Back to the Analog Future
September 6, 2012
Wired informs us, “Darpa has Seen the Future of Computing. . . and It’s Analog.” We thought the future was biological (our vision is computers which are alive) but we guess analog is okay.
Through its research arm Darpa, the Department of Defense aims to backtrack from digital processors in their effort to boost power efficiency. It is the roadblock in power scaling, they say, which has recently hampered the progress proscribed by Moore’s Law. Specifically, the Department has been running up against power limitations in drone- and helicopter-mounted spy cameras.
The write up tells us that Darpa program manager Daniel Hammerstrom is:
“. . . looking for an alternative to straight-up boolean logic, where the voltage in a chip’s transistor represents a zero or a one. Hammerstrom wants chipmakers to build analog processors that can do probabilistic math without forcing transistors into an absolute one-or-zero state, a technique that burns energy. . . .
“Analog computers were used in the 1950s, but they were overshadowed by the transistor and the amazing computing capabilities that digital processors pumped out over the past half-century, according to Ben Vigoda, the general manager of the Analog Devices Lyric Labs group. ‘The people who are just retiring from university right now can remember programming analog computers in college,’ says Vigoda. ‘It’s been a long time since we really questioned the paradigm that we’re using.'”
Why yes, it has. The back-to-the-drawing-board approach is often prudent, but it can also be a big risk. Can Darpa break free from the world of ones and zeros? Their program, called UPSIDE (Unconventional Processing of Signals for Intelligent Data Exploitation), has been allotted 54 months, and will have two phases. First, chips will be built using probabilistic techniques. Next, those chips will be used to build mobile imaging systems.
Reporter Robert McMillan notes that, should Darpa be successful, the new probabilistic chips could help with some of the complex data analysis problems researchers have been struggling with. That would be a nice side effect. Will the analog approach pan out? Only time will tell—give them about 54 months.
Cynthia Murrell, September 06, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Swizzling Android
September 5, 2012
When Amazon rolled out the Kindle Fire, I wondered if Amazon and Google were best pals. Amazon’s Kindle Fire worked with the Amazon download system and the programs worked on the Kindle Fire. We bought a couple of Kindle Fires and figured out that Amazon had used Android but veered into the wilds of the Amazon technical forest.
When I was in China, there were quite a few Android phones available. I had not seen most of these. I quite liked the four SIM devices which I wrote about in one of my for fee columns. (You can see most of these on my LinkedIn profile page, but you will have to go through a free registration process to see the list of write ups.)
Google has made Android open source, so variation, flavors, forks, and knock offs are part of the program. No big deal, I thought, because Google is a giant outfit, able to beat Oracle in court and stuffed with money and wizards.
Then I read “RoMOS Is Russia’s Take on Android OS, Shields Users from Google’s Prying Eyes.” Quite a headline, replete with innuendo in the phrase “Google’s prying eyes” and the SEO charged references to Russia and Android. Here’s the passage which caught my attention:
Unveiled at IFA in Berlin, the Russian Mobile Operating System or RoMOS reportedly mimics the look and feel of Android and works with Russia’s Global Navigation Satellite System. The OS is scheduled to debut in tablet form by the end of the year, though RoMOS’ project manager says it can serve as a smartphone operating system, too. The main customers for RoMOS will reportedly be the country’s military, which has always had concerns about data collected by Google from Russian devices falling into US government hands.
Why not use Android and get with the Google program? My hunch is that the possibility of monitoring or some other security concern is not mere public relations baloney. Will other countries use Android in this way? Will a large US telco just follow in the footsteps of Russia and create a version of Android which is proprietary.
Walled gardens, despite the election rhetoric, are a major part of 21st century business strategy. Will these gizmos run the Android games, apps, and malware? Will these hypothetical devices connect to other networks?
One meaning of the word “fork” is “to pay.” Hmmm.
Stephen E Arnold, September 5, 2012
Sponsored by Augmentext
Can Brainware and ISYS Search Get Lexmark Back on Track
September 5, 2012
I was surprised to learn that Lexmark in Lexington, Kentucky, was getting into the search and retrieval, content processing, and indexing business. I had a meeting at a Lexmark facility a couple of years ago, and I was struck by the absence of activity in what was and probably still is a very large building. The meeting was held in the “library” for one of the firm’s units. Quiet. Search was a challenge. I left the meeting wondering how the employees found repair data, training manuals, proposals, and technical reference information.
When I learned that in a short span of time in early 2012, Lexmark purchased Brainware. You may know that Brainware was originally a search vendor. The technology which worked the firm’s retrieval magic was based on trigrams or three letter sequences. The query terms were parsed into three letter groups. Documents with the query’s three letter groups were identified and rank order by trigram match. There are numerous technical details associated with the patented technology. The point is that Brainware got into back office processing and took off. The search and retrieval business supported the paper-to-digital-to-index business. Brainware landed some juicy accounts. I assumed that Oracle would acquire the company, but I was wide of the mark. Heck, I wasn’t even in the same county. You can get some details about the deal in the Brainware news release, “Lexmark Acquires Brainware.” To beef up Brainware’s back office capabilities, Lexmark also bought Nolij.
A few days later, Lexmark purchased the ISYS Search Software company. Like IBM’s magical repositioning of Vivisimo, Lexmark described ISYS as being more than search. Okay. According to the news release about the deal, ISYS’s technology dates from 1988. That works out to almost a quarter century. The ISYS technology will complement Lexmark’s Perceptive Software business. The idea is Perceptive will be better able to compete in process and content management solutions.
With the closing of the ink jet business, Lexmark is going to have to find a way to generate significant revenues from its search enabled applications and its search based businesses.
The question becomes, “Will Lexmark be able to generate significant revenue from search?”
In the annual report for 2005, Lexmark said:
Lexmark makes it easier for businesses and consumers to move information between the digital and paper worlds. Since its inception in 1991, Lexmark has become a leading developer, manufacturer and supplier of printing and imaging solutions for offices and homes. Lexmark’s products include laser printers, inkjet printers, multifunction devices, associated supplies, services and solutions. Lexmark develops and owns most of the technology for its laser and inkjet products and associated supplies, and that differentiates the company from many of its major competitors, including Hewlett-Packard, which purchases its laser engines and cartridges from third-party suppliers. Lexmark also sells dot matrix printers for printing single and multi-part forms by business users and develops, manufactures and markets a broad line of other office imaging products. The company operates in the office products industry. The company is primarily managed along business and consumer market segments.
With this shift, Lexmark is going in a different direction; that is, buying technology instead of developing it. The announcement that Lexmark was terminating more than 1,000 employees with about half located less than an hour from my goose pond in Harrod’s Creek, Kentucky, was bad news in a state with lots of bad
How will that work out?
My view is that Lexmark is likely to experience some unwelcome surprises. As you may recall, Hewlett Packard was shocked at Autonomy’s performance once the company was on board. With the departure of a number of key Autonomy executives, including Mike Lynch, Hewlett Packard has become quiet about Autonomy. I assume that the massive write off of the EDS business is occupying the senior managers. Lexmark may be headed for some cost surprises; for example:
- Brainware incurs some labor costs with its back office sales. Oracle and other companies want to get into this “old fashioned” business, so the marketing costs are likely to go up. How much of a spike will be determined by the appetite of hospitals and other paper centric operations in a lousy economy and the uncontrollable actions of companies like Oracle.
- ISYS costs are likely to be a shock as well. ISYS is similar to Fast Search & Transfer, just older. As a result, the cost to keep the system current are likely to grow over time. The fancy new features like text mining are easy to talk about. To build out systems which can compete with services from Digital Reasoning and Quid is another level of investment entirely.
- Support costs in the search enable applications sector are tough to control. A major company may not tolerate a filtering call handled in India and then a wait for an engineer to get involved. Perhaps Lexmark will use ISYS for customer support?
But what could Lexmark do?
Printing is environmentally unacceptable to many people. In addition, a PDF file can be emailed more quickly and cheaply than sending a document via FedEx. With iPads in the hands of executives, a digital version of a document is good enough.
Like HP, Lexmark is going to have to work some marketing, cost control, and management miracles to get back on the growth path with generous margins. Is it too late for Lexmark to return to revenue glory in the Bluegrass State? Well, I am not willing to go out a limb. Let’s just watch.
Stephen E Arnold, September 5, 2012
Sponsored by Augmentext
Facebook and Its Management Challenge
September 5, 2012
In New York, I answered questions about the Facebook IPO. A week before the much ballyhooed event, some Wall Street mavens wanted information, including the insights of an ageing goose in Harrod’s Creek, Kentucky.
I made three points:
First, Facebook would not go away, but our research indicated that buying Facebook was more prudent after the IPO and the almost inevitable fall in the share price. The hype about the social media revolution was fascinating, particularly to those who know little about the revolution’s fatigue factor.
Second, Facebook had to find a way to monetize its traffic. The ad thing echoes Google, so ads got the focus. However, to make ads work, Facebook had to do some work with search, tagging content, and then integrating search ads with other types of ads. Facebook has allowed some third parties to index the Facebook content, but on the whole, those systems are not widely used and the content presented is often fragmentary and confusing.
Third, Facebook has to kick the “we are Googley” style of management. Google-style management works because Google has tons of cash sloshing around. Outside of Google, Google-style management can be a problem. Example: AOL. Facebook has some management challenges. You can read about one in “David Ebersman, the Man behind Facebook’s IPO Debacle.” I don’t think Mr. Ebersman is the management problem. I think he is an executive who has the dubious honor of getting hooked to the problem. There are lots of Googlers at Facebook, including Sheryl Sandberg, among others.
In an IPO, there is no single person who is responsible. There is a herd of people, and they stampede. A running cow does not do too much thinking in my experience. The write up says:
Mr. Ebersman’s name, however, is mentioned only occasionally, usually in passing and typically only among Silicon Valley’s cognoscenti. And yet if there is one single individual more responsible than any other for the staggering mispricing of Facebook’s I.P.O., it is Mr. Ebersman. He signed off on the ever-increasing offer price, which ended up at $38 after the company had originally planned a price range of $29 to $34. He — almost alone — pushed to flood the market with 25 percent more shares than originally planned in the final days before the offering. And since then, as the point person for investors, he has done little to articulate how or why the company’s strategy will lift the stock price any time soon. At a time when investors are looking for some semblance of accountability on Wall Street and in corporate America, it is remarkable that nobody — no bankers, no one at Nasdaq, no one at Facebook — has been fired for botching the offering.
A scapegoat satisfies a human’s need for a fall guy. However, the responsibility of the Facebook IPO rests on the shoulders of many folks. The problem may be growing worse after a summer of inaction. The next four months will be fascinating to watch from my intellectual hollow in rural Kentucky.
Stephen E Arnold, September 4, 2012
Sponsored by Augmentext
For SharePoint 2013 Less Might be More
September 5, 2012
As the discussion continues surrounding the new features rolled out in SharePoint 2013, an interesting conversation is taking place. Many experts believe that SharePoint is drowning its users in too many options. Chris Wright at CMS Wire continues this conversation in his article, “SharePoint 2013 Needs Less Features, Not More.”
Wright begins:
SharePoint 2013 is packed with lots of new and exciting features.
Users can experience the revamped MySites, with FaceBook style activity feeds and the ability to ‘follow’ pretty much anything. Developers have ‘apps’ to get their teeth into, allowing them to create SharePoint components in pretty much any language they wish . . . The list of new features goes on and on . . . All of these new features are very exciting, but what do end users make of it all? Will they actually notice? Will they get a better experience? I’m not so sure.
Wright states that there are lots of things that SharePoint 2013 does well, yet wading through all the unnecessary options is daunting. For small to medium size organizations, it might be worthwhile to invest in a smart third party solution. Investing in something like Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise can intuitively customize your existing enterprise infrastructure in one swift motion, avoiding costly detailed customization.
Emily Rae Aldridge, September 5, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.
Googlers and Academics Team Up on Machine Learning Book
September 5, 2012
Want to know how to build software that makes smart software capable of doing work once done by humans? A new book tells you how, we learn from Google Research‘s blog post, “Machine Learning Book for Students and Researchers.” The description reads:
“Our machine learning book, The Foundations of Machine Learning, is now published! The book, with authors from both Google Research and academia, covers a large variety of fundamental machine learning topics in depth, including the theoretical basis of many learning algorithms and key aspects of their applications. The material presented takes its origin in a machine learning graduate course, ‘Foundations of Machine Learning’, taught by Mehryar Mohri over the past seven years and has considerably benefited from comments and suggestions from students and colleagues at Google.”
The book is published by MIT Press, and Mehryar Mohri teaches his related course at New York University‘s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences. The book is designed to serve as both a textbook and a reference for researchers. It makes an effort to fully address topics the authors felt have been given short shrift, like regression, multi-class classification, and ranking.
At 70 dollars, this tome is not exactly free. However, if you are in the machine learning field, it may well be worth the investment.
Cynthia Murrell, September 05, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Machine Learning Process Explained
September 5, 2012
Building commercial databases no longer requires so many humans, we learn from a recent post at Factual’s blog. “A Brief Tour of Factual’s Machine Learning Pipeline” does a good job explaining the machine learning workflow. The description is specific to Factual, of course, but is also a good source for understanding the process more generally.
First, algorithms begin by cleaning up and standardizing the wealth of available data. Next comes the process of resolving whether the data can help identify matches, non-matches, both, or neither. The corner cases left by this process are then analyzed, and all the results are ranked for trustworthiness and controlled for quality. That last step is where the humans finally come in. Timothy Chklovski writes:
“One important principle of our systems is that we don’t assume everything can be automated. We take random samples of our data and run them by our quality control team and through teams organized with the help of Amazon’s Mechanical Turk service. This allows us to identify specific cases that slipped through our algorithms. The errors then go back to our algorithm designers who try to find improvements.”
The write up points out that Factual strongly embraces open source solutions. Not surprisingly, they use Hadoop and HBase; they also incorporate data management tool CasaLog, dynamic programming language Clojure , and the URI-based repository dCache. Founded in 2007, the open data platform company is headquartered in Los Angeles.
Cynthia Murrell, September 05, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Honk is Another Golden Egg for ArnoldIT
September 5, 2012
Indulge me, if you will, as I crow about our new Honk, a free, opt-in, targeted newsletter featuring online search and analytics from the editors of Beyond Search and Open Search News. The brainchild of our beloved leader, technology and financial analyst Stephen E. Arnold, Honk includes frank assessments of important trends in content processing and information retrieval. Sign up is available by e-mailing thehonk@yandex.com. Those requesting the weekly newsletter will receive, without charge, a copy of Stephen’s most recent insightful study, The New Landscape of Enterprise Search, published in 2011 by Pandia in Oslo, Norway.
Honk features original material about the online search industry not available in other ArnoldIT products and blogs, as well as six to eight stories with supporting data about the lead article’s topic. Honk accepts advertising directly related to the content included in the newsletter.
Note that Honk also serves as a demonstration project. The ArnoldIT team will provide turn-key email newsletter writing and distribution services to organizations that require a regular, professional presence. ArnoldIT provides strategic information services to organizations worldwide and is well-known for its search and analytics services, including Augmentext, a content marketing system developed by Mr. Arnold.
Stephen E. Arnold has racked up over thirty years of experience as a technology and financial analyst. In addition to “Google: The Digital Gutenberg,” he is the author of more than 50 journal articles and a number of other books, including “Internet 2000” and the first three editions of the 600-page encyclopedia of search called “The Enterprise Search Report.”
You can friend Honk and Stephen E. Arnold on Facebook here, or click this link to follow Honk on Twitter. I may be biased, but I find the newsletter to be most informative and entertaining. Don’t miss out on this valuable resource!
Cynthia Murrell,September 05, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
SharePoint Feels the Heat
September 4, 2012
I know there are quite a few companies who depend upon, integrate with, and otherwise cheerlead for Microsoft SharePoint. Heck, there are consultants a-plenty who tout their “expertise” with SharePoint. The problem is that some folks are not taking advantage of SharePoint’s glories. There are also some, if the data in “Most Popular Content Management Systems by Country” are accurate, who may never embrace SharePoint’s wonderfulness.
The write up appeared in W3Tech and makes clear that the top dog in content management is WordPress, followed by Joomla. Both of these are open source systems. The article asserts:
WordPress, as the most popular CMS overall, also dominates this picture. It is the number one system in most countries in North and South America, Europe and Oceania, many countries in Asia including Russia and India, and surprisingly few countries in Africa. Joomla dominates a fair number of countries in Africa, for example Algeria, Morocco and Nigeria, several countries in Central and South America, such as Venezuela, Ecuador and Cuba, two countries in Europe, Greece and Bosnia, as well as Afghanistan and a number of other countries in Asia.
Are SharePoint centric vendors ignoring the market shifts in content management and search?
So where is SharePoint popular? Where do companies like BA Insight, Concept Searching, dtSearch, Recommind, SurfRay, and dozens upon dozens of other SharePoint supporters need to focus their sales efforts? According to W3Techs:
SharePoint is the number one system in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar and Lebanon as well as on .mil sites, which again don’t show up as separate country in our chart.
And China? Bad news. W3Tech says:
Discuz is a Chinese system that dominates its home market with 49% market share, but is not so much used outside China.
Thank goodness for Skype and Webex. A sales call and conference visit in these countries can whack an expense budget.
Many stakeholders in search and content processing companies believe that SharePoint as a market will keep on growing and growing. That may indeed happen. However, SharePoint centric vendors are likely to find themselves forced to pivot. At this time, a couple of search and content processing vendors have begun the process. Many have not, and I think that as the cost of sales and marketing rises, investors will want to learn about “life after SharePoint.”
How quickly will this message disseminate? Paddling around in Harrod’s Creek, I think that some companies will continue to ride the SharePoint bandwagon. That’s okay, but the “sudden pivot” which Vivisimo is trying to pull off with its “big data” positioning can leave some people confused.
SharePoint has been a money machine for third parties and consultants for a long time. The history of SharePoint is rarely discussed. The focus is on making the system work. That approach was a money maker when there was strong cash flow and liberal credit. As organizations look for ways to cut costs, open source content management systems seem to be taking hold. We are now tracking these important market shifts in our new service Text Radar.
If the W3Tech data are incorrect, the SharePoint vendors with their assertions about smart algorithms and seamless integration will blast past Autonomy’s record search revenues of almost $1 billion. But most search vendors are not Autonomy and are likely to be mired in the $3 to $15 million range where the vast majority of search and content processing vendors dwell.
Could the future be open source and high value, for fee add ons that deliver a solid punch for licensees? We have analyzed the open source search and content processing sector for IDC, and open source as an alternative to SharePoint content management, content processing, and search may have some wind in its sales. How many SharePoint centric vendors will generate a hundred million in revenue this year? Perhaps zero?
Stephen E Arnold, September 4, 2012
Sponsored by Augmentext
Mindbreeze InSite Wins KMWorld Trendsetting Product Award
September 4, 2012
KMWorld has just announced the 2012 winners of their highly coveted Trendsetting Product Award and Mindbreeze yet again makes the prestigious list. The September 3rd press release begins:
Mindbreeze receives the prestigious KMWorld Award for Mindbreeze InSite. The ‘Trend-Setting Products 2012’ were selected from more than 700 entries. KMWorld is the leading magazine for Knowledge Management Systems and Content and Document Management in the US. Mindbreeze scored highly yet again with the KMWorld jury, receiving the prestigious KMWorld Award for Mindbreeze InSite. The “Trend-Setting Products 2012” were selected from more than 700 entries. KMWorld is the leading magazine for Knowledge Management Systems and Content and Document Management in the US. It is the fifth time in succession that Mindbreeze has won this award.
Mindbreeze has been awarded a KMWorld Trendsetting Product Award five years in a row. While Mindbreeze is grounded on the strength of its enterprise search offering, Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise, InSite meets a new niche as organizations realize the importance of their public facing Web sites. Bring the same intuitive search to your public facing Web presence that organizations have used for years to control their internal enterprise search. In doing so your organization will join the ranks of other InSite users who can measure how often content is searched for, therefore maximizing content to increase sales and customer satisfaction.
Emily Rae Aldridge, September 4, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.
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