Connotate and Digital Reasoning Glean Intelligence from Social Media
June 20, 2012
Governments are eager to rapidly cull actionable intelligence from the constant deluge of unstructured social media data. Digital Reasoning and Connotate have announced that they are teaming up to address this need with Connotate’s expertise in large-scale data monitoring and extraction and with Digital Reasoning’s unstructured data analytics chops. The press release states:
“Connotate’s ability to monitor dynamic social media sources, automatically reformat large-scale data into simple formats and deliver them to Digital Reasoning’s machine-learning text analytics solution helps government agencies and businesses achieve a deeper understanding of how they are perceived and connected to the world around them. Rather than analyzing all of the world’s data, this partnership instead focuses on leveraging only relevant, timely information so that government agencies can accurately link people and organizations to a myriad of related data points, including time and location. This capability is crucial to government agencies as well as enterprises conducting competitive intelligence or internal audits.”
Sounds like a capable combination. Connotate CEO Keith Cooper is excited about the unprecedented partnership, which combines technologies to take on what he says are the three main challenges of big data: velocity, variety, and volume. Tim Estes, CEO of Digital Reasoning, emphasizes that speed is the crucial factor in this particular project.
Digital Reasoning boasts that their Synthesys, used by over a dozen government agencies, is the first software platform that automatically makes sense of big data. The company was founded in 2007, and makes its primary home in Franklin Tennessee, with an office in Washington, DC.
Founded in 2000, Connotate aims to help clients increase the value they get out of Web-based data with easy-to-use solutions. Connotate asserts that it is the only vendor in its field “with a broad, uncontested patent portfolio.” That is a definite advantage. The company has been named a KMWorld “Trend-Setting Product” for the past six years.
Cynthia Murrell, June 20, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
HANA and Her SAP Happiness
June 20, 2012
It has been a year since SAP launched its in-memory database processor HANA, and the company is pleased with the results, according to the Register’s “SAP Smashes HANA Forecasts, Adds Big Iron Benchmark.” The software more than doubled its revenue forecast, raking in over $200 million. More than half of the 354 HANA customers (64,000 end users) are using the product for non-SAP data. On top of that, SAP as a whole had some of the best profits of its history over the last year.
What’s next for this joyful company? Thomson informs us:
“The company will be announcing new hardware systems for big iron data processing engines. A benchmarking machine using 4,000 processor cores and 100TB of DRAM has given a 600 millisecond data response time querying a 500TB database, [SAP CTO Visha] Sikka said. With new Intel processors SAP should be able to push that even higher, he suggested, and so far eight OEMS are building HANA kit.
“As part of the birthday jamboree, SAP will also be detailing customer wins, including contracts in the Indian banking sector and the oil industry. Sikka also reported that the $155m HANA Real-Tune Fund for database development was also bearing fruit.”
That all sounds great, but we have a couple of questions about dear HANA. Just how does one search the data in it? Is an SAP expert needed? Important to know before investing in the product.
Founded in 1972 by five former IBM workers, SAP is headquartered in Walldorf Germany but has operations in over 50 countries.
Cynthia Murrell, June 20, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
Understanding Search Features Available in Out of the Box SharePoint
June 20, 2012
In “SharePoint 2010 Search: Relevance, Refinement, People,” Jennifer Mason takes a closer look at powerful search features available in SharePoint to help you locate and access the data and content you’ve added to the farm. Mason explains her approach to the topic:
Search is everywhere, and SharePoint is no exception. By providing your users with a way to easily find their content you are able to greatly increase the usability and user adoption within your organization. This article will highlight the specific ways that SharePoint search enhances your environment.
She also explains basic content and people search options in out-of-the-box SharePoint that can be a big help to many users. But she also points out that any advanced and higher level search functionality that can make the search and navigation experience better for your users lies in the type of licensing you have and if you choose to invest in implementing FAST Search Server for SharePoint.
Mason goes on to comment on search strategies:
In most organizations a Search strategy is developed that includes information on what content sources need to be created as well as what scopes should be implemented. A good practice is to also have a primary resource that is responsible for reviewing the Search Analytics reports and taking steps to provide continuous improvements to the overall search experience. Search is an area in SharePoint that can potentially cross many teams and require multiple resources so it is a good idea to spend some time planning to ensure that your environment is scoped appropriately.
We agree that search is always deserving of improvement and attention as it is users’ means to access and reuse valuable business knowledge. Depending on your organization, you may not want to devote the time and effort for extensive configurations and training to develop a powerful search feature. We think it would be easier to go with a simple third-party solution like Mindbreeze, cutting down on the costly man hours.
Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise provides consistent and comprehensive information access to both corporate and Cloud sources and . . .
finds every scrap of information within a very short time, whether document, contract, note, e-mail or calendar entry, in intranet or internet, person- or text-related. The software solution finds all required information, regardless of source, for its users. Get a comprehensive overview of corporate knowledge in seconds without redundancy or loss of data.
The seamless Cloud solution makes sure you find the right information you need at any time. Check out the full suite of solutions at Fabasoft Mindbreeze.
Philip West, June 20, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
PeerJ. The Latest Open Access Online Scientific Publisher
June 20, 2012
More challenges for the traditional database world: Technology Review reveals that “Open Access Online Publishing Trend Continues in Academia.” In the traditionally “pay to play” world of scientific journals, the new PeerJ chooses a route less traveled. So far.
While not technically free, the cost of membership is slim compared to the traditional setup. Reporter Conor Myhrvold writes:
“The pass comes in the form of a journal membership, so you can access others’ articles. The most basic plan, for one article a year, is $99 if you pay before you’re published. The article still undergoes peer review before it can be accepted. Members also have to commit to doing at least one peer review per year (which could be an informal comment on an already published paper.) The first 12 authors of an article need to be members, yet this means that the price of publishing just one article—$1,548 for 12 authors if membership is done after submission—is substantially cheaper than the several thousand dollars it would cost under a conventional open-access publishing model”
PeerJ is not the first to challenge customary conventions of scientific publishing. A controversy has been taking place over the last few years because the profit margins of academic journals can be almost 40 percent. If they are doing so outlandishly well, couldn’t they drop the authors’ fees and get their money from readers like other publishing sectors? Large journal publishers like Elsevier say no; are they fighting a losing battle?
Cynthia Murrell, June 20, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
New Markets Thrive Thanks to Global Economic Downturn
June 20, 2012
Traditionally, product lifecycle management (PLM) providers have focused on industries such as aerospace, automobile and manufacturing for customers. With the global economic meltdown in 2008 PLM providers were forced to think outside the box and sell their wares elsewhere or cease to exist. The Control Engineering Asia article, “New Industries Driving PLM Market Growth”, explains how PLM has reinvented itself to include just about every industry imaginable.
The article goes into detail about how PLM providers turned their attentions beyond their traditional customers:
“These mainstay discrete industries that retreated during the economic downturn of ‘08 and ‘09 gave more impetus to PLM suppliers to look to non-traditional industries. Solutions are now being readily adopted by a set of industrial verticals such as medical devices, CPG, consumer goods, retail, ship building, energy generation & utilities, and AEC; and the adoption growth rates in these sectors reflect this trend. PLM suppliers are looking for growth in these sectors to fuel revenues as their business growth in the discrete industries matures.”
Smart PLM providers quickly understood that expanding PLM to new markets was necessary for survival. Now that a few years have passed affordable cloud based PLM solutions are readily available for every size enterprise. Some of our favorites, like Inforbix, focus on new data management solutions to help companies derive the most meaning from their data and as a result reduce waste and duplication.
Catherine Lamsfuss, June 20, 2012
The Good. The Bad. The Amazon.
June 20, 2012
Any successful business tends to have a little corruption and Amazon is no exception. They try to balance out the good with the bad and recently Amazon offered an improvised service for their small business customers according to Amazon Web Services Blog: Amazon RDS MySQL Now Starting at Just $19 a Month. However, some pricing info sends very different signals.
The good…Amazon prioritizes customer service beyond all else. Amazon’s eCommerce makes locating, ordering or returning products simple. Contacting a live person at Amazon can be tricky according to How To Contact Amazon Customer Support, but the article provides 4 quick steps to ease the problems.
The bad… is how they treat some of their independent sellers. A fine example can be read in the article Amazon’s markup of digital delivery to indie authors is ~1/29,000% where the independent author pays 30% plus additional fee’s in order to sell their books.
According to the author:
“So for every $9.99 book I sell I, the author, pay 30% to Amazon for the right to sell on Amazon AND $2.58 for them to deliver the DIGITAL GOOD to your device. It is free for the reader, but the author, not amazon, pays for delivery. The file itself is under their suggested 50MB cap Amazon says to keep it under at 18.1MB. I’m confused. Amazon stores a ton of the Internet on S3/EC2; they should have the storage and delivery down.”
Amazon takes great care to see to their customer needs, but they could stand a little improvement with their independent sellers. Their fees are a little pricy in comparison to other providers. So there you have it, the good, the bad, the Amazon.
Jennifer Shockley, June 20, 2012
Apple and Google Destined for More Nasty Spats?
June 20, 2012
Google is Athens, Apple is Sparta, and the two are doomed to fight their own Peloponnesian War. That’s the viewpoint of Datamation’s “Why Google and Apple Are Now Enemies.” Writer Mike Elgan makes a pretty convincing argument for the comparison:
“Like Athens and Sparta, Google and Apple represent totally different cultures — Google is radically open and experimental. Apple is closed and controlling, but disciplined, focused and obsessed by its own sense of superiority.
“Like Athens, Google is the everything company. . . .
“Ultimately, Apple wants to dominate just one thing: The premium, high-quality ‘sweet spot’ experience for content creation and content consumption.
“And like Sparta, Apple expects to control what it controls totally, and for others to stay out of Apple’s business. Rivals who challenge Apple for dominance on its own territory are to be crushed.
“Like Athens, Google can’t help constantly expanding its scope until it inevitably overlaps into Apple’s spheres of influence.”
The metaphor continues, and makes for an interesting comparison. (Facebook plays the Persians.) The two companies used to be friends, but that was when their spheres complimented each other. Things are different now. See the article for a bit of history, and for some of the ways each company has struck blows against the other.
Elgan says he is all for healthy competition, but fears that Apple has become obsessed with the conflict and is making irrational choices. Google might find itself forced to respond in kind. Will these city states ultimately destroy one another?
Cynthia Murrell, June 20, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
Protected: Two Law Technology Companies Cooperate
June 20, 2012
Twitter: A Long Road to Travel in Search
June 19, 2012
Twitter has been a success in San Francisco, Silicon Valley, and in the cheerful world of those steeped in real time information. The reality is that Twitter generates a great deal of information in relatively context free outputs. I think of those outputs as an opportunity, but the reality is that the volume of information and the challenge of finding a gem amidst the gravel is big one.
Twitter seems to be making a step forward. Online Media Daily’s “Twitter Hires LinkedIn Pro to Improve Real Time Search, Ads” informed us at Beyond Search that John Wang, a search and open source wizard, is joining the tweeters.
What is missing? The information displayed via Twitter search is useful. Ads in context to the context free messages are not evident. Is this the gap which Twitter will move to fill? We think that for Twitter at this time, advertising revenue is more important than recall and precision.
The search challenge is not one which can be resolved overnight. The fix for the context data is not going to be easy. Did I mention the brevity of the tweets and the volume? If not, both will require thought and money to resolve. When content flows in high volume, the red ink is like the water behind one of those soil dams in the Netherlands. Vigilance and creativity are needed along with luck, money, and an infrastructure which can adapt to avoid a cost problem.
Our view is that better search (whatever that means) is a nice to have. The must have at Twitter will be advertising. However, our hope is that search is defined more in terms of making Twitter information useful. We will watch the evolution of http://search.twitter.com and the ads on the result pages.
Stephen E Arnold, June 19, 2012
Sponsored by Ikanow
Richard Paterson Assesses Mobile Access Options for your SharePoint Site
June 19, 2012
Mobile access is no doubt becoming the ubiquitous and a go-to source for users as the office extends well beyond physical office walls. In “SharePoint on Mobile Devices: The Options,” Richard Paterson takes a look at ways to expose SharePoint portals on mobile devices, including out-of-the-box mobile SharePoint views, Responsive Design, Mobile Web Apps, and native apps.
Paterson points out that mobile views are not ‘one size fits all,’ rather the delivery style you choose depends on your target audience, target device, and site content. While an out-of-the-box SharePoint mobile view is simple to implement, it gives you only basic navigation around sites, lists, and document libraries.
Paterson has this to say about a framework solution:
A framework such as Mobile Entrée can provide a richer experience than the out of the box views and will normally provide an API to code against, making extensibility and customization of the functionality intuitive. They will normally operate on templates which allows for powerful front end customization. Views can be made available for different devices, e.g. you might want a two column layout on a tablet, whereas on a phone you would want just one. Frameworks will make form building simpler and also presenting back graphs and tables often used in Business Intelligence easy and more cost effective to implement.
If your site is geared toward news, marketing, or communication, Paterson suggests that a Responsive Design may be best, but it is lacking if you need forms or functional parts. A native device app can give you big results for the user experience, but Paterson explains it also requires the largest investment.
Paterson’s reviews are not comprehensive, but definitely provide a good introduction to mobile options. You may consider the read if you’re looking to beef up your site’s mobile experience. You may also consider adding a third party solution as a means to expand mobile offerings while also saving valuable time and investment resources. We like the feedback we’ve seen about Fabasoft Mindbreeze Mobile.
Here you can read about the Mobile Search solution from Mindbreeze:
Smartphones and tablets are constant companions, indispensable in the business world. Information needs to be able to be exchanged at all times and wherever you are. Easily. Quickly. Securely. Fabasoft Mindbreeze Mobile makes company data available on all mobile devices. Regardless of whether you have a BlackBerry®, iPhone®, Windows Phone or Android™ Smartphone or a tablet such as the Apple iPad, Samsung Chromebook/GalaxyTab or Blackberry Playbook, you can act independently and freely – yet always securely. Irrespective of what format the data is in. Full functionality: the display of the search results is homogenous to the tried and tested web client in terms of clear design and intuitive navigation.
Read more about the Fabasoft Mindbreeze Search Solutions that easily integrate into your SharePoint farm at http://www.mindbreeze.com/.
Philip West, June 19, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
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