LucidWorks Offers Enterprise Analytics Webinar
July 5, 2013
LucidWorks is offering an exciting series of webinars this July as part of their commitment to training and service. Check out their next webinar, “Operationalize Enterprise Analytics – Similarity Search at Any Scale.”
The introduction to the upcoming session begins:
“How do you introduce big data analytics into your daily business, foster rapid adoption, and ensure a return on your investment? Similarity Search provides a foundation for enterprise analytics that can be operationalized by delivering advanced, automated data exploration capability. Learn how Similarity Search can significantly increase productivity across a broad spectrum of data search use cases.”
A dream team of experts is collaborating including Grant Ingersoll of LucidWorks, Christine Connors of Knowledgent, and Ted Dunning of MapR. These solutions have formed recent partnerships and collaborations in order to further the case of open source search across the enterprise. Fill out the simple form to register for this free session and instructions will be sent via email for viewing. Keep an eye on LucidWorks and their training hub, SearchHub.org for ongoing training opportunities.
Emily Rae Aldridge, July 5, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
01Business and Search
July 4, 2013
Take a look at the article about Sinequa. Just run a query in the next few days at www.01net.com. The story presents some interesting information.
Stephen E Arnold, July 5, 2013
Stephen E Arnold, July 4, 2013
Sponsored by Xenky, the portal to ArnoldIT where you can find the world’s largest collection of first-person explanations of enterprise search
Oracle and Business Intelligence Reality
July 4, 2013
I don’t know if this Computerworld write up is accurate. For the purposes of the addled goose, let’s assume that it is semi-accurate. The story is “Oracle Quietly Slashes BI Software Prices.” Now “BI” for those in the know means “business intelligence.” I am not sure what “business intelligence” means. I have some evidence to suggest that, like “military intelligence,” we have a trendy oxymoron.
I am okay with stealthy price increases. Every time I visit the Kia dealership to fix up my small Kia Soul, I know that what I think the cost will be and what the final cost will be are two very different types of number tweaking. Is enterprise software any different? I think agile pricing is pretty much the name of the game. I bought two tubes of toothpaste. When I presented my “affiliate” card, the price dropped. Then I was told if I bought another tube of toothpaste, I would get an additional discount. Car repairs, toothpaste, enterprise software — those MBAs and bean counters have figured an angle.
The point of the Computerworld write up is that Oracle (the company which owns Endeca) offers a business foundation suite. Endeca morphed from a search and eCommerce company into business intelligence years ago. The Computerworld story does not mention Endeca, which I find interesting. If one pays $1 billion or more for an acquisition which is in the business intelligence business, why isn’t Endeca part of the BI Foundation Suite?
Here’s the purportedly accurate pricing:
BI Foundation Suite encompasses Oracle BI Enterprise Edition 11g, BI Publisher, Essbase, Scorecard and Strategy Management, and Essbase Analytics Link, according to an official whitepaper. The new price list also lowers the price of BI Suite Enterprise Edition Plus from $295,000 to $221,250, as well as Scorecard and Strategy Management from $149,250 to $89,550.
The Computerworld story quotes an expert that there may be a catch in Oracle’s enterprise software pricing. Do you think that’s possible?
Another interesting item from the article is the unsupported assertion about Oracle’s revenue growth from business intelligence:
However, Oracle’s BI revenue grew by 2 percent in 2012, compared to SAP’s 0.6 percent BI growth rate that year, Gartner said.
The economy is not so good. Why is pricing such a slippery issue? Perhaps the growth is coming from efforts akin to climbing a mountain in bad weather? Maybe the traditional customers are struggling to find value from software which offers “business intelligence”?
My hunch is that like toothpaste pricing the economy is forcing big companies to increase their pricing agility. Maybe there will be an enterprise software loyalty card? If so, I want one. I am fascinated by cascading and fluid discounts.
Stephen E Arnold, July 4, 2013
Sponsored by Xenky
PRatronizer Alert: Have Info for ArnoldIT? Proceed with Caution
July 4, 2013
I am not a journalist. My academic training is in medieval poetry in Latin. I was lucky to get out of high school, college, and a couple of graduate programs. Few people embraced my interest in indexing medieval Latin manuscripts. Among those who made the most fun of my interests were those in journalism school, electrical engineers, and people studying to be middle school teachers.
In graduate school, the mathematics majors found my work interesting and offered grudging respect because one of my relatives was Vladimir Ivanovich Arnold, a co-worker with that so-so math guy, the long distance hiker Andrey Kolmogorov.
I have, therefore, some deep seated skepticism about “real” journalists, folks who carry around soldering irons, and the aforementioned middle school teachers.
Last week I received a semi-snarky email about one of my articles. The person writing me shall remain nameless. I have assembled some thoughts designed to address his question, “Why did you not mention [company A] and [company B] in your article about desktop search. I think this was a for fee column which appeared in KMWorld, but I can’t be sure. My team and I produce a number of “articles” every day, and I am not a librarian, another group granted an exemption from my anti journalist, anti EE, and anti middle school stance.
Let me highlight the points which are important to me. I understand that you, gentle reader, probably do not have much interest. But this is my blog and I am not a journalist.
First, each of my for fee columns which run in four different publications focus on something “sort of” connected to search, online, analytics, knowledge management (whatever that means), and the even more indefinable content processing. I write about topics which my team suggests might be interesting to people younger and smarter than I. In short, PR people stay away. I pay professionals to identify topics for me. I don’t need help from you. I don’t need the PR attitude which I call “PRantronizing.” Is this clear enough? Do not spam me with crazy “news” releases. Do not call me and pretend we are pals. When a call came in yesterday, I was in a meeting with a law librarian. I put the call on the speaker phone and told the caller to know whom she buzzes before she pretends we are pals. The PRatronizer was annoyed. The law librarian said, “None of us on your team are that friendly to you. Heck, I don’t think you are my friend after four years of daily work.” My reaction, “That’s why you are sitting here with me and the PRatronizer is dealing with a firm, ‘Get lost.’”
IMs from 19 Year Old Mark Zuckerberg Reveal Cavalier Attitude Toward Privacy
July 4, 2013
The article on Business Insider titled Well, These New Zuckerberg IMs Won’t Help Facebook’s Privacy Problems addresses an exchange Zuckerberg had in college recently after launching Facebook. In sum, he offers his friend information on anyone at Harvard, and when asked how he got access to all of that information, he stated that people just posted it, because they trust him, followed by an expletive aimed at all the people dumb enough to trust him, which now includes over a billion people. The article explains,
“Since Facebook launched, the company has faced one privacy flap after another, usually following changes to the privacy policy or new product releases. To its credit, the company has often modified its products based on such feedback. As the pioneer in a huge new market, Facebook will take heat for everything it does. It has also now grown into a $22 billion company run by adults who know that their future depends on Facebook users trusting the site’s privacy policy.”
Anyone who watched The Social Network might not be surprised to learn that young Mark Zuckerberg comes across as a bit of a jerk who happens to wield a tremendous amount of power. Facebook’s privacy policy has changed many times, and Zuckerberg’s attitude still seems to be that the dummies willing to trust him deserve what happens to them.
Chelsea Kerwin, July 04, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.
An Overview of the Changes and Advances in Facebook Entity Graph
July 4, 2013
The article on TNW titled How Facebook’s Entity Graph Evolved From Plain Text to the Structured Data That Powers Graph Search explores the timeline of Facebook’s ability to understand and make connections between billions of pieces of information about its billions of users. Eric Sun, Facebook’s software engineer, recently posted about the evolution of the Entity Graph on the Facebook Blog. Entity graph led to Social Graph, which eventually enabled the Graph Search. The article explains,
“In order to take advantage of all of those juicy details in your profile, Sun said his team had to find a data set to represent a seemingly unlimited number of interests. Their solution was to tap into Wikipedia, which powered Facebook’s creation of “millions of ‘fallback’ pages.” Facebook heavily relies on Wikipedia to this day. These fallback pages were matched to interests that couldn’t be connected to pre-existing pages. Afterwards, they were manually vetted for duplicates; ones which didn’t receive any connections were deleted.”
Today, Sun claims the Entity Graph is growing even faster than Facebook can keep up with. The focus of his team is now to improve the graph further. We have all witnessed the changes made to Facebook over the last ten years, but most of the reactions have been to the aesthetic qualities of the pages we think of as our own. The reason behind many of the changes was to incorporate the mapping of our interests and our lives, to allow Facebook to know more.
Chelsea Kerwin, July 04, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.
Failed Digital Media Initiative Blamed on BBC Executives Optimism and Misrepresentation
July 4, 2013
The article titled Ex-BBC chief and Others May Be Quizzed Over 100m Pound DMI Debacle in The Guardian speaks to the independent review taking place to get some answers regarding the BBC’s disastrous Digital Media Initiative (DMI) which was finally tossed in May 2013. The review will go back to 2011 and can question any and all executives involved in the scandal. Traditional information companies face serious challenges, as the debacle exposes. The article states,
“The review will examine the oversight of the project and whether its financial management arrangements were fit for purpose, the trust said. It will also question whether corporation executives and the BBC Trust were appropriately informed about the risks and costs associated with DMI. Executives are likely to be pressed on whether they were aware of concerns raised by an internal whistleblower in 2010 and again in 2012 about the projected cost benefits of the project.”
There are many questions surrounding the failed initiative, especially due to claims by MP’s on the PAC as well as Margaret Hodge, the chair of the PAC, that they were given misleading information that was overly optimistic or even just an outright lie. Mark Thompson in particular has been accused of misrepresenting the progress of DMI. Anthony Fry, the BBC trustee, mentioned that some of the problem was probably the result of the success of the iPlayer, resulting in an overconfidence bordering on arrogance in some of the executives dealing with DMI.
Chelsea Kerwin, July 04, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.
Hadoop Summit Brings Exciting Announcements
July 4, 2013
Hadoop Summit began on June 26 in San Jose and the opening day alone brought several exciting announcements. Conference season is a great time for companies to make big announcements and ride the momentum. Andrew Brust for ZD Net covers the opening day festivities in his story, “Hadoop Summit Opening Day Brings Multiple Announcements.”
He begins:
“Big Data companies love to partner, and release new products, and they especially love to synchronize the announcement of those team-ups and releases with major Big Data conferences. Today is the first day of the 2-day Hadoop Summit conference in San Jose, and several announcements have already come in.”
MapR/Fusion-io and Zettaset/Informatica announced new partnerships, and Couchbase announced a new release. LucidWorks was a major sponsor of the event, as they incorporate Hadoop technology into their product offerings: LucidWorks Search and LucidWorks Big Data. As more and more open source vendors cooperate, the technology just keeps getting better and better, growing by leaps and bounds. Enterprises no longer have a reason to dismiss open source technology – it is here to stay.
Emily Rae Aldridge, July 4, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Amazon: Unrelenting Growth, Search, and Costs
July 3, 2013
I noted the Netcraft data which were presented in “Amazon Web Services’ Growth Unrelenting.” Amazon is a sprawling online services company. The firm hit on the idea of becoming a cloud provider years ago. The write up presents a diagram which uses a log scale (check with an attorney for what this means). The lines show growth in host names, active sites, and computers. What’s not to like?
Search vendors struggling to generate revenue have embraced the cloud as a way to reduce the on premises’ costs of deploying a content processing solution. Again: What’s not to like? Ease, convenience, and the perceived reliability of Amazon, the creation of a Wall Street wunderkind?
Amazon is in the search business. The system, as I understand it, requires that content be assembled to the Amazon specification. Once in the Amazon search system, all sorts of goodness is available to the person who wants to use the “native” Amazon search system. Other search vendors have embraced Amazon. Two examples are the still-in-start-up mode Digital Reasoning and X1 (search not the aircraft).
A couple of observations.
First, Amazon has to find a way to manage its costs. These have been rising over the last few years. No problem, of course. However, if the growth slows. Problem, of course.
Second, Amazon uses a variant of taxi meter pricing. Licensees may want to check into how the various fees for a search service operate.
Third, Amazon is piling on the search systems. The company has an internal development team beavering away. Search vendors are happily loading their software into the Amazon system. I wonder if Amazon will be learning about search and functions. Decisions are much easier to make when one has a bird’s eye view of market behavior.
Now what’s this have to do with search? My hypothesis is that Amazon will try to do with search what it has with streaming media, eBook readers, and discounted goods.
Are search vendors nervous about Amazon? Nah, search vendors are trying to make sales often without looking beyond meeting payroll. Exciting times ahead.
Stephen E Arnold, July 3, 2013
Sponsored by Xenky
Financial Times Claims Google Under Investigation By EU
July 3, 2013
In the article titled EU Investigating Google’s Android Licensing Practices on Datamation, the claims made by the Financial Times that documents exist regarding an EU antitrust investigation into Google. While this is not the first of such investigations, it is the first time that the Android licensing practices have been the focus. The article explains,
“Daniel Thomas and Alex Barker with the Financial Times reported, “Google is facing an investigation by European authorities into allegations that it supported the leading Android smartphone platform and its mobile services by means of cut-price licensing and exclusivity deals. According to documents seen by the Financial Times, the Brussels antitrust watchdog has focused on allegedly anti-competitive deals struck between the US technology company and smartphone providers.” The Telegraph’s Olivia Goldhill added, “The informal investigation… follows complaints in April from 14 companies.”
Companies named as part of the complaint include Microsoft and Nokia. The investigation is still in the early stages, but presumably will decide whether or not Google is guilty of licensing Android “below cost”, as well as whether Google has exclusivity agreements with manufacturers. Google replied via CNET, saying that consumers have the option to use Android how they please. Europe’s reception of Google has bordered on frosty for the last several years, but no investigations have resulted in anything, as yet.
Chelsea Kerwin, July 03, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.
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