Azure Chip Outfit Snags Apple Jargon
May 25, 2011
We were amused when we read “The “Post-PC” Era: It’s Real, But It Doesn’t Mean What You Think It Does.” We echo leaders and authors with relentless undergraduate enthusiasm. However, when there is a catch phrase from Fortune Magazine’s poster boy for the successful company leader, we toss in more than a casual reference. We wallow, grovel, and whine. Hey, we want the work that flows from our sycophancy.
An azure chip consulting firm (there may be no blue chips any longer) inked a write up describing a post-personal computer era that has desk tops in the horse-and-buggy section of my local horse farm.
We learned that Apple now claims they get a “majority of their revenue from “post-PC devices,” including the iPod, iPhone, and iPad. This is a milestone for a company that was originally named “Apple Computer.”
What does this mean?
The consultant explains that PC’s aren’t dead, computer technology is simply shifting from:
stationary to ubiquitous” (computing at your desk vs. done anywhere, anytime); “formal to casual” (on/ off contrasted to always on); “arms-length to intimate” (from your desk to anywhere you go); “abstracted to physical” (mouse/ keyboard vs. voice sensors, camera recognition, etc). These technological innovations fuel social change, and vice versa. As people conduct more of their lives online—shopping, banking, entertainment—we require more computing in more places. The rise of social networking requires real-time connectivity to manage our relationships. And eroding work-life boundaries means that consumers demand devices that can do double-duty in their work and personal lives.”
We live in Blade Runner or 2001, folks. We can’t run and we can’t hide. We await the post pc wave report. Here in Harrod’s Creek we need professional guidance about the life raft, a snorkel, and—most important—our check book?
And search? Nary a word. Irrelevant.
Stephen E Arnold, May 25, 2011
Freebie unlike reports from most consultancies
Quote: Google on Microsoft and the Mainframe
May 25, 2011
Quote to note. The juicy bit is in bold. The source is eWeek’s “Microsoft, Google Business-Cloud Battle Getting Vicious.”
But matching cloud-hosted services against their on-premises brethren, as Google likes to point out, can be construed as a case of apples-versus-oranges: an imperfect comparison, to say the least. “Comparing Google to legacy on-premises software makes no sense,” Andrew Kovacs, a Google spokesperson, wrote in an email to eWEEK. “It’s like questioning Microsoft’s market share in mainframe computers.” He also claimed that Google is “the leading choice of businesses for cloud email and collaboration, which is where the market is headed.”
Gtrat stuff.
Stephen E Arnold, May 25, 2011
Freebie
Protected: A Guide for Planning SharePoint Projects
May 25, 2011
Google’s Hiring Practices: Additional Thoughts
May 24, 2011
Teambox blog praises Google for its top-notch search and apps but takes a shot at their hiring processes in “Why Google’s Hiring Process is Broken.” The gist of the article nails one of the often overlooked behaviors that ultimately make or break a company. Who is hired ranks next to executive compensation policies as the secret ingredients in a successful or unsuccessful recipe.
The write up suggests that Google has missed the forest for the trees as their recruiters repeatedly appear to be seeking mathematicians/engineers instead of designers who are in touch with the pulse of consumers. Citing difficulty with their Google Buzz, Google Wave, Gmail/Google Apps to name a few, we learned:
…those failures are not about users complaining about an algorithm being bad, or a system being slow. They are about products being poorly designed or poorly marketed. They are about hurting usability so badly that users move away from them.
The author feels Google needs to evolve or lose consumers, saying that it is the designers that offer the “unique point of view and understanding of the problem” to be solved. But hey… we’re thinking, if you hire engineers, engineers do what engineers do. They engineer. What’s wrong with that? Google is obviously doing something very right and we’re confident they’ll figure it out…maybe even mathematically.
Stephen E Arnold, May 24, 2011
Freebie just like those Google tsotchkes at trade shows
Frankie Goes to Cloud Computing: IBM Says, Relax Do Not Worry.
May 24, 2011
I listened to a podcast called Cloud Computing. After the “I am giving important talks” portion of the program, I learned that Amazon’s failure was pretty bad news. In fact, the containment of the failure did not work—and here’s the kicker—again. Okay, a couple of dot points on the Amazon failure line may suggest a trend. The podcast made lemonade from the Amazon lemons under a cloudy sky; specifically, hire us to work on your cloud road map. The subtext, “Our firm Blue Mountain can help heal the wound between business needs and information technology.” This theme is quite like the comments I heard from Googlers a year or so ago. The idea is that any intermediary with some expertise is sort of a problem. The idea is to disintermediate these folks so the MBAs can make better business decisions. You know what that means? Embrace cloud services like Google Docs or Amazon and the back end for mission critical services. Those annoying intermediaries can open a Subway franchise or get into consulting.
The cheerleading does not stop. I read “New Global IBM Study Confirms Cloud Computing Poised to Take Off” and experienced shock of awe. IBM is ramping up its PR activities across a range of business sectors. Does the anticipated aggressiveness of HP and Dell’s push into the enterprise, cause anxiety in IBM Land? I read New Global IBM Study Confirms Cloud Computing Poised to Take Off at Companies. My take is that IBM wants to reinforce the Googley notion that that CIOs positions have evolved from “just another job” to highly respected and valued positions.
The IBM study also showed that four out of five CIO’s see business intelligence and analytics as top priorities since abundant data is available and the strategic use of it is necessary to stay competitive. Working closely with CEOs, their visions are merging…”together, their top three focus areas are strengthening relationships with customers, developing the skills of employees and gaining insight and intelligence from data.” With cloud and business intelligence at the forefront, IBM skillfully weaves yet another PR play…yep… poised like Watson, agile like a mainframe, componentized like Lego blocks.
But is it true?
Sony’s cloud has rained on the consumer product giant’s game parade. Amazon fizzled out, making life tough for some high traffic AWS customers. Microsoft Exchange has been gasping in the rarified Microsoft cloud. Google—the ultimate in cloudy billions—announced whizzy new services as its own cloud based Blogger.com crashed. Great timing. Now what happens when a company’s mission critical data are not available?
IBM hums Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s “Relax. Don’t worry.”
Let’s assume IBM puts search in the cloud. How does a company providing support to operations in a war zone if the cloud blows away? Relax. Don’t worry.
I worry. Fail over, security, telco-inspired service level agreements, latency. So I worry. Your mileage may vary.
Stephen E Arnold, May 24, 2011
Freebie unlike IBM, Amazon, et al cloud services
The Columns of Arnold: June 2011
May 24, 2011
My for fee columns for my June 2011 deadlines are completed. No easy task with the final corrections for The New Landscape of Search flowing through the Harrod’s Creek underground cellar. This 180 page report will be priced at $20 US and 15 euros. The Pandia ordering information will be available in a few days. Now to the columns:
Smart Business Network’s column is “When With It Marketing Won’t Work”. The main point is that for many small businesses digital marketing methods are less effective than more traditional methods. The column talks about the reasons and provides some sources of information about doing non-digital selling. Spoiler alert: Newspapers and other tabloids may have cause to rejoice.
KMWorld’s column is “Image Recognition Semantics: A Job for Smart Software or an Average Human.” Google announced enhancements to its image search, then it received a US patent for a method to recognize celebrities, and at almost the same time, Google’s chairperson dumped cold water on image recognition. I review where enterprise image recognition is and provide examples of systems that work quite well. Spoiler alert: Exalead and Cognex get the nod from me.
Information Today’s column is “Google’s Shallow Draughts: Its Shift from Search to Knowledge.” I take a look at Google shift from search to knowledge. My focus is what this means for searchers and for advertisers. I won’t give any details about this write up, but I do reference Heidegger, who also struggled with knowledge.
Enterprise Technology Management’s column is “Google, the Chromebook, and the Cloud: Time as Justice.” You may recognize the reference to As You Like It. I look at Google’s proliferation of cloud devices at the same time its Blogger.com cloud publishing system crashed and was off line for 20 hours. Reality is different from what companies “like”.
No column required for the six times a year Online Magazine. We have stepped up content production on Inteltrax.com and SharePointSemantics.com. In addition, later this week we will roll out an investment centric blog called HighGainBlog.com. These blogs will be similar to Beyond Search; that is, we will not do original news. We will comment on important trends and issues in the various niches we cover. At this time, we are producing a significant amount of SharePoint information, which is interesting because the system is the subject of so many articles that talk about issues, concerns, glitches, etc.
We have added brief biographical sketches on our Writer’s Page. I have a couple of questions along the lines of “How do you produce so much content by yourself in the hollow in rural Kentucky?” The answer is, “I don’t.” My name turns up on many of the online news items, but that’s a production issue, not a signal that the addled goose is actually working more than a couple of hours a day.
Hey, I have to paddle in the goose pond.
Stephen E Arnold, May 24, 2011
Freebie unlike the reports and the for fee columns which I do write. To understand the intent of the ArnoldIT.com blogs, read the About page.
AOL: Polishing a Older Online Service
May 24, 2011
The America Online brand polishing continues. That’s no easy job, even for the “real” public relations professionals. PR is a stellar occupation. The Facebook initiative demonstrates how reliable certain “real” PR can be.
I enjoyed “AOL’s Chief Upbeat on Rebooting the Brand.” At a time when Apple is the top brand and Google a lesser top brand, maybe AOL sees an opportunity to climb up the brand rankings. Brand rankings, like the inclusions in those college league tables, are entertaining but often disconnected from reality.
The passage I found memorable was:
Q: …you mention a Web site AOL owns like tech blog Engadget, some people say, “Oh, they own that?”
A: Right. I think a lot of it was just that old perception. If people used our services, they usually had a lot of complaints about them. But about six months ago, something started to change. The difference between the last six months and probably two years ago is when people stop me now, they say: “Oh, I’m addicted to the front page of AOL. I love it. I love the new way the e-mail’s been designed.” Forget about the financial industry and forget about our stock and all that other stuff. Our number-one lead indicator of this company being successful is the people who touch our products and services actually physically seeing the level we care about internally translated externally. I think that’s starting to happen, and that’s eventually what is going to change the AOL brand.
To check the addictive aspect of AOL.com’s front page, I visited it for the first time in quite a while, maybe five or six years. Here’s what I saw:
There must be something wrong with my chemistry. Not only was I not tempted to click, I was puzzled by the skull and cross bones and the “You’ve Got: Checklist All Women Must Know.”
My hunch is that Ms. Huffington will end up running the show. Googlers with soft degrees and a few years in the land of controlled chaos are not the stuff of “reboots”. Top line revenue growth, an increase in stakeholder value, and traffic are the components of a successful reboot. PR not so much. The search experience was enhanced by Lady Gaga, which looked like Lady Gaga results on the new, consumerized Google. Maybe Google should buy AOL so there is a reunion of Googlers and a more seamless integration of that old time instant messenger magic?
Stephen E Arnold, May 24, 2011
Freebie
Google and the Gauchos: Shoot Out on the Pampas
May 24, 2011
Navigate to “Argentina Court: Google Must Censor Anti-Semitic Search Results, Suggestions.” Another country wants Google to shape, filter, or personalize results for the country. Will Google react as it did to China’s mandates. Facebook is going the diplomatic route. Google’s reaction is unknown. The story says:
This isn’t the first time Google has come under fire for serving anti-Semitic results. The most famous case is the Google search for [jew], which brings up Jew Watch as a top three result. On these searches, Google uses the spot usually reserved for AdWords ads to link to their offensive search results explanation, along with the message that Google is “disturbed about these results as well.”
My question is, “When I get search results, how will I know what’s filtered, what’s shaped, and what’s left out?” Maybe that type of question no longer matters. Alphabet generation, post financial melt down, and other interesting cultural events—interesting.
Stephen E Arnold, May 25, 2011
Freebie
Yandex: Can It Stretch Search?
May 24, 2011
“Russia’s Yandex Offered at Double Google Value as Ads Surge” suggests some expansion in Yandex’s value. BusinessWeek does not cheer lead. Business Week points out that
The Moscow-based company, which has almost triple Google’s market share in Russia, plans to sell shares at a price equivalent to at least 23 times next year’s earnings…
Does Yandex pose a threat to Google outside the home turf of the Yandexers? Sure does. Three reasons:
- There is the proven ad model and Yandex has not been layered with search engine optimization encrustations, legal hassles, squabbles with nation states, and what I call Google fatigue
- The system works. I don’t read, write, or speak Russian. But two of my associates do. Some of our content is indexed by Yandex. Interesting that our English only information finds its way into the system.
- Google’s garden hose of ads may be keeping some folks at bay. Can a Proctor & Gamble sales person make up for some missteps? Maybe but Yandex may offer an alternative without the splash of the Google.
As an aside, Yandex has accomplished what Endeca and dozens of other search companies have not accomplished: an IPO. That’s important to me because getting financial information about private firms’ performance is tough. The US SEC is not flawless, but the reports provide some information even if shaped by green eye shade types with McKinsey on their cvs. Now let us see Yandex stretch and be well rounded in revenue and net profit.
Stephen E Arnold, May 24, 2011
Freebie
Protected: SharePoint Adaptable for Custom Sort Option
May 24, 2011
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