Hadoop Heats Up with New Startups
May 8, 2013
While there is some controversy over whether Hadoop is the only necessary tool to mine opportunities from big data, Hadoop and insights from big data seem to be synonymous according to Datamation’s recent article. They give us the rundown on “Seven Hot Hadoop Startups that Will Tame Big Data.”
According to this article, the current Hadoop ecosytem market is worth around $77 million. With growth, the value is projected to be at $813 million by 2016. The article notes that Hadoop has not been proven as completely effective in the enterprise world. Queries are still a weak point.
The article discusses seven startups that intend on seeing Hadoop through into maturity like Alpine Data Labs. The following excerpt explains why they are on this list:
“According to Alpine Data, part of the problem is that it’s much too difficult to get real insights out of Hadoop and other parallel platforms. Most companies don’t know what to do with massive datasets, and few have gotten any further with Hadoop than batch processing and basic querying. Alpine Data set out to simplify machine-learning methods and make them available on petabyte-scale datasets. Their tools make these methods available in a lightweight web application with a code-free, drag-and-drop interface.”
With the amount of attention on Hadoop over the years, Hadoop start ups are not a commodity. A list featuring a selection of the new ones to watch is much appreciated. Check out the full and useful list of hot Hadoop start ups.
Megan Feil, May 08, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Barclays Capital and the HP Autonomy Matter
May 7, 2013
Some of the UK newspapers pop up boxes wanting me to subscribe. Nice try, but I don’t follow too much of the England, Ireland, Scotland action. As fascinating as the Cotswolds may be, most of the business news from England is a bit depressing and irrelevant to life here in Harrod’s Creek. My subscribing to the major UK dailies online is simply not yet compelling. But once in a while an information truffle comes to my attention.
Economy Watch presented this somewhat troubling picture of England’s economy. For a discussion of the data, please, navigate to http://www.economywatch.com/world_economy/england/.
I did notice in one of my Overflights this story, however: “Barclays Capital Accused in Autonomy Lawsuit.” (If the link goes bad, you will have to hunt around for the story or look at a hard copy of the paper in a library.)
The main idea is that HP spent $11 billion for Autonomy. A short time later, HP wrote off about $9 billion, making the deal for Autonomy apparently worth $2 billion. Here’s was the Telegraph said about a shareholder lawsuit which named the top brass of HP among others as allegedly responsible for the misstep:
“HP’s financial advisor, Barclays, was conflicted in advising the board while simultaneously underwriting the financing of the deal,” the lawsuit states. “Compounding the problem, after the acquisition closed, HP’s fiduciaries misrepresented the facts to conceal their own failings,” it [the shareholder lawsuit] added.
What I find interesting is that the difference between what HP paid and at what the write down pegs the “value” is still a hefty number for a search and content processing company. Autonomy was the pre-eminent search vendor, and it did a good job of surviving and growing as other vendors failed. Consider that Autonomy survived and reach nearly $1 billion in revenues as Convera, Entopia, Delphes, Siderean and others disappeared.
My view is that Autonomy’s success continues to give venture firms and entrepreneurs hope that an enterprise search, business intelligence, or content analytics firm can deliver hundreds of millions in revenue. Since the roll up wave of the high profile search vendors has come and gone, the companies which want to fill the void look at the Autonomy deal as a benchmark.
What I find interesting is that like the Microsoft purchase of Fast Search & Transfer, the big European deals have been dogged by by questions about the financial underpinnings of the company. The smaller deals—Dassault”s purchase of Exalead, IBM’s deal for Vivisimo, Lexmark’s one-two deals for Brainware and ISYS Search Software, and Oracle’s acquisition of Endeca—have been largely without excitement. The search “technology” has morphed into functions which enhance the owners’ enterprise systems. I would note that most of these acquired search technologies were aging at the time of the buyouts in my opinion. ISYS, I believe, dates from the late 1980s.
Are some companies unable to manage, value, and leverage their search acquisitions? I was reminded yesterday that 20 somethings and slick MBAs have figured out how to make money from search. I listened, of courser. But in the back of my mind, it seems that most of the still standing search vendors are in the business of raising money. Making sales and growing a business, for some, is a secondary activity.
Which enterprise search vendors are demonstrating organic growth and generating sufficient cash to support and enhance their products? When I think about the mad rush to convert search technology into something to tackle big data or mine nuggets in real time data, I wonder if a “willing suspension of disbelief” is the defining characteristic of those who pump millions upon millions into search and content processing.
Technology is enhanced by marketing. Smart money seems to believe the public relations. The actual financial performance drifts to a secondary role.
Who’s affected? According to the shareholders, executives and bankers. Here’s the phrase in the estimable Telegraph’s lingo: “disastrous purchase of Autonomy.”
Disastrous is a colorful notion when applied to enterprise search and its related disciplines, isn’t it?
Stephen E Arnold, May 7, 2013
Sponsored by Augmentext
Liferay Adds Turnkey Business Solutions
May 7, 2013
Liferay is a leading open source portal for the enterprise. They specialize in developing a marketplace where users can find open source solutions that work together and increase efficiency. Their latest addition is a partnership with TIBCO Software which will bring enterprise Connectivity Adapters (eC Adapters) to the portal in Q3 2013. Read more in the press release, “Liferay Announces Strategic Partnership with TIBCO.”
The article says:
“Following the availability of the Liferay eC Adapters, Liferay’s partner ecosystem will be able to leverage the same cost advantages for developing turnkey business solutions that integrate into backend systems using the ActiveMatrix BusinessWorks™ adapters and plugins. Each solution will contain a portal-based application that can connect through ActiveMatrix BusinessWorks to backend systems, providing a complete solution at a significant price advantage.”
Liferay does offer a unique solution in that enterprises can pick and choose, putting together a customized solution from options available via one marketplace and portal. However, some smaller enterprises may find it difficult or overwhelming to try to put together a customized enterprise solution. For those organizations, a smart, scalable out-of-the-box solution might be a better fit. LucidWorks offers an open source enterprise search solution that is ready to go quickly, but offers the scalability and customization options that will allow the solution to go further. Best of all, LucidWorks is built on the power of Apache Lucene and Solr, boasting one of the strongest developer communities in open source.
Emily Rae Aldridge, May 7, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
From Journalism to Churnalism
May 7, 2013
The Sunlight Foundation and Media Standards Trust have collaborated on a joint project to address plagiarism in the media. Their creation? A web tool and browser extension, Churnalism US. We took a look at The Sunlight Foundation’s recent article on it: “Churnalism: Discover When News Copies from Other Sources.”
The browser extension will be available for Chrome, Internet Explorer and Firefox (full approval pending). The process works by enabling Churnalism to extract article text from a whitelist of common news sites. When it finds a match, it lets you know when the text you are reading might have been copied from another source. The capabilities of this extension are driven by open-source text analysis technology.
Curious about how this would look? We were too, but the luckily this article dove into those details:
“For some anecdotal evidence from my experience using Churnalism, I’ve found a number of instances of articles about science topics relying heavily on press releases and study summaries. For example, take this piece on the BBC website about epilepsy and migraines. Churnalism found a significant portion of the text came from this press release in EurekaAlert! and let me know with a ribbon notification on the top of the page. By tapping the Show Me button on the notification, Churnalism overlays a side-by-side display of the article and the possible match with copied text highlighted for easy comparison.”
With the need for information to be delivered in real-time and the proliferation of sources available to an ever expanding and niche-oriented audience, it is no wonder that there are enough “churnalists” to warrant this browser extension. Since we curate, we must be churnalists too.
Megan Feil, May 07, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
More Stats from Azure Chip Consultants
May 7, 2013
Would you guess that enterprise organizations spend more money on hardware or software? The Register tells us that the world spends about twice as much money on enterprise software as it does on data center hardware. The article “The Enterprise Software Gravy Train Stalled in 2012” discusses the fact that software is where IT makes much of its profit so when revenue does not increase as much as in previous years, the entire IT industry is impacted.
IDC has released the numbers for the enterprise software market for 2012 and the growth rate ended up at 3.6 percent.
The article tells us that IDC split the enterprise software space into three parts (applications, infrastructure and virtualization):
“The application segment, at $167.9bn, accounted for 49 per cent of the pie last year and was growing at only 3.3 per cent. Within this segment, customer relationship management and collaboration apps had 7 per cent growth, and various enterprise social apps (which are starting from a very small base) grew revenues by 24.8 per year.”
Only time will tell how how these sectors will continue to evolve. In the meantime, azure chip consultants will continue promulgating some interesting statistics.
Megan Feil, May 07, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Prepare for Google Glass
May 7, 2013
Even though the average person sitting behind their laptop or smartphone screen may have seen the advertisements for Google Glass, they will not likely be wearing Google’s new product any time soon – and not just for price reasons. Computer World dishes the scoop in: “Schmidt Says Google Glass Still A Year Away.”
According to Google’s Eric Schmidt, they are already in the hands of the first developers and thousands will be in use over the next months; changes will be made based on feedback through these trial runs.
The referenced article quotes Schmidt’s interview with BBC:
“In general, these kinds of body-wear devices will bring about a whole bunch of such concerns,’ he said during the taped interview. ‘The fact of the matter is we’ll have to develop a whole new social etiquette. It’s obviously not appropriate to wear these glasses in situations where recording is not correct. We already have these situations with phones.’”
Google Glass may not be ready for prime time. However, Schmidt’s comments allude to the idea that the average prime time audience may not be ready for Glass yet either. The ongoing conversation about digital manners and social norms in the Information Age continues.
Megan Feil, May 07, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
More Cool Vendors: A Chill Wind?
May 6, 2013
I was interested in the four news items in my alert system. A large consulting firm, which I think “invented” the notion of “business intelligence”, identified four companies as “Cool Vendors.” I was not familiar with any of these firms: Cloud Sherpas, Glue Networks, Nintex, and Reveille.
Here’s a snippet from the Reveille news release I saw:
The Cool Vendors in Content Management 2013 report provides IT and business buyers with innovative solutions to help them to create, manage, and access their information better. The analysis focused on providing solutions to support content on-the-go, improved collaboration capabilities and more effective management of the applications delivering the content.
And I noted from the Glue Networks’ item this passage:
Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
There are many lists generated, including those from one of the publications for which I write a for-fee column. My questions include:
- How does a company get on a “list”?
- Are the lists useful if the organization generating the list does not have some confidence in the listee’s business viability?
- Are these lists of most use to insurance, real estate, and other commercial enterprises trying to sell the listee something?
When I read lists for anything, now more than ever I feel a chill marketing wind, not the hot breath of customer buzz. If a reader can shed light on these lists, please, use the comments section of the blog?
Stephen E Arnold, May 6, 2013
Sponsored by Augmentext
LucidWorks Receives Top Honors from Gartner
May 6, 2013
In the world of information technology, Gartner is the standard in quality IT research and advisory. Their ranking and awards truly mean something to others in the industry. For this reason, when LucidWorks received their latest commendation from Gartner, people paid attention. Read the full report in the article, “LucidWorks Positioned in the ‘Challengers’ Quadrant of the Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Search.”
The report begins:
‘”The LucidWorks product suite transforms the technical and distribution innovations of open source into a cost-effective, commercial-grade solution for building the next generation of business-critical applications,’ said Paul Doscher , president and CEO of LucidWorks. ‘We believe that being named in the ‘Challengers’ quadrant of the Gartner Enterprise Search Magic Quadrant validates the capabilities and flexibility of our existing suite and the business and product roadmaps we are implementing.’”
This is the first ranking of the Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Search by Gartner. Google, Oracle, and Microsoft were listed as the only three in the “leaders” ranking. The significance of being named as a challenger is that LucidWorks is in a strong enough position to join those big names at the top of the list in the near future. With their investment in a strong open source infrastructure, and their eye toward innovation, LucidWorks will be in the leader category very soon.
Emily Rae Aldridge, May 6, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Current Technology: Hollywood Perception Versus Reality
May 6, 2013
Technology has saved the day on more than one occasion but Ars Technica discusses a recent situation where it fell short: identifying the images of the Tsarnaev brothers. The article “Boston Police Chief: Facial Recognition Tech Didn’t Help Find Bombing Suspects” tells us more.
Where the Boston Police Commission’s facial recognition system failed, good old video surveillance was there to pick up the slack.
The referenced article quotes from the Washington Post:
‘’The work was painstaking and mind-numbing: One agent watched the same segment of video 400 times. The goal was to construct a timeline of images, following possible suspects as they moved along the sidewalks, building a narrative out of a random jumble of pictures from thousands of different phones and cameras. It took a couple of days, but analysts began to focus on two men in baseball caps who had brought heavy black bags into the crowd near the marathon’s finish line but left without those bags.’”
While technology may look glamorously at its zenith, this recent situation makes it clear that we are not necessarily light-years ahead of the technology available to consumers. Software still has some hurdles to clear despite science fiction movies’ assertions.
Megan Feil, May 06, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Bing Ads Gains Ground Against Google AdWords
May 6, 2013
A recent report from AdGooRoo highlights the ongoing Bing-Google faceoff, revealing some surprises alongside results we could have anticipated. Search Engine Journal informs us, “AddGooRoo Report Pits Bing Ads Against Google AdWords in Six U.S. Verticals.” The study compared 2012-third-quarter results of Google‘s AdWords with those of Bing Ads offered by the hybrid Yahoo-Bing network, and shows Google’s competition gaining ground. The article tells us:
“It is a given in 21st century America that web surfers are going to use Google’s high powered, ever present search engine to look for something on the internet. Web surfers at home and SEO professionals in the workplace know this fact, and the statistics prove it. Google handles two-thirds of search queries in the U.S. each year, but there is competition that could be growing.
“A recent report from AdGooRoo sought to gauge the success of the Yahoo! Bing network in gaining market share against Google. Few web users even realize that the Yahoo! Bing network accounts for nearly one-third of the search queries in the U.S., representing the next largest share of the market behind Google.”
AdGooRoo compared the performance of paid search in six areas (aka verticals): retail, financial services, travel, education, computer/internet, and business to business. In the realm of ad impressions (how often an ad is displayed), BingAds actually outperformed AdWords in the financial-services vertical. Analysts suspect the popularity of that topic at Yahoo‘s and MSDN‘s sites, both of which redirect to Bing, boosted the numbers. It is no surprise that Google still leads handily in retail, but BingAds came close in the remaining verticals.
The picture changes when we consider the all-important click-through rate, however. AdWords still crushes the competition there in every column. Writer Federico Einhorn says analysts attribute the lead to a superior ad-serving system, but notes it could also have to do with Google’s enhanced customization controls, implemented earlier this year. Whatever the case, this is an exercise in “you get what you pay for;” the study found that advertisers pay more per click with AdWords than with Bing Ads. Not surprisingly, many advertisers subscribe to both systems. That is probably a good call.
Cynthia Murrell, May 06, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
