Enterprises Move Away from Oracle
June 19, 2013
Recent news tells us that Netflix, Openwave Messaging, and Ooyala have moved away from Oracle and into the DataStax fold. DataStax is an Apache Cassandra based enterprise and Big Data solution centered on NoSQL database architecture. The latest news by ZDNet is offered in their article, “DataStax CEO: Open source databases onslaught for Oracle.”
The article begins:
“Enterprises are increasingly moving to open source database to cut their dependence on Oracle, Apache Cassandra has a strong community resistant to fracturing and business leaders are calling the tech shots at first over CIOs. Those are some of the key takeaways from my chat with DataStax CEO Billy Bosworth. Bosworth, a former Oracle database admin and executive at Quest Software, has been pushing an enterprise version of the Apache Cassandra NoSQL database platform.”
While NoSQL databases are making a strong showing, there are other open source search architectures to choose from as well. For instance, LucidWorks builds its value-added open source search and Big Data solutions on top of the trusted power of Apache Lucene Solr. But LucidWorks sets itself apart by offering an industry-leading support and services package, which sets enterprise developers and users at ease.
Emily Rae Aldridge, June 19, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Hewlett Packard Versus IBM: The Poobah Viewpoint
June 18, 2013
I read “Hewlett Packard Can’t Afford to Let Competition Keep Winning.” I thought the title should be, “HP Is a Loser and Lunch for IBM” or “HP: The Deer in IBM’s Headlights.” I found the write up more about the wonderfulness of IBM and its prescient executives than about the proud owner of Autonomy and marketer of Haven.
In my opinion, here’s the key passage from the write up:
HP was overmatched because it didn’t see IBM’s move for what it was and accordingly adjust its event to appear competitive. This is the second time this year I’ve seen HP choose to ignore what IBM said to an influential audience and, as a result, appear out of step. Marketing, not individual product groups or the office of the CEO, drove the message at IBM Edge. IBM came to Las Vegas to do battle, while HP came to give executives face time. This was like bringing a knife to a gun fight.
One quite remarkable revelation in the analysis of the seemingly hapless HP was a discussion of Watson. Watson, as I like to point out, won a game show. After cracking problems in health care, Watson is working in food service. Fascinating résumé for a smart search engine.
The write up makes this point about “taking Watson to the next level”:
Each Watson use case has significant global implications that could improve quality of life and prevent a variety of significant problems.
Use cases? The write up does not mention Jeopardy. But the write up points out that Wellpoint can save lives with Watson. No facts were offered to support this point, but I am sure there is ample evidence available. Also, Watson can improve cyber security. Again, not much detail was available, but the assertion seems possible. The Pew Charitable Trusts are using Watson with “other IBM technologies” to reduce maybe/possibly election fraud. I presume IBM’s Big Data technologies would help deliver the bacon.
I find this type of analysis fascinating. On one hand, the arguments sound so darned reasonable. On the other, the facts are in short supply.
HP and IBM, in my opinion, are worthy competitors. A consulting firm which is downsizing and a struggling ink vendor make an interesting enterprise dust up.
Stephen E Arnold, June 18, 2013
Sponsored by Xenky, the portal to ArnoldIT
Contrasting Scenarios in Google Glass Forecast
June 18, 2013
A report from services firm IHS conjures up a number best served with a grain of salt. Electronic engineering site EE Times reports, “Spurred by Google Glass, IHS Forecasts Nearly 10 Million Smart Glasses to Ship from 2012 to 2016.” The forecast looks past the public-availability launch, expected next year, and predicts the device’s trajectory after that.
Quite simply, it all depends on third-party apps. A number of developers have already paid $1,500 for the privilege of early ownership, and early tinkering. Perhaps developers will quickly create a wealth of exciting augmented-reality apps, driving a surge in popularity for the device. Perhaps these apps will change the way we interact with the world forever, and our Glasses will eventually become as essential as our smartphones are now. The rosiest numbers in the report spring from that direction.
There are other possibilities, however. Writer Julien Happich shares the predictions’ duller side:
“Under a more pessimistic scenario, IHS forecasts that only about 1 million smart glasses will be shipped through 2016. According to this outlook, applications for smart glasses will be limited to some of those already displayed by Google in its Glass marketing. These include scenarios where smart glasses become more of a wearable camera device than a true augmented reality system. In this case, smart glasses will be mainly used for recording sports and other non-casual events, like jumping out of a plane, as demonstrated at the Google I/O developer conference in 2012.”
At over $200 million in 2012, the wearable-camera market is nothing to sneeze at, but it is far from the multi-billion-dollar arena Google is after here. Perhaps the truth is somewhere in between. The future of Glass is in the apps; we’ll just have to wait and see what developers come up with.
Cynthia Murrell, June 18, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Productivity Not Only Achieved with Tech
June 18, 2013
When the word productivity comes to mind, the logical next association for many is the idea of apps. TUAW shows that some people want nothing to do with pen and paper and others do not know how to live without it. But when it comes down to it, most people use a mix of the two types of resources (traditional and technologically advanced) to efficiently move through their daily routine. The article “Productivity Tip: When and How to Use Paper vs Software” explains more.
For example, the author of this post has created a simple task board in addition to using apps like 30/30 and OmniFocus for his regular activities that do not fall under the category of projects but are also not daily tasks.
He calls these pommes:
“Each one of these “pommes” typically maps to a context in OmniFocus (and GTD, for that matter), and they represent the many hats I wear at TUAW. Each one is meant to be completed (more or less) in under 30 minutes. Some days I don’t feel like digging into a lot of research, or maybe I just want to focus on writing. By putting them up on the board and being able to easily see them right there in front of me, I’m quickly able to see how much I’ve done or not done. Yes, I have tasks and projects in OmniFocus, but this allows me to structure my day around types of tasks, and greatly reduces the stress and feeling of being overwhelmed with ‘too much to do.’ I’m still working on this system, but on my most productive days it’s a good way to batch my time.”
Acknowledging the limits of paper and the limits of technology and combing the power of those two sectors can result in a powerful workflow. It makes us wonder though, is thumb typing the future and will there be a day where young students are no longer taught about paper and pencils?
Megan Feil, June 18, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Businesses Lukewarm on Google Plus
June 18, 2013
Companies have not flocked to Google+, and many businesses which have joined the service let their accounts lie fallow. Reuters reports on this unsurprising trend in, “Analysis—Google+ Struggles to Attract Brands, Some Neglect to Update.”
Yes, Facebook and Twitter are the hotbeds of enterprise social-media initiatives, while latecomer Google+ has struggled for relevance. The service has had a few business success stories. Fiat, for example, launched a new car through the site’s Hangout video-conferencing feature, while Cadbury hosts a thriving baking-community page. And there is no doubt that even companies who maintain the humblest of Google+ presences receive a boost in Google Search results. Still, overall corporate activity on the Googley social site is sparse.
Why the disparity? The biggest issue is, of course, that Google+ has attracted very few users compared to its main rivals. That is not all, though. The article tells us:
“Some also complain that Google+ is too restrictive a canvas. Its profile pages are more limited than on Facebook or Twitter because they don’t support iFrame, a Web standard that allows multiple Web pages to be embedded within a main page.
“‘I don’t think that Google+ has enough creative options for brands to be able to marshal a lot of resources and activity around it,’ said Vince Broady, the Chief Executive of Thismoment, which develops social marketing campaigns and Web pages for brands such as Coca Cola and Intel.
“Gretchen Howard, Google’s director of global social solutions, said the company was working its way down a ‘wish list’ of features that businesses have been asking for.”
So, it looks like the company is addressing the issue. Will it be too little too late?
Cynthia Murrell, June 18, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
DataStax and Data Driven Clouds
June 18, 2013
DataStax uses an Apache Cassandra based NoSQL platform, which is widely gaining an advantage over relational database competitors. Silicon Angle covers the latest DataStax news in its article, “DataStax and The New Rules Of Data-Driven Clouds – Breaking the Oracle Chains.”
The article begins:
“Big Data is accessible for any organization – whether big or small, reaching across the spectrum of data demands, in clouds throughout the world – and your best possible data infrastructure can be achieved quickly, easily and with cost-effectiveness with DataStax and Apache Cassandra. In a recent conversation with DataStax CEO Billy Bosworth, we talked about the growing market and infrastructure opportunities that are steadily being realized with their enterprise-ready big data platform.”
Enterprise-ready Big Data is indeed a big market. Others are successfully competing. LucidWorks focuses on Apache Lucene Solr as its architecture, as opposed to a NoSQL platform. In addition to a customizable out-of-the-box solution, LucidWorks also boasts industry leading support and services, which sets it apart from the pack. LucidWorks Big Data is indeed an enterprise-ready Big Data platform, ready to go toe-to-toe with the best that DataStax has to offer.
Emily Rae Aldridge, June 18, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Search’XPR Interview Available
June 17, 2013
The developer of Oorace is Search’XPR. The company has set up operations in New York to complement its two offices in France. You can read an exclusive interview with Jean-Luc Marini. I will explore the idea of software which goes beyond key word retrieval and facets in an upcoming KMWorld column. In the meantime, check out the interview on Search Wizards Speak. SWS is the largest collection of first-person explanations of concepts in search, content processing, and analytics. The entire collection is available from the index at http://arnoldit.com/wordpress/wizards-index/.
Stephen E Arnold, June 17, 2013
Sponsored by Xenky, the portal to ArnoldIT
Creatively Finding Work
June 17, 2013
Yahoo Finance has an interesting section called “Ask Stacy”. A recent question came from the parents of an unemployed MBA: “Why Can’t My Son Find Work?” Apparently this particular recent graduate has still not found a job after two and half years and chalks his lack of offers up to his lack of experience.
Stacy outlines several more optimistic reasons: he’s not applying for the right job, not applying in the right industry and not interviewing well are some of the no-brainers.
We found it intriguing that the author also suggests the elusive advice to “think outside the box”. Instead of simply asking a friend who works for a potential employer for a connection, someone who thinks outside the box would do the following:
“You’d use the Internet to find out everything you could about the company and the specific people doing the hiring. Then you’d use that information to get close to them. You’d find out what clubs they belong to and join them. You’d find out what kind of volunteer work they do and do it. You might even “accidentally” run into them at their favorite watering hole. Heck, you might find out where the company president plays golf and slip a course employee $50 to make sure you were placed in his foursome.”
Thinking outside the box to us means something more along the lines of creating a new company or forging an innovative career path that merges two previously less connected fields. However, chasing down employers in creative ways can work too. That is, if the candidate is truly up to snuff — which will still remain the most important factor.
Megan Feil, June 17, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
The Intersection Between Justice and Journalism
June 17, 2013
BBC reports on an interesting issue in their article about a leak that prompted the seizure of Associated Press phone records. An AP story about a terror plot that didn’t materialize was said to be based on a leak of classified information. US Attorney General Eric Holder is one of the feature subjects in BBC’s article on the subject, “Eric Holder Says Leak to AP was ‘Very Serious’.”
The phone records were taken in April and May of 2012 to cover the timeframe when AP published an article about a CIA operation in Yemen to disrupt an al-Qaeda plot to blow up a US-bound plane. This was near the anniversary of Osama Bin Laden’s death and the May 2012 story could have embarrassed the US authorities after their announcement to the public that no such attack was planned.
According to the article,
“The news agency called the seizure a ‘massive and unprecedented intrusion’. On Tuesday, Mr Holder said he had removed himself early on from the investigation that led to the records subpoena out of ‘an abundance of caution’, because he wanted to avoid any conflict of interest. He said he had been interviewed by the FBI in June 2012 in connection with the investigation into a possible leak of classified information.”
The attorney general said that this was among the top two or three serious leaks he had seen since he has been a prosecutor since 1976. What an interesting struggle between the powers of justice and the “fourth branch”.
Megan Feil, June 17, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Interests Begat Quantity and Quality of Information
June 17, 2013
Making the transition from print to web, there is no question that journalism has evolved much over the last several years. Fast Company Labs has looked into another major questions in journalism: do people want short or long articles? The article, ”This is What Happens When Publishers Invest in Long Stories,” sheds some light on longer pieces akin to “slow live blogging.”
These “slow live blogging” articles take a mindful approach that information does note always develop in real time and stories can be built upon over time. These super-long articles start out being posted initially as stub stories.
The article tells us more about the processing for developing a stub story into something more grandiose:
“But when more news breaks, you go back to the article, insert an update at the top, and change the headline and subheadline (known in our business as the “hed” and “dek”) to reflect the update. Our system updates the story “slug” when the headline changes–check the URL of this story, and you’ll see words from the headline in the URL: /this-is-what-happens-when-publishers-invest-in-long-stories. But the number preceding the slug–on this article, it’s 3009577–is a unique node ID which never changes. So essentially, every time we update an article, we get a fresh URL with a fresh headline, but pointing back to the same (newly updated) article. So, it’s like having many URLs and many headlines which lead back to the same big, multi-faceted article. We called these “Tracking” stories.”
The article delves into a longer sub-section on the motivation behind these long stories. As one might guess, quality and depth of information are at the forefront and Fast Company has seen a spike in average visit duration numbers. Short content or length — where there is an interest, there will be an information source.
Megan Feil, June 17, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
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