Palantir Applies Lipstick, Much Lipstick
February 16, 2012
I had three people send me a link to the Washingtonian article “Killer App.” On the surface, the write up is about search and content processing, predictive analytics, and the value of these next generation solutions. Underneath the surface, I see more of a public relations piece. but that’s just my opinion.
Let me point out that the article was more of a political write up than a technology article. Palantir, in my opinion, has been pounding the pavement, taking journalists to Starbuck’s, and working overtime. The effort is understandable. In 2010 and 2011, Palantir was involved in a dispute with i2 Group, now a unit of IBM, about intellectual property. The case was resolved and the terms of the settlement were not revealed. I know zero about the legal hassles but I did pick up some information that suggested the i2 Group was not pleased with Palantir’s ability to parse Analyst Notebook file types.
I steered clear of the hassle because in the past I have done work for i2 Ltd., the predecessor to the i2 Group. I know that the file structure was a closely held and highly prized chunk of information. At any rate, the dust is now settling, and any company with some common sense would be telling its story to anyone who will listen. Palantir has a large number of smart people and significant funding. Therefore, getting publicity to support marketing is a standard business practice.
Now what’s with the Washingtonian article? First, the Washington is a consumer publication aimed at the affluent, socially aware folks who live in the District, Maryland, and Virginia. The story kicks off with a description of Palantir’s system which can parse disparate information and make sense of items which would be otherwise lost in the flood of data rushing through most organizations today. The article said:
To conduct what became known as Operation Fallen Hero, investigators turned to a little-known Silicon Valley software company called Palantir Technologies. Palantir’s expertise is in finding connections among people, places, and events in large repositories of electronic data. Federal agents had amassed a trove of reporting on the drug cartels, their members, their funding mechanisms and smuggling routes.
Then the leap:
Officials were so impressed with Palantir’s software that seven months later they bought licenses for 1,150 investigators and analysts across the country. The total price, including training, was $7.5 million a year. The government chose not to seek a bid from some of Palantir’s competitors because, officials said, analysts had already tried three products and each “failed to provide the necessary comprehensive solution on missions where our agents risk life and limb.” As far as Washington was concerned, only Palantir would do. Such an endorsement would be remarkable if it were unique. But over the past three years, Palantir, whose Washington office in Tysons Corner is just six miles from the CIA’s headquarters, has become a darling of the US law-enforcement and national-security establishment. Other agencies now use Palantir for some variation on the challenge that bedeviled analysts in Operation Fallen Hero—how to organize and catalog intimidating amounts of data and then find meaningful insights that humans alone usually can’t.
Sounds good. The only issue is that there are a number of companies delivering this type of solution. The competitors range from vendors of SharePoint add ins to In-Q-Tel funded Digital Reasoning to JackBe, a mash up and fusion outfit in Silver Spring, Maryland. Even Google is in the game via its backing of Recorded Future, a company which asserts that it can predict what will happen. There are quite sophisticated services provided by low profile SAIC and SRA International. I would toss in my former employers Halliburton and Booz, Allen & Hamilton, but these firms are not limited to one particular government solution. Bottom line: There are quite a few heavy hitters in this market space. Many of them outpace Palantir’s technology and Palantir’s business methods, in my opinion
In short, Palantir is a relative newcomer in a field of superstar technology companies. In my opinion, the companies providing predictive solutions and data fusion systems are like the NFL Pro Bowl selections. Palantir is a player, and, in my opinion, a firm which operates at a competitive level. However, Palantir is not the quarterback of the winning team.
From my viewpoint in Harrod’s Creek, the Washingtonian writes about Palantir without providing substantive context. In-Q-Tel funds many organizations and has taken heat because many of these firms’ solutions are stand alone systems. Integrations without legal blow back is important. Firms which end up in messy litigation increase security risks; they do not reduce security risks. Short cuts are not unknown in Washington political circles. It is important to work with companies which demonstrate high value behaviors, avoid political and legal mud fights, and deliver value over time.
The Washingtonian article tells an interesting story, but it is a bit like a short story. Reality has been shaped I believe. Palantir is presented out of context, and I think that the article is interesting for three reasons:
- What it asserts about a company which is one of a number of firms providing next generation intelligence solutions
- The magazine itself which presented a story which reminded me of a television late night advertorial
- The political agenda which reveals something about Washington journalism.
In short, an quite good example of 21st century “real” journalism. That lipstick looks good. Does it contain lead?
Stephen E Arnold, February 16, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Discover Point: Search Shows the Unseen
February 16, 2012
Discover Point comes at search and retrieval with the “automatically connect people with highly relevant information.” I find this interesting because it makes search into a collaborative type of solution. Different from a search enable application, Discover Point pops up a conceptual level. After all, who wants another app. When I need information, I usually end up talking to an informed individual.
Government Computer News reported on this approach in the write up “An Info and Expertise Concierge for the Office.” GCN perceives Discover Point as having a solution for the US government which “prevents agencies from constantly reinventing the wheel and instead helps users move forward with new tasks and projects…” This is an interesting marketing angle because it shifts from assertions that few understand such as semantics, ontologies, and facets.
GCN continues:
DiscoverPoint from Discover Technologies is designed to point users in the direction of the most relevant information and subject-matter experts within the shared platform environment. As your job focus changes, so do the searches that DiscoverPoint makes….But the really cool things start happening after you’ve been using the system for a while. As more personnel and documents relevant to what you are doing become available on the system, they will show up on your discovery page.
The idea of having a system “discover” information appeals to the GCN professionals giving Discover Point a test drive.
Discover Point is compatible with SharePoint, Microsoft’s ubiquitous content management, collaboration, search, and kitchen sink solution. Discover Point’s news release emphasizes that the firm’s approach in unique. See “Discover Point Software Selected Product of the Month by Government Computer News.” The Discover Point Web site picks up this theme:
Discover Technologies’ approach is truly unique, in that we do not require the manual creation of databases or MySites or other repositories to understand the needs of each and every user. We continuously analyze the content they dwell in, and establish an understanding of the users’ interests based on that content. Once this user understanding is gained, and this happens very quickly, then the proactive delivery of information and ‘people’ is enabled and the cost savings and quality benefits are realized.
Unique is a strong word. The word suggests to me something which is the only one of its kind or without an equal or an equivalent. There are many SharePoint search, retrieval, and discovery solutions in the market at this time. The president’s letter tells me:
‘Discover’ is able to understand what your users need, in terms of both information and ‘experts’ with whom they should be collaborating. This understanding is gained via our patent pending algorithms, which are able to examine user related content and ‘understand’ the subject matter being addressed, and therefore the subject matter that each and every one of your employees is focused on. Once this takes place, our products can deliver both info and people to your users, personalized to match their individual needs. The bottom line is that you need your experts, your most highly paid and critical personnel, to minimize the amount of time they spend doing administrative or manual activities and to maximize the time spent tackling the key problems that they are uniquely qualified to address. That is what DiscoverPoint does for you, and it pays for itself in very short order!
The company offers an Extensible Search Framework and an Advanced Connector Engine. The company also performs customer UIS (an acronym with which I am unfamiliar). The firm also has a software integration business, performs “high performance data indexing”, and offers professional services.
The company has an interesting marketing message. I noticed that Google’s result page includes a reference to IDOL, Autonomy’s system. We will monitor the firm’s trajectory because it looks like a hybrid which combines original software, a framework, consulting, and services. Maybe Forrester, Gartner, and Ovum will emulate Discover Technologies’ Swiss Army knife approach to findability and revenue generation?
Stephen E Arnold, February 16, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Protected: DocAve and SharePoint Swim in Content Oceans
February 16, 2012
Keeping Enterprise Content Alive
February 16, 2012
It is easy to dump content into one of the popular content management systems, but assigning value to that content while storing it and making it searchable is quite a challenge. Word of Pie weighs in on keeping enterprise systems alive, be it in SharePoint or through other solutions in, “Keeping Your Content Alive, With or Without SharePoint.” The author points out that the issue lies not with any one particular system, but rather with an overall need to refocus content management systems.
The author states:
. . . a strong collaborative system, properly designed and implemented, can give Content life. I think Billy (Cripe) puts it best when he says that Content should be exhibited. I think that this type of system where Content is developed and readily revisited and leveraged is great. It just isn’t the only way.
The author goes on to explain that the value of information lies in its context; therefore, a successful content management solution will incorporate the context in assigning value to the content. Fabasoft Mindbreeze and their suite of enterprise search solutions assigns this type of value and context to the content it manages.
Read more in the press release, “More Time for the Essentials with Fabasoft Mindbreeze.”
With the new release, Fabasoft Mindbreeze displays search results clearer and more structured. Index tabs break down search results in specific groups and topics. That way, users see immediately what documents contain the search term and in what context it is mentioned. With this structured overview, users find what they are looking for much faster.
Subsequent releases have improved on the performance of Mindbreeze, but the framework listed above remains the same. If your organization needs to bring its content back to life, include Fabasoft Mindbreeze on your list of options.
Emily Rae Aldridge, February 16, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
PLM Users Explore Trust Issues with the Cloud
February 16, 2012
Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) users seem to be a bit reluctant to move their information into the cloud. They are having difficulty deciding when or even if they should explore what the cloud has to offer. Cadalyst.com goes as far as to ask Does PLM Belong in the Cloud?
Most experts believe “that the power and potential of cloud computing, properly leveraged and deployed, can have a significant impact on thePLMindustry.” However:
“Some users feel apprehension about moving sensitive information — such as that managed in PLM — to the cloud. Adoption is gradually gaining momentum, however, as more customers learn about the available options and advantages.”
Cloud-based PLM is in its early stages and few have fully deployed, but it is only a matter of time until it picks up speed due “to the great benefits at stake.”
At the moment, trust is the barrier between PLM and the cloud, but the writing is on the wall. PLM will eventually be consumed by the cloud. Technology companies are trying to put consumers at ease. Inforbix, which is cloud-based solution, discusses this very issue in its blog entry Inforbix, Cloud, and Trust. We think Inforbix is doing it right by addressing the issue and earning the trust of their users as the cloud becomes a way of life.
Jennifer Wensink, February 13, 2012
Ex-Googler Laments the New Google
February 16, 2012
Nelson of Nelson’s Weblog is “No Longer Loving Google, Inc.” Sour grapes?
Perhaps not, as the ex-Google employee maintains he has defended the company many times since 2006. What changed? The write up explains:
This last month has been particularly hard for Google lovers. I took the company’s side in the Kenya mobile fiasco up until the company admitted that, indeed, employees were lying to steal customers from Mocality. Then the big stories about Google Search+ and Google’s new privacy policy. I think one is actively bad and the other is mostly harmless, but both changes are so complex and unpleasantly
self-motivated it makes me sad. So now when I read about a friend getting terminated from AdSense with no explanation I just get a headache.
The piece goes on to posit that Google has gotten so big that it has shifted its focus from improving the world to improving its own bottom line. The writer has decided to dedicate his energies to “upstarts and startups.” That’s actually not a bad idea.
Cynthia Murrell, February 16, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Oobian: Insight, Share, Logic, Connect
February 16, 2012
Founded in 1994, Maisis started out servicing the telecommunications market. Since 2004, the Portuguese company decided to take its experience in software and networks management and focus its activities on the document and enterprise content management and enterprise knowledge management sectors.
Maisis’ flagship product is Oobian. Released in 2009 after four years of development, it is a knowledge management system based on an intelligent navigation user interface developed in Microsoft Silverlight. The tool’s semantic interpretation capacity is based on an approach using ontologies. Oobian is able to link structured and unstructured data inside or outside firewalls. It can also automatically interpret metadata. Key features include a Web client rich user interface that has drill up and drill down features, various connectors and add-ons for Microsoft and open source applications; and support for all World Wide Web Consortium semantic Web recommendations, like OWL and RDFS. The 1.5 release in October 2011 added profile management and notification management. It also includes external Web search integration.
In May 2011, Maisis was named a Microsoft Gold Independent Software Vendor. Its Oobian clients include the Martifer Group, a multi-national engineering group, Portugal Telecom’s PT Innovation unit, and consultant Gestamp. Competitors include Ontopia, IBM, Fabasoft, and Oracle.
Stephen E Arnold, February 16, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Griping over Google
February 16, 2012
We’ve found yet more commentary on Google’s attempt to meld social with search. Search Engine Watch explores “How Google+ Could Threaten Google’s Core Search Business.”
Google has incorporated information from users’ Google+ network into Google Search results. Writer Nathan Safran observes that most criticism has centered on potential antitrust issues around weaving their own social networking product into the world’s largest Web search engine. However, he would like to focus on a more basic question:
Are searchers, in fact, better off for having personalized results in their search results? As [Slate’s] Manjoo states, the reason we turn to a search engine is to get the collective view of all Web users, and that has worked particularly well until now. . . . The question becomes even more significant when we consider that search is a zero-sum game: whatever personalized results Google is showing me is taking real estate away from the collective view of all web users I am after.
We may (or may not) love our social network “friends”, but we don’t necessarily trust their judgment. Thinking that users would want to see these personalized choices before those of experts in any given field seems to me a symptom of Trend Overload; the company is so enamored with the boom in social networking that it went just a little too far.
Safran wonders whether this choice might be Google’s downfall; he notes that it is different from the company’s other failures because it directly affects the quality of Search, its main source of revenue by far. Personally, though I agree that this was a foolish move, I’m sure the GOOG is strong enough to recover.
Cynthia Murrell, February 16, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Exogenous Complexity 2: The Search Appliance
February 15, 2012
I noted a story about Fujitsu and its search appliance. What was interesting is that the product is being rolled out in Germany, a country where search and retrieval are often provided by European vendors. In fact, when I hear about Germany, I think about Exorbyte (structured data), Ontoprise (ontologies), SAP (for what it is worth, TREX and Inxight), and Lucene/Solr. I also know that Fabasoft Mindbreeze has some traction in Germany as does Microsoft with its Fast Search & Technology solution. Fast operated a translation and technical center in Germany for a while. Reaching farther into Europe, there are solutions in Norway, France, Italy, and Spain. Each of these countries’ enterprise search and retrieval vendors have customers in Germany. Even Oracle with its mixed search history with Germany’s major newspaper has customers. IBM is on the job as well, although I don’t know if Watson has made the nine hour flight from JFK to Frankfort yet. Google’s GSA or Google Search Appliance has made the trip, and, from what I understand, the results have been okay. Google itself commands more than 90 percent of the Web search traffic.
The key point. The search appliance is supposed to be simple. No complexity. An appliance. A search toaster which my dear, departed mother could operate.
The work is from Steinman Studios. A happy quack to http://steinmanstudios.com/german.html for the image which I finally tracked down.
In short, if your company operates in Germany, you have quite a few choices for a search and retrieval solution. The question becomes, “Why Fujitsu?” My response, “I don’t have a clue.”
Here’s the story which triggered my thoughts about exogenous complexity: “New Fujitsu Powered Enterprise Search Appliance Launched in Europe Through Stordis.” The news releases can disappear, so you may have to hunt around for this article and my link is dead.
Built on Fujitsu high performance hardware, the new appliance combines industry leading search software from Perfect Search Corporation with the Fujitsu NuVola Private Cloud Platform, to deliver security and ultimate scalability. Perfect Search’s patented software enables user to search up to a billion documents using a single appliance. The appliance uses unique disk based indexing rather than memory, requiring a fraction of the hardware and reducing overall solution costs, even when compared to open source alternatives solutions…Originally developed by Fujitsu Frontech North America, the PerfectSearch appliance is now being exclusively marketed throughout Europe by high performance technology distributor Stordis. PerfectSearch is the first of a series of new enterprise appliances based on the Fujitsu NuVola Private Cloud Platform that Stordis will be bringing to the European market during 2012.
No problem with the use of a US technology in a Japanese product sold in the German market via an intermediary with which I was not familiar. The Japanese are savvy managers, so this is a great idea.
What’s this play have to do with exogenous complexity?
Amazon: Prime Number Tweaking
February 15, 2012
Short honk: Not much interest in Amazon, but that’s because its A9 search system is consistently disappointing. Sleek MBAs find the company fascinating because it is moving from cost control to debt flood. After years of managing numbers and tweaking the ways in which the company reports activity, the chickens are returning to the roost. I never could figure out how “objects” were better than money when Amazon proselytized about its Amazon Web Services.
The most recent financial report suggests that cost control is a tough problem for Amazon, and its announcement that it is opening stores is another interesting cost signal. Apple sells high margin stuff and uses stores to deliver customer service. Amazon sells bulk personal paper products and pricey items such as faux diamond earrings.
Navigate to “Amazon Is Said to Have Fewer Prime Members Than Estimated.” What I learned is that the analysts (sleek MBAs) were off the mark. The guesstimates were wrong by millions. Yep, many zeros. Here’s the passage which caught my attention:
The slower adoption of Prime adds to concerns about Amazon’s revenue growth. The Internet retailer posted sales of $17.4 billion last quarter, trailing the $18.3 billion predicted by analysts. While the Prime service increases Amazon’s shipping costs, it’s seen as a way to lock in customers and prod them to shop more, according to ChannelAdvisor Corp. Fewer Prime users would mean there are fewer of Amazon’s most dedicated customers.
Fewer dedicated customers. Interesting. WalMart customers may share some of the attributes of the buyers Amazon is chasing. In a matter of months, Amazon has picked a fight with Apple. Amazon is getting into the sales tax business with the alleged retail stores. And Amazon is publishing its own books and sponsoring or whatever the Hollywood mogul word is for goosing independent films into its streaming video service.
Several observations:
- The cost issue is a big deal
- The fight with Apple is a big deal. Think money.
- The retail stores (if a “real” business action) is a big deal. Think Walgreen type costs for store fronts.
In short, perhaps Amazon should focus more on search, which is one way to get those visiting the site to buy more. Do you know how to find lists of books in a particular niche? Do you know how to winnow the cubic Zirconias from the diamonds? Do you know how to search the daily deals?
One number which is tough to tweak are those cost figures, which are, I suppose, “objects.”
I don’t.
Stephen E Arnold, February 15, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
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