Oracle Adds RightNow to Its Cloud Collection
February 21, 2012
Remember when Oracle was grousing about the cloud. Well, the company has gone bonkers for digital meteorology, excelling in cloud moves.
Have you been wondering what Oracle will do with RightNow? Oracle purchased the maker of cloud-based customer service software last fall for about $1.5 billion. ComputerWorld reports, “Oracle Outlines Plans for RightNow Integration.” Writer Chris Kanaracus checked out an Oracle webcast on the subject; he states:
Oracle executives outlined the company’s bid to reinvent the notion of CRM (customer relationship management) software, discussing how RightNow’s applications will work as part of a continuum involving Oracle technologies for e-commerce, natural language search, customer segmentation and other areas, many of which it also procured through acquisitions.
Specifically, RightNow’s applications will fit at the end of the customer experience chain, tracking product usage, maintenance, and recommendation scenarios. Before that, Oracle has the life of a sale covered. FatWire helps consumers research purchase decisions; Social Network and Siebel Marketing help target marketing endeavors; Endeca provides search technology used to find a product; and ATG Commerce furnishes the e-commerce foundation to complete the purchase. The company’s financial and supply chain software follow, leading the transaction to RightNow’s doorstep.
Oracle intends to make these integrations very soon, though no date has been given.
Founded in 1997, RightNow operates out of Montana with a client roster that is almost 2,000 organizations strong. It’s official mission: to “rid the world of bad experiences.” Now that’s the way to aim high. With Oracle’s acquisition of the quirky Taleo, storm fronts are on the move.
Cynthia Murrell, February 21, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Customer Service: Where Are Search Vendors?
February 20, 2012
To answer the question, search vendors are actually doing better than we expected.
Search vendors are forever chasing customer support clients, but what about the vendors’ own customer support? InfoWorld asks, “Which IT Vendors Offer the Best and Worst Customer Service?” The article reports on a survey recently conducted by the Temkin Group. Writer Ted Samson explains:
Tech vendors looking to bounce back from the recession might consider investing a few more dollars in improving customer service. According to a survey of IT professionals, most tech companies are offering merely an adequate customer service experience. Yet IT shops tend to steer their limited budget dollars toward vendors that offer not just the best products, but also the best customer service experiences. Even as large enterprise providers consolidate, IT still has clout — and is using it.
There were some intriguing results. The worst of the bunch included Fujitsu, which not only powers Perfect Search, but through its partnership with OpenText also affects Fulcrum Biometrics, Nstein, Collections Server (formerly BASIS), Livelink Discovery Server (formerly BRS), and others.
Microsoft’s business applications took number one (Fast), with IBM (OmniFind, Content Analytics) placing third. Other noteworthy rankings: Oracle at number eight, HP (Autonomy) at number nine, and Google just failed to make the top ten at number eleven.
Interesting. And what about those out of date Web pages and “press one if…” messages.
Cynthia Murrell, February 20, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Inteltrax: Top Stories, February 13 to February 17
February 20, 2012
Inteltrax, the data fusion and business intelligence information service, captured three key stories germane to search this week, specifically, some of the biggest trends in the big data industry.
Our story, “Smart Hires Make Analytics Run Smoother” weighed in on the debate that says big data is not for IT departments, but rather should be its own specialized department in companies.
“Analytic Spinoff Companies on the Rise” showed how companies like TruSignal which once dabbled in big data are now spinning off complete analytic agencies.
“Analytic Money Season is Here” detailed the start of the most exciting time of the year in business intelligence. This is when companies start reporting 2011 profits and last year was a big year, so we expect record numbers.
There are a million different directions big data analytics is heading. We are trying to keep our finger on each one of those pulses and you can come along for the ride every day.
Follow the Inteltrax news stream by visiting www.inteltrax.com.
Patrick Roland, Editor, Inteltrax, February 20, 2012
Protected: FAST Search for SharePoint Needs to Be Babied
February 20, 2012
Five Fundamentals to Remember for your SharePoint Intranet Development
February 20, 2012
If you are considering a SharePoint intranet deployment in your organization, you may want to read James Robertson’s, “Don’t Ask Staff What Features They Want on a New SharePoint Intranet.” Robertson points out that staff may often be unfamiliar with SharePoint capabilities and unsure how to articulate what functions they need in the farm to enable new ways of working. Instead, Robertson provides five fundamental approaches for determining your new SharePoint intranet functionalities, one being how to understand staff needs through an effective intranet needs analysis.
Other fundamentals to remember include understanding the patterns of work in your organization, developing a common definition of what SharePoint is among all stakeholders, using other organization’s intranets as a guide for what works (and what does not), and starting with a simple, easy to navigate intranet.
And the take away point for your intranet planning,
Most of all, don’t fall into the trap of starting with SharePoint features, and working back to the project scope. Even with the best will the world, it’s easy to get caught up in technology discussions and decisions, losing sight of the overall objectives and outcomes.
Robertson’s points are all sound advice for embarking into the next phases or your organization’s development in the enterprise search environment. Asking the right questions will help ensure that limited project resources are spent on the key aspects rather than unnecessary functionalities that will only complicate the system.
A third party solution, like Fabasoft Mindbreeze, can also help you connect the dots in your SharePoint adoption. The Fabasoft Folio Connector integrates all your business information from the intranet, Cloud, internet, and knowledge portals in the corporate-wide search, while maintaining your strict access rights. With Mindbreeze, users can easily search and reuse information from documents, contacts, projects, Wiki articles, conference agendas, and more.
Philip West, February 20, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Japanese PLM Market is Growing
February 20, 2012
Product lifecycle management (PLM) is spreading rapidly across the globe. The Asian market has seen some of the quickest and most significant growth over the past few years. Recently, TransWorld News took a look at the Product Lifecycle Management Market in Japan 2010-2014 – Market Research Report and continued growth is expected.
Cloud computing has lead to increased adoption of PLM. The TransWorld News report focuses onJapan“and covers the vendor landscape of the PLM software market vendors and a corresponding detailed analysis of the top four vendors.”
“Our analysts forecast the Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) market in Japan to grow at a CAGR of 4.75 percent over the period 2010–2014. One of the key factors contributing to this market growth is the need for reduced product development costs. The PLM market inJapanhas also been witnessing the emergence of rent-based PLM solutions inJapan. However, the emerging threat from increasing counterfeit and open source solutions could pose a challenge to the growth of this market.”
The key vendors that currently dominate the Japanese landscape are Dassault Systèmes SA, Siemens PLM Software, Autodesk Inc., and Parametric Technology Corp. However, watch for smaller companies to shake up the Asian market in the near future. Companies like Inforbix are finding their stride globally. With software that is innovative and affordable, they will be able to compete with the big boys. We look forward to watching them span the globe.
Jennifer Wensink, February 20, 2012
The Value of Stereotypes
February 20, 2012
The Google disclosure page has been a big topic of discussion recently, and for good reason.
The mega-search giant infers users’ age, gender, and interests. Even though the formula is not quite fully understood yet, some old-fashioned stereotypes are bubbling up.
Gawker.com’s article, “The Stereotypes Inside Google’s Supercomputer: A Partial List,” reveals some of these stereotypes which are emerging. For example, browsing cooking sites will typically peg you as a female, while being aware of events in the news causes Google to infer you are older. The article asserts:
As many a lady tech reporter has discovered, ogling e-gizmos virtually makes you a man. Wired.com’s Christina Bonnington, a gadget writer, looks at the occasional kitten video, but still shows up on Google as a 35-44 year old man thanks to her heavy tech browsing. The New York Times‘ Jenna Wortham is a 25-year-old man, as far as Google’s advertisers are concerned – and did we mention she’s one of their tech writers?
You can see what Google is inferring about you at www.google.com/ads/preferences. Google overestimated my age by twenty years, but was pretty spot on with my interests (Internet & Telecom, Food & Drink, and Cats.) I don’t ever approve of this big brother stuff, especially when it ages me so.
Andrea Hayden, February 20, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
YouTube Doldrums?
February 20, 2012
Can YouTube break out of its doldrums? GigaOM examines the question in “YouTube & Its Content Discovery Paradox.” The site recently invested big bucks on 100 channels of professionally produced video content that it hopes will improve its image. However, improved content is no good if people don’t know it’s there.
YouTube acknowledged this problem, and has implemented a redesign that serves relevant content to users who have selected channels in the past. However, that approach still limits discovery to channels users already know they like. Channel suggestions are on the page, but are not featured prominently. Highlighting those recommendations would be a start, but more innovative discovery tools would be even better.
Writer Ryan Lawler summarizes:
YouTube is the second-biggest search engine in the world, behind parent Google. But it’s one thing to serve up the right video when a viewer searches for it. It’s a whole other thing to anticipate what a viewer wants to see and help them find it. That’s something YouTube will need to get better at, especially as it tries to increase the average session time that users are staying online for.
Our view is that Google is the cat’s pajamas when it comes to easily findable video and an enhanced Google TV experience.
Cynthia Murrell, February 20, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Yandex Expands Map Service
February 20, 2012
Our favorite search engine is one the road again.
Russian search engine Yandex is growing its map catalog, Search Engine Watch reveals in “Yandex Extends Map Capabilities to 4 More Continents.” Writer Thom Craver explains,
Yandex, the leading search engine in Russia, has expanded its mapping capabilities by purchasing a license for digital maps from NAVTEQ, the leading location provider service. In yet another move expanding their worldwide search services, Yandex has purchased a license for highly detailed maps of Europe, North America, Australia, and developed countries in Asia to expand their Yandex.Maps product. The maps are licensed to show intercity motorways and highways, urban traffic networks, streets, and buildings.
Maps will be available in both the desktop version and mobile apps. Also, Web sites will be able to embed these maps into their pages.
Mapping results on Yandex was limited to Russia and Ukraine until last year, when the service added Turkey to its purview. The recent moves expand the company’s reach significantly.
Our view: Yandex is on the move now because the company sees the incumbents in the field as vulnerable.
Cynthia Murrell, February 20, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
A Look at DynamoDB from Amazon
February 20, 2012
We’ve found a useful write up with useful links in Paperplanes’ “A Tour of Amazon’s DynamoDB.”
DynamoDB is Amazon’s distributed data store. This is a distributed database. It lives in the cloud and appears to leap frog Google and Microsoft in a key solution space.
Billed as fast, reliable, andcost-effective, DynamoDB is a NoSQL database service is tailored tofit Internet-scale applications. It was built on lessons Amazonlearned from Dynamo, the scalable storage system it created in 2007 tomeet its own needs. Writer Mathias Meyer spells out the purpose ofhis article:
Time to take a good look at what it has to offer, how that works outin code, and to make some wild guesses as to what’s happening underthe covers. . . .My goal is not to outline the entire API and its full set of options,but to dig into the bits most interesting to me and to show someexamples. . . . I’m focusing on the effects DynamoDB has on you, theuser. We’ll look at API, general usage, data model and what DynamoDB’sfeature generally entails.
Meyer goes on to examine those points and much more. Even if thearticle weren’t full of useful information, it would be worth a peekif only for the links at the end, under Resources. Check it out.
Cynthia Murrell, February 20, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
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