EPiServer Snaps Up Enterprise Search Solution Provider 200OK AB
May 14, 2012
EPiServer is trying to figure out how to make content findable– a long standing problem in content management systems, particularly for SharePoint centric systems. To that end, The Wall Street Journal’s Market Watch reports, “EPiServer Acquires 200OK AB, and Enterprise Search Solution Provider.”
The terms of the deal have not been disclosed. The press release explains:
“200OK AB’s ‘Truffler’ product scales to handle large amounts of information — including user data, social and mobile web content, and product and online transaction data. The solution applies next-generation data management strategies, wherein organizing content and unstructured data are key to streamlined content delivery. With this purchase, EPiServer creates the opportunity for organizations to reduce the boundaries between a website and content housed in other sources by making that data available to the business user or content owner.”
200OK AB is based in Sweden. Truffler technology supports a SaaS solution and promises to hasten time-to-market for new online initiatives. It also pledges speedy deployment and short release cycles for new business solutions.
Also headquartered in Sweden, EPiServer was formed in 1994. The Web content management company emphasizes what they call the four C’s of online engagement: content, community, commerce, and communication. They also host EPiServer World, a developer community with over 15,000 members.
Our view: Why not use the PolySpot system?
Cynthia Murrell, May 14, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
Complementary Enterprise Applications for Data Management
May 14, 2012
Omnify Software, a provider of product lifecycle management (PLM) solutions, will host presentations at the upcoming Consona Connect 2012 conference that will focus on the integration of PLM and enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications within organizations. Among the topics that will be covered are the elimination of manual data entry, the automation and integration of engineering and documentation processes, and product development compliance.
As described in a press release entitled “Omnify Software to Present at Consona Connect 2012” that recently appeared on the PCB 007 website, this tandem implementation of PLM and ERP technologies can provide product development and operational benefits:
“Integration between ERP and PLM systems allows direct sharing of engineering and manufacturing data through an automated process, resulting in improved data integrity across the organization.”
Manufacturers hoping to implement this integrated data management approach and harness its potential for shorter product development cycles, accelerated innovation, and increased operational profitability should seek out secure, cloud-based, scalable, intuitive, and cost-effective PLM solutions that allow the entire enterprise to find, reuse, and share product data with maximum efficiency.
Tonya Weikel, May 14, 2012
Carnegie Mellon Finds Crowdsourcing Can Aid Productivity
May 14, 2012
ScienceDaily reports on research from Carnegie Mellon University in “Picking the Brains of Strangers Helps Make Sense of Online Information.” The study found that building on the work of others does, in fact, improve the quality of one’s own work. That concept has been around at least since ancient Greece, but crowdsourcing on the Web brings it to a new level. Aniket Kittur, assistant professor in Carnegie Mellon’s Human-Computer Interaction Institute, is quoted as saying:
“Collectively, people spend more than 70 billion hours a year trying to make sense of information they have gathered online. Yet in most cases, when someone finishes a project, that work is essentially lost, benefitting no one else and perhaps even being forgotten by that person. If we could somehow share those efforts, however, all of us might learn faster.”
Wasted effort is certainly something to be avoided, especially in today’s culture. The study had subjects (Microsoft employees, in fact) make knowledge maps of certain online information. Sometimes they had to create the map from scratch, sometimes work with one that someone else had made, and sometimes with one that four people had worked on previously. It should be no surprise that those who got a head start through the work of others produced higher quality work.
See the write up for more specifics from the study, including observations on eye movements and forming mental models. Very informative.
Crowdsourcing is a wonderful tool—when it makes sense. We remain on the fence about asking crowds for information about brain surgery. Seems imprudent.
The study was sponsored by the National Science Foundation, Microsoft, and the Center for the Future of Work at Carnegie Mellon University.
Cynthia Murrell, May 14, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
HP Politics: Alleged Inside Info about the Autonomy Deal
May 14, 2012
Ah, HP management in action. Business Insider reveals, “HP Finance Chief Tried to Stop $11.7 Billion Acquisition, but Lost.” Believing the proposed purchase of Autonomy to be too expensive, HP CFO Cathie Lesjak aired her objections privately to then-CEO Léo Apotheker. The chief was not swayed. Lesjak felt so strongly that she crossed him in a board meeting, stating her objections.
As we know, the deal went through anyway, but what does the clash say about the culture of the beleaguered business? Columnist Matt Rosoff notes:
“The conflict was just one of many examples of how Apotheker lost control over the complicated political landscape at HP, and he was ousted less than two months later.
“The thing is, the conventional wisdom in Silicon Valley says that Lesjak was probably right. One CEO of an enterprise company that does not compete with HP told us that he thought the valuation was completely insane, and grounds for firing Apotheker even without all his other slip-ups. Some HP partners have also criticized the deal, and Oracle said they passed on the deal at $6 billion because it was too expensive.”
It looks like Lesjak, who, incidentally, sat in the CEO chair for a while in 2010, may know what she’s talking about. We hope Meg Whitman heeds her words better than Apotheker did.
Cynthia Murrell, May 14, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
Forbes: Google and Facebook Will Be Obsolete in Five Years. Really?
May 14, 2012
When researching the impact of web tycoons like Google and Facebook, every once in a while you come across an article that’s so out of left field that it bears mentioning. Forbes contributor, Eric Jackson’s article “Here’s Why Google and Facebook Might Completely Disappear in the Next 5 Years,” is an excellent example of one of these stories.
According to the article, with the rate of technological progression, tech companies that have dominated in the web 1.0 and 2.0 eras have historically been unable to adapt to the changes that come with the new generation of social and mobile technology.
Jackson writes:
“[Facebook and Google] will have all the money in the world to try and adapt to the shift to mobile but history suggests they won’t be able to successfully do it. I often hear Google bulls point to the market share of Android or Eric Schmidt’s hypothesis that Google could one day charge all Android subscribers $10 a month for value-added services as proof of future profits. Yet, where are all the great social success stories by Web 1.0 companies? I imagine we’ll see as many great examples of social companies jumping horses mid-race to become great mobile companies.”
While Jackson brings up some excellent points, he forgets the fact that Google and Facebook have already made the leap from social to mobile and are continuing to adapt.
Jasmine Ashton, May 14, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
Gartner, A Former Gartner Person, and Ego
May 14, 2012
Computerworld is supposed to be about computers. Now I don’t think too much about Computerworld era computers any more. I think that the owner of Computerworld was gung ho on Verity search once. That told me a great deal about Computerworld’s parent company.
The story “Can a New Analyst Firm Take Down Gartner?” Wow. Quite an amazing write up. Sprawled across three pages, the story is written by a person about whom I know quite a lot after reading the “real” news in Computerworld; for example:
- The author of the story is Rob Enderle who is a big wheel and apparently the brains behind the Enderle Group.
- Mr. Enderle worked at Forrester (an azure chip outfit explaining what’s what in all things related to anything that compute), Giga Information Group (ditto the Forrester services), and a profession who has “worked for” IBM. He worked on audits, competitive analysis, marketing, finance, and security.
- Mr. Enderle is a TV talent type for CNBC, Fox (a Murdoch “real” journalism outfit), Bloomberg, and NPR.
- Mr. Enderle “knows” Gideon Gartner, the brains behind the Gartner we know and love today as a publicly traded azure chip consulting firm.
- Mr. Enderle “helped found” the Giga Information Group.
- Mr. Enderle knows that “line management…doesn’t listen to Gartner and, for that matter, often doesn’t listen to IT either.”
There are other biographical nuggets in the write up too. Mr. Enderle “knows” Gideon Gartner. Be still my heart!
The main point is that an outfit involved in social CRM could—hypothetically and mostly without factual basis—just might be able to “take down Gartner.”
Yowza.
What does the kitty see when it looks in the mirror? A house pet or a wild lion?
The super hero in this story is a company called Ombud, which I assume is shorthand for ombudsman, a full time equivalent who is supposed to be a pair of ears with moist eyes and a warm nature able to solve a customer’s problem. I don’t know any ombudsmen, however. Those characteristics often match up with social workers in my experience.
There were several overt main points in the story about Ombud which I found more like search engine optimization and ego marketing. For instance:
I learned:
Gartner Group was conceived well before social networking, at a time when there not only was no Internet but no PCs. It seemed that it wouldn’t be long before someone would figure out how to blend experts, practitioners and vendors into a service that would be cheaper, more current and more focused on the unique needs of an individual company, thus providing more real value (regardless of price) than the older model.
Er, so what? Ombud is a Web site for a company which offers the same pay to play information which comes from most azure chip and blue chip consulting firms. Check ‘em out yourself at www.ombud.com.
Second, unlike Gartner and I assume any other consulting outfit, Ombud sells “access to RFPs which users create and vendors bid on.” I think the idea is that one can eliminate intermediaries, post a request for work, get bids, and pick a vendor. The organization just goes direct. I know how poorly the traditional procurement process works, but I am sure that a Fortune 50 company will experiment with Ombud. Anything that cuts the burdensome fees imposed by azure chip consultants is a good thing for most chief financial officers.
The Courier Journal: A Louisville Death Rattle
May 13, 2012
In 1981, I joined the Courier Journal and Louisville Times. That was 31 years ago. I am not sure how I made the decision to leave the Washington, DC, area to journey to a city whose zip code and telephone area code were unknown to me. I am a 212, 202, and 301 type of person.
I recall meeting Barry Bingham Jr. He asked me what I did in my spare time. I was thunderstruck. My former employers—Halliburton Nuclear Utility Services and Booz, Allen & Hamilton—never asked me those questions. Those high powered, hard charging outfits wanted to know how much revenue I had generated and how much money I had saved the company, when the next meeting with the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy was, and how the Cleveland Design & Development man trip vehicle was rolling along. The personal stuff floored me.
I did not have an answer. As a Type A, Midwestern, over-achieving, no-brothers-and-no sisters worker bee, fun was not a big part of my personal repertoire.
I asked him, “Why?”
I recall to this day his answer, “I want our officers and employees to have time with their families, get involved in the community, and do great work without getting into that New York City thing.”
Interesting. The Courier Journal had a very good reputation. The newspaper was profitable, operated a wide range of businesses, printed the New York Times’s magazine for the Gray Lady, and operated a commercial database company. In fact, in 1980 the Courier Journal was one of the leaders in commercial online information, competing with a handful of other companies in the delivery of information via digital channels, not the dead-tree, ruin-the-environment, and dump-chemicals approach of most publishing companies.
In 1986, Gannet bought the Courier Journal. The commercial database unit was of zero interest to Gannet, so it and I were sold to Bell+Howell. After a short stint at a company entrenched in 16 mm motion film projectors, I headed back to New York City.
I retained my residence in Louisville, and I have watched the trajectory of the Courier Journal as it moved forward.
I have to be blunt. The Courier Journal is not the newspaper, the company, or the community force it was when I joined Mr. Bingham and a surprisingly diverse, bright, forward-looking team 31 years ago. The 1981 management approach of the Courier Journal was a culture shock to me. Think of the difference between Dick Cheney and Mr. Rogers. The 2012 approach saddens me.
This morning I read “Answering Your Questions on CJ Changes,” written by a person whom I do not know. The author of the article is Wesley Jackson, publisher of the Courier Journal. (I never liked the acronym CJ and still do not.)
The main point of the article is that the Courier Journal has to raise its prices. Last week, Mr. Jackson wrote a short article in the Courier Journal informing subscribers a letter would arrive explaining the new services that would be available. We received our letter on Wednesday, May 9, 2012. We called on Thursday, May 10, 2012, and cancelled our subscription. I am not sure how many other subscribers took this action, but a sufficient number of Courier Journal readers called to kill the phone system at the newspaper.
Mr. Jackson wrote this morning:
Unfortunately our Customer Service Center’s phone system had technical problems, and many of you had long wait times or could not get through to get your questions answered. That I know was frustrating.
I bet. I would love to see the data about the number of calls and the number of cancellations that the paper received when it announced the rate hike, a free iPad application for subscribers, and an email copy of the newspaper sent each day to paying customers.
The write up troubled me for several other reasons:
- Some of the word choices were of the touchy-feely school of communication. There are 19 “we’s”. The word “value” appears twice, there are seven categoricals: six all’s and one never; and the word “conversation” appears twice.
- There is at least one split infinitive “to personally apologize”
- An absolutely amazing promise expressed in this statement: “For those of you who would like to ask questions directly, please email me at publisher@courier-journal.com or send a letter to Publisher, Courier-Journal Media, 525 W. Broadway, Louisville, KY 40202. I promise you will each receive a response.”
“Promise,” “all,” and “never”—yep, I believe those assertions.
I would have included an image of Wesley Jackson but I had to pay for it. Not today, sorry.
My view is that I hear a death rattle from the Courier Journal. The reality of the newspaper is that it runs more and more syndicated content. The type of local coverage for which the paper was known when I joined in 1981 has decreased over the years. When I want news, I look at online services. What I have noticed is that what appears in the Courier Journal has been mentioned on Facebook, Twitter, or headline aggregation services two or three days before the information appears in either the Courier Journal’s hard copy edition or its online site, www.courier-journal.com.
Dave Kellogg, the former president of MarkLogic, used to chide me that I should not refer to major publishing operations and “dead tree publishers.” My view was and is that I am entitled to my opinion. Traditional publishing companies have failed to respond to new opportunities to disseminate and profit from information opportunities.
The list of mistakes include:
- Belief that an app will generate new revenue. Unfortunately apps are not automatic money machines. (Print-centric apps are not the go-to medium for many digital device users.)
- Assumptions about a person’s appetite for paying for “nice to have content.” (One pays for “must have” content, not “nice to have” content.)
- Failure to control costs. (Print margins continue to narrow as traditio0nal publishers try to regain the glory of the pre digital business models.)
- Firing staff who then go on to compete by generating content funded by a different business model. (This blog is an example. We do online advertising and inclusions and sell technical services. For some reason, this works for me thanks to my team which includes some former “real” journalists.)
- Assuming that new technology for printing color on newsprint equips an information technology department that it can handle other information technologies in an effective manner. (Skill in one technical area does not automatically transfer to another technical field.)
I can hear the labored breathing of a local newspaper struggling to stay alive. What do you hear?
Stephen E Arnold, May 13, 2012
Sponsored by HighGainBlog, which is ArnoldIT
Mystic Tech: The PT Barnum Online Angle
May 13, 2012
Ah, a new spin on research. Technology is impacting an industry with an image that’s about as far from tech-oriented as you can get. The Austrian Times reports, “Fortune Teller Used Google to Speak to the Dead.”
Yes, two prominent Romanian fortune tellers turned high-tech to boost their success rates. From simple Google searches to surveillance equipment, the seers used modern mundane methods to gather information that convinced clients of their powers. Once taken in, customers would then fork over cash for messages from beyond the grave. The article gives this example:
“One woman told how she had believed the two Roma women were genuine mystics, and had been persuaded to take tens of thousands of pounds and go to a nearby lake for a midnight ritual. She had been told that she had to release herself from the burden of her money and throw it all in the lake – but when she hesitated a demon like figure had emerged from the water and in a panic – she had thrown the money into the water and run away.
“But police discovered that the water devil was in fact a pal of the pair who had put on diving gear and a mask to terrify the unsuspecting victim.”
Wow, I have to give the pair credit for audacity. They also bribed the prosecutor to drop the charges stemming from the above incident, but that man happened to be under surveillance himself. All three were arrested when they met to exchange money. As a police investigator quipped, “If they had been any good, they would have known not to try.”
Cynthia Murrell, May 13, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
Trial Against Oracle Reveals Googley Woes
May 13, 2012
Rich Google. Poor Google. A couple of recent articles, both based on revelations from the Google/Oracle trial, paint a sad tale that could rival a Charles Dickens‘ novel.
First, Yahoo Finance reveals that “Google Had Big Expectations for Its Music Service.” Writer Matt Rosoff reports that Google’s music project has fallen short. First, the launch data was moved from 2010 to the spring of 2011. Also, though Google hoped to charge $2.99 monthly for the service, it is still free for up to 20,000 songs. Finally, Rosoff suggests revenue has fallen short of the anticipated $908 million to $1.48 billion:
“Google doesn’t report revenue here, but recent reports suggest that record labels are not happy with the store’s performance so far, and the Google Music brand was recently eliminated in favor of the more generic ‘Google Play.’ You don’t do that if a product is a smash hit. Also, Google wasn’t able to get one of the major labels, Warner Brothers, on board for the store, which would presumably hurt sales.”
Meanwhile, The Verge reports that “Google Wanted to Sell 10M Android Tablets a Year in 2011, Have 33 Percent Marketshare.” Google was making these lofty predictions even as Motorola‘s Android-based Xoom tablet was still a prototype colorfully codenamed Stingray. Writer Nilay Patel elaborates:
“It’s also notable that Google used a Morgan Stanley estimate that the entire tablet market would be 46m units in 2012; Apple dominates the tablet market with over 67 million iPads sold thus far. Google also expected Android tablets to contribute up to $110m in search revenue in 2011 and $220m in 2012 — goals almost certainly missed as Android tablets have floundered in the market.”
Interesting factoids about Google’s thwarted expectations. We wonder whether this trial will drop any other informational tidbits.
Cynthia Murrell, May 13, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
Amazon CFO Cannot Help Some Folks
May 13, 2012
Amazon seems to be losing control of costs, but the CFO proves to be a clever soul.
In an article on TechCrunch, “Amazon CFO Dodges Questions on Antitrust, Patents, Kindle Plans,” Amazon’s first quarter earnings call of the year and CFO Tom Szkutak’s vague answers were discussed. Apparently executives at Amazon are not giving anything away, including sales numbers for Kindle devices or plans to purchase patents. The article states:
“For example, when someone asked him about how the recent antitrust case against Apple and publishers might change the pricing model for e-books, Szkutak said, ‘Yeah, there’s not a lot I can help you with there.’ Then he repeated Amazon’s company line on the case, ‘We do think that the suit was big win for Kindle owners. We look forward to being allowed to lower prices for more Kindle books.’”
Although this pattern of not releasing information at earnings calls is fairly common, the complete lack of responses from the CFO is intriguing. It makes us wonder what Amazon is hiding instead of what Amazon may be working on.
Andrea Hayden, May 13, 2012
Sponsored by IKANOW
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