Social Business: Collaboration Trends for 2012
February 27, 2012
Leigh Jasper’s blog series, Collaboration for Grown-ups, reflects a focus on the benefits of enterprise collaboration across supply chains. Jasper, of the ComputerWorld.com Blog, looks at collaboration challenges with big data and the social and mobile forces arriving to the enterprise search world in the first post, “Collaboration Trends for 2012: Part One.”
And as big data becomes a key basis of competition, it will also necessarily become the foundation for new forms of collaboration. In 2012, I believe that more companies will recognize that along with having to deal with storing and analyzing big data, they will need to adopt collaboration platforms capable of capturing, sharing and analyzing it.
With growing data, it is no wonder SharePoint adoption is growing, as well. Of course, 2012 trends could not be discussed without mentioning social and mobile media in the enterprise. With consumer demand for social networking and personal mobile devices driving trends, enterprises are looking to search and analyze this data, such as the conversation between brands and their customers. But the supply chain is also feeling the impact. Jasper suggests that 2012 will see collaboration in the supply chain go beyond email and file sharing and businesses will look to solutions for capturing the many-to-many flow of content.
Business-to-business collaboration development is inevitable as business gets social. To tap into the new possibilities, consider a third party solution to complete your enterprise search system. We like Fabasoft Mindbreeze.
Managing director Michael Hadrian explains the Mindbreeze solution,
Fabasoft Folio Cloud enables quick, secure and mobile collaboration both internally and between international companies. Business processes with customers and partners cannot be realized any quicker or more cost effectively…This enables worldwide connected collaboration and secure data exchange in protected team rooms.
For a complete search solution with the power of information pairing, check out the full suite of solutions at Fabasoft Mindbreeze.
Philip West, February 27, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Amazon Loses Zygna
February 27, 2012
Fancy talk aside losing a big customers generates heart burn. Wired Cloudline reveals that “Zynga Gives Amazon Cloud the Slip.” Game maker Zynga has analyzed its needs and, though it does not plan on dropping Amazon Web Services (AWS) entirely, has determined it can do better by building its own platform, zCloud. The article reports:
“What is a surprise is the dramatic shift away from Amazon for cloud services. Amazon is estimated to have provided 80 percent of cloud computing services to Zynga in the early days, and now delivers a mere 20 percent. . . . [Zynga CTO Allan Leinwand] told GigaOm the move should not be seen as knock on AWS, because zCloud was built and optimized for the unique workloads of its interactive and graphics-intensive games.”
Hmm. . . perhaps. However, we see another possible factor: Amazon’s price increases seem to be unappetizing when there are lots of tiny incremental charges. Perhaps such inflation will spur more companies to create their own clouds.
Zynga has profited mightily by bringing some fun into the social networking boom. The company prides itself as giving people around the world “permission to play”. Now that’s a cheery business model.
Stephen E Arnold, February 27, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
The Trouble with Open APIs
February 27, 2012
We’ve observed some push-back on the new trend to offer open APIs instead of full open source systems. Slashdot hosts the question, “Why Open APIs Fall Far Short of Open Source.”
Poster itwbennett takes issue with those who insist that open APIs provide enough openness. The write up informs us:
“Not so, says ITworld blogger Brian Proffitt. Sure, open APIs are an easy way for a small developer to ‘plug into a big software ecosystem,’ but it’s a trap. ‘If open APIs are the only connector to a software project, the destiny of that code lies solely in the hands of the owners,’ says Proffitt. ‘Which means that anyone connecting into the application will have to deal with the changes imposed from the top down.'”
That is a very good point. The ITWorld piece cited here goes on to note another disadvantage of open APIs: they lack the crucial open source communities that push applications to realize their full potential. That may be the biggest problem with open APIs.
Cynthia Murrell, February 27, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
HP Spills Beans about Autonomy
February 27, 2012
In case you’ve been curious, “HP Finally Explains Its Big Plans for Its $10 Billion Purchase, Autonomy,” announces Business Insider. Mike Lynch, former Autonomy CEO and currently HP’s executive vice president of information management, went into detail at his new company’s reseller conference in Las Vegas. Writer Julie Bort observes:
“HP is working on Autonomy-based hardware appliances that will power enterprise search. This will compete with Google’s Search Appliance. A hardware/software product is logical given that enterprise search is Autonomy’s classic market, but it’s nothing earth shattering.”
Perhaps the revelation is not unexpected, but the numbers are significant. Autonomy comes equipped with 60,000 existing customers; that’s quite the market penetration. In fact, according to our information, it is more than the Google Search Appliance has attracted. Interesting.
HP also plans to use Autonomy’s tech to pursue augmented reality apps. Though others are also working on such functionality, Bort notes that no one has successfully brought the concept into the mainstream. With a boost from Autonomy, perhaps HP will beat the market on this one.
Cynthia Murrell, February 27, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Hungering for Solr Parameter Names?
February 27, 2012
Here’s a must-have for open source explorers: DZone points out a “Quick Search Reference Manual for Solr” by Eric Pugh. Far from a comprehensive manual, this reference work addresses one particular issue. Writer Mitch Pronschinske explains,
“It’s a Solr reference manual based on some distilled references from Apache Solr 3 Enterprise Search Server from Packt Publishing, a book that Eric co-authored with David Smiley. The motivation behind this manual is simply to help with some of the logical inconsistencies in the parameter names (e.g. query type parameter is “qt” but query parser is “deftype”). The reference is meant to help you remember these oddities that are hard to codify in your brain.”
The manual refers back to Apache Solr 3 Enterprise Search Server with page numbers, so the two documents make a handy set. Pronschinske supplies a link to the manual PDF in his article. The manual will be useful to anyone working with a Lucene Solr search system in our opinion.
Cynthia Murrell, February 27, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
ZyLAB Captures Email in the Cloud
February 27, 2012
Digital Technology recently reported on the information management technology company ZyLAB, in the article, “New ZyLAB eDiscovery Cloud Collectors Retrieve Messages, Calendar Items, and Contacts from Microsoft Office 365 and Other Web-based Email”
According to the article, the company has released the first in its series of new ZyLAB Cloud Collectors to capture email from Microsoft Exchange Online.
the article states:
“With this release, ZyLAB becomes the only end-to-end eDiscovery company to offer both traditional email collection and integrated collection of cloud-based email systems via a hosted or on premise application. This capability enables ZyLAB clients to easily migrate previously collected and processed email from their SaaS-based ZyLAB eDiscovery system to a fully-featured ZyLAB eDiscovery system that is behind the firewall and poised to manage multiple litigation or regulatory matters as well as corporate governance.”
With the increase of mobile technology users, the use of Cloud computing becomes more and more vital. ZyLAB’s new products are an excellent addition to the array of products currently in circulation.
Jasmine Ashton, February 27, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Censorship Sunday
February 26, 2012
I flipped through the home page of Techmeme and spotted three unrelated stories about blocking, filtering, or paywalling information. I don’t have much money on the roulette wheel of what’s right, wrong, free, or for fee. I do find it interesting that the frequency of information blocking stories seems to be rising. Is it Sunday? Is it a coincidence.
The first story is about that ace “real” news outfit, the Wall Street Journal. The News Corp. wants to make money. If the alleged wire tap thing won’t work, why not make it really confusing about what happens when a person clicks on a story in Google News. You can read the confusing explanation of a wild and crazy “real” newspaper’s approach to readers who want to read a story. Point your browser thing at “WSJ Pulls Back On What Google Searchers Can Read For Free.” I don’t have the mental stamina to figure this filtering stuff out. I do read the dead tree edition, and I use it to clean windows when I have finished flipping cellulose and chemicals.
The second story concerns PayPal, which is now widely viewed as the Bell Labs for big money ideas. The story I noticed was “PayPal Cracks Down on Erotica E-book Sales.” I presume PayPal “knows” inappropriate content when it processes an electronic purchase. The ability to define what is an acceptable purchase is fascinating. I am curious what “erotica” means, but I suppose I too will know it when I see a digital transaction. I prefer paper checks and old fashioned cash. If I were a supreme court justice confuse about inappropriate content, I would consult the brain trust at PayPal for sure.
The third story made me smile. The Chinese are credited with the “Great Firewall of China.” The country with a mobile death van should be able to filter the Internet. Who knows what type of information might trigger another monk to set himself or herself on fire. The story I noted was “Google+ Workaround Found By Chinese Critical of Internet Censorship.” The clever engineers who want to check out social media and read about interesting religions can do so.
Censorship is definitely a topic for Sunday. Search is tough when info is just not “there.” That is one way to solve certain problems in relevancy and precision.
Stephen E Arnold, February 26, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Quote to Note: AOL Top Dog on Flat Revenues
February 26, 2012
This may be online. You can try to access the story “Arianna’s Work Husband” at www.nytimes.com. In this write up from the Times’s magazine for February 26, 2012, ran a story which was “condensed and edited,” the top AOLer, Tim Armstrong allegedly said about AOL’s financial performance:
So flat is up for us.
I find this quote clever (see my essay explaining exogenous complexity and clever output on February 24, 2012). I also find it fascinating because it echoes the belief that the world is flat from the semi-clueless ancient world and the New York Times’s columnist, Thomas L. Friedman.
The only issue for me is that revenues are supposed to go up. Maybe the stakeholders of AOL have a different viewpoint?
Stephen E Arnold, February 26, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Prevent Amazon Bill Shock
February 26, 2012
Before jumping into cloud-based search and content processing, it is smart to check out your friendly sticker shock preventer.
Uptime Software has announced a new product, uptimeCloud, which monitors and forecasts costs for Amazon Web Services. The product helps users avoid “sticker shock” by allowing them to monitor usage throughout the month. By calculating existing charges and making projections, users can track and predict costs, and can even set alarms when a bill is exceeding a user’s set budget. The article on Wired Cloudline, “Avoid Amazon Cloud Bill-Shock With uptimeCloud,” tells us more about the software:
‘Cost is the key driver in moving the cloud and, at the same time, cost uncertainty is the cloud’s biggest barrier and risk for companies. uptimeCloud completely removes that risk,’ Alex Bewley, CTO of uptime software, said in a statement. ‘uptimeCloud is the first solution to offer this type of service with this level of graphical visualization and simplicity.’
In response to the service, Amazon says they are happy to work with those who want details of analyses and is focused on lowering infrastructure costs. However, unless you are fully comfortable in taking Amazon’s word for it, you should probably check out the prediction software.
We find Amazon’s price creep interesting. The firm is struggling to keep its costs under control in its quest to compete with Apple, kill off WalMart, and dominate the video and book content business. Caveat emptor?
Andrea Hayden, February 26, 2012
Hadoop Technology: Calling All Mathematicians!
February 26, 2012
Scalability and big data solutions are not simply buzzwords thrown around the search industry. These are both key items in assessing value of platforms, and are both key reasons users are drawn to Hadoop technology.
However, the fact that Hadoop is picking up steam poses a major problem to those attempting to find talent to work the technology. People experienced in Hadoop are hard to come by. Cloudera, IBM, Hortonworks, and MapR are all investing in Hadoop training programs, choosing to invest in internal candidates rather than trying to hire new talent. A related article on CIO.in, “Hadoop Wins Over Enterprise IT, Spurs Talent Crunch” asserts on the topic:
‘We originally thought we needed to find a hardcore Java developer,’ Return Path’s Sautins says. But in reality, the talent that’s best suited for working with Hadoop isn’t necessarily a Java engineer. ‘It’s somebody who can understand what’s going on in the cluster, is interested in picking up some of these tools and figuring out how they work together, and can deal with the fact that pretty much everything in the Hadoop ecosystem is not even a 1.0 release yet,’ Sautins says. ‘That’s a real skill set.’
The problem of finding talent could eventually limit the continued adoption of Hadoop technology. Search analytics is now opening doors for those with deep math skills and backgrounds in statistics and science. People with this basic skills can be taught how to use these tools, and will be very valuable to a great number of companies adopting this technology.
Andrea Hayden, February 26, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
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