IHS Adds Invention Machine to its Technology Collection
July 19, 2012
In a $40 million deal, Taume announces, “IHS Acquires Trident Capital’s Invention Machine.” The write up also notes IHS’ previously announced purchase of GlobalSpec for $135 million. The company expects the combination of Invention Machine’s Goldfire business intelligence chops and GlobalSpec’s vertical search, product information, and global access point capabilities will combine to:
“. . . transform our existing engineering specifications and standards business to long-term double-digit growth, and accelerate the IHS Product Design business by increasing the value we offer to engineers, researchers and scientists by connecting innovation to knowledge workers,” said Jerre Stead, IHS chairman and chief executive officer. “With Invention Machine’s Goldfire as the front-end, we will bring together all IHS content, insight and tools into an innovative solution that will address many of the unsolved problems facing engineers. This will enable greater productivity, accuracy and design quality, and help customers accelerate innovation and deliver superior products and services.”
Invention Machine makes its home in Boston, with offices in London, Frankfurt, Paris, Tokyo, and Minsk, Belarus. They call their Goldfire “the optimal decision engine,” created to help make clients more productive. Trident Capital is a venture capital and private equity firm founded in 1993 that specializes in business service and I.T. investments.
Designed with engineers in mind, GlobalSpec supplies its customers with domain-specific vertical search engines. The firm is headquartered in East Greenbush, N.Y.
Headquartered in Englewood, Colorado, IHS operates in over 30 countries and employs over 5,500 workers. This information powerhouse was founded back in 1959 as a provider of product catalog databases on microfilm for aerospace engineers. Wow, who here remembers microfilm? Kudos to IHS for keeping up with the times!
Cynthia Murrell, July 19, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
The Heart of Europe Beats to an English Rhythm
July 19, 2012
Sail Labs is one of the world’s leading innovators in language technology and they recently upgraded some of their programming. Keeping their language features up to date is of the utmost importance and one specific language climbed to the top of their list.
English was recognized as the key language for IT, media and communication by Sail Labs. They reside in the heart of Europe but according to “SAIL LABS Technology unveils new English Language Feature,” that heart now beats to a more modernized English rhythm.
The upgrades were made to Sail LAB’s award winning software, which is:
“The Media Mining System provides an integrated platform for decision makers in a diversity of languages: It automatically records, harvests and ingests data from multiple sources such as TV, radio, electronic documents and the Internet (social media, blogs, feeds, web pages) and creates valuable metadata and key information out of it. Subsequently, this output can be used for future search, retrieval, visualization and analysis.”
Now, when Sail LABs thinks in optimum terms, they put a lot of effort into mimicking perfection. Their most recent language model is composed of 20 years of English research. The program has been increased by over 85.000 words and includes current expressions, names of persons and organizations. That may not sound like a lot over twenty years, but the features were designed specifically to provide optimal coverage for modern media.
It may not take long to start hearing some feedback, but one has to wonder if it will be in their new improved English. Guess we will see if the heart of Europe really beats to an English rhythm.
Jennifer Shockley, July 19, 2012
Predictive Analytics and Big Data with Higher Costs to Boot
July 19, 2012
Predictive analytics and big data are two of the biggest buzzwords in the legal and It professions at the moment. Both deal with the beneficial power of analytics, but soon the two concepts will meet and combine. Knoll Ontrack wrote “Predictive Coding Helps Tackle Big Data” explaining what will happen when the two shall meet. The article explains that as big data becomes more widespread it will make the e-disclosure process more expensive.
Predictive coding could make big data more cost-effective just as it makes attorney fees lower:
“However, having a mushrooming quantity of data means that when an e-disclosure request is issued, it takes even longer to trawl through information, identify relevant documents and compare duplicates. With the increasing time it takes, legal costs can skyrocket, a worrying trend for businesses in the current climate where margins are already stretched thin. For this reason the introduction of predictive coding in likely to be popular as it leaves the legwork to a sophisticated algorithm, finding relevant documents which can then be reviewed more closely.”
Can you take some of the marketing assertions about predictive methods and win at the race track or the stock market? I know that I would not invest my retirement savings in systems which purport to tell the future. Software can provide some guidance, but the decision making requires human effort. Cost cutting and dreams of sugar plums may be behind some of the bold assertions about the magic of predictive methods. Run a query for “predictive analytics” on Google You will have an opportunity to work through the assertions directly. Doing one’s homework reduces some of the risks associated with embracing methods which are often a blend of math and marketing. Expensive? We agree. Possibly higher costs. We would suggest greater risk in some situations.
Stephen E Arnold, July 19, 2012
Sponsored by Polyspot
Text Analysis and Text Mining Are Powerful Tools
July 19, 2012
Text analysis and mining is one service that many data analytics firms offer their clients. AME Info has the latest news on how “SAS to Add High Performance Text Mining to Its Powerful In-Memory Analytics Software in Q3 2012.” SAS is one of the leading big data analytics companies and soon they will add Hugh-Performance Analytics to their Teradata and EMC Greenplum platforms to perform even more complex big data analytics. The new technology with new text-mining technology will give new insights into unstructured data from emails to social media quicker and more efficiently.
SAS is proud of the advancement:
” ‘High-performance analytics is the most significant SAS technology advance over the last 10 years,’ said Jim Goodnight, CEO, SAS. ‘We realized that organizations were accumulating massive amounts of data that could provide answers to questions they could never ask before. The analysis took so long to process, answers were irrelevant by the time the computer spit them out. High-performance analytics provides answers when the information is still useful and leaves time to explore multiple possibilities.’ “
Text analysis is a basic service and many companies are trying to find ways to make their services stand out in the crowd. We suggest that you look at the next generation text analysis vendors; for example, Ikanow.
Whitney Grace, July 19, 2012
Sponsored byIkanow
Useful Graphics Explaining SharePoint 2013
July 19, 2012
SharePoint developers are eagerly waiting for SharePoint 2013. A blogger at the Microsoft Blogs wrote “SharePoint 2013-Initial Take On Changes To Search” and he has been viewing a lot of slideshows on the new version. His favorites are at SharePoint 2012: Presentation: IT Pro Training and all are easy to download. He takes a look a the Module 7: SharePoint Search 2013 that takes an in depth view into enterprise search, including architectural changes to physical and logical topologies and configuration details on crawling, content, and query.
Fast Search functionality is behind much of the SharePoint 2013 enterprise search capability:
“ From the SharePoint 2013 slides, it’s pretty clear that the rumors have played out and core components of SharePoint Search (particularly the Indexing pipeline) effectively got replaced by the Fast Search pipeline… although it will maintain the ‘SharePoint Search’ moniker (Disclaimer: I’m not a marketing guy and have no idea what the licenses will be, so this is just my observation).”
There is a lot of content to digest in from the presentations, but the article pulls out the very detailed and informative diagrams to understand how Fast Search has and will change the search architecture for SharePoint. With more than 30,000 consultant days of Fast implementation experience at Search Technologies, we will be gearing up early to support SharePoint 2013 Search Rollouts.
Iain Fletcher, July 19, 2012
Sponsored by Search Technologies
Now Business Intelligence Is Dead
July 18, 2012
I received a “news item” from Information Enterprise Software, an HTML email distributed by InformationWeek Software. The story was labeled “Commentary.” I did not think that “real” journalists engaged in “commentary.” Isn’t there “real” news out there to “cover” or “make.”
Read the article. Navigate to “If BI Is Dead, What’s Next?” The “commentary” is hooked to an azure chip consultant report called “BI Is Dead! Long Live BI” which costs a modest $250. You can buy this document from Constellation Research here. First, let’s look at the summary of the report and then consider the commentary. I want to wrap up with some blunt talk about analytic baloney which is winging through the air.
Here’s the abstract so get your credit card ready:
We [Constellation Research] suggest a dozen best practices needed to move Business Intelligence (BI) software products into the next decade. While five “elephants” occupy the lion’s share of the market, the real innovation in BI appears to be coming from smaller companies. What is missing from BI today is the ability for business analysts to create their own models in an expressive way. Spreadsheet tools exposed this deficiency in BI a long time ago, but their inherent weakness in data quality, governance and collaboration make them a poor candidate to fill this need. BI is well-positioned to add these features, but must first shed its reliance on fixed-schema data warehouses and read-only reporting modes. Instead, it must provide businesspeople with the tools to quickly and fully develop their models for decision-making.
I like the animal metaphors. I must admit I thought more in terms of baloney, but that’s just an addled goose’s reaction to “real” journalism.
The point is that business intelligence (I really dislike the BI acronym) can do a heck of a lot more. So what’s dead? Excel? Nah. Business intelligence? Nah. A clean break with the past which involved SAS, SPSS, and Cognos type systems? Nah.
Information about point and click business intelligence should be delivered in this type of vehicle. A happy quack to the marketing wizard at Oscar Mayer for the image at http://brentbrown98.hubpages.com/hub/12-of-the-Worst-Sports-Logos-Ever
So what?
Answer: Actually not a darned thing. What this report has going for it is a shocking headline. Sigh.
Now to the “commentary.” Look a pay to play report is okay. The report is a joint work of InformationWeek and the Constellation report. Yep, IDC is one of the outfits involved in the study. The “commentary” is pretty much a commercial. Is this “real” journalism? Nah, it is a reaction to a lousy market for consulting studies and an attempt to breathe controversy into a well known practice area.
Here’s the passage I noted:
We all saw the hand wringing in recent years over BI not living up to its promise, with adoption rates below 20% or even 10% of potential users at many enterprises. But that’s “probably the right level” given the limitations of legacy BI tools, says Raden. I couldn’t agree more, and I’ve previously called for better ease of use, ease of deployment, affordability, and ease of administration. What’s largely missing from the BI landscape, says Raden, is the ability for business users to create their own data models. Modeling is a common practice, used to do what-if simulation and scenario planning. Pricing models, for instance, are used to predict sales and profits if X low-margin product is eliminated in hopes of retaining customers with products A, B, and C.
So what we are learning is that business intelligence systems have to become easier to use. I find this type of dumbing down a little disturbing. Nothing can get a person into more business trouble faster than fiddling around with numbers and not understanding what the implications of a decision are. Whether it is the fancy footwork of a Peregrine or just the crazy US government data about unemployment, a failure to be numerically literature can have big consequences.
2012 Wage Freeze for IBM Global Technology Services Workers
July 18, 2012
Oh, oh, we think IBM is a harbinger of more economic gloom.
Over the last several years many industries have undergone pay cuts, layoffs, and hiring freezes. In spite of the evidence of a downtrodden economy, top executives have for the most part remained unscathed. Well it appears that, for one company at least, that is all about to change. The Register’s Timothy Prickett Morgan recently reported on a pay freeze that will be affecting the higher-level executives of Big Blue’s Global Technology Services Unit in the article “IBM Chiefs Order Pay Freeze at US Services Tentacle.”
According to the article, despite 14 per cent growth in the 40 growth markets outside of the United States and Western Europe, IBM is putting pressure on American employees to get more work done for the same amount of money. Global Technology Services employees will not be receiving broad-based salary increases this year.
In a note sent out to GTSU employees Bob Zapfel, general manager of Global Technology Services for North America, and Richard Patterson, general manager of GTS strategic outsourcing delivery for the Americas, wrote:
“To balance our ability to remain competitive with the need to invest in people who have high-demand skills, there will not be a broad-based salary program in GTS in 2012. Instead, we will target the 2012 investment to skill groups or focus areas as identified by each GTS line of business, based on local market needs. These decisions do not affect the significant investments IBM makes each year in talent in addition to salary, including bonus programs, recognition, promotions, and skill development.”
After former CEO John Akers nearly ran IBM into the ground in the 1990s, is the company simply trying to remain cautious or are revenues softening? regardless of the intention for the potentially company-wide wage freezes, this is a big deal.
Jasmine Ashton, July 18, 2012
Sponsored by IKANOW
Android Fragmentation Pinching Some Developer Toes
July 18, 2012
Here in Harrod’s Creek, we absofreakinglutely know that there is no Android fragmentation. We remember what Google says. But some folks are not heeding the message it seems.
Google is trying to tip toe between their hardware developers and their partners to knock the edge out of fragmentation issues with Android. Slashdot’s “Google Trying New Strategy to Fix Fragmentation” talks about the impressive new features Android is offering while they sidestep the fragmentation problems.
Despite Androids release of Ice Cream Sandwich and Jelly Bean, the majority of users are still using Gingerbread. Google admits that according to their data only around 7% of Android users are utilizing the current version. The sad irony is that makes the latest OS innovations unavailable to the other 93% and developers are forced to test apps across multiple devices and versions.
How is Google appeasing the developers? Google is giving free tablets and phones to developers at the event, and:
“Google’s Hugo Barra announced a Platform Developer Kit during the opening keynote at I/O this week and the news was greeted with applause. The PDK will provide Android phone makers with a preview version of upcoming Android releases, making it easier for them to get the latest software in their new phones. But is the PDK enough to secure for developers the single user experience for big numbers of Android users that developers crave?”
The fragmentation continues to contribute to the cost of making apps and Google risks chasing its developers away. Google is walking on eggshells and ignoring frag issues with their hardware partners and developers who want to customize devices. If ignored? Maybe no one cares.
Jennifer Shockley, July 18, 2012
Community Comments on Need for Expanded SharePoint Blogging Features
July 18, 2012
In “Never Mind Microblogging, SharePoint Needs to Support Plain Old Blogging,” Chris Wright comments on social features in the SharePoint platform. Wright, founder of the Scribble Agency, shares his hope for the upcoming SharePoint 15 release,
With SharePoint 15 right around the corner we can only hope for some improvements from Microsoft. So what would be nice to see? Scheduling of posts would be a good start. Anyone who writes regularly will know it is often best to do it as and when ideas come to you, not necessarily when you want to publish. Scheduling would really help with this. Plus a dedicated stats component, just for blogging, would be good.
Wright also discusses Microsoft’s recent Yammer acquisition and the potential for the microblogging platform to expand SharePoint blogging features.
An out of the box design that keeps users in mind may not be SharePoint’s strongest characteristic. But it doesn’t take much to customize your farm to work for the masses. Instead of bogging down your SharePoint system with third party applications, save time and money on implementations with one lean solution. It seems the experts at Mindbreeze understand the importance of social business and continue to develop solutions to increase customer satisfaction.
Philip West, July 18, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Manufacturers Want Cost Control First and Foremost
July 18, 2012
Manufacturers have been hit hard by the economical shortcomings of nations around the world. What they are left with is less money to meet higher expectations from their customers. A recent DC Velocity article, “Cost control Remains the Top Supply Chain Goal for Manufacturers”, reveals where manufacturers priorities lay according to a recent survey.
As the article explains,
“In a report titled “Business Strategy: 2012 Supply Chain Survey-Manufacturing Priorities and New Technology Adoption,” IDC found that the number two goal was striving for agility in their supply chains. The third objective was product quality and safety, cited by 52 percent of survey takers. Survey respondents also said that “big data analysis” was the new technology that was most relevant to their business. “Big data analysis” involves the use of sophisticated software to sift through large amounts of disparate information to find connections or patterns.”
These results are not atypical from what product lifecycle management (PLM) solution providers report. Through a well-constructed PLM solution manufacturers are able to streamline processes, keep quality high while lowering costs and integrate data management solutions. One of our favorite PLM providers is Inforbix because they understand that at the heart of any PLM solution is data management. Their offerings focus on new data management solutions which pave the way for PLM victory.
Catherine Lamsfuss, July 18, 2012
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