SharePoint and Product Lifecycle Management
September 21, 2011
Acronyms can facilitate communication and impair it. Consider the three letter shorthand “PLM”. When we see the acronym, we think about product lifecycle management. To be candid, we do not juxtapose Microsoft SharePoint and the discipline of PLM for three reasons:
- SharePoint is a collection of components. The assembly of the components often produces a customized solution. Microsoft does not provide component level detail. Updates just arrive and often once learns what has changed and the consequences of those changes. PLM methods are often stretched in a “surprise” environment.
- SharePoint administrators may not have deep, traditional engineering backgrounds. In our experience, we have encountered professionals who can make Microsoft SharePoint hum, but the basics of textbook engineering often are not part of the every day toolkit.
- With more than 100 million SharePoint licenses, the vast majority of installations are built over time. As the licensee gains familiarity with the system, components—some from Microsoft and some from Microsoft certified vendors—are added. PLM relies on some assumptions that may not apply to ad hoc, “let’s just try it” enhancement of systems.
SharePoint is a collaborative content management platform used in businesses worldwide to streamline businesses processes. We recently read an interesting article from the Beyond PLM blog called, “Why PLM Should Care of SharePoint?” PLM stands for “product life cycle management.” Oleg Shilovitsky is a PLM expert and he asked many professionals about their views on SharePoint. They all reached the same conclusion: SharePoint requires a lot of information technology and services involvement. He also learned that SharePoint, much like the early Windows OSs, is a great tool for solutions development. He asserted:
When it comes to Product lifecycle management in manufacturing companies, organization of information and processes are two top critical questions. Let’s bring few more facts. A significant portion of … business is delivered by service organization. According to analytical companies in this space, the number is about 50%. Another fact – because of complexity of usage, the majority of PLM implementations have problems to be delivered downstream. I believe, already today, organizations have complicated choice between proprietary PLM platforms and less-proprietary SharePoint as a platform to develop business solutions for product development . The question PLM people need to ask is what solution will be preferred by developers in manufacturing IT to deliver next business process feature?
He concludes that SharePoint can provide good competition to many PLM platforms to deliver business solutions in the manufacturing industry. The IT angle will be the deciding factor. Do they invest the money or not? The decision is vital in a business’s future success.
One way to enhance and streamline SharePoint in a stringent PLM framework or in one of the more common relaxed approaches is to embrace technologies from companies like SurfRay. The developers of Ontolica have designed a system that can improve content access and findability in almost any SharePoint installation. Unlike Microsoft, SurfRay informs its licensees of enhancements and upgrades. Good engineering solves problems. Casual engineering creates problems in our experience. For more information about SurfRay, navigate to www.surfray.com.
Stephen E Arnold, September 21, 2011
SurfRay
Ric Upton Leads Digital Reasoning
September 20, 2011
Digital Reasoning empowers decision makers with timely, actionable intelligence to creating software to automatically make sense of complex data.
Our flagship product, Synthesys®, solves the problem of achieving actionable intelligence out of massive amounts of unstructured and structured text . . . A typical customer might be trying to completely understand how to locate an individual within massive amounts of reports . . . Sifting through all this data to accurately develop this profile even among misspellings, aliases, code names, etc. is typically something that can only be done by reading. Our ability to automate understanding is critical to customers with concerns about time, accuracy, completeness, or even the ability to leverage the massive amount of data they have generated.
Recommind Decisiv Employed by Canadian Law Giant, Cassels Brock
September 20, 2011
PR-Inside recently announced a new win for Recommind in the article, Cassels Brock Chooses Recommind for Enterprise Search Recommind’s Decisiv Search Provides Leading Canadian Law Firm with Unified Access to Documents, Matters and Expertise.
Recommind, a firm which has shifted from eDiscovery to a broader based content processing approach, has placed its Decisiv system with an impressive number of companies including US Department of Energy, DuPont, AstraZenaca, BMW and Marathon Oil just to name five.
The company bases its data management on the CORE technology which stands for Context Optimized Relevancy Engine and prides itself on converting useless, disorganized data into manageable categories that optimizes search and employee productivity.
The article gave the following reason for why Cassels Brock selected Recommind:
Following a careful review of leading enterprise search options, Cassels Brock selected Recommind’s Decisiv Search for its unmatched concept search technology, comprehensive matter views, powerful add-on modules and ease of implementation. Decisiv Search provides a wide range of features attuned to the needs of the legal industry, including in-depth phrase search, dynamic term highlighting and HTML document preview, and auto-generated Smart Filters for rapid refinement of search results.
As more and more information is flooding the internet and therefore company data stores, useful and practical methods for identifying and organizing relevant information is demanded. Also, and equally important, are systems that are user-friendly and produce the highest percentage of correct search results without compromising security.
Recommind is pushing to become one of the high profile brands in the search and data management sectors. How the company approaches search may be one indicator of how commercial search will evolve in the future. It will be interesting to see how mega search engines such as Google will respond.
Catherine Lamsfuss, September 20, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Google+ User Update Searches: Premature at Best
September 20, 2011
Now that Google has unveiled Google+ to the world, the world is ready to start using it! The .article, How to Search for Google Plus User Updates, on Make Use Of, explains step-by-step how to do just what it says – search for Google+ user updates.
The article provides a step by techie step guide on how to manipulate Google’s own search engine to get results from Google’s own social network site. Hmmm….One has to manipulate Google to get Google info? The article summed it up best:
It’s weird that Google (a search engine in the first place) has created its own social network without giving users the ability to search for other users’ real-time updates. There’s an option to search for users – which works much like Facebook’s people search – start typing and people will be suggested instantly. It works primarily by matching words you are typing with users’ names and emails.
While one can toy around with the Google search engine to get the results they are looking for, the question that came to our minds was, “who cares?” Not to be rude to Google+, but Facebook, it ain’t. At least not yet.
Google gets that dreamy look in its eyes every time they talk about the future of Google+, but so far, Facebook isn’t feeling very threatened.
Google+ might just be the perfect, billion-dollar blend of Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, but Google is making changes, just more slowly than I expected. The “real names” method is one example. The slow inclusion of Google Plus content into search results is another. Where’s that fast cycle, multiple iteration method from the glory days of 2006 and 2007? Why the hurry up and wait?
Catherine Lamsfuss, September 20, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com, publishers of The New Landscape of Enterprise Search
Yahoo Ups Image Search: Is It Too Little Too Late Again?
September 20, 2011
Yahoo did make its mail service a bit more responsive. That’s a plus because Yahoo mail has been disappointing to our publisher Stephen E Arnold for a year. He complains about it when his T Mobile wireless broadband connection hangs when Yahoo’s servers are on a break.
And image search? We’re confused about Flickr. And in a much-needed effort to stay in the game, Yahoo has increased its image search functions. Search Engine Watch profiles the newest upgrade to Yahoo in, “Yahoo Launches Enhanced Image Search.”
Yahoo has announced a new image search that matches recent enhancement to Google and Bing. Yahoo’s new image presentation also allows for easy searching of galleries, a connection to your friends’ Facebook images, and easy navigation of full-sized images.
It boils down to whether anyone cares, and we are not sure that they do. Innovative in the beginning, Yahoo’s indexing set them apart, encouraging use by the librarian set who appreciated a more structured layout. Now Yahoo is relegated to a position of keeping up, mainly with Bing and Google. While the image features might be highly innovative, we are not sure that Yahoo still has the clout the pull in users to explore those features, or even stumble upon them.
Emily Rae Aldridge, September 20, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com, publishers of The New Landscape of Enterprise Search
Believe It or Not: Info Tech Is Fairing Better
September 20, 2011
In “The IT economy vs. the rest of the economy,” Eric Knorr of InfoWorld shows that given the current economic situation, IT is doing remarkably well.
“First-quarter growth for the U.S. economy overall was an abysmal 1.8 percent. But in July, IDC raised its 2011 U.S. outlook for IT spending to a 7 percent increase over 2010 — with 37.5 percent growth expected in worldwide smartphone sales. And while U.S. unemployment refuses to dip below 9 percent, unemployment in the technology sector remains well below 5 percent.”
There are some points of uncertainty, and specific areas of IT may suffer as a result of the general recession. Search and content processing companies are likely to be harder hit. Executive changes, inexplicable product, service repositioning, and crazy marketing assertions–each is a sign of stress on the market.
Knorr concludes with advice to IT professionals to stay sharp, watch the emerging trends, and take the initiative to retrain or cross-train within the tech world. Perhaps these are characteristics that have helped IT weather the storm in general. Technology, by its nature, has to be flexible and innovative. Companies and individuals who are willing to reinvent themselves survive.
Our view is that Mr. Knorr way want to talk to some of the search and content processing companies’ new senior management. Those folks have jobs because the incumbents were not fairing better.
Emily Rae Aldridge, September 20, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com, publishers of The New Landscape of Enterprise Search
Exorbyte and xTxTx
September 20, 2011
Exorbyte introduces Rapid xTxTx Multi-Search Engine Technology. Well, the product name is certainly interesting and it should be findable in any of the public Web search engines.
The site says that conversion rates gains are guaranteed. The description states:
Exorbyte core search technology, MatchMaker, is a unique proprietary database search and data matching engine, made especially for structured data such as directories, ecommerce, ERPs, etc. 10 years of intense development have led Exorbyte to breakthroughs in semantic, phonetic and algorithmic search technology. Unique features Advanced error-tolerance search technology never leaves a search user without relevant results. Exorbyte’s algorithmic, phonetic and semantic software makes misspelled queries or synonyms product names problems from the past.
Incorporated in 2000, Exorbyte has advanced rapidly in the field of structured data-matching software and search systems; its customer base now spans the globe. The company prides itself on their MatchMaker platform’s ease of installation, speed, and error-tolerance, correcting spelling and other errors as you go. It also boasts of cutting edge algorithmic, phonetic, and scripting features.
Perhaps I should rename Max the Boxer to MaXaXaX. Nah, I can’t spell Max.
Cynthia Murrell, September 20, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Make Your SharePoint Look Like Twitter
September 20, 2011
We have noticed a number of SharePoint “transformation” articles in the last month. Now you can morph SharePoint so it delivers some of the Twitter-like goodness for short messages.
Now you can make your My Site status appear like Twitter. A tip of the Beyond Search cap to the PlanetWilson SharePoint Blog: “Making the SharePoint 2010 My Site Status More Like Twitter.”
The My Site status update that comes preprogrammed with SharePoint serves the same purpose as Twitter, but once a user types and clicks anywhere out of the box it immediately posts the update. Of course, this leads to mistakes and half-written messages. The author was asked to make this feature more like Twitter with the same 140 character limit, a count that shows the amount of characters left, chance to cancel posts, and the choice of when to post. This required the out-of-the-box application to be altered. We learned:
Luckily with JQuery to hand we can override the default behavior and make it work more like Twitter. Simply copy and paste the following code into a content editor web part on the status update page. The CEWP isn’t available by default you will need to go into the web part gallery and add it. Alternatively you can add this script to a document library or similar and add a reference to it in your My Site master page.
This is a SharePoint improvement that Microsoft should have deployed from the beginning without any outside, third-party to fix it. As we’ve seen in the past, however, Microsoft isn’t as all-powerful as we imagined.
How do you search for Twitter-like content? We suggest you point your browser at www.surfray.com and take a look at Ontolica, a versatile, high performance search and content processing solution for SharePoint. Recommended.
Stephen E Arnold, September 20, 2011
Inteltrax: Top Stories, September 12 to September 16
September 19, 2011
Inteltrax, the data fusion and business intelligence information service, captured three key stories germane to search this week, specifically, in the world of big data and business intelligence.
Our flagship story this week was the feature, “Solving Big Data’s Problems Stirs Controversy ,” http://inteltrax.com/?p=2522 that gave a deeper look at how quickly our online data is piling up and whether all the talk of harnessing it’s real power is just that: talk.
Another big data tale, “Big Data Skeptics Still Lingering” http://inteltrax.com/?p=2350 illuminated how infant the analytics industry really is and had a little fun at the expense of ourselves and other industry insiders.
Finally, we took another look at the growing world of online data with, “Data Analytics Needs More Specialization, not Less,” http://inteltrax.com/?p=2357 and discovered niches might just be the solution to all the analytic nightmares out there.
The theme for this week seems to have been the mounting concern over data buildup. We can’t stop, we know that. And, thankfully, it looks like we’ll be able to do some fascinating stuff with it—though not everyone agrees. You can bet, as innovations and setbacks happen along this road, we’ll be watching it closely.
Follow the Inteltrax news stream by visiting
www.inteltrax.com
Patrick Roland, Editor, Inteltrax September 19, 2011
Mounting Frustration with Inadequate Ebook Searches
September 19, 2011
Have you ever tried to locate a particular genre of book in Amazon or Apple iTunes? Frustrating? Now what happens when you want to search within an eBook on Google. Frustrating? Ebook searching is frustrating to me and some of my colleagues here at Beyond Search. We often just ask a friend. Is that a message to search vendors?
The last few years has seen an explosion of eBooks enter the general reading market. When one makes the transition from paper to screen, they realize how much they took for granted in a good old fashioned book, such as flipping back to review something previously read. The article, Searching in Ebooks: A unique Use Case that Requires a Unique Approach , on O’Reilly Radar, points out the flaws in current eBook search engines as well as suggests improvements.
Everyone can agree that the flaw lies within the search engine results. The article explains that some eBooks searches are just plain jokes while others have almost got it right. After reviewing the options, the author has determined the recipe for a successful search engine:
So this means designing a search tool that:
- Returns accurate results (duh)
- Presents these results with plenty of surrounding context
- Highlights the term clearly on the destination page
- Makes it easy to quickly return to the original reading position
If 1) and 2) are done well, there are plenty of cases where the reader never has to deal with 3) and 4). So a big part of making a search tool helpful happens in the results list itself.”
The article points out several examples of what NOT to do when developing a search engine, and one example of an eBook currently in the market that has it right. The Inkling, a textbook eReader available on iPad, is the only eBook service out there that has gotten it right so far. He points to the sort options readers are given as the obvious answer to most eBook search problems.
Whether the eBook search problem can be fixed in a blog post on O’Reilly Radar is yet to be seen (though highly unlikely). What is evident is that if frustration borne of eBook search flaws resulted in this blog post, then there are probably thousands more eBook denizens complaining as well. With that much money at stake, the eBook manufacturers need to listen and respond accordingly. Is this one more indication that even “good enough” search is no longer “good enough”? Our beloved publisher Stephen E Arnold thinks so. Do you?
Catherine Lamsfuss, September 19, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
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