Words to Note: HP Autonomy Disastrous Deal
July 21, 2015
I tucked this into my “Quotes” file. The source is Courthouse News Service and a story named “Pensioners Get $100M for HP’s Takeover Flop.” I lingered for a moment on the word “flop” but plunged into the write with modest expectations.
Here’s the sentence that I highlighted with my Japanese style wide tip Sharpie:
A federal judge tentatively approved a $100 million settlement between a Dutch pension fund and Hewlett-Packard over its disastrous $10.3 billion purchase of Autonomy Corp.
The word “flop” was interesting but the use of the word “disastrous” is a reminder of what happens when MBAs catch spreadsheet fever and buy search-centric companies.
I also highlighted this statement:
HP ended up taking an $8.8 billion hit on the botched acquisition and blamed former Autonomy executives for misrepresenting its revenue projections two years before the deal.
What happens when spreadsheet fever mingles with sales oriented folks suffering from drinking too much of their own Kool-Aid? Answer: An opportunity to spend quality time with attorneys. Definitely a summer bummer.
Stephen E Arnold, July 21, 2015
IBM: Watson Cook Book Revenues Disappoint
July 21, 2015
IBM is now at a baker’s dozen: 13 quarters of revenue decline. I scanned a number of write ups about IBM’s most recent quarterly report. I plucked “IBM Blames Almost Everything on Bad Quarterly Earnings” as a representative report.
The main point is that revenues were down:
International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM) released its second quarter financial results after markets closed on Monday. Big Blue had $3.84 in earnings per share on $20.8 billion in revenue compared to Thomson Reuters consensus estimates of $3.78 in EPS on $20.95 billion in revenue. The same period from last year had $4.43 in EPS on $24.36 billion in revenue.
Segment results were interesting. The good old mainframe business is still truckin’. Software revenues were juicy but down, which is a bummer.
Now I monitor the Watson products and services because I am interested in search. Based on the financial summaries I have scanned, there were no references to Watson cook book sales. I assumed that Watson cook book sales would boost the company’s revenues.
Disappointed. Yes, I was.
I assume IBM will rely on Watson to assist the firm in making better decisions. What if Watson were making the decisions. Disappointed. You bet. On the bright side, a used copy is available for less than $10 on Amazon.
Stephen E Arnold, July 21, 2015
When Today Is Not As Good As Yesterday: Two Google Signals
July 21, 2015
Two Google items snagged my attention. The first is the new that a Xoogler has returned to Googzilla’s nest. The story was “The Soul of Google’: What the Return of Omid Kordestani Says About the Mountain View Monolith.” I interpreted this to suggest that Google has been operating without “soul” for five years.
According to the write up:
A year ago last week, CEO Larry Page brought him back to the position he birthed at Google, installing him permanently in October. Kordestani had come back to a very different Google. Revenue growth, once soaring, had started to flatten, and Google had suffered some embarrassing product setbacks. Wall Street was drumming louder about wasted funds on so-called moon shot projects such as Project Loon — its Internet-giving balloons — and Glass. More critically, Google faced rising criticism that its bloated size and insular leadership was stifling its ability to innovate. It risked becoming Microsoft.
Google is not Microsoft. Microsoft has its own demons and a unique fingerprint. Microsoft generates revenue from several different product and service lines. Google has one source of revenue: online advertising. Big difference in my opinion. The monoculture thing can endanger bananas and the GOOG. Charm may not work when parasites chip away at a monoculture.
The second item was “Silicon Valley’s Biggest Companies Take Samsung’s Side in Apple Patent Fight.” When you cannot innovate, litigate. I heard that mantra a number of times before I retired to my rocking chair in rural Kentucky.
For me these two stories point to a significant challenge Google faces. The company is fresh from a Wall Street home run. But are Wall Street home runs a one in four play? Google is not batting 1000 in the diversification of revenue department. The idea that a number of big companies are ganging up on the much loved, though slightly off center Apple outfit strikes me as a sign of weakness, not strength. What MMA fighter sends a lawyer into the octagon.
The message of Thomas Wolfe’s novel written in the 1930s seems clear, no matter what that wild and crazy Dr. Ed Chapman told me and my classmates: There is hope when you return home.
I am not so sure. Home and a return home are two different things. The return occurs with a flock of legal eagles and a vastly different online landscape. Search is different too. Relevance is still on vacation.
Stephen E Arnold, July 21, 2015
SharePoint Expert Rehmani Talks SharePoint 2016
July 21, 2015
There is enough news regarding the upcoming SharePoint Server 2016 release to keep every tech writer busy around the clock. Users are crafting expectations and experts are analyzing the little bits of pieces that have become known. Now a known expert, Asif Rehmani, is weighing in with his early assessment. Read more in the Redmond article, “Microsoft MVP Talks SharePoint 2016, Deprecated InfoPath and Getting Help.”
The article begins:
“Microsoft plans to improve usability aspects with its forthcoming SharePoint Server 2016 product, but people still will need help when it arrives. And that’s where Asif Rehmani comes into play. He’s tracked SharePoint from the beginning as a lecturer, educator and trainer and is a nine-year Microsoft Most Valuable Professional for SharePoint.”
The article goes on to discuss some of Rehmani’s thoughts on the upcoming release, including user expectations and how the cloud will integrate into the new version. Stephen E. Arnold is another expert who has his eye on the latest SharePoint news. He reports his findings in an easy to follow format on his Web service, ArnoldIT.com. In fact, his SharePoint feed is one of the go-to destinations for SharePoint tips and tricks on the Web.
Emily Rae Aldridge, July 21, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Facebook Strokes Brain’s Pleasure Center
July 21, 2015
Why do people like using Facebook? It is a question that researchers have asked since Facebook premiered in 2004. It was assumed to be a passing fad like prior social networks, including Myspace and Live Journal, but over a decade later Facebook is still going strong without a sign of stopping. MakeUseOf.com decided to answer the question using an informative infographic and many research studies, check out “Why Do People Like, Share, And Comment On Facebook?”
Apparently Facebook taps the pleasure center of the brain, because when users actively share or “like” content they feel like they are directly engaging with a community. The infographic also explains that posting status updates relieves loneliness and increases a user’s virtual empathy. While “likes” are a quick form of communication, comments still seem to be the favorite way to interact on the social network:
“Moira Burke, who is studying 1,200 Facebook users in an ongoing experiment, has found that personal messages are more satisfying to receivers than the one-click communication of likes.”
Direct, more personal types of communication are still preferred by users. Facebook also is appealing, because users feel like they are getting something in return as well. They get discounts or coupons for their favorite brands, participate in contests, receive updates, and get individualized advertisements.
There are several other studies highlighting in the infographic, but the bottom line is that people are gaining a high level of personal interactivity that they can share with their friends and family. Facebook is an integral part of the Internet, because it connects users organically and appeals to a deep, psychological need to interact with other humans.
Whitney Grace, July 21, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
On Embedding Valuable Outside Links
July 21, 2015
If media websites take this suggestion from an article at Monday Note, titled “How Linking to Knowledge Could Boost News Media,” there will be no need to search; we’ll just follow the yellow brick links. Writer Frederic Filloux laments the current state of affairs, wherein websites mostly link to internal content, and describes how embedded links could be much, much more valuable. He describes:
“Now picture this: A hypothetical big-issue story about GE’s strategic climate change thinking, published in the Wall Street Journal, the FT, or in The Atlantic, suddenly opens to a vast web of knowledge. The text (along with graphics, videos, etc.) provided by the news media staff, is amplified by access to three books on global warming, two Ted Talks, several databases containing references to places and people mentioned in the story, an academic paper from Knowledge@Wharton, a MOOC from Coursera, a survey from a Scandinavian research institute, a National Geographic documentary, etc. Since (supposedly), all of the above is semanticized and speaks the same lingua franca as the original journalistic content, the process is largely automatized.”
Filloux posits that such a trend would be valuable not only for today’s Web surfers, but also for future historians and researchers. He cites recent work by a couple of French scholars, Fabian Suchanek and Nicoleta Preda, who have been looking into what they call “Semantic Culturonomics,” defined as “a paradigm that uses semantic knowledge bases in order to give meaning to textual corpora such as news and social media.” Web media that keeps this paradigm in mind will wildly surpass newspapers in the role of contemporary historical documentation, because good outside links will greatly enrich the content.
Before this vision becomes reality, though, media websites must be convinced that linking to valuable content outside their site is worth the risk that users will wander away. The write-up insists that a reputation for providing valuable outside links will more than make up for any amount of such drifting visitors. We’ll see whether media sites agree.
Cynthia Murrell, July 21, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
US Government and Proprietary Databases: Will Procurement Roadblocks Get Set Up before October 1, 2015?
July 20, 2015
I don’t do the government work stuff anymore. Too old. But some outfits depend on the US government for revenue. I should write “Depend a lot.”
I read “Why Government Needs Open Source Databases.” The article is one of those which is easily overlooked. With the excitement changing like a heartbeat, “database” and “government” are not likely to capture the attention of the iPhone and Android crowd.
I found the article interesting. I learned:
Open source solutions offer greater flexibility in pricing models as well. In some cases, vendors offering open source databases price on a subscription-based model that eliminates the licensing fees common to large proprietary systems. An important element to a subscription is that it qualifies as an operating expense versus a more complex capital expenditure. Thus, deploying open source and open source-based databases become a simpler process and can cost 80 to 90 percent less than traditional solutions. This allows agencies to refocus these resources on innovation and key organizational drivers.
Wow, cheaper. Maybe better? Maybe faster?
The article raises an interesting topic—security. I assumed that the US government was “into” security. Each time I read disinformation about the loss of personnel data or a misplaced laptop with secret information on its storage device, I am a doubter.
But the article informs me:
Data security has always been and will continue to remain a major priority for government agencies, given the sensitive and business-critical nature of the information they collect. Some IT departments may be skeptical of the security capabilities of open source solutions. Gartner’s 2014 Magic Quadrant for Operational Database Management Systems showed that open source database solutions are being used successfully in mission-critical applications in a large number of organizations. In addition, mature open source solutions today implement the same, if not better, security capabilities of traditional infrastructures. This includes SQL injection prevention, tools for replication and failover, server-side code protections, row-level security and enhanced auditing features, to name a few. Furthermore, as open source technology, in general, becomes more widely accepted across the public sector – intelligence, civilian and defense agencies across the federal government have adopted open source – database solutions are also growing with specific government mandates, regulations and requirements.
I knew it. Security is job one, well, maybe job two after cost controls. No, no, cost controls and government activities do not compute in my experience.
Open source database technology may be the horse the government knights can ride to the senior executive service. If open source data management systems get procurement love, what does that mean for IBM and Oracle database license fees?
Not much. The revenue comes from services, particularly when things go south. The license fees are malleable, often negotiable. The fees for service continue to honk like golden geese.
Net net: Money will remain the same, just be taken from a different category of expense. In short, the write up is a good effort, but offers little in the way of bad news for the big database vendors. On October 1, 2015, not much change in the flowing river of government expenditures which just keep rising like the pond filled with mine drainage near my hovel in Kentucky.
Stephen E Arnold, July 20, 2015
Big Data Basics: Garbage In, Garbage Out Still a Problem
July 20, 2015
The person writing “Data Integrity: A Sequence of Words Lost in the World of Big Data” appears to be older than 18. I don’t hear too many young wizards nattering about data integrity. The operative concept is that with enough data, the data work out the bumps in the Big Data tapestry. The cloth may have leaves and twigs in it. But when you make the woven object big enough and hang it on a wall in a poorly illuminated chateau, who can tell. Few visitors demand a ladder and a lanthorn to inspect the handiwork.
According to the write up:
The purpose of this post is to highlight the necessity to keep data clean and orderly so that the results of the analysis are reliable and trustworthy – if data integrity is intact, information derived from this data will be trustworthy resulting in actionable information.
Why tackle this topic in a blog for Big Data professionals?
Answer: No one pays much attention. The author saddles up and does the Don Quixote gallop at the Big Data hyperbole windmill.
The article includes a partial list of questions to ask and, keep this in mind, gentle reader, to answer. One example: “Are values outside of acceptable domain values?”
I found this article refreshing. Take a gander.
Stephen E Arnold, July 20, 2015
Facebook and Google: Deep Learning with New Scuba Divers
July 20, 2015
The Facebook-Google type of company wants to explore the frontiers of knowledge as perceived by the science club types. Smart software may be a digital Mariana Trench which has to be turned into a tourist destination.
To achieve this, Google has 50,000 plus really smart people. Facebook has lots of people including Google alums. When the company buys and outfit for its talent or hires a pride of professionals, the firm is (perhaps unconsciously) signaling that the existing team needs upgrading. Think of a professional football team. Each year, the owners, coaches, and advisers identify new talent. Big money is paid. The young calves are placed in the herd. The older animals get to sit on the bench, maybe move into coaching, or, sad to say, become used automobile sales professionals in Dallas, Texas. Facebook, perhaps because of its Xoogler ratio, is following the same path.
I read “Welcome to the AI Conspiracy: The ‘Canadian Mafia’ Behind Tech’s Latest Craze.” Interesting. I learned:
The pace of the AI field, however, is clear. As deep learning has grown in popularity, scores of companies are racing to scoop up scarce talent while computer scientists are finally starting to flood into the field.
And:
Money is at play. An engineer proficient in deep learning can earn upward of $250,000 a year at places like Google and Facebook, according to several sources; exceptional or more experienced ones can net seven-figure salaries.
No doubt that smart software is important to big outfits. I view the recruitment of superstars in a different way:
Perhaps the smart software vehicle is more like a Honda Civic than a McLaren?
Post sale values for ageing scuba divers may plummet like a lead filled diving belt. Today’s divers are under considerable pressure to perform, particularly when cost controls surface as a concern. When MBA think blends with the science club, what looks like progress may be a signal that the problem is harder than imagined. Where do deep sea divers go to recuperate? Home again?
Stephen E Arnold, July 20, 2015
Facebook Opens Messenger to Non-Members
July 20, 2015
Facebook is making its Messenger app free, even to those who don’t have a Facebook account, we learn in “Does this Spell the End for WhatsApp?” at the U.K.’s Daily Star. What does that have to do with mobile messaging tool WhatsApp? Reporter Dave Snelling writes:
“This means even people without a Facebook account will be able to start using the service and that could put it in direct competition with WhatsApp. And guess who owns WhatApp…yes Facebook! The social network paid an insane $19 billion for WhatsApp late last year and it’s gone on to see a huge rise in success. WhatsApp now has over 800 million users and the figure is growing daily. Facebook Messenger brings users the same features as WhatsApp including sending photos, videos, group chats, voice and video calling and stickers.”
We notice that “search ability” is not among the features. Pity that; users must continue to employ an outside method to find a certain drop of info in their sea of messages. We’d value a search box over “stickers” any day, but perhaps that’s just us.
So far, the non-Facebook-member Messenger is only available in Canada and the U.S., but is expected to cross the Atlantic soon. Snelling wonders whether users will switch from WhatsApp to Messenger. I wonder whether Facebook plans to merge the apps, and their users; why would they hang on to both? As the article concludes, we’ll have to wait and see.
Cynthia Murrell, July 20, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
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