Attivio Continues to Move Its Technology Forward
May 25, 2018
Conceived by former Fast Search & Transfer executives, Attivio has moved from a system able to analyze baseball statistics to enterprise search to business intelligence and probably several other market spaces. Enterprise search vendors do that these days.
Now the newest version of Attivio is here, we learn from the company’s blog post, “Attivio Product News: Version 5.5.1 Available Today!” The write-up describes improvements in several areas. With the updated software development kit (SDK), one can test code before deploying it to the platform. As for security, we’re told Attivio has migrated to a stronger algorithm and upgraded libraries to their latest versions. Text extraction has also been improved and now works with over 600 formats. Furthermore, access to recent modules is also included; the post promises:
“Finally, we’ve made the latest modules part of the install. This includes the WebCrawler module, which enables you to ingest web pages, as well as newly released Search Analytics and Search UI Toolkit. As we’ve written about previously, Search Analytics gives you insight into the performance of your search platform in real time. And SUIT, Attivio’s Search UI Toolkit, is a framework for quickly building search applications from the simplest to the most complex. It’s an open source application that can be downloaded from GitHub, and enhanced by the community. It not only works with the Attivio platform, but also with Elasticsearch and Solr.”
How Fast like is Attivio? A faint imprint of the genetic code is there, but Attivio has, like other search vendors, adopted proprietary and open source technology. The trick is the marketing today. Attivio is chugging along but it faces enterprise search challengers fueled by venture funding. What’s interesting is that money continues to flow into what I would describe as “traditional” enterprise search plays; for example, Coveo. The hurdle, of course, is to convert investors’ money and support into sustainable, growing, profit spinning revenue. And that’s a challenge from my point of view.
See the Attivio post for more details on each of the above improvements. Founded in 2007 (shortly before Fast Search’s implosion and the sale of the Fast property to Microsoft and the legal dust up about Fast Search’s “fast” math). Attivio’s seems to be hiring. That’s encouraging.
Cynthia Murrell, May 25, 2018
Attivio and MC+A Combine Forces
April 7, 2018
Over the years, Attivio positioned itself as more than search. That type of shift has characterized many vendors anchored in search and retrieval. We noted that Attivio has “partnered” with MC+A, a search centric company. MC+A also forged a relationship with Coveo, another search and retrieval vendor with a history of repositioning.
We learned from “Attivio and MC+A Announce Partnership to Deliver Next-Generation Cognitive Search Solutions” at Markets Insider that:
“MC+A will resell Attivio’s platform, seamlessly integrate their enterprise-grade connectors into it, and provide SI services in the US market. ‘Partnering with MC+A extends our ability to address organizations’ needs for making all information available to employees and customers at the moment they need it,’ said Stephen Baker, CEO at Attivio. ‘This is particularly critical for companies looking to upgrade legacy search applications onto a modern, machine-learning based search and insight platform.’ …
The story added:
“By combining self-learning technologies, such as natural language processing, machine learning, and information indexing, the Attivio platform is helping Fortune 500 enterprises leverage customer insight, surface upsell opportunities, and improve compliance productivity. MC+A has over 15 years of experience innovating with search and delivering customized search-based applications solutions to enterprises. MC+A has also developed a connector bridge solution that allows customers to leverage existing infrastructure to simplify the transition to the Attivio platform.”
Attivio was founded in 2007, and is headquartered in Newton, Massachusetts. The company’s client roster includes prominent organizations like UBS, Cisco, Citi, and DARPA. Attivio in its early days was similar in some ways to the Fast Search & Transfer technology once cleverly dubbed ESP. No, not extra sensory perception. ESP was the enterprise search platform.
Based in Chicago and founded in 2004, MC+A specializes in implementations of cognitive search and insight engine technology. A couple of years ago, MC+A was involved with Yippy, the former Vivisimo metasearch system. When IBM bought Vivisimio, the metasearch technology morphed into a Big Data component of Watson.
If this walk down memory lane suggests that vendors of proprietary systems have been working to find purchase on revenue mountain, there may be a reason. The big money, based on information available to Beyond Search, comes from integrating open source solutions like Lucene into comprehensive analytic systems.
In a nutshell, the rise of Lucene and Elastic have created opportunities for some companies which can deliver more comprehensive solutions than search and retrieval anchored in old-school solutions.
More than repositioning, jargon, and partnerships may be needed in today’s market place where “answers”, not laundry lists are in demand. For mini profiles of vendors which are redefining information access and answering questions, follow the news stories in our new video news program DarkCyber. There’s a new program each week. Plus, you can get a sense of the new directions in information access by reading my 2015 book (still timely and very relevant) CyberOSINT: Next Generation Information Access.
Stephen E Arnold,
Stephen E Arnold, April 7, 2018
Attivio Takes on SCOLA Repository
March 16, 2017
We noticed that Attivio is back to enterprise search, and now uses the fetching catchphrase, “data dexterity company.” Their News page announces, “Attivio Chosen as Enterprise Search Platform for World’s Largest Repository of Foreign Language Media.” We’ve been keeping an eye on Attivio as it grows. With this press release, Attivio touts a large, recent feather in their cap—providing enterprise search services to SCOLA, a non-profit dedicated to helping different peoples around the world learn about each other. This tool enables SCOLA’s subscribers to find any content in any language, we’re told. The organization regards today’s information technology as crucial to their efforts. The write-up explains:
SCOLA provides a wide range of online language learning services, including international TV programming, videos, radio, and newspapers in over 200 native languages, via a secure browser-based application. At 85 terabytes, it houses the largest repository of foreign language media in the world. With its users asking for an easier way to find and categorize this information, SCOLA chose Attivio Enterprise Search to act as the primary access point for information through the web portal. This enables users, including teachers and consumers, to enter a single keyword and find information across all formats, languages and geographical regions in a matter of seconds. After looking at several options, SCOLA chose Attivio Enterprise Search because of its multi-language support and ease of customization. ‘When you have 84,000 videos in 200 languages, trying to find the right content for a themed lesson is overwhelming,’ said Maggie Artus, project manager at SCOLA. ‘With the Attivio search function, the user only sees instant results. The behind-the-scenes processing complexity is completely hidden.’”
Attivia was founded in 2007, and is headquartered in Newton, Massachusetts. The company’s client roster includes prominent organizations like UBS, Cisco, Citi, and DARPA. They are also hiring for several positions as of this writing.
Cynthia Murrell, March 16, 2017
Attivio: Search and Almost Everything Else
October 24, 2016
I spent a few minutes catching up with the news on the Attivio blog. You can find the information at this link. As I worked through the write ups over the past five weeks, I was struck by the diversity of Attivio’s marketing messages. Here are the ones which I noted:
- Attivio is a cognitive computing company, not a search or database company
- Attivio has an interest in governance and risk / compliance
- Attivio is involved in Big Data management
- Attivio is active in anti fraud solutions
- Attivio embraces NoSQL
- Attivio knows about modernizing an organization’s data architecture
- Attivio is a business intelligence solution.
My reaction to these capabilities is two fold:
First, for a company which has its roots in Fast Search & Transfer type of software, Attivio has added a number of applications to basic content processing and information access. Attivio embodies the vision Fast Search articulated before the company ran into some “challenges” and sold to Microsoft in 2008. Fast Search, as I understood the vision, was a platform upon which information applications could be built. Attivio appears to be heading in that direction.
The second reaction is that Attivio is churning out capabilities which embody buzzwords, jargon, and trends. Like a fisherman in a bass boat, the Attivio approach is to use different lures in order to snag a decent sized bass. I find it difficult to accept the assertion that a company rooted in search can deliver in the array of technical niches the blog posts reference.
The major takeaway for me was that Attivio has hired a new Chief Revenue Officer whose job is to generate revenue from the company’s “data catalog” business. I learned from “Attivio Names New Chief Revenue Officer”:
Connon [the insider who took over the revenue job] sees his new role as a reflection of the growing demand for technology that can break down data silos and help successful companies answer, not just the question of “what” the data is reporting, but identify correlation and patterns to answer critical “why” questions. Connon is passionate when he talks about the value of Attivio’s newest technology solution—the Semantic Data Catalog–and its ability to unify a wide array of data for a diverse customer base. “The Semantic Data Catalog is not just for financial service industries. It’s truly a horizontal technology solution that can benefit companies in any industry with data—in other words, with any company, in any industry,” explains Connon. “Our established Cognitive Search and Insight technology provides the foundation for our Semantic Data Catalog to provide companies with a self-service, permission-based ability to locate, sort, and analyze key information across an unlimited number of data applications,” adds Connon.
For me, Attivio’s “momentum” in marketing has to be converted to sustainable revenue. My assumption is that almost every professional at a software / services company sells and generates revenue. When a company lags in revenue, will one person be able to generate revenue?
I don’t have an answer. Worth monitoring to learn if the Chief Revenue Officer can deliver the money.
Stephen E Arnold, October 24, 2016
Attivio Targets Profitability by the End of 2016 Through $31M Financing Round
July 18, 2016
The article on VentureBeat titled Attivio Raises $31 Million to Help Companies Make Sense of Big Data discusses the promises of profitability that Attivio has made since its inception in 2007. According to Crunchbase, the search vendor has raised over $100 million from four investors. In March 2016, the company closed a financing round at $31M with the expectation of becoming profitable within 2016. The article explains,
“Our increased investment underscores our belief that Attivio has game-changing capabilities for enterprises that have yet to unlock the full value of Big Data,” said Oak Investment Partners’ managing partner, Edward F. Glassmeyer. Attivio also highlighted such recent business victories as landing lab equipment maker Thermo Fisher Scientific as a client and partnering with medical informatics shop PerkinElmer. Oak Investment Partners, General Electric Pension Trust, and Tenth Avenue Holdings participated in the investment, which pushed Attivio’s funding to at least $102 million.”
In the VentureBeat Profile about the deal, Stephen Baker, CEO of Attivio makes it clear that 2015 was a turning point for the company, or in his words, “a watershed year.” Attivio prides itself on both speeding up the data preparation process and empowering their customers to “achieve true Data Dexterity.” And hopefully they will also be profitable, soon.
Chelsea Kerwin, July 18, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
There is a Louisville, Kentucky Hidden Web/Dark
Web meet up on July 26, 2016.
Information is at this link: http://bit.ly/29tVKpx.
==
Attivio: Dines on Data Dexterity
March 7, 2016
Attivio was founded by some former Fast Search & Transfer executives. Attivio also had a brush with a board member who found himself in a sticky wicket. Quite a pedigree.
I read “Enterprise Search Takes Its Place at the Big Data Table.” The write up is built upon an interview with the chief executive officer of Attivio. Nice looking fellow who had a degree in music and marketing and an MBA from Wharton, the institution which helped educate Donald Trump.
What caught my attention were these points in the write up. My observations are in italics:
- Enterprise search has been around for two decades. [Nah, enterprise search is closing in on 50 years of fun and delight.]
- Enterprise search “finds unstructured content housed in file shares like SharePoint and other content management systems, in email archives, and in the content repositories of applications like customer relationship management. [Yep, and that is part of the problem with enterprise search. The bulk of the systems I have examined do not handle video, audio, binaries, and odd ball file types like those in ANB format very well or not at all. Plus users expect comprehensive results updated in near real time presented in a form which allows instant use.]
- Enterprise search does analytics and accelerated data discovery. [Yep, if the customer licenses a system like BAE NetReveal, the Palantir platform, or another industrial-strength fusion vendor.]
What I found interesting was the phrase “reducing the time to insight.” There is a suggestion from Attivio and from other vendors that their systems process digital content in a super fast mode.
In our testing, we have found that throughput for new content can require considerable investment in engineering and processing capability. Furthermore, dealing with flows from intercepts or other high volume content sources, most enterprise search systems cannot handle:
- Processing large flows of content in a matter of minutes. Hours or days is a more suitable time unit
- Updating the index or indexes
- Integrating real time data into search results, reports, and visualizations in a dynamic manner.
That’s why outfits who are emulating Palantir-style information access use open source search and then invest hundreds of millions in specialized engineering, interfaces, and fusion technologies.
Enterprise search vendors chasing Palantir-type systems are delivering what marketers find quite easy to describe. Here’s an example:
Not only that, but many enterprises can only “see” 10 percent of their data. The other ninety percent remains hidden—dark data. Data is often locked in silos, and it’s just too time-consuming to get it out. And making connections across structured, semi-structured, and unstructured information to serve to a BI tool is a completely manual, slow process – although highly valuable for developing strategic insights. Organizations that can cross this chasm will be poised to transform productivity, mitigate risks, and seize market opportunities.
The only hitch in the git along is that systems which handle “dark data” are available now. There are outfits able to handle “dark” data today. True, these are not based on enterprise search concepts because the core of a utility function is not a solid foundation for next generation information access. There are platforms which deliver actionable outputs. Even more interesting is that the US government is funding research to develop next generation systems designed to leap frog Palantir, i2, DCGS-A, and many other solutions.
Why?
Marketing is one thing. Delivering a system which works reliably, exhibits consistency, and integrates with work flows is a work in progress.
The notion that a Fast-type system can deliver what a Palantir-type system does is something I believe is wordsmithing. Watson does wordsmithing; others deliver next generation information access. Has Attivio hit a home run with its new positioning? Is the Attivio solution a starter for the Hickory Crawdads? My hunch the folks investing $70 million in Attivio want to start for the Boston Red Sox this year. Play ball.
Stephen E Arnold, March 7, 2016
Attivio Does Data Dexterity
October 9, 2015
Enterprise search company Attivio has an interesting post in their Data Dexterity Blog titled “3 Questions for the CEO.” We tend to keep a close eye on industry leader Attivio, and for good reason. In this post, the company’s senior director of product marketing Jane Zupan posed a few questions to her CEO, Stephen Baker, about their role in the enterprise search market. Her first question has Baker explaining his vision for the field’s future, “search-based data discovery”; he states:
“With search-based data discovery, you would simply type a question in your natural language like you do when you perform a search in Google and get an answer. This type of search doesn’t require a visualization tool. So, for example, you could ask a question like ‘tell me what type of weather conditions which exist most of the time when I see a reduction in productivity in my oil wells.’ The answer that comes back, such as ‘snow,’ or ‘sleet,’ gives you insights into how weather patterns affect productivity. Right now, search can’t infer what a question means. They match the words in a query, or keywords, with words in a document. But [research firm] Gartner says that there is an increasing importance for an interface in BI tools that extend BI content creation, analysis and data discovery to non-skilled users. You don’t need to be familiar with the data or be a business analyst or data scientist. You can be anyone and simply ask a question in your words and have the search engine deliver the relevant set of documents.”
Yes, many of us are looking forward to that day. Will Attivio be the first to deliver? The interview goes on to discuss the meaning of the company’s slogan, “the data dexterity company.” Part of the answer involves gaining access to “dark data” buried within organizations’ data silos. Finally, Zupan asks what “sets Attivio apart?” Baker’s answers: the ability to quickly access data from more sources; deriving structure from and analyzing unstructured data; and friendliness to “non-technical” users.
Launched in 2008, Attivio is headquartered in Newton, Massachusetts. Their team includes folks with an advantageous combination of backgrounds: in search, database, and business intelligence companies.
Cynthia Murrell, October 9, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Attivio ReachesTop 100 Status
June 29, 2015
The Data Dexterity Company announced the brand new Database Trends and Applications (DBTA) 100 and according to Yahoo Finance, Attivio is now on the list: “Attivio Named By Database Trends Applications To Its Prestigious Top 100 List.”
“We are pleased to be recognized by Database Trends and Applications as one of the most important firms in the data space; it further validates the type of feedback that our customers provide on a daily basis,” said Stephen Baker, CEO of Attivio. “As firms continue to be more reliant on maximizing their data to drive business-critical insights, we expect to play a critical role in driving this type of business innovation.”
Attivio joins the ranks of other companies that have made huge innovations in the data industry; they include EMC, Amazon, IBM, and more. Attivio is an industry leader in enterprise systems with its intelligence search platform. Attivio’s search platform enables users to make immediate insights with data visibility. Attivio has a well-known client use that encompasses such names as National Instruments, Nexen, GE, UBS, and Qualcomm. The company believes that there are many innovations to be made from all types, not just the type that is easily found in a database. Attivio uses its search platform to uncover insights in unstructured data that would otherwise be missed by other enterprise search platforms.
We have been following Attivio for many years and by having its name added to DBTA 100 proves it can perform well and deliver useful results. Enterprise search continues to be an important factor for enterprise systems, though people are often forgetting that today. Attivio’s addition to the DBTA 100 stresses that not everyone has forgotten.
Whitney Grace, June 29, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Attivio Board Member Under Scrutiny
April 3, 2015
I read “The SEC Charges Venture Capitalist with Insider Trading.”
Here’s the passage I noted:
An Oak spokesman was just learning about the SEC charges when contacted by Fortune, and did not yet have any comment. Among the open questions not only are if Ahmed will be a partner on the future fund, but also if he’ll remain a board member with existing Oak portfolio companies like Attivio Inc., Circle Financial Kenet LLC and Nomorereack.com.
I have mentioned that firms requiring repeated injections of venture funding are under considerable pressure to produce returns. I find it interesting that Attivio, founded by former executives at Fast Search & Transfer, had a board member who allegedly requires investigation. I wish to note that Fast Search was investigated by Norwegian authorities, and John Lervik, the founder, was saddled with formal punishment.
Attivio is a variant of Fast Search’s aspirations to deliver an enterprise wide unified information access platform. Dr. Lervik and his team had the ability to see what enterprise customers wanted. The technology fell short of the mark and some fancy financial dancing ensured. Attivio’s founders left Fast Search before the investigation spooled to high RPMs.
Search remains a difficult sector in which to produce the types of returns venture firms and angels expect the investments to generate. Is the SEC investigation an indication that extra ordinary measures are required to make some of the these investments pay off?
My view is that it is desirable to offer a product that customers want to buy, grow by making sales, and avoiding the lure of geysers of venture capitalist money. Others have a different view. That makes horse races. Who would try to fiddle with a horse race? Good question in Kentucky.
I wonder if any of the Fast Search team are on the Attivio Board of Directors.
Stephen E Arnold, April 3, 2015
Attivio Does the Hadoop the Loop
March 9, 2015
What happens when a company founded by former Fast Search & Transfer executives do? Attivio took a reasonable path:
- Present the company’s mash up of open source and proprietary code as a report generator that answered questions
- Put search in a subordinate role to the report output
- Bang the drum about the upside of the approach in order to attract millions in venture funding
- Replace the Fast founders with hardier stock
- Unveil the new Attivio as a Big Data and Discovery platform.
The transformation took from 2007 until I read the official announcement in this write up “Attivio Previews Big Data Profiling & Discovery Platform at Strata + Hadoop World 2015.”
The question is, “Will the Fast DNA go gently into the good night?” My hunch is that Attivio’s founders realized that search was not the killer app. Fast Search during its spectacular implosion learned that talking about a “platform” was different from delivering a functioning platform.
Attivio tried to avoid that error. According to the write up:
Attivio, Inc., the software company reinventing enterprise search and Big Data discovery, today announced that it will showcase its new Big Data Profiling and Discovery Platform at Strata + Hadoop World 2015. Demonstrations of the Big Data Profiling and Discovery Platform will take place at booth #1136 in the main exhibit hall.
After eight years in business, some stakeholders may be looking for a solid payback. With the discovery and Big Data market choked with companies offering knock out services, Attivio may face some challenges.
One of these is the fact that Hortonworks, one of the cheerleaders for Big Data systems based loosely on Google’s approach from 2002 and 2003, missed its revenue target. If “Hortonworks Q4 Misses on Revenue” is accurate, the Big Data market could be one of those fanciful confections that enthrall pundits, mid tier consulting firms, and former enterprise search wizards.
Hadoop is morphing into other types of software. For me, this looks like a reprise of the Fast Search strategy: Start with something familiar and then add software widgets until people start to buy. Once a deal is closed, assemble the solution. Rinse and repeat.
What could go wrong?
Stephen E Arnold, March 9, 2014
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