The Google: Scores a Big Win
April 15, 2009
The goslings and I have been quite busy at the goose pond today. A happy quack to the reader in the UK who alerted me to ZDNet.co.uk’s story “Virgin to Migrate Customers onto Google Mail.” You can read the story here.
Colin Barker wrote:
The company said the rollout will be one of the largest deployments to date of Google Partner Edition Apps, which lets businesses and individual customers use Google’s communication and collaboration applications under their own domain names.
I think this announcement is a big deal. First, Virgin is a high profile company and the top Virgin is an executive who gets quite a bit of attention in major companies. Second, this deal makes clear that it makes financial and technical sense for organizations to get out of the email business. Email has become complex and costly. Organizations like Virgin looked at the facts and made a decision to go with Googzilla. Smart choice. If litigation becomes necessary. The GOOG is in the archiving business too. The company doesn’t call much attention to its Postini-centric solution, but it is there and promises to slash the cost of some discovery actions.
What the Gmail deal means to this addled goose is that the Google Apps initiative is going to find increasingly attractive opportunities. Will Virgin stop at email? My hunch is that Virgin will be an interesting Google customer to watch. I give more detail about what can be done with the Google App Engine in my next column in KMWorld.
So, this is a big deal.
Stephen Arnold, April 15, 2009
SharePoint Round Up
April 13, 2009
Here in Harrod’s Creek, the annual spring festival includes bunny hunting. I am floating in the pond, listening to the rat tat tat of small arms fire. Nothing beats a rabbit hunt in the spring. I am not into pumping lead in fuzzy bunnies so I am engaging in what is now a Sunday ritual: A romp through the SharePoint information that clogs my newsreader. I prefer to write about search in SharePoint, but a number of interesting, content related items caught my attention.
The Budget Black Hole
SharePoint Reviews ran a story called “How Long Is a SharePoint Project.” You can read it here. The author said: “Of course, a SharePoint Project is never complete as it keeps growing and changing…” Ah, a never ending project. But in today’s lousy economic climate I wonder what the appetite of the CFO will be for a techie who sucks money with no end point in sight. Sort of a problem, perhaps? The author includes the 14 stages in a SharePoint project. I would insert a 15th. Seek a new job.
Azure Portal
Gunnar Peipman wrote “Azure Developer Portal: Some Screenshots” here. I find much about the Azure project confusing, but the screenshots shows two application instances which then become one application instance. This is not an error. Azure allowed Mr. Peipman was allowed one instance. Bug? Feature? Conservation of energy? The screenshots are a bit confusing and I don’t know if Azure caused the problem. I appreciated his comment: “Sorry for the mess.” I can’t wait to see how search runs from Azure in a high demand environment. Will that one instance haul the water?
Third Party Tools in SharePoint
Quite a few SharePoint clients use third party tools to find information in SharePoint. The solutions I find work pretty well include but are not limited to Coveo, Exalead, and ISYS Search Software, among others. There are some useful facts that can make life with these third party systems happier for the SharePoint administrator who wants to leave early and have free weekends. First, click here and read “Using Third Party Tools in SharePoint”. Second, save the file and keep in handy for future reference. Among the useful tips is this one: “Understand in detail what it will take to provide an evaluation & test of the third party tool(s) assuming you will set up an separate environment to do it.” Good round up of what most system pros learn in training.
Product Wackiness
Finally, I want to call your attention to “SharePoint Designer and Expression Web – Separated at Birth” here. I have seen copies of Expression Web in the local Office Depot. The SharePoint designer is a freebie. This article takes a run at explaining the “difference” between the two products. These bastard spawn of the aging FrontPage have one big difference when it comes to SharePoint. Expression Web can’t edit SharePoint sites. Pretty wacky to me. Oh, don’t forget VisualStudio. We have needed that tool to go where the SharePoint Designer fears to tread. Nice.
Microsoft Fast
A happy quack to the reader who sent me a link to a news item here pointing out that Microsoft Fast Norway wants to hire some “Live Search” type people. Must be the same manager who cooked up Expression and Designer.
Stephen Arnold, April 13, 2009
Digital Gutenberg Study Completed
April 10, 2009
Infonortics Ltd. received the manuscript for Google: The Digital Gutenberg yesterday, April 10, 2009. The monograph is the third in my series of Google analyses. The topics addressed in this new study include:
- Google’s content automation methods
- A discussions of dataspace functions, the report or dossier system, and content-that-follows system
- A description of Google’s increasing impact on education, scholarly publishing, and commercial online
The information in the study comes from open sources such as Google’s presentations, technical reports, and US government filings to the SEC and USPTO. I have revised and updated some of the information I wrote for BearStearns, Trust Company of the West, and IDC for this study as well as included completely new material that, as far as I know, has not been described in detail elsewhere. I am often asked, “Does Google cooperate with you and provide information.” The answer is, “No.” The Google ignores me, making sure my “authoritative” score is near the bottom of the barrel. I have remarked on many occasions that Google would like to see this goose’s cooked. Google professionals off the record express their surprise at what their employer is doing. Google is not into opening its technical kimono for researchers of my ilk. Compartmentalization is useful I suppose.
Why Google and Publishing
I narrowed the focus to publishing for three reasons:
First, Google finds itself in the news because some newspapers have become critical of Google’s pointing to content produced by third parties. What I have tried to do is explain that Google’s technology processes information and provides access. One of my findings is that Google has shown considerable restraint in the use of its inventions. If my research data are correct, Google could be more active as a content generator than it has chosen to be. Google, for this reason, has “potential energy”; that is, without much additional investment, the company could produce more content objects.
Second, Google’s technical infrastructure plus its software adds up to create a “digital Gutenberg”; that is, an individual could create a Knol (fact based essay on a subject), create a business listing in another Google service, and create a Web log on the Knol’s topic. The “author” or user uses Google as a giant information factory. Inputs go in and traffic “finds” the information. There are different ways to monetize this manufacturing and distribution system. Google has created its own version of Ford’s River Rouge integrated facility.
Third, Google is following what users click on. As a result, it is important to track the demographic behaviors of Google customers, advertisers, licensees, and users. The users, not Google management, help determine where Google goes and what Google does. Competitors who attempt to predict Google’s next action are likely to be off base unless those analyses are anchored in demographic and usage data. Another finding is that Google is relying on demographics to carry its “River Rouge” and “digital Gutenberg” capabilities into different markets.
Google did not open its kimono to me. The open source intelligence methods yielded that data in this study. You can see one of my tools here.
Differences in Digital Gutenberg
In my first two studies, I explained in detail Google’s systems and methods. I include a couple of Google equations in this new study. I make brief references to patent documents and technical papers, but my editor and I have worked to make this study more accessible to the general business reader. I lack the capacity to write a “Sergey and Larry eat pizza” monograph. Frankly, technology, not pizza, interests me. I suppose I am as mechanistic and data centric as some Googlers.
Also, I don’t take sides. Google is neither good nor evil. The companies affected by Google’s waves of innovation are just average companies. Google, however, thrives in sophisticated technology and data. In my encounters with Googlers, most would prefer to talk about a function instead of the color of a sofa. The companies criticizing Google lack Google’s techno-centrism. I point out that Google’s actions and public statements make perfect sense to someone who is Googley. Those same statements when heard by those who operated mostly from subjective information come across as arrogant or, in some cases, pretty wacky.
The conclusion to the study is a discussion of one of Google’s most important initiatives in its 10-year history: the Google App Engine. That surprised some of the people whom I asked to read early drafts of the manuscript. The App Engine is the culmination of many thousands of hours of engineering, and it will make its presence felt across the many business sectors into which Google finds itself thrust.
You can see an early version of the study’s table of contents here. (And, yes, I know the Chinese “invented movable wood block printing”. I used “Gutenberg” as a literary convenience.)
Who Should Read This Monograph?
My mom never read any of my monographs. She looked at my first study, written decades ago, and said, “Dull.” Today, I am still writing dull stuff, but the need to understand what is happening and will happen in electronic information is escalating.
At a minimum, I think the contents of the Digital Gutenberg would be of interest to companies who are engaged in traditional media; that is, publishing, video and motion picture production, and broadcasting. Others who may find the monograph a useful reference may include:
- Analysts, consultants, and pundits who track Google
- Competitors and soon-to-be Google’s competitors
- Lawyers who are on the prowl for Google-related information
- Entrepreneurs who want to find out how to “surf on Google”
- Government regulators eager to find out whether the existing net of regulations has hooked on Google
- People who want to work at Google because some of Google’s most exciting innovations are not well known.
Search Costs: Clouds Come Lower
April 10, 2009
IT-Analysis published Laurie McCabe’s “Will CPAs Bring the Cloud to Earth for SMBs?” You can read the story here. The hook for the story was CPA chatter. I would imaging that “chatter” to a CPA is fairly tame stuff, but I may be wrong. MBAs were once considered harmless but since the financial meltdown, MBAs are downright lethal. The write up is about two accounting groups’ decision to support Intacct for their customers. I never heard of Intacct, but I assume QuickBooks has. Ms. McCabe wrote:
Not only does this alliance pose a strong threat to Intuit QuickBooks’ dominance in the small business accounting market, it has the potential to pull SMBs into cloud computing in vast numbers. Intacct, AICPA and CPA2Biz did a lot of homework beforehand, including research that showed online accounting solutions boost productivity by as much as 50%. By dramatically reducing the need for travel, and the necessity of exchanging paper and email files, CPAs have more time to spend providing guidance to clients to help them improve financial performance and decision-making.
Too bad for QuickBooks, but the green eyeshade set believes that cloud-based applications like accounting make financial sense. Do you think? When the bean counters figure out how to save money, it makes little difference what the info tech folks say. Blossom.com, one of the most successful cloud search vendors, is probably quite happy with the CPAs’ new found ability to see the clouds.
Stephen Arnold, April 10, 2009
Twitter Amazon, Amazon Twitter
April 8, 2009
Twitter has not been the winner of the uptime Derby at least in Kentucky. One of my readers reported Twitter issues in Israel yesterday. What is interesting is that TechFlash reported that some folks are pointing a finger at Amazon.com, the back end for Tweets. Amazon, according to TechFlash, asserted here “Don’t Blame Us for Twitter Problems.” TechFlash’s story reported:
In addition to being a user of Amazon’s S3, Twitter has a relationship with Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos, who is a personal investor in the microblogging service.
Twitter seems to be getting quite a bit of buzz. One hopes the Amazon Twitter or the Twitter Amazon issues can be happily resolved.
Stephen Arnold, April 8, 2009
Google’s Plumbing
April 8, 2009
Short honk: Don’t think the GOOG has a lead in data centers? Check out this video available from Google Blogoscoped. Keep in mind the factoid from my 2005 Google study here. Google’s $1.00 of data center investment returns more than $4.00 in performance compared to high end, branded servers from big name manufacturers. Cheap, fast, and scalable. Google’s plumbing delivers throughput at a lower cost than the competitions’ data centers. What’s this mean in capex? A competitor’s data center costing $650 million would have to be four times larger to match a comparable Google data center’s performance. That’s more than $2.5 billion to reach parity. Now multiply this by 36 and you the hill the Google challengers have to climb. Don’t like my $4.00 number. Chop it in half. Still a big hill. The problem is that I have citations that suggest that under certain circumstances Google enjoys a 17X advantage. I don’t include that number in my studies because frankly no one I have met understands this type of gap. Make yourself happy. Pick a number.
Stephen Arnold, April 8, 2009
Android: Surround and Seep
April 6, 2009
I have been following the discussion of Google and its “operating system” since 2002.
My newsreader this fine Monday, April 6, 2009, is chock full of discussions about Google on notebooks, Google on mobile devices, and Google in personal computers. I liked the flurry of comments about the New York Times’s revelation that T-Mobile was going to use Google for its home devices. You can read that bit of news here. Let’s see that means that the GOOG is supporting its own crowd of cronies, Apple’s iPhone, and now T-Mobile. Looks like the Google is getting some traction in the mobile space. Quite a revelation.
Then there is the flurry of write ups about Hewlett Packard’s thinking about Android for its netbooks. The CNet write up is a pretty good one on this topic, You can read Marguerite Reardon’s “HP Considers Google Android for Netbooks” here. Hmm. I wonder if anyone realizes that when installing Chrome, the GOOG has its operating hooks ready for whatever the user wants to do?
In my research for my Google studies, I have quite a bit of contradictory information in my files. On one side of the fence are the Googlers who insist that the company does not have an operating system. The company’s spokespeople are correct. Google has Linux, wrappers, and code shims. The software in use at Google is dynamic and it is not suited for installation by my father on his home computer. On the other hand, Google has figured out how to make Python, JavaScript, and other languages jump through digital hoops. With these software components of which I cannot keep track, Google:
- Delivers its virtual machine technology via containers
- Enables offline access to Gmail and soon other Google Apps
- Creates a digital cocoon in which it can perform such magic as deliver ads regardless of where the user goes or what device he/she uses.
Is this an operating system? It depends. If you are Microsoft, Google’s approach sure seems to be headed that direction. If you are a Googler, this collection of features is little more than extensions of the Google “as is” computing environment–what I call the real Googleplex of one million servers, fancy Dan engineering, and proprietary system sand methods galore.
The point that most of the pundits, mavens, gurus, and Google watchers overlook is the broader strategy the GOOG is using. I dug into this approach in detail in my Google Version 2.0, a deep dive into some of Google’s more current innovations. You can read about that study here. Check out the subtitle too.
In a nutshell, Google’s strategy is to use the Googleplex of its “as is” infrastructure as the wrapper. The Android software to the ill fated Web Accelerator just tap into the mothership. What happens is that Google surrounds the users and competitors and allows its services and features to seep into crack in the existing market sectors. Surround and seep. Quite different from other competitors’ strategies in my opinion.
You can read more about how this works in my forthcoming Google: A Digital Gutenberg study due out later this month. More information about that study is here.
SharePoint Online
April 5, 2009
A happy quack to the reader who sent me a link to Tobias Zimmergren’s SharePoint Online—A First Look” here. On premises SharePoint installations are tar balls that become tar pits. The hapless information technology dinosaurs caught in these traps will struggle and probably die. Uncontrollable costs pull down even the brightest SharePoint wizards in a lousy economic climate.
Mr. Zimmergren’s article makes a very strong case for hosted SharePoint or what the trophy generation consultants call cloud based SharePoint. The idea is solid. Let experts figure out how to make SharePoint behave and maybe perform some useful content related tricks. The users access the needed SharePoint services via a broadband connection.
He does not talk about finding information in the SharePoint system, which is a major weakness of hosted SharePoint. If you can live with the limitations of Microsoft’s approach to indexing, then you are going to be happy. If not, you will have to pursue some other options.
I urge you to read Mr. Zimmergren’s write up. He explains how cloud based SharePoint works and provides useful information to those who may be singing the on premises SharePoint blues.
Stephen Arnold, April 5, 2009
Amazon Embraces Hadoop
April 2, 2009
The fleet footed Amazon surprised me. I read Larry Dignan’s Amazon Launches Hadoop Data Crunching Service” here. What interested me was Amazon’s use of the Hadoop framework. According to Mr. Dignan’s write up,
The service, called Amazon Elastic MapReduce, is designed for businesses, researchers and analysts trying to conduct data intensive number crunching (statement). Hadoop, which is used by companies like Google and Yahoo, is trying to be pushed into the enterprise data center by startups like Cloudera.
I found this interesting for three reasons:
- Amazon has consistently beaten Google to the punch in the cloud computing push for developers and startups. Google has, in my opinion, watched from the sidelines.
- Google influenced the Hadoop system, which is a variant of the Google MapReduce system. You can find a description in my The Google Legacy (2005) here.
- Amazon, despite its early somewhat unusual approach to infrastructure, has gotten its act together. The clearest indication of this is that the company can integrate new technology into its existing data centers and not go down.
In my view, Amazon is making the transition from digital retail operation to a more serious online force.
Stephen Arnold, April 2, 2009
QuePlix: Legacy Data Search
April 2, 2009
Several years ago I listened to a presentation from Index Engines. The company developed an appliance that sat in a back up stream. The idea was that an authorized user could search for a document processed by the back up system. I thought the idea was an interesting one. A number of eDiscovery firms address the legacy data issue via other methods. Today the organization wanting to query legacy information has a number of options.
QuePlix offers a search system for legacy data. Troy Dreir’s “QueSearch: A Search Engine for your Legacy Data” here alerted me to another vendor in this market space. Mr. Dreir wrote:
QuePlix has just released the second of its platform-agnostic programs which are each designed to retrieve information from legacy applications. The first solution was QueWeb, which not only extracts legacy application metadata, but then builds a user interface on top of it. The allows the company to make a transition toward new applications while still using the data from legacy apps. Because it’s based on existing systems, there’s no need to train staff on how to use it and that allows for a smoother migration. The program’s simplicity and usefulness translates into a huge ROI, Tenberg says. QueWeb was launched in 2001 and is already up to its third version.
I did have some information in my files about this company. The key points I had noted when I got a demo in 2007 included:
- The company is a Google partner so there’s an integration capability available to its customers
- Customers can use QuePlix’s cloud option and shift some of the hassles to hosted services such as Amazon’s S3
- A white paper provides more detail. You can get it here.
More information as I locate it.
Stephen Arnold, April 2, 2009
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