LucidWorks Growth Focuses on the User Experience and Search Features
September 27, 2012
We recently commented on the Forbes’ article titled, “LucidWorks: Bringing Search to Big Data” and the rising usage of Lucene/Solr technology across dominating companies such as Netflix, AT&T, and Twitter. The same article also brings to light the fact that the world of data is shifting from mainly numbers to one that is essentially text-based, thanks to outlets such as social networking.
This is where LucidWorks enters. The company is aware that the Web search box is the key to helping any and all users find the information they are looking for, even if they are inept at programming language. This transition will be bringing Big Data to a larger audience with easy-to-use search features. LucidWorks knows search technology is where Big Data needs to focus and the company plans on becoming the leader for this enterprise. Strides in this direction were made in May with the launch of a big data beta project, LucidWorks Big Data, which certifies and integrates Apache open source components to develop and manage big data applications.
We learn about the company’s plan and focus on user-experience in the article:
“‘Users are missing from the big data conversation,’ argues [Grant Ingersoll, Chief Scientist for LucidWorks.] Paying attention to what users are doing helps improve the real-time, ad-hoc access to the data by improving relevance and search results. The analysis of users’ interaction with the system could also provide, as an interesting by-product, new insights about the business. In other words, what your employees do with your data may tell you a whole lot about how your business is functioning and even where it’s heading.’”
Created in 2008 as Lucid Imagination, the team is adept at managing and developing in the ever-shifting enterprise search marketplace. Changing the company’s business model to become innovators in the open source technology realm and now tackling the global emphasis on Big Data, the developers are aware of what needs to be done to fully contribute and make an impact in the expanding market. With a commitment to innovation and user-experience, we agree with Forbes about the future of LucidWorks:
“LucidWorks may represent a new wave of change, using search—the first ‘killer app’ of the Web—to unlock the value of enterprises’ much expanded big data stores and overflowing organizational memories.”
We are anxious to watch the company continue to grow and become leaders in search, content processing, and Big Data analytics.
Andrea Hayden, September 27, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.
Amazon Web Services Announces Online Marketplace for Selling Reserved Instances
September 27, 2012
In the PCWorld.com post, “Amazon Web Services Allows Users to Sell Reserved Instances,” Mikael Ricknas discusses the recent Amazon announcement of an online marketplace where users of cloud computing services will be able to sell their reserved server instances to other companies. Riknas explains reserved instances:
Reserved instances allow avid cloud users to lower their cloud costs by making a one-time payment to reserve compute capacity for a specified term, and in turn, receive a discount on the hourly charge, Amazon said. For example, a standard Linux instance costs from US$0.08 per hour, while a reserved instance with a one-year term and light utilization costs $69 plus $0.039 per hour. That cost divided by the discount means that it is a good deal after running the instance for more than 70 days.
Ricknas says the change is an effort to make the marketplace more attractive and flexible. The announcement may be worth the read if you’ve been looking at Cloud options, especially to learn more about the fees associated with the one-time transactions. You may also consider Fabasoft Mindbreeze’s InSite solution. InSite is a Cloud service that brings together all content from your Web sites, blogs, social media networks, and more so that information can be indexed and accessed remotely with proven security.
Philip West, September 27, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.
Amazon Adds SQL Server Support to Manage Big Data Rush
September 27, 2012
As businesses and enterprises rush to chase Big Data in the cloud, Amazon is jumping in by adding additional SQL Server support. DataMation informs us about the support addition in “Amazon Web Services Simplifies Private Cloud Configuration, Adds SQL Server.” We learn that Amazon Web Services has recently added two new capabilities to its Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), the first of which is added support for static routing.
The article tells us more about the changes to the Amazon VPC:
“Organizations must connect to VPC via an encrypted virtual private network (VPN). In the past, Amazon required companies to use BGP routing protocol for those connections, but BGP can be difficult to set up and manage. The static routing option will make it easier for organizations to use VPC.
AWS is also adding support for Microsoft SQL Server within VPC. It had recently also added support for Oracle’s database.”
This service addition from Amazon could attract more enterprises to the service as companies search for Big Data solutions that help them manage the mass of information available in the cloud. We are anxious to see how corporations implement this new support and hope other web services follow Amazon’s suit in this venture.
Andrea Hayden, September 27, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Google Search Feature Plays Six Degrees to Kevin Bacon
September 27, 2012
Google has made large strides in simplifying search with their OneBox feature recently, yet seems to be making a big splash with a completely different search attraction. The search engine’s take on the classic “six degrees of Kevin Bacon” is amusing to say the least. We learn in “Yes, It’s True: Google Added ‘Six Degrees to Kevin Bacon’ as a Built-In Search Feature” on MakeUseOf that the new application allows users to search for “Bacon number [name]” to get that person’s Bacon number. The feature is based on Google’s newly released Knowledge Graph and provides the actual connections that led Google to that answer.
Not familiar? The article fills us in:
“So what is a Bacon number? The game originated almost 20 years ago, and treats actor Kevin Bacon as being the center of the entertainment world (if not the universe). Every other actor, actress or entertainer gets a ‘Bacon number’ according to the number of jumps needed to get from him/her to Kevin Bacon, using movies and TV shows.”
This enhancement to Google is interesting and has perhaps led to a bit of procrastination already with this work-from-home writer. Groundbreaking? Not by any means. However, it is a fun feature that is sure to guide some mindless, entertaining-seeking traffic to the search giant.
Andrea Hayden, September 27, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Facebook May Be Jumping on the Search Bandwagon
September 27, 2012
It is no secret that Facebook and Google have been duking it out for a while now. Google created GooglePlus in attempt to out social the social media giant. It seems only natural that Facebook would do the same. Business Insider recently reported on Facebook’s alleged search efforts in the article, “Facebook is Going to Build Its Own Search Engine!”
According to the article, when speaking at Tech Crunch Disrupt, Mark Zuckerberg candidly spoke of the fact that Facebook currently has 1 million queries a day and is pretty much a search engine without trying to be.
However, Zuckerberg hinted that they might start trying soon:
“He said that search is increasingly headed towards answering people’s questions. Facebook, which has a trove of data on users, is ‘uniquely positioned’ to deliver answers for users. Facebook has a team of engineers working on improving the search engine. He said, ‘At some point, we’ll do it.’”
Google has built its empire on search, if Facebook is able to do the same, it may be able to knock the search king off of its thrown once and for all.
Jasmine Ashton, September 27, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
What Is the Most Deployed Search System in the World?
September 26, 2012
I just had a brief chat with LucidWorks. In that call, I learned about a surprising fact presented in the Forbes’ article “LucidWorks: Bringing Search to Big Data.” Here’s the point I noted:
Lucene/Solr is the most deployed search technology in the world, used by companies such as Netflix, AT&T, Sears, Ford, and Verizon. According to Ingersoll, Twitter search is powered by Lucene, handling more than a billion queries a day, with close to four hundred million tweets indexed and available within 50 milliseconds of being posted (see here for a 2010 post about Lucene by the Twitter engineering team).
There may be many search options. Some are free and spin outs of university or personal research projects (Elasticsearch, SearchBox). Others are well backed start ups (Palantir, Centrifuge Systems). Some are hybrids (Basho and Datastax).
If Forbes is correct, there is one vendor poised to disrupt search, analytics, and content processing—LucidWorks. More about this Forbes article in a day or two.
Don C Anderson, September 26, 2012
Sponsored by Augmentext
YouTube Surprises
September 26, 2012
I read “Brazilian Judge Orders Arrest of Local Google President over Negative Election Ads on YouTube.” According to the story:
Judge Flavio Peren ordered Google to remove the offending videos last week, but Google refused, leading Peren to issue a warrant for the arrest of local president Fabio Jose Silva Coelho and order YouTube and other Google services blocked for 24 hours. Google is reportedly appealing the decision, saying that it’s not responsible for content posted on its site.
Then one of the ArnoldIT goslings alerted me to this YouTube video. When the Gangnam parody played, an ad for Attivio and ad for the Attivio unified information access technology appeared. That is an interesting method of marketing enterprise content processing. We did not click on the link, and we did watch the somewhat offensive video.
Automated content and smart software can deliver some surprises. Google’s ad matching system knows context. The relationship between unified information access and a Gangnam parody did not make sense to me. Getting old I guess. I don’t like surprises.
Stephen E Arnold, September 26, 2012
Sponsored by Augmentext
Deconstructing HP Autonomy and Its Eight Answers
September 26, 2012
All Things Digital ran a story called “Eight Questions for Hewlett Packard Software Head George Kadifa.” Let me nudge aside any thoughts that the interview and the questions were presented as public relations and marketing. I want to view the comments or “answers” as accurate. Once I have highlighted the points which caught my attention, I want to offer some side observations from my goose pond in rural Kentucky.
First, there were two passages which addressed the $12 billion Autonomy purchase.
The first was information about a recent planning meeting. The Autonomy staff were on deck and ready for duty. The key statement for me was this one:
Basically when you look at Autonomy, the core unit is the IDOL Engine, which is the unique capability of meaning-based computing. We’re going to double down on that. In our labs in Cambridge, England, we have 40 or 50 mathematicians writing algorithms. And we’re going to build a team here in the U.S. to productize it and create a platform around it because it has that potential. Frankly, the way Autonomy was managed previously, they put a lot more emphasis into enabling applications, which was fine, but our belief is that there’s a broad agenda, which is creating a platform around meaning-based computing. So we will maintain those apps, but at the same time we’ll open up the capabilities to a broader set of players outside HP.
Makes sense. Pay $12 billion for IDOL. Leverage it.
The second was semi-business school thinking about how to grow Autonomy’s business. Here’s the passage I noted:
In Europe, they tend to make things complex in order to create more value. For example, they saw the IDOL engine as too complex to just give it to people. Instead they thought they should acquire vendors and then create value by enabling applications. Here we take something that’s complex and we ask how we might simplify it in order to give it more scale for a bigger market. So some of that difference was cultural, and some of it was that I think they fell in love with these acquisitions. … We think Autonomy’s technology has broader implications.
I urge you to read the full “eight questions” and the answers. Now my observations:
- Productizing IDOL or any search engine can be difficult. When I use the word “difficult,” I mean time consuming, expensive, and timetable free. Buying a search engine and sticking it in a product or service looks easy. It is not. In fact, IBM has elected to use open source search to provide the basics. Now IBM is working hard to make money from its value add system, the game show winner Watson. There may be a product in “there”, but it is often to find a way to make money. HP has to pay back the $12 billion it spent and then grow the Autonomy business which was within shouting distance of $1 billion.
- The notion that Europeans see the world differently from HP is interesting. I am not sure how European Autonomy was. My view is that Autonomy’s senior management acquired companies and did upselling. As a result, only Autonomy broke through the glass ceilings behind which Endeca, Exalead, ISYS, and Fast Search & Transfer were trapped. Before applying business school logic to Autonomy, perhaps one should look at how other acquired search vendors have paid off. The list is, based on my research, a short one indeed. Microsoft, for example, has made Fast Search a component of SharePoint. With Fast Search nearing or at its end of life, Microsoft faces more search challenges, not fewer. HP may find itself with facing more challenges than it expects.
- The notion of “broader applications” is a popular one. Dassault Systèmes, acquired Exalead, which is arguably better and more recent technology than IDOL. But Dassault’s senior managers continue to look for ways to convert a more modest expenditure for Exalead into a river of revenue. Dassault has a global approach and many excellent managers. Even for such an exceptional firm, search is not what it seemed to be; that is, a broad application which slots into to many customer needs. Reality, based on my research for The New Landscape of Search, is different from the business school map.
HP is making an trip which other companies have taken before. My view is that HP will have to find answers the these questions, which were not part of the interview cited above:
First, how will HP pay off the purchase price, grow Autonomy’s revenue, and generate enough money to have an impact on HP’s net profit? My work has pointed out that cost control is the major problem search vendors face. It takes money to explain a system no matter how productized it becomes. It takes money to support that technology. It takes money to enhance that system. It takes money to hire people who can do the work. In short, search becomes a bright blip on most CFOs’ radar screens. HP may be different, but I am not sure that the cost issue will remain off the radar for very long.
Second, IDOL is a complex collection of software components. The core is Bayesian, but much of the ancillary IDOL are the add ons, enhancements, and features which have been created and applied to base system over the last two decades. Yep, two decades. In search, most of the systems which have figured in big deals in the last two years date from the mid to late 1990s. The more modern systems are not search at all. These new systems leap frog key word search and push into high value opportunities. HP may be forced to buy one of more of these next generation systems just to stay in the “beyond search” game.
Third, HP is a large company and it faces considerable competition in software. What makes HP interesting is that it has not been able to make its services business offset the decline in personal computers and ink. HP now wants to prove that it can make services work, but as the Inquirer pointed out in mid August 2012:
HP’s write-down of EDS might have resulted in just a paper loss – the firm didn’t actually lose $9bn in cash – but it provides an insight into how a decade of mismanagement has left HP in a bad situation. The fact is that HP cannot lay the blame on diminishing PC sales because its enterprise business, printing and services divisions all reported losses, too. For HP to write down the purchase of EDS, a company it paid $13.9bn for just four years ago, strongly suggests that those who were at the helm of HP in the run-up to that acquisition simply had no clue as to how much EDS was really worth and how to incorporate the company into HP. The value of any company can go down over time – just look at AOL, Microsoft or Yahoo – but for an established business such as EDS to be overvalued by almost $10bn just four years after being acquired is nothing short of gross incompetence by HP in both the purchase and the subsequent handling of the firm once it became a part of HP.
I don’t fully agree with the Inquirer’s viewpoint. But one fact remains: HP must demonstrate that it can manage a complex business based on IDOL, a technology which is not a spring chicken. The man who did manage Autonomy to almost $1 billion in sales is not longer with HP. In the history of enterprise search and content processing, Mike Lynch was unique. Perhaps the loss of that talent will continue to impact HP’s plans for a different approach to the market for Autonomy’s technology?
Life extension treatments are available, but these often do not work as expected and can be expensive. Most fail in the end.
Stephen E Arnold, September 25, 2012
Sponsored by Augmentext
The IDC Predicts Future IT Spending
September 26, 2012
Read Write Web recently reported on new information released by the IDC in the article, “IT Spending Up- But That Doesn’t Mean More IT Jobs.”
According to the article, IT spending is predicted to increase 6% globally, but that does not correlate with IT job growth. This is due to the fact that the IT spending is replacing IT jobs and hardware with automated software and services.
Despite a lack of spending on hardware over the past three years, the IDC expects to see more PC and hardware sales due to the consumer purchases of Windows 8.
Another reason that IT spending is increasing has to do with the amount that employees are spending on smartphones and tablet devices that are becoming more and more necessary in the corporate work environment.
The article states:
“In the last 18 months, Minton and his colleagues at IDC have seen a steady rise in Chief Information Offices who are giving up on stopping employees from bringing in their own hardware. Many are now considering subsidization programs that let the employee purchase a system of their own.
While this type of spending decentralizes IT expenditures and creates more heterogeneous corporate environments, Minton also believes it actually increases the rate of IT spending. “When business users have more choice, they are enthusiastically buying more powerful hardware,” Minton said.”
The tech estimates are certainly fascinating. We are looking forward to see if these predictions come to fruition.
Jasmine Ashton, September 26, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Salesforce CEO Explains the Importance of Philanthropy in Business
September 26, 2012
ZDNET recently reported on a TechCrunch interview with Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff in the article, “Salesforce CEO Gets Candid About Google, Facebook and Yammer.”
In addition to saying mostly good things about Yammer, Google and even Facebook, he also gave some unique advice to entrepreneurs. Benioff emphasized the importance of philanthropy when building a company:
“In describing his number one recommendation to startups, Benioff explained, “Yes, we’re going to change technology, but don’t forget about helping other people because it’s so easy.”
Adding that “the greatest assets you have are the people working with you,” Benioff cited a program in which Salesforce employees are given six days off each year with pay for volunteer work.
“It’s very exciting, and I’m telling you, it’s the great, great feeling you get that money’s never going to give you,” Benioff exclaimed. “It’s the feeling you’ve actually done something worthwhile.”
Sounds like some excellent advice for aspiring entrepreneurs from a successful tech company. We’re also looking forward to the release of Dreamforce ‘12.
Jasmine Ashton, September 26, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
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