The Seed 2020 Meet Up in Louisville
October 1, 2009
I try to avoid visibility in Louisville, Kentucky. Two of the ArnoldIT.com team and I attended a meet up in Louisville and noticed two things: most of the presenters looked like members of the Norwegian men’s bobsled team and there were not minorities giving talks. Arpan Patel and I then attended a meet up in Washington, DC, the following week. Same experience. This time it was the Swedish men’s hockey team giving talks. What’s wrong with this picture, we asked. The answer was that the events did not have any women-owned or minority-owned businesses and start ups on the program. That struck me and my colleagues as weirdly out of phase with the Obama administration and its efforts to promote diversity and openness.
I concluded that ArnoldIT.com should step forward and make an attempt to showcase women-owned and minority-owned businesses. I decided to fund the event and put two of my top performing geese on the job. The result is Seed2020, a free meet up focused exclusively on showcasing interesting women-owned and minority-owned businesses. The purpose of the meet up is to make contacts, learn about companies, and advance the Obama administration’s vision.
This meet up is on for November 4, 2009. Doors open at the Muhammad Ali Center at 6 pm and everyone is out of the building before 9:01 pm. The program consists of 10 presentations by owners / founders of women owned and minority owned businesses. You can get details at the Web site we set up for the event. The site went live this morning, and we will be adding content as we march toward the event.
The meet up wranglers are members of the ArnoldIT.com team. Constance Ard, a law librarian who has been working as a project manager for ArnoldIT.com for more than a year.
Constance Ard, MLS
And co wrangler is Keisha Mabry, MBA, and a recent graduate of the University of Louisville.
Keisha Mabry, MBA
We have confirmed some folks to give talks; for example, Emeka Akaezuwa, whom we interviewed for our Search Wizards Speak series earlier this year. Dr. Akaezuwa lives in New Jersey and we thought that his giving a talk about his search software company would be useful to the Louisville crowd. He also founded a charity that provides books and computer training to children in Africa. You can read his biography here. Also on the program is Toni Steinhauer, who runs a successful programming and software development company in Louisville. Toni is a graduate of the Speed School’s engineering program. (One of the ArnoldIT.com is an advisor to the University of Louisville’s technology programs, and we have be a strong supporter of the engineering and computer science department’s intern program for many years.)
Emeka Akaezuwa, Gaviri Technologies Inc.
The Web site makes it easy for a woman-owned or minority-owned company to contact Constance and Keisha. Navigate to the “Propose a Talk” page and provide the information we need. We will follow up with you and discuss your submission. If you are not a woman or a minority, you can submit a presentation and we will place those in the pool of speakers.
Here are the details of the free meet up:
When
November 4, 6 pm to 9 pm
Where
Muhammad Ali Center, 114 N. Sixth Street
What
Presentations by local women owned and minority owned
businesses, a guest speaker, and networking opportunity
Why
There is not enough of this type of networking activity in
our opinion. And we want this event to be a way to
make business happen and get ideas flowing
among motivated individuals.
How
Sponsored by Stephen E. Arnold, ArnoldIT.com
Cost
None, free but registration strongly recommended
We do have a sponsor. The Louis T Roth & Co., P LLC, one of the largest regional accounting and professional services firms in the US stepped forward to support this free event. The former managing partner is usually skeptical of Stephen E. Arnold’s ideas, but he said, “This sounds like a great idea. We’re on board.” If you need accounting services in Kentucky or Indiana, ping the Roth outfit.
The organization of the program is designed to facilitate meeting people, networking, and having an opportunity to talk with the people giving six minute “elevator pitches” about their company or start up. Before the crowd is sent home, ArnoldIT.com has donated a new Zune HD which will be awarded to one of the attendees.
If this first program is a success, we want to talk with readers who may want to host a similar event in their city. For more information, navigate to TheSeed2020. Hope to see you at the event.
Stephen Arnold, October 1, 2009
Obama, Google, and Bridges
September 17, 2009
On September 23, 2009, I will be participating in a two hour program “Change 2010: Responding to Real Time Information, Open Systems and the Obama IT Vision”. The program is sponsored by Somat Engineering, a diversified technology company located in Detroit, Michigan. The purpose of the program is to explore ways the US government can tap into Google technology without disrupting Federal agencies’ existing information technology infrastructure.
“The Obama administration’s push towards transparency and more open government means that Federal information technology managers need to explore more open systems,” said Arpan Patel, Director of Somat Engineering’s Information Engineering practice. “There is a compelling need to understand the differences and bridge the gaps between traditional methods of information management and the increasingly fast propagation of open methods.”
The first segment is “Open Systems and Existing Architectures: Engineering to Control Costs and Enabling Dataspaces.” Arpan Patel, director of Somat’s information engineering practice in DC, will discuss the basics of quantifying the costs and time required for system integration. The presentation will feature Somat’s TechCrunch50 recognized collaboration software Ripply, which uses dataspace technology to eliminate the “where is that latest document/message/response problem” that most organizations and working groups face. For more information about Somat, visit http://tech.somateng.com.
Robert D. Steele, an expert in open source intelligence, will address the need for decision makers to plug into the flows of real time information that are now widely available. Mr. Steele has been active in a range of government intelligence initiatives, and he is the CEO of OSS Inc. and founder of the Marine Corps Intelligence Center, as well as creator of the global expeditionary analysis analytic model, will connect the dots between internal knowledge management, external social networking grids such as Facebook and Twitter, external offline information and non-English information, as well as the creation of Organizational Intelligence, or access to and exploitation of All Information in All Languages All the Time, the title of his third book. Mr. Steele will map four steps to “build a bridge” between these information sources. For more information about Mr. Steele, visit http://www.tinyurl.com/RDSTEELE.
Jim Orris, director of Adhere Solutions, the Google partner responsible for US Federal government sales, will review Google’s solutions for information integration and crafting more open solutions using Google’s platform and Web services to hook into traditional systems using Google compatible connectors and software. More information about Adhere Solutions is available from the firm’s Web site. Adhere Solutions is one of the focal points for Google’s US government activities. Adhere Solutions provides a wide range of engineering and consulting services for the Google Search Appliance, Google applications, and Google’s cloud services.
The event is hosted by Ram Ramanujam, President of Somat Engineering, an award winning, 8(a) technical services firm, headquartered in Detroit, MI, with offices in the US and abroad.
I accepted the invitation to be the facilitator for the question and answer session following the presentations.
The formal 60 minute program will deliver actionable information for all organizations. The program begins at 9:30 am with coffee and tea. Registration is $25. Registrations are accepted at http://bit.ly/ObamaITVisionBriefing.
Readers of this Web log will be admitted without charge. To take advantage of this offer, write seaky2000 at yahoo dot com. Space is limited in the National Press Club facility.
Stephen Arnold, September 17, 2009
The Gilbane Lecture: Google Wave as One Environmental Factor
July 14, 2009
Author’s note: In early June 2009, I gave a talk to about 50 attendees of the Gilbane content management systems conference in San Francisco. When I tried to locate the room in which I was to speak, the sign in team could not find me on the program. After a bit of 30 something “we’re sure we’re right” outputs, the organizer of the session located me and got me to the room about five minutes late. No worries because the Microsoft speaker was revved and ready.
When my turn came, I fired through my briefing in 20 minutes and plopped down, expecting no response from the audience. Whenever I talk about the Google, I am greeted with either blank stares or gentle snores. I was surprised because I did get several questions. I may have to start arriving late and recycling more old content. Seems to be a winner formula.
This post is a summary of my comments. I will hit the highlights. If you want more information about this topic, you can get it by searching this Web log for the word “Wave”, buying the IDC report No. 213562 Sue Feldman and I did last September, or buying a copy of Google: The Digital Gutenberg. If you want to grouse about my lack of detail, spare me. This is a free Web log that serves a specific purpose for me. If you are not familiar with my editorial policy, take a moment to get up to speed. Keep in mind I am not a journalist, don’t pretend to be one, and don’t want to be included in the occupational category.
Here’s we go with my original manuscript written in UltraEdit from which I gave my talk on June 5, 2009, in San Francisco:
For the last two years, I have been concluding my Google briefings with a picture of a big wave. I showed the wave smashing a skin cancer victim, throwing surfer dude and surf board high into the air. I showed the surfer dude riding inside the “tube”. I showed pictures of waves smashing stuff. I quite like the pictures of tsunami waves crushing fancy resorts, sending people in sherbert colored shirts and beach wear running for their lives.
Yep, wave.
Now Google has made public why I use the wave images to explain one of the important capabilities Google is developing. Today, I want to review some features of what makes the wave possible. Keep in mind that the wave is a consequence of deeper geophysical forces. Google operates at this deeper level, and most people find themselves dealing with the visible manifestations of the company’s technical physics.
Source: http://www.toocharger.com/fiches/graphique/surf/38525.htm
This is important for enterprise search for three reasons. First, search is a commodity and no one, not even I, find key word queries useful. More sophisticated information retrieval methods are needed on the “surface” and in the deeper physics of the information factory. Second, Google is good at glacial movement. People see incremental actions that are separated in time and conceptual space. Then these coalesce and the competitors say, “Wow, where did that come from?” Google Wave, the present media darling, is a superficial development that combines a number of Google technologies. It is not the deep geophysical force, however. Third, Google has a Stalin-era type of planning horizon. Think in terms of five years, then you have the timeline on which to plot Google developments. Wave, in fact, is more than three years old if you start when Google bought a company called Transformics, older if you dig into the background of the Transformics technology and some other components Google snagged in the last five years. Keep that time thing in mind.
First, key word search is at a dead end. I have been one of the most vocal critics of key word search and variants of that approach. When someone says, “Key word search is what we need,” I reply, “Search is dead.” In my mind, I add, “So is your future in this organization.” I keep my parenthetical comment to myself.
Users need information access, not a puzzle to solve in order to open the information lock box. In fact, we have now entered the era of “data anticipation”, a phrase I borrowed from SAS, the statistics outfit. We have to view search in terms of social analytics because human interactions provide important metadata not otherwise obtainable by search, semantic, or linguistic technology. I will give you an example of this to make this type of metadata crystal clear.
You work at Enron. You get an email about creating a false transaction. You don’t take action but you forward the email to your boss and then ignore the issue. When Enron collapsed, the “fact” that you knew and did nothing when you first knew and subsequently is used to make a case that you abetted fraud. You say, “I sent the email to my boss.” From your prison cell, you keep telling your attorney the same thing. Doesn’t matter. The metadata about what you did to that piece of information through time put your tail feather in a cell with a biker convicted of third degree murder and a prior for aggravated assault.
Got it?
Arnold at NFAIS: Google Books, Scholar, and Good Enough
June 26, 2009
Speaker’s introduction: The text that appears below is a summary of my remarks at the NFAIS Conference on June 26, 2009, in Philadelphia. I talk from notes, not a written manuscript, but it is my practice to create a narrative that summarizes my main points. I have reproduced this working text for readers of this Web log. I find that it is easier to put some of my work in a Web log than it is to create a PDF and post that version of a presentation on my main Web site, www.arnoldit.com. I have skipped the “who I am” part of the talk and jump into the core of the presentation.
Stephen Arnold, June 26, 2009
In the past, epics were a popular form of entertainment. Most of you have read the Iliad, possibly Beowulf, and some Gilgamesh. One convention is that these complex literary constructs begin in the middle or what my grade school teacher call “In media res.”
That’s how I want to begin my comments about Google’s scanning project – an epic — usually referred to as Google Books. Then I want to go back to the beginning of the story and then jump ahead to what is happening now. I will close with several observations about the future. I don’t work for Google, and my efforts to get Google to comment on topics are ignored. I am not an attorney, so my remarks have zero legal foundation. And I am not a publisher. I write studies about information retrieval. To make matters even more suspect, I do my work from rural Kentucky. From that remote location, I note the Amazon is concerned about Google Books, probably because Google seeks to enter the eBook sector. This story is good enough; that is, in a project so large, so sweeping perfection is not possible. Pages are skewed. Insects scanned. Coverage is hit and miss. But what other outfit is prepared to spend to scan books?
Let’s begin in the heat of the battle. Google is fighting a number things. Google finds itself under scrutiny from publishers and authors. These are the entities with whom Google signed a “truce” of sorts regarding the scanning of books. Increasingly libraries have begun to express concern that Google may not be doing the type of preservation job to keep the source materials in a suitable form for scholars. Regulators have taken an interest in the matter because of the publicity swirling around a number of complicated business and legal issues.
These issues threaten Google with several new challenges.
Since its founding in 1998, Google has enjoyed what I would call positive relationships with users, stakeholders, and most of its constituents. The Google Books’ matter is now creating what I would describe as “rising tension”. If the tension escalates, a series of battles can erupt in the legal arena. As you know, battle is risky when two heroes face off in a sword fight. Fighting in a legal arena is in some ways more risky and more dangerous.
Second, the friction of these battles can distract Google from other business activities. Google, as some commentators, including myself in Google: The Digital Gutenberg may be vulnerable to new types of information challenges. One example is Google’s absence from the real time indexing sector where Facebook, Twitter, Scoopler.com, and even Microsoft seem to be outpacing Google. Distractions like the Google Books matter could exclude Google from an important new opportunity.
Finally, Google’s approach to its projects is notable because the scope of the project makes it hard for most people to comprehend. Scanning books takes exabytes of storage. Converting images to ASCII, transforming the text (that is, adding structure tags), and then indexing the content takes a staggering amount of computing resources.
Inputs to outputs, an idea that was shaped between 1999 to 2001. © Stephen E. Arnold, 2009
Google has been measured and slow in its approach. The company works with large libraries, provides copies of the scanned material to its partners, and has tried to keep moving forward. Microsoft and Yahoo, database publishers, the Library of Congress, and most libraries have ceded the scanning of books work to Google.
Now Google finds itself having to juggle a large number of balls.
Now let’s go back in time.
I have noticed that most analysts peg Google Books’s project as starting right before the initial public offering in 2004. That’s not what my research has revealed. Google’s interest in scanning the contents of books reaches back to 2000.
In fact, an analysis of Google’s patent documents and technical papers for the period from 1998 to 2003 reveals that the company had explored knowledge bases, content transformation, and mashing up information from a variety of sources. In addition, the company had examined various security methods, including methods to prevent certain material from being easily copied or repurposed.
The idea, which I described in my The Google Legacy (which I wrote in 2003 and 2004 with publication in early 2005) was to gather a range of information, process that information using mathematical methods in order to produce useful outputs like search results for users and generate information about the information. The word given to describe value added indexing is metadata. I prefer the less common but more accurate term meta indexing.
Twitter Link Indexing
June 5, 2009
Today after my talk at the Gilbane content management conference in San Francisco, a person mentioned that Twitter was indexing links in Tweets. I said that I included this information in my Twitter Web log posts. But when I looked at my posts, I found that I had not been explicit. You can get more info at http://www.domaintweeter.com.
Stephen Arnold, June 5, 2009
Bartz Reveals the Truth about Bing to Microsoft
June 2, 2009
In the oh-so-in group that comprises the All Things Digital conference, many interesting side stories unfold. You have to be there to get the real scoop. But the hot fudge, whip cream, and cherry on top go to those who get to fiddle with the detritus of a conference. I read “Bartz’s (S)mash Note to Ballmer: The Photographic Proof” here and realized that sometimes in the leave behinds are factoids of hard truth. First you need to read Kara Swisher’s article. Then look closely at the pink sticky note and look at the accompanying transcription. Set up: Carol Bartz, cruise directory of the SS Yahoo wrote to Steve Ballmer, captain of the $65 billion Redmond class war ship:
Steve, Forget it. Won’t Help. Ha. Carol
Addled geese are not at All Things Digital. Guests must leave dogs and other no hip creatures outside. I wasn’t there. But I can from my pond filled with Beargrass Creek pollutants offer Jacques Derrida like observations:
- The pronoun “it” lacks an antecedent. Because Mr. Ballmer spoke and demonstrated the Bing Kumo search system, I must assume that “it” is that search system.
- If the “it” is Bing Kumo, the statement “Forget it” introduces another ambiguity. Is the second “it” a reference to Bing Kumo. If so, Ms. Bartz is suggesting that Microsoft forget Bing Kumo. More colloquially, the phrase “forget it” said to me, “Dude, Bing Kumo cannot close the gap between Microsoft and Google in the Web search sector.
- The “ha” is also ambiguous. One can interpret this “ha” as an inside joke, discounting or disclaiming the implication that Bing Kumo is a loser. On the other hand, perhaps the “ha” means a Jay Leno Jaywalker “ha” where people laugh at others’ weaknesses.
In short, lots of ambiguity, but possibly a grain of truth. Here in Harrod’s Creek, the sticky note, the ambiguity, and the reference to getting one’s make up done underscores how far away the addled goose is from the real action in the world of Web search. Thank goodness there are neither make up artists nor pink sticky notes in these here parts. We don’t even have an in crowd unless you include the bikers who hit the River Creek Inn on Sunday morning before the church goers show up for brunch and a whistle wetting drink.
Stephen Arnold, June 1, 2009
Boye 09 Overflight Awards
May 19, 2009
The Overflight Award for Excellence, created by ArnoldIT.com and JBoye.com, was presented to Volker Grünauer, head of E-marketing at Wienerberger in Austria, at the JBoye Conference: Philadelphia 2009, http://jboye08.dk/]http://www.jboye.com/conferences/philadelphia09/, May 5-7, held at the Down Town Club in Philadelphis.
The award recognizes the best presentation at the conference on digital media, which featured more than 50 speakers from around the world.
Grünauer offered a relevant talk called “Developing a customer centric web strategy.” This presentation discussed smart web strategy for promoting real brick and mortar products, including how Wienerberger defines the four elements of web success and how customer behavior has become the trigger for every eMarketing decision. Slides of the presentation are available at http://jboye08.dk/downloads/download.php?file=1226063851.pdf. He was awarded an engraved Lucite trophy and 500 Euros.
Volker is responsible for the marketing strategy of all websites at Wienerberger, the world’s largest manufacturer of bricks, clay roof tiles and clay pavers. In this function he also developed a new brand and domain management strategy. Together with the IT department he managed the rollout of the CMS into new Wienerberger markets. See his profile athttp://www.jboye.com/conferences/philadelphia09/speakers/volker_grunauer.
An honorable mention went to Donna Spencer, a freelance information architect and interaction designer, a mentor, writer and trainer from Australia, who presented a discussion on the user experience track called “Getting Content Right.” She was awarded an engraved Lucite trophy. Her profile is at http://www.jboye.com/conferences/philadelphia09/speakers/donna_spencer.
Stephen E. Arnold and Janus Boye created the award to permit the community attending the conference to identify presentations that met the following criteria: information that would be useful to delegates upon returning to work; research supporting the presentatio; quality of the delivery and examples; and importance of the speakers’ topics at the time of the conference.
A panel of distinguished attendees and information practitioners had the task of assessing the presentations and determining the winners. The judges were Dana Hallman, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency; Karen Rosenzweig, Novartis;Peter Svensson, Lund University; and Troy Winfrey, University of Baltimore.
About ArnoldIT.com
Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his office in Kentucky. He works with colleagues worldwide on a wide range of online and content-related projects. The company’s Web site is http://arnoldit.com, and the Beyond Search blog is at http://arnoldit.com/wordpress/.
About JBoye.com
J. Boye, a digital media enterprise, is frequently contracted to help with strategy and governance, project planning, requirement specifications, vendor and software selection, project management and ROI optimization. They also produce industry reports and organize educational conferences. Contact the company at info@jboye.co.uk or info@jboye.dk.
Jessica Bratcher, May 19, 2009
Search 2010: Five Game Changers
May 7, 2009
Editor’s Note: This is the outline of Stephen Arnold’s comments at the “debate”session of the Boye 09 Conference in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on May 6, 2009. The actual talk will be informal, and these notes are part of the preparation for that talk.
Introduction
Thank you for inviting me to share my ideas with you. I remember that WC Fields had a love hate relationship with Philadelphia. Approaching the Curtis Building, where we are meeting, I realized that much of the old way of doing business has changed. I don’t have time to dig too deeply into the many content challenges organizations face. If the publisher of the Saturday Evening Post were with us this afternoon, I think Mr. Curtis would have a difficult time explaining why his successful business was marginalized; that is, pushed aside, made into an artifact like the Liberty Bell down the street.
I have been asked to do a “Search 2010” talk twice this year. Predicting the future in today’s troubled economic environment is difficult. Nevertheless, I want to identify five trends in the next 20 minutes. I will try to take a position on each trend to challenge the panelists’ thinking and stimulate questions from you in the audience.
Let’s dive right in. Here are the five trends:
- Darwinism and search
- Real time search
- Google’s enterprise push
- Microsoft’s enterprise search
- Open source
I want to comment on each, offer a couple of examples, and try to come at these subjects in a way that highlights what my research for Google: The Digital Gutenberg revealed as substantive actions in search.
Search and Darwin
The search sector is in a terrible position. The term “search” has been devalued. Few people know what the word means, yet most people say, “I am pretty good at search.” That confidence is an illusion. The search sector is a tough nut to crack. Well known companies such as Mondosoft and Ontolica found themselves purchased by an entrepreneur. That company restructured, and now the “old” Mondosoft has been reincarnated but it is not clear that the new owners will make a success of the business. Delphes, a specialist vendor in Québec, failed. Attensity orchestrated a roll up with two German firms to become more of a force in marketing. A promising system in the Netherlands called Teezir was closed when I visited the office in November 2009. I hear rumors about search vendors who are chasing funding frequently, but I don’t want to mention the names of some of these well known firms in this forum. Not long ago, the high profile Endeca sought support in the form of investments from Intel and SAP’s venture arm. At Oracle, the Secure Enterpriser Search 10g product has largely disappeared. The strong survive, which means big players like Google and Microsoft are going to fighting for the available revenue.
Real Time Search
What is it? The first thing to say is that real time search is a terrible phrase. Riches await the person who crafts a more appropriate buzzword. The notion is that messages from a service like Twitter fly around in their 140 character glory. The Twitter search system at http://search.twitter.com or the developers who use the Twitter API make it easy to find or see information. A good example is the service at http://www.twitturly.com or http://www.tweetmeme.com. You look at Tweets (the name for Twitter messages) and you scan the listings on these services. Real time search blends geospatial and mobile operations. Push, not key word search, complements scanning a list of suggested hits. The mode of user interaction is not keyword search. This is an important distinction.
“Search” means look at or scan. “Search” does not mean type key words and hunt through results list. It is possible to send a Tweet to everyone on Twitter or to those who follow you and ask a question. You may get an answer, but the point is that the word “search” does not explain the value of this type of system for business intelligence or marketing, for example. If you run a search with the keyword of a company like Google or Yahoo, you can get information which may or may not be accurate or useful. You will see what’s happening “now”, which is the meaning of “real time”.
Evvie 2009 Winners: David Evans and Martin Baumgartel
May 4, 2009
Stephen E. Arnold of ArnoldIT.com, http://www.arnoldit.com, announced the Evvie “best paper award” for 2009 at Infonortics’ Boston Search Engine Meeting on April 28.
The 2009 Evvie Award went to Dr. David Evans of Just Systems Evans Research for “E-Discovery: A Signature Challenge for Search.” The paper explains the principal goals and challenges of E-Discovery techniques. The second place award went to Martin Baumgärtel of bioRASI for “Advanced Visualization of Search Results: More Risks or More Chances?”, which addressed the gap between breakthroughs in visualization and actual application of techniques.
Stephen Arnold (left) is pictured with Dr. David Evans, Just System Evans Research on the right.
The Evvie is given in honor of Ev Brenner, one of the leaders in online information systems and functions. The award was established after Brenner’s death in 2006. Brenner served on the program committee for the Boston Search Engine Meeting since its inception almost 20 years ago. Everett Brenner is generally regarded as one of the “fathers” of commercial online databases. He worked for the American Petroleum Institute and served as a mentor to many of the innovators who built commercial online.
Martin Baumgartel (left) and Dr. David Evans discuss their recognition at the 2009 Boston Search Engine Meeting.
Mr. Brenner had two characteristics that made his participation a signature feature of each year’s program: He was willing to tell a speaker or paper author to “add more content,” and after a presentation, he would ask a presenter one or more penetrating questions that helped make a complex subject more clear.
The Boston Search Engine meeting attracts search professionals, search vendors, and experts interested in content processing, text analysis, and search and retrieval. Held each year in Boston, Ev, as he was known to his friends, demanded excellence in presentations about information processing.
Sponsored by Stephen E. Arnold (ArnoldIT.com), this award goes to the speaker who best exemplifies Ev’s standards of excellence. The selection committee consists of the program committee, assisted by Harry Collier (conference operator) and Stephen E. Arnold.
This year’s judges were Jill O’Neill, NFAIS, Sue Feldman, IDC Content Technologies Group, and Anne Girard, Infonortics Ltd.
Mr. Arnold said, “This award is one way for us to respect his contributions and support his life long commitment to excellence.”
The recipients receive a cash prize and an engraved plaque. Information about the conference is available on the Infonortics, Ltd. Web site at www.infonortics.com and here. More information about the award is here. Information about ArnoldIT.com is here.
The Microsoft Enterprise Search Vision
April 27, 2009
I read Fran Foo’s “Microsoft Chooses R&D over Buyouts” here. What fascinated me was this statement in the AustraliaIT.news.com.au report of a top Microsoft executive’s view of preparing for the future. Kevin Turner, Microsoft’s global COO, allegedly said:
“In the consumer area we aren’t the market leader but we’re investing in search, MSN, Windows Live and Office Live to become a world-class digital advertising company,” he said. “The landscape is fluid and you have to keep innovating and growing faster than your competition or you’re going to become obsolete.”
Acquisitions can pump up revenue. R&D is often less certain. Google has relied on formal and personal innovation tactics, along with fast cycle live-die cycles, and acquisitions. Balance seems important to the GOOG. Furthermore, applied research can be difficult to make work in certain technical contexts. A good case example is Yahoo’s Panama ad system. In fact, R&D dollars can be blown away with an unexpected twitch in the datasphere.
Ms. Foo wrote,
“Globally, Microsoft registered a 32 per cent drop in profit and the first decline in quarterly revenue in its 23-year history as a publicly listed company.”
What I found interesting was that I scanned Ms. Foo’s article during a “game plan” keynote by Bjorn Olstad, a senior executive in the Microsoft enterprise search unit. At the Boston Search Engine Meeting, Mr. Olstad focused on the future and few tech specifics about enterprise search. The future described by Microsoft reminded me of a Steve Jobs‘s presentation a couple of years ago just without fungible products. I was impressed with iPhone like mobile devices and large touch screen surfaces in Mr. Olstad’s PowerPoint. Even more interesting was the vocabulary he used to Microsoft’s vision of the future in enterprise search; for example:
- On-the-fly computing
- Algorithmic orchestration of the user experience
- Consumption enhanced modes of discovery.
Now Microsoft has to take Mr. Turner’s R&D money and Mr. Olstad’s description of the future and deliver products and services. I hasten to add that that the enterprise search products ideally will be stable, scalable, documented, compatible, feature complete, and affordable by organizations under the same revenue pressure as Microsoft itself. I think that is an interesting task with an uncertain timeline and an unknowable payoff. Oracle sees acquisition, although risky, as a path that may yield more concrete benefits. Shares in the value stock category may need more performance-oriented tactics for stakeholders. R&D or strategic acquisition? Time will tell.
Stephen Arnold, April 27, 2009
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