Amazon, Losses, and Search
July 26, 2013
I followed the flow of stories about Amazon’s jump in sales (up 20+ percent) and the loss of a pittance ($7 million). A year ago, I slogged through a report about Amazon’s technology for one of my clients. I think this outfit lost its funding and the senior managers are now taking some time off to recharge their batteries. I also completed my August/September column for Information Today. This is one of the for fee articles I write, so it is quite different from the information I catalog in Beyond Search. The articles are substantive; Beyond Search is my public collection of abstracts, ideas, and hypotheses. Many readers, including some challenged azure chip consultants, confuse the for fee articles with Beyond Search. Well, what can I do to help them? I am content with the difference between “free” and “for fee”? That’s what counts for me.
Where will the fracture occur? Amazon is an enterprise operating under stress with a range of “pressures” operating on the enterprise.
One story — “Jeff Bezos Doesn’t Care What You Think about Amazon’s Quarterly Earnings” — caught my attention on two levels. On the obvious financial stratus, the loss is merely an investment. The MBA idea is that if you spend wisely today, you will, if your are the right kind of executive, work out in the longer run. On the second stratum, Amazon is rolling down the side lanes in a bowling alley. I think these channels are called in the parlance of the bowling superstars, the gutter. The notion is that once the ball gets in a gutter it goes straight ahead and misses the pins.
Amazon, like Google, is now in the Sam Walton sphere. In order to serve the largest possible audience, costs are the key issue. Not surprisingly, coincident with the Amazon financial reports, a lone Amazon person wrote “Brutal Letter to Jeff Bezos Says Way to Succeed at Amazon Is ‘Be a Pretty Girl or a Dude Who User Liberal Amounts of Axe.’” I don’t know if the write up is accurate (who knows what article is accurate these days?). Here’s the snippet I highlighted:
… There will always be an endless supply of replacements, and they will be paid less since the pay rate of the team decreased with every new batch of hires. My replacement will probably work really hard for about six months, and then realize that they are cruising towards a dead end. They might start caring a little less. For the full letter, click here.
My interest is search and content processing. In my Information Today column, which will be online in a couple of weeks, I point out that Amazon is in the for-fee search game. I also point out that Amazon, as far as I know, is the first search lazy Susan. The idea is that if you don’t like one search, you can choose another vendor who is offering its search / content processing system on the Amazon cloud.
The approach is interesting because the Amazon search system is immature. Check out the file types supported. Look at the pricing approach. Examine the features in comparison with a system like LucidWorks or some other enterprise class service. What will you discover? I cover that in my for fee column. A hint is that Amazon can learn a great deal watching behaviors. I find this approach quite intriguing.
Now if we look at these three points, I see a connection of sorts between losses/investments, cost cutting at the human knowledge layer, and the creation of a system which informs Amazon about search and content processing services. Amazon may be on a path to create what might become the WalMart of enterprise search. Google tried this approach in appliance form.
Will the resulting information retrieval services improve findability? Jury’s still out. But the pursuit of the mass market has some interesting vectors which may work at cross purposes.
Stephen E Arnold, July 26, 2013
Sponsored by Xenky
Teradata Uses Revelytix Loom for Smarter Hadoop
July 26, 2013
The popular open source database technology system Hadoop has many strategic partners that have created portfolios for integrating with Hadoop. We heard about another one in Data Center Knowledge’s article “Teradata Announces Portfolio for Hadoop.” Teradata specializes in analytic technologies like data warehousing and business intelligence.
Teradata’s portfolio for Hadoop features Hadoop-based product platforms, software, consulting services, training and customer support. It uses Revelytix Loom. The press release “Revelytix Announces General Availability of Loom for Hadoop” tells us more about that.
According to Scott Gnau, president, Teradata Labs:
‘“Teradata is now off and running as a trusted single source for all things Hadoop with many leading customers such as Dell, Inc., Otto Group, PT XL Axiata Tbk mobile telecommunications, Swisscom Schweiz AG, and Wells Fargo Bank. We built The Teradata Portfolio for Hadoop to support organizations struggling with Hadoop implementations by taking the complexity and cost out of deploying and managing the solutions.’”
As far as the Revelytix Loom, it provides a smarter Hadoop for the Teradata Appliance for Hadoop. What does that mean? Just a little something like dynamic dataset management and automatic parsing for new files.
Megan Feil, July 26, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Metadata for Documents
July 26, 2013
We read numbers about the amount of time wasted on searching for documents all the time, and they are not pretty. When we stumbled upon Document Cloud, we could not help but wonder if this type of service will help with the productivity and efficiency issues that are currently all too common.
The homepage takes potential users through the steps of what using Document Cloud is like. First, users will have access to more information about their documents. Secondly, annotations and highlighting sections are functionalities that can be done with ease.
Finally, sharing work is possible:
“Everything you upload to DocumentCloud stays private until you’re ready to make it public, but once you decide to publish, your documents join thousands of other primary source documents in our public catalog. Use our document viewer to embed documents on your own website and introduce your audience to the larger paper trail behind your story. From our catalog, reporters and the public alike can find your documents and follow links back to your reporting. DocumentCloud contains court filings, hearing transcripts, testimony, legislation, reports, memos, meeting minutes, and correspondence.”
In summary, this is a service that will enable metadata to be produced for documents. If anyone needs us, we will be browsing the documents already in their catalog.
Megan Feil, July 26, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Mondeca Adds to Linked Open Vocabularies
July 26, 2013
The growing web of linked data not only grows in volume of data, but also in a growing set of vocabularies. We recently saw on Open Knowledge Foundation’s site that Mondeca’s Linked Open Vocabularies (LOV) have been updated. A collection of vocabulary spaces.
Users are able to find vocabularies listed and individually described by metadata, classified by vocabulary spaces and interlinked using the dedicated vocabulary VOAF.
We learned more about what LOV is about:
“Most popular ones form now a core of Semantic Web standards de jure (SKOS, Dublin Core, FRBR …) or de facto (FOAF, Event Ontology …). But many more are published and used. Not only linked data leverage a growing set of vocabularies, but vocabularies themselves rely more and more on each other through reusing, refining or extending, stating equivalences, declaring metadata. LOV objective is to provide easy access methods to this ecosystem of vocabularies, and in particular by making explicit the ways they link to each other and providing metrics on how they are used in the linked data cloud, help to improve their understanding, visibility and usability, and overall quality.”
There are a myriad of ways that those interested can feed their inner controlled vocabulary demon. One of which is to suggest a new vocabulary to add to LOV.
Megan Feil, July 26, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Hadoop Summit Makes Big Data Engaging
July 26, 2013
The Hadoop Summit was held at the end of June in San Jose, California. The event focuses primarily on end users and developers of things built on and around Apache Hadoop open source technology. However, as Hadoop is integrated into more and more software offerings, Hadoop’s reach continues to expand. SmartData Collective offers a good write-up of how Hadoop is making Big Data technology more dynamic. Read more in their article, “Hadoop Summit and Hortonworks Promise to Make Big Data More Engaging.”
The article describes the event:
“Hadoop Summit is the biggest event on the West Coast centered on Hadoop, the open source technology for large-scale data processing. The conference organizers, Hortonworks, estimated that more than 2,400 people attended, which if true would be double-digit growth from last year. Growth on the supplier side was even larger, which indicates the opportunity this market represents. Held in Silicon Valley, the event attracts enterprise customers, industry innovators, thought leaders and venture capitalists.”
The author then goes on to say that among the companies that are making big gains in information discovery with Hadoop are LucidWorks and Microsoft. LucidWorks uses Hadoop in its LucidWorks Big Data offering, which has received quite a bit of attention for its usability and effectiveness.
Emily Rae Aldridge, July 26, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
InetSoft Ramps Up Marketing
July 25, 2013
My Overflight system alerted me to a PR spike from InetSoft, a business intelligence software vendor which opened for business in 1996. One unique selling proposition for InetSoft is its small footprint. The idea is that some of the newer systems consume significant resources.
The company issued a news release in late June 2013 which explains the firm’s market approach for the balance of 2013. What’s interesting is that many business intelligence vendors do not articulate a strategy. When my goslings (colleagues) and I talk about the companies which once showed promise and seemed to fade after the venture funds hit the bank account, there are some “strategies” which manifest themselves. For example, some business intelligence vendors keep a low profile and pursue government funding; for example, Agiliex, Digital Reasoning, etc. Other business intelligence vendors go where the Wall Street money is; for example, financial services solutions from MarkLogic, Palantir, etc. Other firms sell out and the acquiring firms sell business intelligence to existing customers; Oracle Endeca, Microsoft Fast Search, etc.
So what is InetSoft announcing. Let me highlight a few of the items from “Business Intelligence Pionee4er InetSoft’s Chief Strategy Officer Discusses Results, Strategy, and Outlook”:
- Leverage the InetSoft reputation for being a good partner
- Emphasize the importance of finding out if the client has a budget for business intelligence software
- Focus on business intelligence, not certain operations such as real-time monitoring
- Delver dashboarding, reporting, and data mashups
- Emphasize ease of use
- Improve forecasting
- Keep balance between lease based contracts and outright purchase contracts.
The write up reported that the InetSoft’s Rajiv Bala Subramanian allegedly said:
I think we are positioned as a niche vendor in the business intelligence market with three core strengths: we offer real-time web-based dashboards that can be built by end users, on-demand publishing-quality reports, and a patent pending data mash up platform that does not require a data warehouse of any kind. Our team is also highly skilled in web and end-to-end portal technologies, making us quite a unique outfit. Practically every business intelligence vendor in the market right now claims to have invented visual analytics. The fact is, visual analytics is simply business intelligence with a different sales and marketing hat on. It has been around for years, and all business intelligence vendors do a very good job at it. But there are these three things that InetSoft is great at, and our goal is to continue to be great in those three areas.
For more information about InetSoft navigate to www.inetsoft.com.
Stephen E Arnold, July 25, 2013
Sponsored by Xenky
The Developer Side of the Efficiency and Security Conversation
July 25, 2013
The ongoing conversation about efficiency in the enterprise can trace roots to several departments. It is a ubiquitous issue that every department has a vested interest in. A recent article, “Enhancing Enterprise Efficiency with IT Operations and Analytics,” discusses addressing productivity and efficiency from the perspective of IT.
The article describes a recent independent review that explained how Tulsa’s Information Technology Department had numerous inefficiencies. These bottlenecks ultimately prevented their department from providing acceptable service.
The article referenced above expounds on the issues mentioned in the review on Tulsa’s IT department:
The department is tasked with overseeing all electronic and communication systems for the municipal government, as well as managing its computing, mobile software and networking needs. Officials discovered that the 141-member agency had been woefully underfunded, inhibiting employees’ ability to monitor important tasks and properly identify potential issues. According to the news outlet, some of the software systems being deployed by the government included a 30-year-old police and courts record management system.
It takes collaboration between the business side and IT and developers to select, implement and deploy the right solution for any particular organization. Developers have the insight into nuanced semantic features in analytics solutions currently on the market; that knowledge is necessary for knowing if the expected use cases will pan out as expected. One solution we have been keeping tabs on is Cogito API, which offers government, intelligence, and corporate security clients oversight by extracting intelligence from data.
Megan Feil, July 25, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Intelligenx Emphasizes Discovery and Analytics
July 25, 2013
We noticed something interesting at the website of Intelligenx: the company is now positioning itself as a discovery and analytics vendor. In 2008, our own Stephen Arnold interviewed the father-and-son team behind the company, which at the time was pioneering faceted search technology. Now, the firm’s tag line is “The Power of Discovery.” It seems like a natural evolution. The Intelligenx mission statement now reads:
“Intelligenx is a next generation industrial grade search and analytics company that enables organizations to get the most value out of their information assets. Websites around the world use Intelligenx products to service billions of search and data queries quickly and without the hassle of clunky IT infrastructure.
“Our mission is to change the way the world finds information.
“Intelligenx solutions enable organizations to maximize the social, economic and intelligence value of their information assets by providing a web-based search and navigation solution. Our solutions can aggregate data from multiple structured or unstructured repositories providing a highly effective, interactive search experience for end-users.”
Since it launched in 1996, Intelligenx (pronounced “intelligence”) has successfully weathered the many changes that have propelled the digital-information field. Perhaps it is because their broadly defined mission allows plenty of pivot-room, or because the company makes a point of looking ahead and anticipating market needs. Whatever the reasons, public and private organizations around the world rely on solutions from Intelligenx. The company is located in Northern Virginia, with offices in Latin America.
Cynthia Murrell, July 25, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
UK University Relies on Funnelback
July 25, 2013
Search solution firm Funnelback has achieved a spot on the U.K. government’s list of cloudy vendors, we learn from the Sales Information at the HM Government G-Cloud site. Commitments to savings and transparency prompted the agency to publish this list of cloud-services vendors, which includes cost information. The introduction explains:
“As part of G-Cloud’s commitment to make central government savings by encouraging a shift to cloud computing commodity services, and our equal commitment to transparency, we publish details of all public sector spend through the G-Cloud frameworks. Details of the projected savings enabled by the Programme can be found here.
“All suppliers on the G-Cloud frameworks are obliged to provide monthly reports of invoiced sales to the Government Procurement Service (GPS). Once the data has been validated, we then publish updated figures on to this page on a monthly basis.”
We have taken interest in Funnelback before, and were happy to spot it in the list (its platform was used at the University of Surrey.) The Australian enterprise-search provider grew from technology developed by scientific research agency CSIRO. Funnelback was established in 2005, and was bought by U.K. content management outfit Squiz in 2009. Their memorable moniker combines the names of two Australian spiders, the funnel-web and the redback.
Cynthia Murrell, July 25, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
IBM and the Social Analytics Push
July 25, 2013
IBM is fashionably late to the social-media-analytics game, and Slashdot touches on some factors that pose a challenge to the tech giant in, “IBM Pushing New Social Analytics Software.” Writer Nick Kolakowski informs us that the company is launching several new cloud-based social tools, including its Social Media Analytics platform.
The article asserts the new tools are a response to Salesforce’s Marketing Cloud, and suggests that Google‘s and Oracle‘s forays into social analytics similarly prodded IBM. However, I suspect the company has been eyeing the social space for some time, but felt no compunction to rush in before it was ready.
Kolakowski enumerates some of the obstructions for IBM in this arena:
“But IBM faces a crowded marketplace, with new and well-funded competitors arising from unexpected directions. Last week, reports emerged that IBM is locked in battle with Amazon over a cloud-computing contract for the CIA. Although Amazon boasts a well-established presence as a provider of cloud services to businesses, it’s a relative newcomer to the federal-computing space where IBM has operated comfortably for years; and given its technology and resources, it could definitely give IBM some headaches if the two end up fighting for the same contracts.
“If that wasn’t enough, IBM faces a new challenge from GE, which is rapidly expanding into healthcare analytics and the so-called ‘Industrial Internet.’ Given GE’s capitalization and reputation for innovation, it could also go toe-to-toe with IBM for customers.”
Yes, IBM has competition in the social media arena, and it will be interesting to see how it moves forward here. Even if it does not dominate the market, Big Blue is sure to capture a wedge of the pie (chart) large enough to keep it satisfied.
Cynthia Murrell, July 25, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
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