InQuira Embraces the Cloud
March 19, 2010
I read “InQuira Puts It Knowledge Solutions in the Cloud” and learned that the approach “is in no way a light weight version.” On premises search systems can be tough to install, tune, and maintain. Blossom has been, in my opinion, one of the trail blazers for hosted search, and it offers a robust, powerful, and customizable solution. InQuira is moving in that direction as well.
According to the write up which quotes an InQuira officer:
InQuira has existing partnerships with Oracle CRM On Demand, Oracle’s Siebel offering, and Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories. The newest on-demand offering will extend the company’s reach…[InQuira] has a really established reputation as the best-of-breed intelligent search vendor that quickly and easily integrates with everyone,” says John Ragsdale, vice president of technology research for the Technology Services Industry Association (TSIA).
One feature of the approach is that storage is provided in an “on demand” model.
You can get more information from www.inquira.com.
Stephen E Arnold, March 19, 2010
Freebie. No one paid me to write this. I will report non payment to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, an outfit who tracks work for no compensation each day, every day.
Comets and Dinosaurs
March 16, 2010
I wrote about “newsosaurs” over the weekend, and this article caught my eye: “NetSuite Calls Microsoft ‘ERP Dinosaur.” The write up is not about search, although it could have been shaped to cover that technology as well. I wanted to capture this line from the write up:
The memo, with the subject line “The Netsuite comet officially hits the Microsoft ERP dinosaur,” calls Microsoft’s announcement “an obvious act of desperation as Microsoft’s customers and partners defect en masse for NetSuite and the cloud.” Microsoft’s bid, Nelson wrote, “tries to convince NetSuite customers to move backwards 20 years to try Great Plains, Navision or Solomon”– the names of Dynamics GP, NAV and SL before Microsoft acquired them. “Microsoft has no cloud-based ERP answer to NetSuite, and Microsoft’s statement that ‘hosting’ Great Plains is their response to the cloud is so absurd as to be laughable,” Nelson said in his memo. “This is the old ‘ASP’ approach of hosting client/server products that failed as a delivery mechanism even before we entered the Year 2000.”
Stong words. Ever try to find an item in Microsoft’s ERP solutions?
Stephen E Arnold, March 16, 2010
Free, free as a bird. No one paid me to write this. Since it is an uncompensated bit of work, I must report this to the zoologist responsible for the National Zoo’s aviary ad unit.
Clouds: Fast, Slow, Broken
March 6, 2010
Measuring cloud speed is one of those chores aspiring meteorologists must endure. Here’s a snapshot of what’s involved. My source is Charles F. Brooks, The Use of Clouds in Forecasting, page 1167:
The quickest way of getting cloud motions is with a window-sill nephoscope consisting of a plane, black, horizontal mirror of eight to ten inches diameter, with- out markings on the mirror other than a depression at the center, and a peephole eyepiece through which the observer can watch the motion of the image of a cloud and follow it with a small marker. When followed for a standard period (or easy fraction or multiple), the direction and relative speed are determined with a single placement of a ruler,
Whew. That’s going to take some hunting here in Harrod’s Creek. I wonder if the gun and ammo shop has a nephoscope.
I was thinking about cloud speed when I read “Steve Ballmer’s Memo To Microsoft Staff: “We Must Move At Cloud Speed”. I think the idea is for Microsoft to move quickly. As I said in my SSN Minute today, Microsoft is turning to Cray to help Microsoft with its data center issues. My hunch is that if Microsoft moves too quickly its plumbing might not be able to keep pace. Here’s the snippet that caught my attention in the write up:
We have strong competitors. We need to be (and are) willing to change our business models to take advantage of the cloud. We must move at “cloud speed,” especially in our consumer offerings. And we need to be crystal clear about the value we provide to all our customers. To drive our message home even further, today you will see an ad campaign in the U.S. focused on our commercial and government businesses, a new website with consolidated content and case studies, and ongoing emphasis on the cloud from me and other members of the SLT in our upcoming speeches and presentations.
I will be most interested to see how Microsoft Fast, the enterprise search product, performs as a cloud service. I recall the good old days of the application service providers (ASP) and hosted Exchange. The cloud was moving slowly. Will Microsoft Fast move quickly as indexes update and queries get processed? There are fast clouds and there are slow clouds? Which will be the cloud for Microsoft Fast?
Stephen E Arnold, March 6, 2010
No one paid me to write this. I have to report unpaid writing to NOAA, an outfit that understands but is not yet able to control clouds. Someday I expect. Someday.
Quote to Note: Cloud Revenue Potential
March 5, 2010
Thinkq.com yielded a quote to note. “Microsoft Spies a Billion Dollars in Cloud” reported that Stephen Elop, head of Microsoft business software unit, allegedly said:
Three years, five years, is it [cloud services] a billion-dollar business? I’m quite certain it will be.
I have marked my calendar.
Stephen E Arnold, March 2, 2010
A freebie. Because I mentioned a calendar, I think I must report to NIST, a clock and calendar manager of some repute.
Vendor Lock In. Sorry, It Is Here to Stay
February 23, 2010
A happy quack to the reader who sent me a link to the Forbes Magazine story “The Future Of Enterprise Software.” The write up is one that says, “Yo, cloud computing is coming.” The suggestion is that vendors of enterprise software will no longer “lock in” a customer to a specific system.
Huh?
A commercial company has a mission: make money. One makes money by getting customers and keeping them. In the good old days of the mainframe, there was multi-point lock in. Today, the lock in is somewhat more subtle, but a bit like one of the country club prisoners that some wrong doers enjoy.
For me this passage triggered a chuckle:
Collectively these developments allow corporations to take a step back from software lock-in the way they stepped back from hardware lock-in during the mainframe era. IBM’s mainframes suffered more because of a concern over vendor lock-in than because of inefficiency or performance. And data outsourcing ended abruptly in the client/server era largely because companies were disgusted with service provider lock-in from companies like EDS.
In my experience, here is a run down of what some vendors are now doing:
First, there is the low cost play. Quite a few companies are moving down this path. The idea is to get the customer hooked and then play the “security” or “fear” card. The result is that the company will stick with a particular vendor to get the added value the company delivers. This is a “devil you know” approach.
Second, there is the open source play. Predicated on reducing license fees, most of the open source vendors sell services. Most organizations have at best a couple of wizards who can deal with open source. The rest will pay fees to have the open source experts manage the shop. Hey, it’s still money and it works just like the old lock in model but it has a “green” feel—responsible, natural, lower cost, etc.
Third, there is the cloud play. The idea is that an organization cannot afford or find top notch IT people. The cloud vendor can, so shove the software “out there” and enjoy the reduced costs.
Human nature loathes certain types of change. Once a vendor lands a customer, the vendor manages the customer relationship. The goal is lock in.
In my goose pond, lock in is the name of the game. It has to be because the cost of customer acquisition is too high. The whole point of selling software, systems and services is lock in. Just my opinion, Mr. Forbes.
Stephen E Arnold, February 23, 2010
No one paid me to write this. Because I mentioned lock in, I will report non payment to the General Accountability Office, an outfit that rides herd on vendors who work hard to lock in the Federal government and some succeed pretty darn regularly.
Microsoft Fast on Linux and Unix Innovation
February 15, 2010
It’s Valentine’s Day. I feel quite a bit of affection for the system professionals who have licensed Fast Search ESP, and I hope each finds search love. I think there will be a “tough” element to this love. And like other types of love, there will be ups and downs. Microsoft practiced some “tough love” for licensees of the Linux and Unix versions of Fast Search & Transfer’s Enterprise Search Platform recently. I am in a discursive frame of mind, and I will share my opinion about the “tough love” for the Linux and Unix licensees of the 1997 technology that comprises some of Fast Search & Transfer’s system.
The not-too-surprising announcement that Microsoft would stop supporting Fast Search & Transfer’s Linux and Unix customers surprised some folks. I think a handful of resellers were delighted because customers with non-Windows versions of Fast Search cannot change horses in the middle of the Tigris River, as Alexander the Great discovered in 331 BCE. Some poobahs pointed out that open source search would become a hot ticket for Fast Search Linux and Unix licensees. Others took a more balanced view of figuring out whether to rip and replace or supplement the aging Fast Search system with one of the more specialized solutions now available; for example, Exalead’s system could be snapped in without much hassle, based on my research for Successful Enterprise Search Management, published by Galatea in the UK last year. (Martin White was my co-author.)
Source: http://www.zastavki.com/pictures/1024×768/2008/Saint_Valentines_Day_St.Valentine_004959_.jpg
What I found interesting is that the Microsoft Enterprise Search blog contained some information from Bjørn Olstad, CTO, FAST and Distinguished Engineer, Microsoft. The write up’s title is “Innovation on Linux and Unix,” and it appeared on February 4, 2010.
Mr. Olstad wrote:
When we announced the acquisition two years ago, we said that we were committed to cross-platform innovation—that we’d “continue to offer stand-alone versions of ESP that run on Linux and UNIX,” and that we would provide updates to these versions to address customer concerns and add new features. Over the last two years, we’ve done just that.
The deal was consummated in April 2008. In October 2008, the Norwegian authorities seized some company information, but there has not been much news about the investigation into the pre-acquisition Fast Search & Transfer’s activities. At any event, it is now February 2010, so Microsoft has been operating Fast Search for the period between April 2008 and February 2010. That’s not quite two years, which is a nit, but software works when details are correct. What’s clear is that Fast Search and its Enterprise Search Platform or ESP is pared down and focused on the Windows platform.
I also noted this passage:
When we announced the acquisition two years ago, we said that we were committed to cross-platform innovation—that we’d “continue to offer stand-alone versions of ESP that run on Linux and UNIX,” and that we would provide updates to these versions to address customer concerns and add new features. Over the last two years, we’ve done just that.
CloudXL: Cloud Services Search
February 12, 2010
A happy quack to the reader who sent me a link to CloudXL.com, a cloud service locator service.
I have been one of the voices of caution about vertical search services. The reason is that a broad indexing methods like Google’s generally provides a method for slicing and dicing results. The vertical search engine targets a specific topic area and indexes it well. But over time the types of indexing that a company like Google does makes the broader index more useful. There are exceptions like specialty indexes for antidotes, chemical structures, and ternary phase diagrams. But for general topics, a big data index like Google has an advantage if you know how to work around the training wheels that Google bolts to some users browsers.
I did CloudXL.com useful. The service uses some Google plumbing but the CloudXL.com service provides some useful one-click filters; that is, a Boolean NOT converted to colorful buttons. If you want to see the most recent additions to the service, you don’t need to search. Just scan the home page. If you want to locate a cloud database, you just click on “Categories” and scan the list. When you spot “database as a service, check the box and click submit.
The system displayed three hits and two of them were useful. If you are looking for cloud services, you might want to bookmark CloudXL. There’s no search system. Perhaps a Google custom search engine will be added in the near future.
Stephen E Arnold, February 12, 2010
No one paid me to write this. Because I mentioned clouds, I will report non payment to NOAA.
Startling Cloud Cost Data
February 10, 2010
The story “Cloud Shrinks IT Costs by 90%” contains the type of data I like to use in my public lectures. First, it is a blockbuster number—taking $1.00 in costs and chopping them down to one thin dime. Second, the statistical foundation of the number is rarely challenged as long as I can point to an “authoritative source” like ComputerWeekly.com.
For me, the key point in the write up was:
Companies that are using cloud computing are paying as little as one-tenth for the same processing power as they would for equivalent in-house facilities. This emerged from a floor debate at the Powered by Cloud conference in London this week. Asked what return on investment they had achieved from their cloud experiments, representatives from mobile network operator Vodafone and TV broadcaster Channel 4 said the cost of their cloud-based processing was a tenth of traditional in-house computing. A speaker for Verizon, which offers cloud computing, said its customers were saving between 25% and 75% of the traditional costs.
Let’s assume that this type of savings is accurate. What’s the future of on premises software? Well, grim, I suppose. What happens to traditional enterprise software companies? Well, grim, I suppose. What happens to the rationalized IT executives who no longer have a job? Well, grim, I suppose. What about on premises search and content processing systems? Well, grim, I suppose.
The good news is a return to the type of computing environment that characterized some of my early experiences: industry dislocation, limited choice, high costs, and reduced control. Do you see something different?
Stephen E Arnold, February 10-, 2010
No one paid me to write this article. I will alert the facilities manager of the new executive office building, where cost controls are paramount.
Microsoft Study Discloses Cost Savings from Avoidance of On Premises Software
February 6, 2010
Talk about a weird study. Read, please, “Microsoft Study Reveals Small and Midsize Businesses Using Hosted Services Have Better Financial Performance.” The idea behind this research is to make a case for cloud computing. For me, the most interesting passage in the write up was:
The SMB IT and Hosted IT Index 2010 commissioned by Microsoft researched 3,193 SMBs in a cross section of private industries in 15 countries. Overall, the findings show greater awareness of the benefits of IT among SMBs and a high reliance on IT across all industries and geographies. The findings indicate a clear path toward better financial performance than for those not currently taking advantage of IT advances such as hosted services.
I concluded that anyone in a small or mid sized business with on premises installations of Microsoft’s ubiquitous software would be better off getting this stuff via the cloud. Great conclusion because this suggests to me that Microsoft’s software is dragging down the financial performance of its customers. What?
Stephen E Arnold, February 6, 2010
Nope, no pay for this write up. I will report this sad situation to the Pew crowd, an outfit familiar with outstanding research.
Mark Logic Taps Amazon
January 25, 2010
Cloud Computing “Mark Logic Leverages Amazon” reported that MarkLogic Server offers a cloud option. According to the write up said:
The move will obviously let customers use its widgetry on a pay-by-the-hour basis. A native XML database that implements the W3C-standard XML Query (XQuery) language, the server includes full-text and structured (XML) search. The AWS version consists of an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) with the MarkLogic Server pre-installed.
Mark Logic’s technology has demonstrated its versatility in a number of information-centric environments. With a client’s information within the MarkLogic Server environment, repurposing is a snap. In the last year, Mark Logic has emerged as an information infrastructure company that makes big boys like Oracle quite nervous. With the move to the cloud option, Mark Logic is poised for new services. Mark Logic’s technology exerts pressures on companies in business intelligence, enterprise publishing, and information portal services, among others.
When Larry Ellison worries, I take notice. Important step from Mark Logic.
Stephen E Arnold, January 25, 2010
Yes, I was given a free admission to the Mark Logic user conference in Washington, DC. No, I was not paid to point to this write up about the Sys-Con story. Yes, I will beg Mark Logic to throw large sums of money at me and the goslings the next time I see one of the firm’s senior managers or investors. I will report this intent to the FCC via this footnote. Wow, I feel so much better explaining that I am a shameless marketer.
