Microsoft Bing on Motorola Phones
March 12, 2010
Motorola has had its share of troubles, legal, financial, and technical. Not long after its Android powered phones rolled out, Google débuted its Android phone with a fresher version of the Android software. “Motorola to Put Bing Search on Android Phones”, if accurate, provides a little insight into how Motorola wants to show the Google who is in charge. If I buy an Android phone, the mobile search default is Microsoft’s Bing.com. For me the most interesting comment in the write up was:
Motorola will start loading Microsoft’s search and map services onto its Android smartphones in China, bringing more non-Google services to the phones amid a row between Google and China.
It might be a simple jersey tug in the soccer match between Google and Motorola. Google’s partners have strange ways of showing their affection. Semi passive resistance?
Stephen E Arnold, March 12, 2010
Nope. Nope. No one paid me to write this item. Because it is about sports, I will report the state of non payment to an outfit absolutely against allowing anything to take place without compensation, licensing deals, and consideration—The International Olympic Committee.
Hewlett Packard Trim 7
March 12, 2010
Hewlett Packard, a company that I continue to associate with low cost printers and high cost ink, lit up my radar with its acquisition of Lexington, Kentucky-based Exstream Software two years ago. Exstream (now Enterprise Document Automation), like IBM Ricoh Infoprints and Streamserve, generates outputs like invoices with warranty reminders and auto payment bills with coupons for oil change discounts. I learned that in February 2010, HP stepped up its footprint in document management. One of the source documents I examined is “HPTrim 7… How We Got Here?”. The gray background and the dark blue highlights on text were a bit much for the addled goose’s eyes, however. For me, the most interesting segment in the history of Trim 7 was this passage:
Market consolidation meant that lots of little players were gobbled up, as the larger vendors strived to meet the ever challenging demands of the marketplace, picking up technology from these smaller companies and making them a part of their overall product line. Hewlett-Packard, one of the largest IT companies in the world, did the same, acquiring TOWER Software in 2008, but with one subtle difference. Rather than cannibalize the technology and abandon the product, they kept almost all of the staff from the TOWER acquisition and told them to build the next version of what is now known as HP TRIM. And – there were no other products that HP TRIM had to compete with internally unlike a lot of the other acquisitions: IBM/FileNet, OpenText/Hummingbird/Vignette, and utonomy/Zantaz/Interwoven/Meridio. HP wanted to concentrate on the product that was HP TRIM, and add the backing that only a company like HP can bring to a product. And so, HP TRIM 7 was born.
Digging through the text, HP bought an outfit called Tower and is rolling in other software to create the “new” document management business. You can locate the main page here. Three points jumped out:
First, I did not see any indication that HP’s dynamic document system integrates our “touches” the Trim 7 product. That’s strike me as an indication that HP is chasing revenues from silo sales, not integration.
Second, how does one find a document? I could not locate any information about the search and retrieval functions within Trim 7. I surmise that if I use Trim 7 for SharePoint, I in theory would be able to use the Microsoft Fast ESP system to search for content. That also seems to be quite a bit of work; that is, consulting revenue for HP or its partners. My query “search HP Trim” resulted in 10 hits but noting on point. One result was this page, which was heavy on marketing an light on locating information within the Trim 7 system. After a legal eagle drops a gift on a company named as a party in a legal matter, job one is answering the question, “What’s this about?” Trim 7 may not be able to answer that question.
Third, HP seems to be grabbing enterprise software companies that address really big information problems. With HP’s push into printers and ink, I saw a success that may have caught the firm’s hardware mavens by surprise. The trajectory in enterprise software is being driven from bit money acquisitions. I think that the surprise of printing consumables will be different from the surprise of acquisition-based growth. One was emergent; the latter is closer to MBA spreadsheet fever.
Big bets. Big win or big loss? I am leaning toward the loss option. Outlook: worth monitoring.
Stephen E Arnold, March 12, 2010
No one paid me to write this. Because HP derives significant revenue from ink, I think I have to report non payment to the US government’s printer, GPO.
SSN Minute and Information Governance Goofs
March 11, 2010
The March 10, 2010, SSN Minute looks at two cases of information governance gong wrong. Goofs. One could have cost lives and compromised operational security in a military action. The other is the surprising rate of problems with social media. To watch this two minute video navigate to http://ssnblog.com and click on the SSN Minute logo or click here.
Stephen E Arnold, March 11, 2010
I paid myself to write this item about my SSN Blog’s SSN Minute. Upfront marketing is my motto, not that faux “real” marketing.
Google, Data, and Owning the Golf Club
March 11, 2010
I remember when I first interviewed with Barry Bingham Jr., then the boss of the Courier Journal & Louisville Times Co. The newspaper was a monopoly and it had a document from a government official saying it was okay for us to own the morning and evening newspaper, the top TV station, the top AM and FM station, and to have other information related businesses such as high volume printing, door knob ad packet hanging, a ham company, and, oh, yes, an electronic information publishing company. That unit was also number one in revenue per record on the big commercial online systems.
One of my recollections of that interview was my question about revenue and profits. I spoke with him in 1980, so my memory of that meeting in his sunny office looking down Broadway in Louisville from the Courier Journal’s main building was along the lines: “Don’t worry. When people spend money for advertising in this area, we get most of it.” He went on to point out that he would subsidize my riding the bus to work because after working in New York and Washington DC, I was not an automobile buff. He also pointed out that I was expected to volunteer in various civic groups, which for me included helping with youth soccer and contributing to the Chamber of Commerce’s first “Advanced Technology Council.” Yep, 30 years ago I thought Louisville was an advanced technology center. Go figure.
After that initial meeting, Mr. Bingham and I became friends. When he had a computer problem, he would come over to my house and we would fix his Mac. After the sale of the Courier to Gannett, he and I would have lunch at least once a year. I had to make sure I had my wallet because Mr. Bingham would often arrive in his beat up Datsun without any money even though he worth was in the big money.
At one of those lunches, he made a comment about owning the country club. My memory locked on to this analogy, and I want to share it before I suggest you spend some time working through a Google presentation about newspapers and advertising. Here’s the country club story. His view was that newspapers were the owners of the country club. The newspapers decided what to emphasize and in the case of the Courier Journal what issues to push. The Courier Journal, when I joined as an officer of the company, was ranked on a couple of lists as among the Top 25 news papers * in the world *. The Courier Journal employee ID pass was a sure fire ticket to many events. When I wanted carpet samples from the now defunct Stewart’s Department Store, I showed my Courier Journal ID and was able to haul off a dozen carpet samples. The salesperson told me, “I will come by your house, answer questions, and pick up the samples.” Now that’s power. In New York, a carpet sample to go required a driver’s license, a credit card, and a one page form. In Louisville, the Courier Journal was the owner of the country club, employees were members, and the influence of the company, its employee practices, and its reputation in the community was remarkable. I joined the Courier Journal after a stint at Booz, Allen & Hamilton and (if you can believe this), the Courier Journal had a bigger stick that the venerable firm founded in 1917 by George Booz. Amazing. What’s become of the Courier Journal? It has been Gannettized, and I don’t recall the paper’s receiving any big writing awards. Most of the special sections are recycled wire service stories and photo essays showing people with shoes or Derby hats.
Now navigate to Scribd and download Google Newspaper Economics: Online and Offline by Google’s chief economist Hal Varian. After you work through the data, ask yourself these questions:
- Who owns the country club? Traditional newspapers or the “flat” world of Internet content?
- Who are the caddies in the age of the “digital Gutenberg”? Internet companies or newspaper publishers?
- What must newspapers to do to regain their revenue flows?
- What can newspapers do to regain their commanding position in the information food chain?
I have my answers. Please, post yours in the comments section of this Web log. I won’t grade your responses, but I will look at them and see if I have missed anything in Dr. Varian’s data centric description of a business sector struggling to find a revenue stream.
Stephen E Arnold, March 11, 2010
No one paid me to write this. Since the presentation was given for an FTC group, I will just say, “Freebie.”
Cisco Throw Down: Accelerating the Internet
March 11, 2010
I keep track of the network hardware folks, but I don’t write about them in Beyond Search. Most of my readers are interested in search, content processing, and electronic information. I am pretty confident about what my readers want because I only have two or three readers. One is my assistant and the other two people are actually Internet café terminals I hacked to get my RSS feed. So, I’m unpopular. No problem for the addled goose in rural Kentucky.
I read “Cisco Shows Off Super Router” and because the article gets close to what will be an interesting front in the traditional networking sector’s battle with Google. Yep, I know. Google is a search and advertising company. Save that for the search engine optimization crowd and the azure chip crowd.
The core of the story is the statement allegedly made by John Chambers, Cisco CEO:
“Video is the killer app,” Chambers said. “Video brings the Internet to life.”
The idea is that textual information is yesterday. He is right even though I hate to see the end of an era. I regret the loss of mainframes and the wonderful revenue stream those gizmos delivered to me, but time moves on.
What the article triggered in my thinking was that Hewlett Packard and Cisco had a love spat. Now Cisco is going to find itself going where the money is, and that means into traditional telco land. The problem is that the Google with its own home brew telecommunications capabilities, the stuff it has acquired, and the technology in which it invests is going to a much larger factor in Cisco’s future. I think that may be bad news for Cisco and for some telcos. The reason is that the Google is pushing toward efficient, automated, lower cost methods.
To learn about one of Google’s little adventures, check out my KMWorld column about a company with “wireless networks that simply work?. Who will win the next series of battle in this coming collision of Google and outfits allied with traditional telecommunications companies? I don’t know, but I wager that the “real” consultants, the poobahs, mavens, and self appointed experts will discover this skirmish soon enough.
Stephen E Arnold, March 11, 2010
I was paid for the KMWorld article, but I was not paid for this reference to the KMWorld article. So, this write falls into the category of shameless marketing and self promotion. I love it.
Quote to Note: Complexity
March 9, 2010
Listen up, azure chip consultants, poobahs, mavens, and self appointed experts. What do you think of this quote to note?
It’s just so difficult for people to understand the complexity of the thing. They don’t have the background. They don’t have the time to do an investigation. They want to oversimplify a thing that can’t be oversimplified.
Who is the speaker? David E. Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research in Michigan and an engineer. The source? The Washington Post’s article “Frank Ahrens: Why It’s So Hard for Toyota to Find Out What’s Wrong.”
Germane to search, content processing, and taxonomy consistency (the next big train wreck for some folks)? Absolutely. When a tangible product with supporting software is tough to troubleshoot, what do you think about a hack-a-matic like many content management systems and some enterprise search systems.
Yep, the gurus are able to simplify. The details are irrelevant. Buzzwords do the “real” trick.
Stephen E Arnold, March 9, 2010
No one paid me to write this. But I did mention Toyota, so I suppose I have to report non payment to the Federal Highway Administration. I wonder why the roads in the US deteriorate more rapidly than the roads in France? Maybe it is the compound? Another troubleshooting job?
Real Journalists May Have Lost Touch with IT Reality
March 9, 2010
Keep in mind that the addled goose’s Web log, which you are now reading, is a marketing vehicle. It contains on good days old news. On bad days, the addled goose recycles his own talks which he delivers for tacos and Pepsis. I am not a journalist and I don’t pretend to be one. I am not even a public relations person. As I approach 66, I entertain myself capturing information that I otherwise would forget and documenting my thoughts, which are subject to change. When was the last time, a 65 year old could remember where he or she put the keys to the automobile? See what I mean.
When I read the Cnet write up about a post I saw last week, I thought, “CBS’s real journalists are now thinking about themselves in a meta-way.” Navigate to “Has Business Press Lost Touch with the Tech Industry?” CBS is a real company and it does real news. Cnet is a real news outfit, if I understand set theory. The point is that an azure chip outfit called ITDatabase figured out that the real journalists are writing about topics that are popular. I think this is using humans the way Google uses popularity algorithms. I am sure the “real” journalists would disagree. That’s okay.
For me, the most interesting passage in the write up in Cnet was:
Enterprise IT is woefully underrepresented, despite being the cash-cow in the industry. “In the overall editorial agenda,” the report says, “enterprise IT is treated like consumer tech’s snaggletoothed twin. It barely even makes the family photo.”
Let’s think about this statement.
First, publicly traded companies are covered with a bit of fancy geometry by the investment analysts tracking these companies. The information is usually able to deliver a couple of nuggets. The reason is that most of the analysts talk to people * other than public relations * and * business development officers *. Most of the real journalists recycle familiar contacts, preferring to quote names the writer assumes the readers will recognize. So when the word “search” appears in a story the same handful of “experts’ get quoted. The result is that the stories really don’t change too much from article to article. Google is an advertising company. Bing is gaining share. Autonomy is the leader in enterprise search. The statements in the article are true because they are in the article. Tautology meets routine.
Second, figuring out what is going on in a technology field is tough for three reasons. [a] The jargon is impenetrable. A “real” journalist may not have the time to figure out what the words mean. Example: faceted search or taxonomy. [b] The sources are often running the game plan. Take a look at the comments by tech leaders. There are buzzwords and a jab or two at a windmill. Not much substance because the focus is the sound bite. [c] A tech company sells products that a really complex. The wizards at the company cannot be trusted to answer a question because the wizard might point out that a specific feature is different from the function described by the marketing person. Guess who gets in trouble? The tech person so there folks are shuttled away from the lights and the cameras.
Third, I heard that publishing companies are getting rid of staff. The numbers quoted at a conference last week struck me as pretty high. The person pointed out that newspapers were shedding jobs at the rate of 1,000 per month. Wow. What will be left? What’s left, if this number is accurate, are people who have to write from news releases, contacts who are warm and familiar, and topics that are listed on Tweetmeme.
When the money goes away, algorithms will do this work and, of course, folks with time on their hands like this addled goose. Just my opinion.
Stephen E Arnold, March 9, 2010
No one paid me to write about how I write this blog. Wait. If I buy myself lunch this afternoon, I will be getting paid. I will report the write-for-food angle to the FCC.
Google and Information
March 9, 2010
Media Maverick Greg Sansoval’s “Google Reluctant to Release Info in Viacom Case” presented some interesting information. The idea is that Google does not want to have certain information floating around. What information? The documents related to the $1.0 billion Viacom litigation. Ah, juicy information. For me, the most important comment in the write up was:
For three years now, Google and Viacom have exchanged hundreds of thousands of pages of deposition transcripts, e-mails, and other data during a lengthy discovery process. Most of the information has been kept under seal, thanks to a protective order, which was negotiated and agreed to by both sides. Now, Viacom wants to unseal all but the most sensitive of trade secrets within two weeks and Google wants to wait until June 4. Google says it would be a “logistical nightmare” to release information piecemeal before the sides finish arguing their cases. Courts typically prefer to keep records open to the public, but there are exceptions, most often in criminal or civil cases involving national security. In civil suits, some material can be kept under seal in order to protect trade secrets. What’s not clear is why the material in the Viacom vs. Google case is under seal.
My take on this is that the depositions include information that will provide insight into the strengths and weaknesses of Google’s digital fingerprints and other interesting aspects of the matter. My hunch is that if these materials become available, a number of useful nuggets will emerge.
Stephen E Arnold, March 9, 2010
No one paid me to write this news item. Since I mention a legal matter, I will report non payment to the US District Court in Alexandria, Virginia.
Surprise. Telcos Do Not Like Nexus One
March 8, 2010
Some chatter over the last two days suggests that Google plays favorites. Google does play favorites, but it does its head patting in subtle ways; that is, if you see the Nexus One roll out as a low key initiative. Navigate to the SP Trading Desk and the story “Google’s Nexus One Upsets Carriers.” You may have to do some work to see the story. The ads load slowly and then there is a weird pop over thing, but the content is still there.
The Financial Post said:
The launch of Google Inc.’s new Web-enabled smartphone, dubbed Nexus One, means the end of the Internet search giant’s Android software as we know it.
The insight comes from an analyst, Peter Misek.
The story points out that some telecommunications carriers are not jumping with joy over Google’s intrusion into yet another parcel of telco land. Google, the analyst and the telcos, now realize that:
Google is trying to circumvent their ownership of networks, spectrum and customers…Android is currently available on more than a 20 phones.
Now how can Google disadvantage competitors. My goodness, I am no Elizabeth Barrett Browning but let me count some of the ways:
- Applications. Some may not be available for non Google phones. This is the Apple approach and lots of other companies’ approach.
- Latency. Ah, more subtle. Google does prioritize certain network services. Maybe but some hard evidence is needed.
- Content delivery. My research indicates that Google’s CDN technology has some interesting technical capabilities. Even better, the CDN is smart and considers many factors which to one skilled in the art may be applied in other ways.
- Features. Ask Motorola about this angle.
- Metrics. Lots of metrics are available. The question is who gets what and when.
- Services. I can anticipate the real time translation service emerging as an interesting poker chip in the telco game.
Back to the gossip and rumors. Does Google advantage itself? Do Google employees use MOMA?
Stephen E Arnold, March 8, 2010
No one paid me to write this. I will report non payment to that most objective of US government entities, the FCC.
Microsoft SharePoint: The CMS Killer
March 7, 2010
I read “Interesting Perspective on How SharePoint Is Capturing the ECM Market.” The write up references a post by Lee Dallas who writes the Big Men on Content blog. The idea is that SharePoint works seamlessly with Active Directory. As a result, access and identity are part of the woodwork, and no information technology staff have to futz around so employees can find and manipulate documents, presentations, or spreadsheets. Furthermore, SharePoint put a stake in the heart of enterprise content management systems by adding collaboration to the create it, find it, and use it approach of the traditional content management vendors. SharePoint won because it added these features and did a great job marketing.
I agree that Microsoft SharePoint seems to be everywhere. I also know that Microsoft has pumped Tiger Juice into its partners and resellers to push the SharePoint solution. The marketing message is reinforced with zeal and great prices. Keep in mind that SharePoint requires a dump truck full of other Microsoft software to deliver on the bullet points in the SharePoint sales presentation.
Now my view on this brilliant success is a bit different.
First, Microsoft SharePoint has been around a long time. It is a combination of products, features, functions. When I hear SharePoint, I see the nCompass logo, circa 2001. I also think “content server”. The current incarnation of SharePoint is a bunch of stuff that requires even more Microsoft stuff to work. A number of Microsoft partners have built software to snap into SharePoint to deliver some of the features that Microsoft talks about but cannot get to work. These range from search to content management itself. I wrote about a SharePoint expert who uses WordPress because SharePoint is too much of a headache. Age can bring wisdom, but I think SharePoint’s trajectory has been one that delivers mind boggling complexity. SharePoint consultants love the product. Addled geese like me see it as one more crazy enterprise solution that today’s top managers just pay for reflexively.
Second, the world of content management has become mired in muddy road after muddy road. Some projects make travel by donkey delightful. CMS was created to help outfits without any expertise in producing information post Web pages. Then the Web morphed into an applications platform and the CMS vendors were like the buggy whip manufacturers who thought horse powered carriages were a fad. Big CMS projects almost never worked without application of generous layers of money and custom engineering. At the same time, information management became important due to the fine work of the SEC, Enron, Tyco, and other outfits. Now many organizations have to keep track of documents, not lose them like White House email. It turns out that managing electronic information is pretty difficult. The bubble gum approach of Web CMS won’t work for a nuclear power plan engineering change order. Some folks are discovering this fact that a Web page is different from tracking the versions of a diagram for a cooling pipe in an ageing pressurized water reactor. Imagine that!
Third, companies lack the dough to spend wildly for information technology. The financial challenges of many organizations have not been prevented by fancy systems. Some might argue that fancy systems accelerated the impact of certain financial problems. The reason there are the alleged 100 million SharePoint users is a result of really aggressive marketing and bundling. If SharePoint provides job security, go for it. I have heard this sentiment expressed by an information technology company in Europe on more than one occasion.
The net net of SharePoint is that Microsoft is going to make a great deal of money, but there will be a gradual loss of customers. The reason is partly due to demographics and partly due to what I call SharePoint fatigue. When users discover that the fancy metadata functions don’t work, some will poke around. Metadata must be normalized; otherwise, fancy functions don’t work very well. Fixing metadata is expensive. When a cloud service comes along with the function that normalizes metadata transparently, then SharePoint will be behind an eight ball.
SharePoint, like other Microsoft software, is reaching a point where moving forward becomes more difficult and more expensive. That’s the signal for outfits like Google to strike. The death of CMS has given SharePoint a good run. Now that SharePoint may be difficult to scale, stabilize, and extend, SharePoint becomes catnip for Googzilla. Just my opinion.
Stephen E Arnold, March 7, 2010
No one paid me to write this. Since I mention Microsoft, I think I have to report non payment to the many SharePoint fans at the Department of Defense.
