Social Intelligence a Nice Addition to Analytics, but Not Necessary
August 9, 2017
Social media is an ever-evolving tricky beast to tame when it comes to analytics which is why most companies do the best they can with the resources appointed to the job. Social intelligence gurus, however, are constantly pushing more ways to make sense of the mounting social data.
A recent CIO article exploring the growing field of social intelligence highlighted the role of Sally-Anne Kaminski, Global Social Media Strategy Manager, at Zebra Technologies. Her job was explained as:
When the sales enablement team approaches her about prospective clients, Kaminski taps Oracle’s Social Cloud, a social relationship management tool, to build a comprehensive dashboard to help the sales representative nail the sale. Kaminski loads Social Cloud’s Boolean search with keywords, phrases and topics to discover in conversations across Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, as well as message boards and blogs.
Is it effective though? Even Kaminski admits there is no data showing her role analyzing social media data (beyond what analytics alone can do) is benefiting anyone. At the end of the day, social intelligence is reliant on the human touch (think more money) and we must question the operational value it provides.
Catherine Lamsfuss, August 9, 2017
Lost in Translation?
August 3, 2017
Real-time translation is a reality with a host of apps. However, all these apps rely on real-time Cloud Computing for proverbial accuracy. Lingmo One2One Universal Translator seems to be different.
According to a product review published by Forbes and titled Lingmo One2One Universal Translator Preview, the reviewer says:
What gives me pause about the Lingmo, like the other universal translator devices, is the company has no track record in making hardware. Getting the translation stuff right is, I’m sure, hard enough. Getting all that to work in a portable device adds a whole other level of complexity.
Attempts have been made earlier to perfect the translation system, but so far no one has succeeded even decently. The problem is the complexity of human interactions. Though the device is powered by IBM’s AI program Watson, how it manages to store and process the humongous amount of text or voice based communication within the small box is not understandable.
Scientists have been trying to crack the natural language processing problem for a couple of years. Even with the vast amount of resources, it still looks like a distant possibility.
Vishal Ingole, August 3, 2017
Google Abandons Email Ads; Stops Reading User Emails
July 11, 2017
Gmail, the largest email provider, has stopped the email ads program after enterprise customers raised concerns over privacy and enterprise data.
As reported by Bloomberg in an article titled Google Will Stop Reading Your Emails for Gmail Ads, the author of the article says:
Google is stopping one of the most controversial advertising formats: ads inside Gmail that scan users’ email contents. The decision didn’t come from Google’s ad team, but from its cloud unit, which is angling to sign up more corporate customers.
Launched on in April 2004, Gmail initially was an invitation only email service. As the user base increased, the then parent company Google decided to sell ad space within the mailbox to advertisers based on email contents.
Gmail now will abandon this practice as many corporate clients have enrolled for the paid version of the email named G Suites. The decision came from Diane Greene, who heads the Cloud division of Alphabet, Inc. Alphabet’s dominance over search engine business continues. The next bastion might be Cloud services, as indicated by this move. Right, Google?
Vishal Ingole, July 11, 2017
DoD and Textron Move Analytics to Cloud
July 3, 2017
Continuing in its efforts to become more cloud-based, the DOD has partnered with Textron to create a web-based intel program. This latest edition of intelligence gathering program has shifted the DOD away from software into cloud presence, one of the government’s goals for the future.
Defense Systems recently reported on this new collaboration:
Decreasing a hardware footprint by consolidating data-centers and servers is entirely consistent with the Pentagon’s push to move more services, applications, storage systems and functions to a cloud-based architecture; this is particularly relevant in light of DOD’s initiative to integrate more commercial IT systems and move more Joint Regional Security Stacks (JRSS) functions to the cloud.
The program itself streamlines data analysis and places it in the cloud for easier storage and access. This latest move showcases how technology across the board is shifting from traditional software and hardware driven data analytics and moving toward cloud-based.
Catherine Lamsfuss, July 3, 2017
Google, Microsoft Trail Amazon AWS Success
June 28, 2017
Is it now impossible for any fourth company to claw their way to the top of the cloud? Amazon’s AWS is still way ahead in the hosted-services game, but Google’s CloudPlatform and Microsoft’s Azure are also flourishing, we learn from “AWS, Google, and Microsoft Cement Their Cloud Dominance” at InfoWorld. Writer Matt Asay observes:
[AWS is] redefining enterprise IT forever, with everyone else having to sprint to catch up to its torrid pace of innovation and price cuts. Interestingly, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud appear to be doing exactly that. … The market is consolidating around the big three cloud vendors, and it may be too late to add a fourth.
Though both Microsoft and Google have yet to break out their respective cloud revenue numbers (they’re not required to until it represents 5 percent of their overall company revenue), both reported big increases for 2016. Microsoft’s Azure revenue grew 95 percent in constant currency, and while Google didn’t report revenue or growth numbers, it suggested it had ‘significant momentum’ in the year, a claim made more believable by deals like Snap’s ($2 billion over five years for Google Cloud services). The problem for Microsoft and Google is that AWS isn’t slowing down. If anything, it’s accelerating.
Ah, lively competition. Asay emphasizes that much of Amazon’s success has occurred because they were able to reduce prices while increasing functionality. That is indeed a difficult combination to beat. Google or Microsoft may be in the position to pull off an upset, perhaps with some remarkable feat of innovation. Fourth place and below may be wise to pursue revenue streams outside the hosting field.
Cynthia Murrell, June 28, 2017
Swiftype Launches SaaS Enterprise Search Platform
May 10, 2017
While AI is a hot commodity, enterprise search has been more of a disappointment. That is why we are surprised by one company’s confidence in the search market—KMWorld shares, “Swiftype Launches AI-Powered Content Discovery Engine for Enterprise Users.” This integration of AI into enterprise search is the firm’s first (formal) venture into cloud services. Writer Joyce Wells tells us:
With a single search, the company says, a user can locate information across accounts in Salesforce, files on Dropbox, documents in Google G Suite or Office 365, information from internal databases, and conversation threads on Gmail. Swiftype also integrates directly into apps such as Salesforce and Confluence to allow users to search and find content across all of these services without disturbing their existing workflows.
According to the vendor, the platform provides Swiftype AI-powered search applications built natively for mobile, desktop, and web browsers, as well as additional workflow integrations that allow users to search all their data from the applications they already use. There is also a Connector Framework to help quickly connect cloud-based platforms.
So far, Swiftype has integrated the platforms of Google, Microsoft, Salesforce, Atlassian, and Zendesk into their product. We also learn the company’s AI platform, dubbed Enterprise Knowledge Graph, will take into account calendar events, email content, and user behavior as crafts analyses. Launched in 2012, the Swiftype is based in San Francisco.
Cynthia Murrell, May 10, 2017
How to Use a Quantum Computer
April 20, 2017
It is a dream come true that quantum computers are finally here! But how are we going to use them? PC World discusses the possibilities in, “Quantum Computers Are Here—But What Are They Good For?” D-Wave and IBM both developed quantum computers and are trying to make a profit from them by commercializing their uses. Both companies agree, however, that quantum computers are not meant for everyday computer applications.
What should they be used for?
Instead, quantum systems will do things not possible on today’s computers, like discovering new drugs and building molecular structures. Today’s computers are good at finding answers by analyzing information within existing data sets, but quantum computers can get a wider range of answers by calculating and assuming new data sets. Quantum computers can be significantly faster and could eventually replace today’s PCs and servers. Quantum computing is one way to advance computing as today’s systems reach their physical and structural limits.
What is astounding about quantum computers are their storage capabilities. IBM has a 5-qubit system and D-Wave’s 2000Q has 2,000 qubit. IBM’s system is more advanced in technology, but D-Wave’s computer is more practical. NASA has deployed the D-Wave 2000Q for robotic space missions; Google will use it for search, image labeling, and voice recognition; and Volkswagen installed it to study China’s traffic patterns.
D-Wave also has plans to deploy its quantum system to the cloud. IBM’s 5-qubit computer, on the other hand, is being used for more scientific applications such as material sciences and quantum dynamics. Researchers can upload sample applications to IBM’s Quantum Experience to test them out. IBM recently launched the Q program to build a 50-qubit machine. IBM also wants to push their quantum capabilities in the financial and economic sector.
Quantum computers will be a standard tool in the future, just as the desktop PC was in the 1990s. By then, quantum computers will respond more to vocal commands than keyboard inputs.
Whitney Grace, April 20, 2017
Battle in the Clouds
April 10, 2017
The giants of the tech world are battling fiercely to dominate the Cloud services industry. Amazon, however is still at the pole position being the first entrant, followed by Microsoft, Google and IBM.
The Street in an in-depth report titled How Amazon, Microsoft, Google and IBM Battle for Dominance in the Cloud says:
Amazon Web Services, or AWS, is the indisputable leader, with a breadth of services and clients ranging from blue chips such as Coca Cola (KO) and General Electric (GE) to app-economy stalwarts like Netflix (NFLX), Tinder and Lyft. Microsoft and Google are closing the features gap, even if they are far behind on market share.
So far, these technology giants are fighting it out in cornering the IaaS market. Amazon with AWS clearly dominates this space. Microsoft, because of its inherent advantage of B2B software already running across major corporations has it easy, but not easy enough to topple Amazon. Google and IBM are vying for the remaining market share.
Apart from IaaS, PaaS is going to be the next frontier on which the Cloud battles will be fought, the report states. Consolidation is a distant possibility considering the fact that the warriors involved are too big to be acquired. With most services at par, innovation will be the key to gain and sustain in this business.
Vishal Ingole, April 10, 2017
Diffeo Incorporates Meta Search Technology
March 24, 2017
Will search-and-discovery firm Diffeo’s recent acquisition give it the edge? Yahoo Finance shares, “Diffeo Acquires Meta Search and Launches New Offering.” Startup Meta Search developed a local computer and cloud search system that uses smart indexing to assign index terms and keep the terms consistent. Diffeo provides a range of advanced content processing services based on collaborative machine intelligence. The press release specifies:
Diffeo’s content discovery platform accelerates research analysts by applying text analytics and machine intelligence algorithms to users’ in-progress files, so that it can recommend content that fills in knowledge gaps — often before the user thinks of searching. Diffeo acts as a personal research assistant that scours both the user’s files and the Internet. The company describes its technology as collaborative machine intelligence.
Diffeo and Meta’s services complement each other. Meta provides unified search across the content on all of a user’s cloud platforms and devices. Diffeo’s Advanced Discovery Toolbox displays recommendations alongside in-progress documents to accelerate the work of research analysts by uncovering key connections.
Meta’s platform integrates cloud environments into a single keyword search interface, enabling users to search their files on all cloud drives, such as Dropbox, Google Drive, Slack and Evernote all at once. Meta also improves search quality by intelligently analyzing each document, determining the most important concepts, and automatically applying those concepts as ‘Smart Tags’ to the user’s documents.
This seems like a promising combination. Founded in 2012, Diffeo made Meta Search its first acquisition on January 10 of this year. The company is currently hiring. Meta Search, now called Diffeo Cloud Search, is based in Boston.
Cynthia Murrell, March 24, 2017
Enterprise Search in the Cloud: Which Service Provider?
March 9, 2017
In the wake of Amazon’s glitch, a number of publications rushed to report on the who, what, where, and why. ZDNet took a different approach in “Which Cloud Will Give You the Biggest Bang for the Buck?” The write up recycled in the best tradition of “real” journalism a report from a vendor named Cloud Spectator. I won’t ask too many questions about sample size, methodology, the meaning assigned to “value,” and statistical validity. I will assume that the information is not Facebook news.
The guts of the write up is this chart, which is impossible to read in this blog post, but the original is reasonably legible:
What this chart reveals about hosting is that the 1&1 system is the big dog. I would point out that the naming of the service is “1+1” in the chart; the “real” name of the company is “1&1”, a real joy to search using free Web search systems.
Okay, 1+1 was on my radar as a very low cost provider of Web page hosting and other services. Now the company remains a low cost provider and has added a range of new services. Cloud Spectator finds the company A Number One. I was tempted to type ANo1, another keen string to plug into a Web search system.
What interested me was the cluster of outfits which the Cloud Spectator survey pegged as small dogs; for example, Amazon Web Services, the very same outfit that nuked some major Web sites. (Send in a two pizza team, Mr. Bezos.)
Close to Amazon’s lower third ranking was Microsoft Azure. Somehow that seems par for the new Microsoft. Google and the financially challenged Rackspace were in the middle of the pack. (What happened to Rackspace’s love affair with Robert Scobel, recently removed from the Gilmore Gang.)
But the major news for me was that IBM, yep, the owner of the famed and much admired Watson thing, was darn near last. IBM nosed out DimensionDate for the “Also Participated” badge.
Net net: Maybe 1&1 should get more attention. Perhaps the company will change its name to minimize the likelihood of misspellings. Alternatively 1&1 can hire Recode to endlessly repeat that one spells embarrassed with two r’s and two esses.
When it comes to search in the cloud, the question becomes, “How does one deploy an enterprise class search and content processing on the 1&1 system?” Good question.
Stephen E Arnold, March 9, 2017
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