Tableau 6.1 Available for Apple iPad
October 25, 2011
App mania is in full stride.
Seattle based rapid-fire business intelligence software producer, Tableau Software, http://www.tableausoftware.com/ has gained recognition for performing “simple business analytics,” has now made Tableau 6.1 available for public use and can be made available on the iPad. This is important because most apps insulate the user from of the messy fiddling old style enterprise applications required. Some were beyond the MBA and required a programmer, who, in theory, could verify that data were clean and the functions appropriate to the data set available.
The Tableau blog post “Tableau Makes Business Intelligence Faster and Mobile” states:
The new version delivers automatic touch and gesture optimized support for the Apple iPad, whether views are accessed via Tableau’s new iPad App or via Mobile Safari. In addition, Tableau enhanced its in-memory analytics engine with increased query and loading performance. People can also rapidly update existing extracts in Tableau’s data engine. Other improvements include localization and new maps.”
In addition to having an even faster in-memory data engine, what’s really cool about this new version is that through the new iPad app, you can still create quick and easy interactive dashboards and reports from both Tableau Server and Tableau Public. There is no need for up-front design changes or maintaining multiple versions of workbooks to serve multiple platforms and when a view is accessed from the iPad, Tableau automatically detects and optimizes the user experience.
Several observations:
- Will end users know what data delivered the output?
- Are the data fresh? How will end users know?
- Will end users make a decision based on a graph and some highlights?
Our thought is, “Many users will accept what’s on the iPad as accurate.” In some situations, the assumption may be incorrect by a little or a lot.
For more information on Tableau 6.1 and any other Tableau happenings, feel free to check out the company blog.
Jasmine Ashton, October 25, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Lucid Works Simplifies Lucene Installation
October 25, 2011
We have it on good authority from a Lucene/Solr expert in Europe, “Downloading and installing Lucene/Solr in an enterprise can be a daunting task.”
A new trend is being set in the form of open source search: waves of applications are being released as flexible and cost effective alternatives to content and data xsearch.
One such company is claiming to be the most advanced open source platform, citing “worldwide” users and a “dramatic ease of use.” Lucid Works 2.0 is a search platform built on Lucene/Solr open source search via enterprise-grade subscriptions.
The Wall Street Journal published a press release, “Application Developers Worldwide Endorse LucidWorks 2.0 Open Source Search Platform for Creating Enterprise-Grade Search-Enabled Applications,” which tells us more:
The LucidWorks 2.0 platform delivers full open source Apache Lucene/Solr community innovation in an enterprise-ready package, with support from the world’s leading experts in open source search. An extensible platform architected for developers, it is the only Solr distribution that provides security and pre-built connectors for essential enterprise data sources, along with dramatic ease of use advantages in a well-tested, integrated and documented package.
This strikes me as baloney. The press release cites four company endorsements (DdadIT, SHI, Springsense, and Uchida Spectrum) and these four are the only sources quoted as recommendations for the platform. These are the world’s “leading experts” in open source search? Maybe four is “revolution”? We’re flexible.
Andrea Hayden October 25, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Protected: Preserving Policy Settings in SharePoint
October 25, 2011
October 25, 2011
Autonomy blew past Endeca with its acquisition strategy, revenue growth, and take no prisoners sales tactics. Now Oracle is compressing 10 to 12 years of Autonomy craftsmanship into a week or two of Internet time. The most recent acquisition by the database vendor is RightNow, a now cloud loving customer support vendor. Instead of the on premises craziness, a company wanting to chop customer support costs and reduce customer churn can license RightNow. Oracle is going to be the proud owner of RightNow.
You can read some of the details in “Oracle Buys Cloud-based Customer Service Company RightNow For $1.5 Billion”. RightNow, like Endeca, dates from the late 1990s. My hunch is that there will not be massive investment in RightNow’s technology. The customer list is the big asset.
Step back.
Oracle Text has roots in Artificial Linguistic’s technology from the late 1980a. (I bet the real search experts and the azure chip crowd in New York know all about this system. Hey, that’s why azure chip consultants are so darned successful. Legends in their own minds.) Oracle owns TripleHop, InQuira, and Endeca. Toss in the customer relationship management systems and those systems authorized vendors of search, and you have a collection of finding and tagging technology that makes OpenText search profligacy look downright abstemious.
My take away is that Oracle’s senior management took another look at Autonomy, considering the $10 or $12 billion price tag. Instead of making fun of Hewlett Packard, Oracle seems to have concluded that it needed to follow a similar strategy. Just on an accelerated schedule.
Can Oracle match Autonomy’s financial performance? Does Oracle have Autonomy’s management skill?
Quite a battle will be waged by two giants who care little about search and everything about taking business from the other. That’s the sprit of financial crisis capitalism.
Stephen E Arnold, October 25, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Inteltrax: Top Stories, October 17 to October 21
October 24, 2011
Inteltrax, the data fusion and business intelligence information service, captured three key stories germane to search this week, specifically, the ups and downs for some of the industry’s biggest names.
Those in the know about cloud computing were surprised to see our story, “Amazon Analytics Experiences Setbacks,” http://inteltrax.com/?p=2591 since the book and cloud giant’s analytics offerings aren’t taking off like its Kindle.
On the upswing, we offered “Jaspersoft Climbing the BI Competition Ladder” http://inteltrax.com/?p=2595 detailing how one of our favorite BI vendors has made some bold moves pay off recently.
Back on the negative side of the spectrum, “Google Analytics Gets Weaker in Germany” http://inteltrax.com/?p=2588 tough data mining laws are keeping the search king from knowing too much about Germany’s users.
This is just a taste of the news we deliver. There’s never any telling from day-to-day when a major player will suffer a blow and when a little guy will climb higher. Sometimes vice versa. So we watch the big data game like a hawk, showing all sides of the story to give readers a full view of the roller coaster ride.
Follow the Inteltrax news stream by visiting http://www.inteltrax.com/
Patrick Roland, Editor, Inteltrax.
October 24, 2011
Google and Open Source: New Move
October 24, 2011
In Google’s current scheme to become fully integrated into every aspect of users’ lives, Google is oddly cutting out one very important and useful tool.
Google announced that it is closing Google Code Search in January 2012. This search engine specifically crawls open source software; Google says the closure is part of their plan to focus on products that people use multiple times a day. We learn more about the closure in the article, “Google’s Open Source Search to End” on The H Open Source:
When the service shuts down, the third party open source plug-ins that use the API, such as those for Eclipse and IntelliJ, will also cease to function. On Twitter, Miguel De Icaza called the service ‘The one tool I use every day.’ One of the few cross-language alternatives to Google Code Search is Black Duck’s Koders.com.
The closure of Code Search is part of a “fall sweep”, which also sees the final closure of the Jaiku service… and the University Research Program for Google Search…”
The tool was created in 2006 to help open source developers looking for snippets of code, but so much for openness. Google is becoming less and less friendly toward open source and I find this very disappointing. The company may lose many faithful users who use the tool for programming just in the name of more “efficient” operation.
We are learning about Android’s open source angle. Google seems to be becoming more like IBM in some aspects of its approach to open source. Does Google want open source on Googley terms?
Andrea Hayden, October 24, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
DuckDuckGo Quacks DuckDuck Dough
October 24, 2011
Blekko isn’t the only competitor attempting to take away from the 65.4 market share that Google currently owns.
DuckDuckGo, an up and coming search engine which gets around 9 million queries a month, recently landed a deal with Union Square Ventures, the details of which are not being disclosed yet.
Search Engine Watch’s article, “DuckDuckGo Raises Money From Union Square Ventures” shares a blog post by Brad Burnham of Union Square Ventures:
Our confidence in Gabriel [Weinberg] and DuckDuckGo is informed by having watched the decline of Microsoft’s hegemony in the 90?s. Two things happened that fundamentally changed the game: a shift in venue and a shift in business model. The venue moved from the desktop to the web and the business model shifted from packaged software to open source. It turned out that the way to compete with Microsoft was to not to compete, at least not directly.
By changing the basis of competition, the company is growing revenue. However, keeping up that trend might prove difficult. I look forward to seeing what the company has to offer, especially since Google will now be ridding itself of the important open source search feature.
Andrea Hayden, October 24, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Endeca Partners With Zeon Solution
October 24, 2011
In addition to the recent purchase of the company by Oracle, the information management software company Endeca has another big business transaction: they have landed a new partner.
The company already partners with HP, Coremetrics, and Thanx Media, and now Zeon Solutions is being added to that list. Zeon Solutions is a leading enterprise e-commerce and website development firm. Endeca ENZO will help online retailers create a personalized site for visitors in a pay-as-you-go platform specifically designed for growing web retailers. In addition, Endeca InFront analyzes the search activity of each shopper and tailors the web experience to each customer. We learn more in the Enhanced Online News article, “Zeon Solutions Partners with Endeca to Offer Fully Featured SaaS Version of Endeca InFront™,”
‘Bringing the proven and full-featured Endeca InFront to the mid-market provides an exciting upgrade for online retailers and we are very excited about this offering through Zeon Solutions,’ said John Andrews, Vice President, Marketing and Product Management, InFront at Endeca. ‘As a result, fast growing, retailers and distributors can rapidly deploy the fully configurable, feature rich user experience capabilities proven on the web’s most successful and highly online retailers.’
What does this mean for users? Even unregistered visitors will see information more directly catered to their needs, and businesses will gain a clearer understanding of how consumers are using their site. More navigation and search engine optimization will just continue the growing trend of search doing our searching for us.
Will Endeca be able to sell to the smaller and mid sized firms as it has before it was sucked into Oracle? Oracle will want to get its millions back, so some of the small and mid size deals may become untenable going forward. Will Zeon sign up for a full line up of Oracle software, hardware, and services? Endeca will have to help Zeon see the light. Endeca’s management has a fat bank account, but it will now face some Marine Corps.-style pressure. Semper fi and make that upsell.
Andrea Hayden, October 24, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Google Gets an Adwords Win
October 24, 2011
We’ve seen yet another win for Google in the courts. MediaPost saw it too and posted the article, “Google wins Key Ruling in AdWords Lawsuit.”
Not one, but three plaintiffs–all marketers–wanted Google to eradicate its practice of allowing trademarks to link to search ads. If you haven’t experienced this, sometimes when you search for a particular company its rival appears in the results.
According to the article, U.S. Magistrate Charles Everingham in the Eastern District of Texas had the following to say in regards to whether the plantiffs’ allegations were capable of class wide resolution:
Even if the court were to conclude that Google’s policy results in initial interest confusion with regard to, for example, FPX’s or Rodney Hamilton’s trademark, that does not necessarily mean that Google’s policy results in initial interest confusion with regard to the other putative class members’ trademarks,” Everingham wrote.
Even though the class-action lawsuit cannot continue the three individual companies could potentially go forward with the cases to protect their companies. We don’t really think it’s worth trying when you take a look at their history with these cases. The records from 2004 onward go to show Google on top in every major lawsuit contesting the policy.
Our view is that control of “words” is a very big deal. Right now, a company may “own” a brand. But Google controls the “word”.
Megan Feil, October 24, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Protected: Watch Your SharePoint Practices
October 24, 2011
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