patrick Garez joined the interview. For convenience, I have merged the comments from both Garezs into one stream. The full text of that interview appears below:
What’s the history of Asia Tech?
Asia Technical Services Pte Ltd was first conceived in Hong Kong in 1974 by our founder, and my father, Patrick Garez. The original business was the marketing and after-sales support of products, engineering services and asset management solutions to the commercial aviation industry. My father was a pioneer because he was among the first to predict the growth potential of commercial aviation in the Asia Pacific region and to identify Singapore as the future hub for South East Asia and beyond.
Along the way ATS tackled some industry-specific software solutions supporting various maintenance data management, engineering processes and workflows, but it wasn’t until 2003 that ATS officially began distributing software solutions as a dedicated part of our business.
What triggered the shift?
Client demand. ATS has prided itself on responding to the needs of its clients across this region. Once we started doing work in a different area, word of mouth sent additional projects our way.
ATS focuses on finding leading edge innovative and cost effective ISV solutions from Europe and the US and offering them a platform to enter into the Asia Pacific market with a limited investment.
And your activity in search?
Same path.
In the mid-2000’s up until probably 2009, the search market in Singapore and the region was dominated by legacy platforms built with an 80’s approach key word indexing and information retrieval. There was some interest in the SPSS and SAS approach to structured data, of course.
However, in response to a client project, we came across a technologically-advanced company in Paris, France. The founder was a member of the original Digital Equipment AltaVista.com search team and making significant progress with technology that was scalable and very, very speedy. In addition, Exalead was deploying a lighter, automated semantic engine that did the thinking for the user by automatically categorizing and providing structure to unstructured data. We tapped them for our client project from then on, we knew we were going to see great things from them. We continued to follow and participate in the growth of this company from their incubation phase until its acquisition in 2010 by Dassault Systems. ATS remains its partner for the region.
Asia Tech Interview: Opportunities in the East
April 20, 2011
Short honk: If you company wants to expand its technical footprint in Asia, you will want to read the exclusive interview with Patrick and Jean Garez. Asia Technical Services Pte Ltd. provides a number of useful services to clients in Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, and other countries. You can read the full text of interview by clicking this link. For more information about Asia Tech, navigate to the firm’s Web site at www.asiatechserv.net.
Stephen E Arnold, April 20, 2011
Freebie but Jean Garez bought me dinner.
Protected: SharePoint Document Types: Some Tips
April 20, 2011
More on Email Emotion Detection
April 19, 2011
We noted “Lymbix’s ToneCheck Pre-Screens the Tone of Your E-Mails”. The idea is a good one. For example, have you ever written an e-mail in the heat of the moment and as soon as you press send, regretted that mouse click? Sentiment analysis is a growing field in information technology and is supposed to bring the human side to hardware/software devoid of emotion. Lymbix offers a new application that reads the emotional intent behind your electronic correspondence. Used for Microsoft Office, Tonecheck acts like a spellchecker. The article pointed out:
The product’s AI has been taught natural language used in emails and social contexts. It evaluates the level of ambiguity where many other sentiment technologies break down. Eldridge said that one of the keys is to make the AI adaptable so it can stay up to date with all of the slang that people use. The AI tries to identify the real emotion in any section of text. Users see a Tone Alert indicator light up on their screen when an otherwise pleasant or neutral email takes a negative turn. It identifies the offending sentence to the user.
The application is part of Lymbix’s effort to reinvent sentiment analysis and appears to be aimed at e-mails from irate customers as well so they can be directed to a calming customer service representative. ToneCheck assists people with e-mails by making sure the intent behind their message is not misconstrued and comes off polite.
Whitney Grace, April 19, 2011
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LexisNexis Unveils Semantic Search
April 19, 2011
LexisNexis, a legal search engine, has added semantic search technology to its search engine According to the Read Write Web article “LexisNexis Introduces Semantic Search.” The article states
The next-generation semantic search technology identifies the meaning of multiple concepts within a single search query to help users zero in on core concepts faster and make fewer revisions to their search queries.
Semantic search works by utilizing the science of meaning in language to produce quality and relevant search results. The TotalPatent service will help legal services to do important patent research as well as detailed analysis of their results. The Visualize and Compare Tool is a notable valuable addition
that allows users to compare and analyze any two or three result sets or lists of patents, regardless of the underlying search mechanism.
The legal search engine system has received a surprising yet much needed powerful boost from a somewhat unexpected source. This powerful technology could drastically improve productivity. However, the expensive price tag is a huge road block and makes this new technology unapproachable for a lot of legal heads.
We did ask about pricing. The LexisNexis contact could not comment about pricing. We did ask about the source of the technology. The LexisNexis contact could not comment about the source of the technology.
Our take. LexisNexis is rolling out another service that may be out of reach of most users. LexisNexis has some interesting pricing models and fees. Will semantics get LexisNexis back on the revenue trajectory of the era before lawyers sued their universities and big firms cut back on their hiring? Reed Elsevier probably hopes this semantic technology will be a huge financial winner. Reed Elsevier (Ticker: REN) is about $9.50 a share. Believers may want to boost their holdings.
April Holmes, April 19, 2011
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European Google Alternatives: Not Too Many
April 19, 2011
State of Search ran a very interesting story called “5 Google Alternatives in Europe.” We knew a few of these, but others were new to me.
The article points out that, aside from Russia, Google has the European search market locked up. However, Microsoft’s Bing, as well as some home-grown options, are viable rivals. The Microsoft allegation about Google’s competitive posture in Europe may be in part related to Google’s dominance in the European search market. The article said:
But despite [Google’s] dominance, there are alternative search engines in Europe, and they can be worth looking at. With Europe’s more than 800 million people, of whom about 60% spends time online, even a small percentage using alternatives to Google offer attractively large numbers, and targeting users of those search engines could be very profitable.
Naturally, Bing is a contender. In France and the UK, it is doing better than elsewhere across the pond, with a market share of 2.8 percent and four percent respectively.
In Russia, Yandex has a 64 percent market share, and Yandex continues to expand. The company is adding features that go beyond search. Yandex wants to serve other European countries as well.
Seznam is the engine to watch in the Czech Republic. For Czech language searches, the system returns useful results. Germany and Spain present a different case. Although the runner up to Google there is technically T-Online, that portal is Google-powered. You might want to try Conduit, which has traction in Germany and Spain.
Google has what seems to be a firm grip on the Netherlands, where its market share is alleged to be 94 percent. There are a few other engines in Europe to explore, such as Poland’s Onet.pl, Ask.com in the UK and Nordic countries, and Orange in France.
Stepping back, despite the attention given to search, there seems to be fewer and fewer choices for those who want results not processed by one of the giants. We have frozen our list of international search engines. The choices keep dwindling. Is this a positive or negative development?
Most users want to go one place and get the answer needed. Dinosaurs, like Stephen E Arnold, ArnoldIT.com, runs multiple queries. Soon the dinosaurs will be dead and I won’t have to listen to explanations of the issues in today’s search engines. That’s a plus!
Cynthia Murrel, April 19, 2011
Freebie
Harvard Business Review Examines the Problems with Big Content
April 19, 2011
From the pot calling the kettle black department…
The Tech Dirt.com article “Harvard Business Review Explains How Big Content Is Strangling Innovation” examines an article from the Harvard Business review article written by James Allworth. Allworth makes an interesting conclusion concerning the reason why Big Content players do not embrace new technology.
Rather than see it as an opportunity to reach new audiences, technology has always been a threat to them. The reason why? Every shift in technology is difficult for them. Just as they work out how to make money using one technology, it changes.
The Big Content players attempt to block the new technology using their powerful personal and business influences. Ultimately this is breaking down the “heart of innovation” by spurring innovative technology startups outside of the US in order to avoid the unwanted scrutiny and problems. This is the real problem because American consumers will miss out on some of the best and most innovative technology. Allworth proposes society will be better off if it ignores the rumbling of these Big Content players and force them to embrace the technology and its potential profitability. This philosophy is not new but with the prestige of the Harvard Business Review it will be interesting to see the backlash, if any, it unleashes.
April Holmes, April 19, 2011
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