The Gartner Cloud Flip Flop
November 3, 2011
Hey, if it sells, it must be right. A big flip-flop by a major IT consultant concerning public vs. private cloud services is screaming “opportunism” to me.
Gartner, a global technology research company, recently asserted that “enterprises should consider public cloud services first and turn to private clouds only if the public cloud fails to meet their needs.” This has not always been the opinion of Gartner. “Gartner Flip-Flop: Try the Public Cloud First” on InfoWorld tells us more:
At the core of this advice was the fact you should first consider your requirements and the objectives for using cloud computing before you move existing systems to the clouds or create new systems. Don’t jump right to private clouds just because they solve the problem that IT has with letting go; instead, look to the value of public cloud computing first. If it’s not a fit, then go private. But in all cases, let the business requirements drive you, not the hype.
Seems to me that Gartner is chasing revenue by flip-flop. Changing from public to private means you wouldn’t necessarily have to buy and maintain your own software, but you would have to keep up with payments more regularly. The pay-as-you-go economics of public clouds, in addition to the fact that these services are gaining popularity in areas of sales automation, customer service, accounting and expense management, is a pretty obvious explanation for the change of heart.
And search? Obviously search is better from the cloud. Toss in an app and one doesn’t have to do research to make predictions.
Andrea Hayden, November 3, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Quote to Note: Modern Truisms
October 18, 2011
I don’t plan on getting back on the rubber chicken circuit, but a good quote is often useful. I noted one in the hard copy newspaper of the faltering New York Times. The story with the quote was “A Series of Red Flags for Financial Planning Concern,” page B5 of the Personal Business section in the Business Section of the October 15, New York Times. I love that metadata. Don’t you?
Here’s the quote attributed to Dan Candura, “a financial planner,” whose photograph accompanies the article. Mr. Candura does not have the cheerful demeanor of a character on the defunct TV show “Friends” in my opinion. He allegedly said:
It’s easier to sell the bad stuff than the good stuff.
I must say that when I read the quote I thought about search and content processing marketers, azure chip consultants flogging studies, and assorted unemployed English teachers, failed Webmasters, and political science majors turned “search expert.”
What is the “bad stuff”. Well, if I understand the New York Times’ write up, the “bad stuff” are investments that are too good to be true. In search and content processing, the “bad stuff” are systems which contain cost spikes like those children’s toys which shoot a crazy doll in one’s face without warning.
The only problem, of course, is that the search bad stuff does not end with cost spikes. Other “benefits” of selling search and content processing systems include:
- Content adaptors which don’t work as advertised or have to be customized to handle a specific client situation
- Technical issues associated with updating indexes in “real time”, a bogus concept in my experience
- The need for “eternal engineering support.” The idea is that the license gets the consultants in the door. The consultants never leave, however.
A pop and tune from the Jack in the Box lovers to Mr. Candura, who was quite “candid”.
Stephen E Arnold, October 18, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Battle in the Grandstand: Analyst Flails at CEO
October 10, 2011
An azure chip consultant grandstanded and fell from the bleachers. Don’t worry, nothing vital was injured; he landed on his head.
Yes, as TechEye.net reports in “Analyst wades into Oracle’s Ellison,” Carter Lusher of the analyst firm Ovum criticized Oracle CEO Larry Ellison’s keynote address at this year’s Oracle OpenWorld as being too dull. Columnist Nick Ferrell writes that Lusher was:
apparently bored out of his mind as Ellison showed off a confusing number of diagrams and specs of Oracle’s Exadata and Exalogic appliances. . . . Lusher said that during the Oracle Open World Keynote Ellison missed the opportunity to deliver [Oracle’s] vision beefed up with exciting customer stories, his world famous Belly Savalas party trick , some HP light bulb changing one-liners and perhaps a couple of knob gags.
Here’s a thought: if technical information confuses and bores you that much, maybe you should attend something more your speed. Doodlebops, perhaps?
Really, one should stand on firmer ground before casting aspersions. Oracle may not be perfect, but it is performing in a perfectly acceptable manner. The company is a “mega-vendor,” in Ovum’s own words, leading purveyors of hardware, software, services, and infrastructure.
Besides, it has billions of dollars and quite a few Fortune 1000 firms in a choke-hold. Ovum should be so lucky.
Cynthia Murrell October 10, 2011
Study Sets Stage for Vapor Niches
October 7, 2011
The global market intelligence firm International Data Corporation (IDC) has published a new vendor assessment profiling the leading providers in the worldwide standalone early case assessment (ECA) applications market which is currently an undeveloped niche. This report rigorously scores current search software providers and predicts their market capabilities and strategies.
The Sept 19 news release IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Standalone Early Case Assessment Applications 2011 Vendor Analysis reveals leaders in a hitherto unknown niche. The release states:
DC sized the revenue for the standalone ECA applications market at $281 million in 2010. The top 5 vendors, by revenue, accounted for 71% of total revenue during this period. Given the reported revenue growth of the market leaders in the first half of 2011, IDC forecasts revenue for the standalone ECA applications market will total $400.8 million in 2011 and will reach $857.0 million in 2015,” said Vivian Tero, program director, Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC) Infrastructure at IDC.
Consultants and advisors continue to struggle to get their arms around vendors who are changing direction without logic, notice or much reason. Consultants who fail to recognize this run the risk of creating “vapor niches”.
Jasmine Ashton, Sept 24, 2011
Gmail: Two Views
September 27, 2011
I found two articles about Gmail interesting and mildly amusing. The notion of free email with scripts chugging away doing mysterious things is not for me. The first article asserts that I am a silly goose. Big surprise since I am a goose. That’s a snap of me in the Beyond Search logo. Who made the assertion? An azure chip consultant that’s who. Navigate to “Gmail now ‘Viable Alternative’ to Microsoft, says Gartner.” I used to know what percent of the commercial enterprises were using Gmail. I can’t recall the number but it was in single digits, but you can check the facts by asking Google. Here’s the key passage:
Cain said that apart from Exchange, Gmail is the only email package that has done well in the enterprise market recently, while others such as Novell GroupWise and IBM Lotus Notes/Domino have “lost market momentum”. But Google still has a way to go, the Gartner report said. Because Google focuses on features for the mass market, large organizations with complex requirements – such as financial institutions – have found Google is resistant to requests that would only apply to a few customers. “Banks, for example, may require surveillance capabilities that Google is unlikely to build into Gmail given the limited appeal,” the report said. Similarly, the report said large system integrators and enterprises report that Google’s lack of transparency in areas such as continuity, security and compliance can “thwart deeper relationships”.
I read this an find some fancy dancing, but there’s that single digit estimate of Gmail’s uptake. Hmmm.
The second article is “Lack of Transparency Scares Enterprise Off Google Mail.” Same source, the azure chip consultant. However, now the message is less than optimistic. Here’s the snippet I noted:
There are certain sectors where email is very sensitive that Google will not win over in the near future. That includes places like banks which really could do with stronger security and surveillance, not less of it, as Kweku Adoboli has proved. Gartner reckons Google isn’t willing to introduce that any time soon. More importantly, larger organizations, says Gartner, complain that Google isn’t transparent about what it does with your data. And that is a big problem.
Is this an example of curation with spin, honest misinterpretation, or masterful marketing? For Gartner, it is definitely marketing. For the critics, it is prudence.
Stephen E Arnold, September 27, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Can You Manage Email with SharePoint?
September 21, 2011
Microsoft’s architecture makes use of function-specific servers. There are servers for SharePoint, SQL Server, customer relationship management, accounting, and so on. Large Microsoft-centric deployments use multiple specialized Microsoft servers. Smaller firms may use SharePoint and a special-purpose server such as Microsoft Windows Small Business Server http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/windows-small-business-server/default.aspx. Microsoft certified professionals advise and implement best practices for handling performance and scaling. Search Technologies provides advisory and engineering services to organizations wanting to optimize enterprise search systems such as Microsoft Fast Search Server as well as other vendors’ search solutions.
I read an article in CMSWire which presented an idea I had not previously considered. The author of “Case Study: SharePoint as an E-mail Management System” http://www.cmswire.com/cms/information-management/case-study-sharepoint-as-an-email-management-solution-012308.php advanced an interesting approach to email.
Microsoft provides Exchange Server, robust clients, and a number of methods to leverage email, which along with search is one of the most widely used online applications. The method disclosed in the article gives a SharePoint user access to a user friendly way to have email appear in search results. The article asserts that most e-mail is archived in digital storage while leaving a stub in Outlook.
The solution referenced in the article suggested writing a program that would interact with Outlook, but also tag the content with metadata to facilitate the profiling and retrieval program. The solution was implemented in the Handshake http://www.unitysystems.info/2009/08/10/the-handshake/ enterprise content management system.
My reaction to this approach is that the author solved a situation specific problem. However, such a solution introduces several potential warning lights. First, if a bug exists in the original program, one runs the risk of creating a situation which would be confusing to a user exists. A more serious issue could compromise the integrity of the email content itself. But the largest issue is that the write up did not discuss any security measures taken to verify that only authorized individuals would see or could know about the existence of emails on a specific topic.
The Search Technologies approach to unique client requirements such as the one described in the CMSWire article is to implement the rigorous information collection, project planning, and requirements statement. As part of that work, the Search Technologies’ team and the client discuss such key issues as features, performance, and security.
Armed with this work plan, Search Technologies then identifies the options for addressing the clients’ need. In many cases, we use Microsoft-developed or Microsoft-certified solutions. If original scripts or code is required, Search Technologies works tests the code prior to making it available to the client. After the client reviews the code, then Search Technologies implements the solution.
For integrating SharePoint content, Search Technologies would rely upon its proven methodology, tapping the experience of hundreds of content centric and search related projects to determine how to meet a client’s need. What reduces the cost of extending a SharePoint system is using proven engineering principles. A misstep increases costs and can compromise the client’s information. Search Technologies delivers value because it implements a system and method that delivers results in a cost effective manner. Search Technologies focuses on working through an issue, not working around one.
Iain Fletcher, September 21, 2011
The 2011 Search Trends from Forrester
September 12, 2011
The wave which was supposed to be a tsunami seemed to become one of the lapping ripples that my goose pond enjoys. Slap, slap, slap. No roar, crash, thunder. Just slap, slap, slap. Boring.
Bill Ives’ Portals and KM blog examines a new report in “Forrester on Enterprise Search Trends.” The report was, as the title suggests, put out by Forrester and examines “six key trends to watch” in enterprise search. We monitor the trends in enterprise search here at the goose pond in Harrod’s Creek, and we take an interest in what the poobahs, pundits, wizards, and unemployed English majors generate in their “real” reports.
The six “trends” examined in the report strike us as similar to vanilla wafer cookies. You decide because we are biased toward our own work in this unusual enterprise software sector. Each of the Forrester trends seems to us to be an extension of existing directions. For example, “search managers will initiate business conversations, not gather requirements.” Is that such a seismic shift? I’d bet a list of “requirements” will still be in that IT worker’s notes at the end of that meeting. Then there’s, “business leaders will dictate the scope of search.” Well, sort of. There is the commoditizing angle and the search enabled application movement. But business leaders are important if these management wizards pay attention to finding information within their organization. See the article for the other “trends.”
The write up observes:
As the industry standards for search evolve, the report predicts that vendors will change their products to adapt to new customer investment trends with changes in semantics capabilities and increased usage of search-based applications (SBA).
Well, that’s just business, isn’t it? Any company which fails to adapt is out of luck. Just because something has evolved doesn’t make it a new craze. We wonder: do some azure chip consultants recycle what’s in the Beyond Search blog? Please let us know if you spot any examples to sit along side the comment made to our beloved goose Stephen E Arnold about a certain azure chip consulting firm enjoining its new hires to read the free information available at ArnoldIT.com as prep for these talented art history majors’ advisory career in search technology.
Cynthia Murrell, September 12, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com, an company in Oslo, Norway that published Stephen E Arnold’s most recent monograph about enterprise search, The New Landscape of Enterprise Search. No trends it that report, however. Mr. Arnold confines himself to an analysis of what the six leading vendors’ search systems actually deliver. Which is the best? Mr. Arnold favors Exalead in his new Search 2012: The Incredible Shrinking Market for Search, available on site or via a webinar.
When Social and Search Meet in the Enterprise
September 8, 2011
Organizations are embracing Microsoft SharePoint as a platform for collaboration and other social online messaging. “If You Must Have In-House Social Tools, Go with SharePoint” is representative of the flood of information about SharePoint’s utility for collaborative activities.
J. Peter Bruzzese said:
he good news, at least from the SharePoint perspective, is that you have a tremendous amount of control over the amount of information people can share. For example, by deploying the User Profile Service Application in a SharePoint server farm, you can deploy My Sites and My Profile options to your users. They can then enter their own profile information, upload images of themselves for a profile picture, create a personal page with a document library (both personal and shared), tag other people’s sites and information, and search for people within the organization based on their profiles. The SharePoint administrator can control the extent to which the sharing occurs. You can adjust the properties in the profile page, turning options on or off and adding new properties if needed. You can turn off the I Like It and Tags & Notes features, and you can even delete tags or notes your corporate policy disapproves of. You can access profile information and make changes if needed. And you don’t have to turn on My Sites or let people create their own blog and so on: It’s not an all-or-nothing situation with these tools (ditto with third-party tools).
The excellent write up does a good job of explaining SharePoint from a high level.
There are three points which one wants to keep in mind:
First, collaborative content puts additional emphasis on managing the content generated by the users of social components within SharePoint. In most cases, short message are not an issue. What is important, however, is capturing as much information about the information as possible. One cannot rely on users to provide context for some comments. Not surprisingly, additional work is needed to ensure that social messages have sufficient context to make the information in a short message meaningful to a person who may be reviewing a number of documents of greater length. To implement this type of feature, a SharePoint licensee will want to have access to systems, methods, and experts familiar with context enhancement, not just key word indexing.
Second, the social content is often free flowing. The engineering for a “plain vanilla” SharePoint is often sufficiently robust to handle typical office documents. However, if a high volume flow of social content is produced within SharePoint, “plain vanilla” implementations may exhibit some slow downs. Again, throwing hardware at a problem may work in certain situations but often additional modifications to SharePoint may be required to deliver the performance users expect. Searching for a social message with a key fact can be frustrating if the system imposes high latency.
Finally, social content is assumed to be a combination of real time back and forth as well as asynchronous. A person may see a posting or a document and then replay an hour or a day later. Adding metadata and servers will not address the challenge of processing social content in a timely manner. Firms with specific expertise in search and content processing can help. The approach to bottleneck issues in indexing, for example, rely on the experience of the engineer, not an FAQ from Microsoft or blog post from a SharePoint specialist.
If you want to optimize your SharePoint system for social content and make that content findable, take a look at the services available from Search Technologies. We have deep experience with the full range of SharePoint search solutions, including Fast Search.
Iain Fletcher, September 8, 2011
Sponsored by Search Technologies
SharePoint: Embracing Social Functions and Features
September 7, 2011
The future of search is a subject that sparks a conversational camp fire. After email, search is one of the principal uses of online systems. In the last year, traditional key word search has been altered by the growing demand for “social content.” The idea is not just to index online discussions, but to use the signals these conversations emit as a way to improve the relevance of a search.
For example, when Lady Gaga sends her fans a Twitter message, the response and diffusion of that message provides useful information to a search system. A query about a fashion trend sent to Bing and Google, for example, will “respond” to the Lady Gaga message and include the retweets of her content as an indication of relevance.
This could apply to enterprise search. It could be possible to configure a mainstream solution such as Microsoft Fast Search Server to respond to social content.
A solid overview of what is possible is available in the InfoWorld article, “If You Must Have In-House Social Tools, Go With SharePoint.” Examples of SharePoint’s social tools are support for Weblogs, the “I Like It” tags, notes, and profiles pages. InfoWorld explains how these tools will contribute to user satisfaction and help enhance the findability of content within an enterprise SharePoint installation. The implementation of social functions falls upon SharePoint administrators. Coincident with the release of the social tools, InfoWorld points out that user training is helpful. The article makes this important point:
I’m not a fan of social networking tools at work. I believe it distracts people more than it provides value. Call me a dinosaur, but when I want to say something important to the entire company, I use this ancient system called email. Maybe I’m not a team player because I don’t like collaborating on documents; if I need your help on a document, I’ll email it to you and you can look it over.
My view is that social networking has a time and a place, is beneficial, and should be taken in small quantities.
“Enjoy Maximum Collaboration with the Help of SharePoint” is especially thought provoking. The author said:
What SharePoint applications do is the customization, configuration and the development of Intranet, Extranet and the portals of information that are present on SharePoint.
My thought is that SharePoint does not perform customization. SharePoint must be configured and tuned to deliver certain types of functions. In our experience, SharePoint requires additional scripts. The default services deliver access to document libraries to manage content, generate reports, locate services, and share content across a wide network. However, social features may warrant changes to the SharePoint infrastructure to ensure that content throughout performance is not compromised and make certain indexing processes receive additional tuning to handle the social content if needed. Due to the abbreviated form of some social content, additional metadata may be required to enhance the findability of a short message.
Search Technologies has implemented social functions into Microsoft SharePoint. The Search Technologies’ team has the experience to derive the maximum benefit from the services which Microsoft includes with SharePoint. In addition, our engineers can implement special features as well as install, configure, and tune third party add-ins from Microsoft certified software developers.
Social has arrived and SharePoint is the ideal platform to use to take advantage of this fast growing content type.
Iain Fletcher, September 7, 2011
Exclusive Interview: John Steinhauer, Search Technologies
August 29, 2011
A few days ago we were able to interview John Steinhauer, Search Technologies’ vice president of technology. In the discussion, Mr. Steinhauer talked about the rapid growth and Search Technologies’ approach to search-related engagements.
He told me:
We bring hard-won experience to customer projects and a deep knowledge of what works and where the difficult issues lie. Our partners, the major search vendors, sometimes find it difficult to be pragmatic, even where they have their own implementation departments, because their primary focus is their software licensing business. That’s not a criticism. As with most enterprise software sectors, license fees pay for all of the valuable research & development that the vendors put in to keep the industry moving forward. But it does mean that in a typical services engagement, less emphasis is put on the need for implementation planning, and ongoing processes to maintain and fine-tune the search application. We focus only on those elements, and this benefits both customers, who get more from their investment, and search engine partners who end up with happier customers.
I asked him about where the search industry was heading. He told me:
There are now two 800 pound Gorillas in the market, called Microsoft and Google. That’s a big difference from the somewhat fractious market that existed for 10 years ago. That will certainly make it harder for smaller vendors to find oxygen. But at the same time, these very large companies have their own agendas for what features and platforms matter for them and their customers. They will not attempt to be all things to all prospective customers in the same way that smaller hungrier vendors have. In theory this should leave gaps for either products or services companies to fill where specific and relatively sophisticated capabilities are required. We see those requirements all over the place.
For more information about Search Technologies, visit the firm’s Web site at www.searchtechnologies.com. The full text of the interview is located in the Beyond Search interview collection.
Stephen E Arnold, August 29, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
