Open Source May Be Disruptive
August 16, 2010
I do not know much about software, information, or the big-time doings of corporate giants. I am not an azurini, a self-appointed poobah, or the cat’s paw of a group of 20-something MBAs from schools that require a great family and a high IQ. I am an addled goose. I float around in a pond filled with mine drainage water and offer some humble observations which the great and powerful dismiss as silly, irrelevant, or just plain incorrect.
No problemo.
However, even the intellectual black hole of the addled goose’s analytic muck pond can figure out from two articles that open source is scaring the heck out of a really tough, superstar executive.
You make your own decision about the accuracy and significance of these two news stories:
First, point your browser thingy with monitoring functions activated so those watching know you really did navigate to a “real” news source and read “Oracle Kills Open Solaris, Moves Development behind Closed Doors.” The idea is pretty easy to understand. Those super-marketers at Sun Microsystems gave away an operating system as open source. Nope. Oracle’s Larry Ellison and his sharp-pencil crowd shut that door. The reason? Open source equals bad business. “Bad”, I presume, means a threat to Oracle’s pricing tactics. Free and Oracle are not words that I associate when I hear the word “Oracle.”
A happy quack to http://jordanhall.co.uk/general-articles/dont-be-evil-licensing-1301401/ for this great illustration.
Second, Oracle is suing Google over its use of Java. Now Java is sort of a piggy, but, hey, lots of universities teach Java, and it can be quite useful when running in today’s nifty hardware environments. Overlook those flaws which have been documented in some detail in the Software Engineering podcasts at www.se-radio.net. Notice: SE-Radio is not exactly an Adam Carolla Leo LaPorte type podcast. You can get some information about the this tussle between two former bosom buddies by tapping to “Initial thoughts on Oracle vs Google Patent Lawsuit.” Yep, those are links to patent documents, so I don’t think the skimmers among my readers will invest much dwell time on the Tirania post.
Nevertheless, the headlines may be enough for a “real” azure chip consultant. The details are murky and former English majors and sociology minors won’t spend too much time doing the analysis a “real” poobah does.
Let me Cliff Notes it: Larry Ellison is a smart, rich person. He understands that open source is a problem for a company like Oracle that charges really big fees for its software. Open source with its unruly developers and hard-to-make-do-push-ups work ethic are the enemy. The fix. Kill open source. If total annihilation is not possible, make open source expensive in terms of legal fees. The way law works for rich people is that a rich person’s lawyers can make a less rich person spend lots of time fighting the rich person’s legal actions. Eventually money wins, particularly when there are fuzzy wuzzy ideas like open source, intellectual property, and rich people arguing as the main action.
There is just one snag. Even rich people have trouble keeping those peasants under control. For my readers who stayed awake during world history, you know that lots of peasants with sticks and rocks can be a real problem. Honk off enough peasants, and the excitement can end in a revolution.
At this moment in the capitalistic, free market sun:
- Lots of companies are strapped for cash. Free is pretty darned appealing when you have to decide how to pay the light bill, the actress assisting the company at a trade show, and paying the lease on a new Bimmer.
- Open source is pretty good, and there are some robust solutions available with the click of a mouse. Examples include Drupal, Hadoop, Lucene/Solr and * lots * more.
- The open source stuff is fun. Training and certification for Oracle or other “carrier class” enterprise solutions are not as much fun as blasting around the lake on a jet ski at 30 knots.
If I focus on relational databases, I am in a Roman ruin. You can see or at least imagine the splendor of the structure. But rebuilding it after a crash and getting it back to the “way it was” is just too much work, too expensive, and too labor intensive. Why not build a new structure, using the tips and methods that HGTV puts on display each night on my local cable channel. Need a granite counter top and have neither money, stone cutting tools, nor expertise. Hey, just shoot over to Home Depot and get an epoxy alternative. That’s the open source approach: New materials, new methods, and new benefits.
Roman ruin. What’s the cost of a rebuild and then upkeep? How do you modify a limestone flying balcony? You don’t. Get some slaves.
Data Centers for Facebook and Google: Juiciness in Alleged Facts
August 16, 2010
Navigate to “Two Data Centers Present a Study in Contrasts.” The information in the write up is germane to search and social networking. A happy qua ck to Theodoric Meyer, who did a very good job on this article for the Dalles (Oregon) Chronicle.
Dalles? Yep, that’s the town in which first Google, then Facebook, decided to set up power sucking data centers. In the olden days, data centers had lots of people. Today’s data centers are designed to be as close to people free as possible. Humans wandering around a data center filled with itty-bitty gizmos crunching lots of data can get screwed up in a heartbeat if a clumsy human does something like pull a plug or punch a button to see what happens.
You will want to read the full write up by Mr. Meyer. Here are the factoids that I noted:
- Google set up shop in scenic and struggling Dalles in 2006. Now Facebook with its Xooglers is on the same path.
- Data center managers have to make nice with city officials, particularly in places like scenic and struggling Dalles.
- Facebook is doing a better job of building bridges that Google’s Math Club crowd did.
- No Oreogon taxes will be paid on the data centers for 15 years. (A big yes to the American market system.) A minimum number of hires and higher pay were the requirements Google and Facebook had to meet.
- Facebook’s facility will have 147,000 square feet or about 2.2 American football fields. That’s almost as big a typical trailer here in Harrod’s Creek, Kentucky.
- Facebook power consumption will be at 30 megawatts with a need to access up to 90 megawatts of power. BGF (before Google and Facebook), the township used 30 megawatts of power.
- Google has done “a lot of good” in Dalles.
The key factoid. The fellow responsible for Google’s Dalles facility has been hired by Facebook. You can take the Xoogler out of Google but you can’t take the Google out of the Xoogler.
And that contrast? Math Club compared to making nice with political officials.
Stephen E Arnold, August 16, 2010
Cloud and Context: Fuzzy and Fuzzier
August 11, 2010
I got a kick out of “Gartner Says Relevancy of Search Results Can be Improved by Combining Cloud and Context-Aware Services.” Fire up your iPad and check out this write up which has more big ideas and insights than Leonardo, Einstein, or Andy Rooney ever had. You will want to read the full text of the article. What I want to do is list the memes that dot the write up like chocolate chips in Toll House cookies. Here goes:
- value
- cloud-based services
- context-based services
- revenue facing external search installation
- informational services
- integration engineers
- contextual information
- value from understanding
- Web search efforts
- market dynamics
- general inclination
- search in the cloud
- discoverable information
- offloading
- quantifiable improvements
- social networking
- user’s explicit statement of interests
- rich profile data
Cool word choice, right? Concrete. Specific. Substantive. Now here’s the sentence that I was tempted to flag as a quote to note. I decided to include it in this blog post:
Optimizing search through the effective application of context is a particularly helpful and effective way to deliver valuable improvements in results sets under any circumstances.
Got that? Any circumstance. Well, except being understandable to an addled goose.
Stephen E Arnold, August 11, 2010
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Google Apps and the US Government
August 10, 2010
eWeek runs these odd slideshows which seem to be dot points strung out to get page views. I clicked through “Cloud Computing: Google Apps Leads Microsoft in Federal Cloud Race: 10 Reasons Why It Matters.” The hook is Google’s getting a government security certification. However, I keep hearing a great deal about Amazon, IBM, and Microsoft. Each of these companies is putting a body slam on the US government. The winner or at least the horse in the lead is Amazon. I know it sound wacky, but the AWS offerings seem to be at the right price point and have enough goodies to entice some procurement teams. Google may have to fine tune its pricing to be less Googley and more Bezosey. The eWeek slide show seems to offer information oddly disconnected from the reality I hear about. That’s why I am an addled goose, I suppose.
Stephen E Arnold, August 10, 2010
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Microsoft and Focus
August 1, 2010
I am the type of goose who can do one thing at a time. If I am plugging away on one of my silly projects and you speak to me, I will jump. I might even emit a “yikes”. That’s nuts, of course, but that is an example of how I get things done. Focus. One thing at a time.
When someone tells me that he can focus on two things at once, I know that focus means something different to this person than to me. When someone tells me, he can do four or five things at once, I know that is pretty much impossible. Here’s a test. I have a rock. You are talking on your mobile, watching your kid on the swing, and standing in the middle of a highway. So, explain that focus thing to me again. Now I throw a rock at your head. I will cheat by creeping around behind you and throwing the rock without your watching me. What about that focus? If you try to keep me in sight, you are going to lose sight of the kid. Maybe a car will hit you? Whoever is talking to you on your phone is going to ask, “Dude, what are you doing?”
So navigate to “Microsoft: We Are Focusing on Eight Core Businesses.” Here’s the statement I noted:
Actually, Microsoft has eight core focus areas, General Manager of Investor Relations Bill Koefoed, told the Wall Street analysts (and a few of us press types) attending the day-long event.
The eight, according to Koefoed:
- Xbox and TV
- Bing
- Office
- Windows Server
- Windows Phone
- Windows
- Business users
- SQL Server
So now read “Steve Ballmer: Microsoft Has Been Focusing on cloud for 15 Years.” Notice that the cloud is not on the Koefoed list. Also, the statement about Microsoft’s activity in the cloud for 15 years puts us back to 1995. I may have missed something, but I never thought about Microsoft as a master of hosted services.
Obviously I was not focusing. I am flawed because I try to keep my lists consistent and I cannot focus on nine things at once. So maybe that “eight” should be “nine”? And what happened to search; specifically, $1.2 billion Fast Search thing? Not a point of focus apparently.
Stephen E Arnold, August 1, 2010
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Microsoft Comes on Strong at July Partner Conference
July 22, 2010
Well, it was not Thai kickboxing, but it was close. The July partner conference touted the cloud, the losers at Apple characterized as “Apple’s Vista”, and that old time lock in religion.
It seems that Microsoft is anything but intimidated by the iPhone4 and ready to put all their collective weight behind cloud computing. That was the message it appears the IT giant wants out there if the article titled Microsoft Talks Up Cloud, Slaps Google, Apple in the InternetNews.com is any indication.
COO Kevin Turner was unwavering in his emphasis of the cloud theme and anyone that attended the conference couldn’t miss the fact that was to be the major point. He even went on to explain that the firm is ‘rebooting’ as they move more and more toward cloud technology.
He was by all accounts firm in his emphasis, even going so far as to say he understands the process will necessitate major changes for Microsoft partners. He also mentioned the fact that Bing’s share for the search market has gown by 51% since the Google rival debuted.
With partners paying for the privilege of becoming a “real” partner, the showmanship and bravado are exactly with those with dollar signs in their eyes want to hear.
Rob Starr, July 22, 2010
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Cloud, Semantics, and Cancer Fighting
July 10, 2010
There has been some progress that shares semantic Web and cloud technology in detecting lung cancer. The National Cancer Institute’s Early Detection Research Network (EDRN) and the non profit Canary foundation are working together here. This reported in Semanticweb.com.
The preliminary tests have been so encouraging in fact, the combined effort is looking to move forward and get NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) to analyze the results. The project is hoping to use the computer technology to analyze at least some of the results that it has, and for humans to be able to collaborate on the collected results to see if cloud computing can someday combat lung cancer.
This is obviously something that’s starting out in its infancy stage, but to even consider that a dent can be made in the 157,300 lung cancer deaths that are forecast for 2010 using a computer driven approach is encouraging.
Rob Starr, July 10, 2010
Vertical Search: Music and the Potential for a Stubbed Toe
July 9, 2010
“Search Engines Turn to Music” presents a very post modern view of vertical search. A vertical search system would have been in 1980 a commercial database with an editorial policy. The idea was that a particular database like Investext would have information in it that was homogeneous. Investext, for instance, contained analysts reports chopped into 3 Kb pages. When I needed information from an investment firm’s analyst reports, I would use Investext. I liked the product so much, ABI/INFORM teamed with Investext to explain when to use each commercial database. Today, search engines have rediscovered an editorial policy. As the write up in Stuff makes clear, the 2010 approach includes some new wrinkles.
For me, the most interesting comment in the write up was:
According to Microsoft, 10 percent of all Internet search queries are entertainment-related, with music lyrics alone accounting for 70 percent of those searches.
Where there are users, there will be monetization opportunities in the post Napster world. I also noted this segment:
BPI, the trade group representing UK record labels, raised the stakes in June by issuing a takedown notice to Google, demanding it remove links to 17 songs from third-party websites it deems infringing, such as RapidShare and MegaUpload.
Yikes. More legal hassles for the Google. What’s clear is that cloud based, for fee music and rich media services are the future.
Useful article, but I am not sure that search engines have turned to music. My view is that search engines are finding that some of the old tricks still have the capacity to interest users. The vertical angle is important. A copyright misstep could lead to a bone crushing collision with the pavement. And what about the bruises when giants collide in the contentious rich media market?
Stephen E Arnold, July 9, 2010
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Free File Conversion in the Cloud
July 8, 2010
It wasn’t long ago converting WAV files to MP3 was the only real stumbling block to juggling all the different downloads available.
Things have changed with Online-Convert.com, and it’s good to find one place where you can find a host of easy and quick conversions covering the gamut from audio to video and even document conversions. Examples range from flipping a Word file into plain ASCII or more exotic,
Online-convert.com makes it easy when you’re looking for the right format with a series of easy to use and read categories and drop down menus in each one that make it simple to get find the exact conversion you need.
Although most of the conversions are topical and quite often necessary, independent contractors and some system administrators may find the site a must-have service. There are some downsides; for example, the conversions for ebooks seem almost redundant with the advent of Kindle and other new ebook options, but that doesn’t mean this site isn’t worth bookmarking for all the other useful conversions there.
Rob Starr, July 8, 2010
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EMC Snags Greenplum
July 7, 2010
Short honk: In “EMC To Acquire Greenplum In Data Warehousing, Cloud Play,” I learned that a quite interesting information technology nestles in the grasp of a really big outfit. EMC is making moves to keep revenues flowing. According to the write up:
Pat Gelsinger, president and COO for EMC Information Infrastructure Products, said in a statement that Greenplum’s massively-parallel, scale-out architecture, along with its self-service consumption model, has made it a leader in the data warehouse industry’s shift toward ‘big data’ analytics. “Greenplum’s market-leading technology combined with EMC’s virtualized Private Cloud infrastructure provides customers, today, with a best-of-breed solution for tomorrow’s ‘big-data’ challenges,” Gelsinger said.
What’s a Greenplum?
Greenplum is the pioneer of Enterprise Data Cloud™ solutions for large-scale data warehousing and analytics, providing customer with flexible access to all their data for business intelligence and analytics. Greenplum offers industry-leading performance at a low cost for companies managing terabytes to petabytes of data. Data-driven businesses around the world, including NASDAQ OMX, NYSE Euronext, Reliance Communications, Skype and Fox Interactive Media/MySpace, have adopted the Greenplum Database to support their mission-critical business functions.
The Beyond Search view: Good idea. The challenge will be to cope with other outfits with the same idea. In the last six months, Amazon has begun to have an impact in cloud services. Others are firing up their hot air balloons in a race through the clouds. Can EMC make this acquisition a key differentiator? Understanding of the cloud in some businesses is growing but the buzzwords may add friction to some procurements.
Stephen E Arnold, July 7, 2010
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