Booz, Allen: Sunset Limited Leaves Station
May 21, 2011
I know. I know. There are two Booz, Allen & Hamiltons. There is the MBA-infused Booz & Co. in New York. And there is the government centric outfit in Virginia. I worked at the “old” Booz, Allen & Hamilton. May it rest in peace. The only reason I thought about fading blue chips was the chance juxtaposition of two news items about these two new entities.
First, the MBA outfit put out a study that identified the three most innovative companies in the world. Hold your breath. Exhale slowly. Now that you are calm, here’s the shocker. The most innovative firms are Apple, Google, and 3M. Bet you did not know that. You can get the MBA stimulating insight in “Apple, Google, 3M World’s Most Innovative: Booz & Co.”
Second, the government money surfing part of the old Booz, Allen & Hamilton announced that the transportation unit, built from Landrum & Brown, Simpson & Curtain, and some other components assembled by John Dowdle and his colleagues decades ago has been sold off. Read all about it in “Consulting Firm CH2M Hill Agrees to Buy Booz Allen Hamilton Unit.”
What’s my view? Stating the obvious is a good practice for MBAs. The real information surfaces elsewhere. PR is good. As for the dumping of the transportation unit, I had a question: “Aren’t the Booz, Allen managers able to make this unit pay?” Of course, the new Booz Allen has some debt and is competing, not on MBA insights, but on costs, so change is inevitable.
I see blue chip fading to gray. But management consultants are supposed to be experts in management, correct?
Stephen E Arnold, May 21, 2011
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Information as Intellectual Water Wings
May 5, 2011
“How to use SPSS for Phd Dissertations and Thesis” raises an interesting question: Is selling brain power the new growth industry? For some in MA and PhD programs, the effort required may cut into Simpson’s and Dancing with the Stars viewing. What’s the solution? Give up TV? Or, hire someone to provide a grad student in over his or her head with a life preserver?
Accountability, anyone?
Dissertation India says it is a “Premier Research Support Company” offering research and statistical services and consulting to PhD students worldwide. In the article, the author claims eighty million words of original writing to various students , Dissertation India promises:
All sourced material is referenced as per various styles.
Dissertation India claims to interpret results of its statistical studies.
What does Beyond Search make of this?
Addled geese are poor students. None of the goslings have a high school diploma. PhD? Sure.
Assuming that time spent in serious research is part and parcel of earning the higher degrees, is it fair to compare the academic work of a student who pays for research to be compared to the work of a serious student who does her/her own legwork? What does this mean to the future of research? If someone can buy their information , will this lead to a dumbing-down of our professors, push harder to learn? You decide doctors, and future leaders of the world? Where will innovative ideas originate if no one is willing to push harder to learn? Little wonder that tough disciplines like knowledge (which used to be called search at Google) is easier to describe in marketing collateral than deliver.
Amy Frances, May 5, 2011
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TNR Global and Its Take on Enterprise Search
April 30, 2011
I was poking around with my Overflight system and came across four “white papers” about enterprise search. These were produced by TNR Global, a firm which offers scalable Web and search solutions. The company asserts:
TNR Global (TNR) is a systems design and integration company focused on enterprise search and cloud computing solutions. We develop scalable web-based search solutions built on the open source LAMP stack. We have over 10 years of hands-on experience in web systems and enterprise search implementations, both proprietary and open source. We specialize in FAST ESP and Lucene Solr search applications.
The company says that it has three specialties; namely:
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) platform for deploying applications into the cloud
FAST Enterprise Search Platform (ESP) and Lucene Solr implementations for data intensive web sites
Web based system administration and application management.
The “white papers” are available at http://goo.gl/28rKa. The topics covered are:
- Enterprise Search Basics
- Enterprise Search and Government
- Enterprise Search for Law Firms
- Enterprise Search and E-Discovery
I took a quick look and I found that the approach was interesting. In the basics white paper, TNR explains that Web search is not enterprise search. To provide some substance to the definition of enterprise search, TNR identifies four ways to apply enterprise search: eCommerce, market management, online media and publishing, and risk management and eDiscovery. The Enterprise Search and Government “white paper” is one page in length. The Enterprise Search for Law Firms white paper explains eDiscovery and identifies such functions as faceted navigation, role based search, clustering, relevance ranking, etc. The Life Sciences white paper blends eDiscovery, referencing the rules for legal procedures.
The most recent news on the firm’s Web site is dated November 2010. The company has a Web log, “Enterprise Search, System Administration, and Cloud Computing.”
In my forthcoming landscape of search book for Pandia.com, I list some of the resellers and integrators known to be working with the search systems I profile. I will try to capture basic information about other niche search consultants as I come across the information.
Stephen E Arnold, April 30, 2011
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Dieselpoint: Described in a Fuzzy Manner
April 29, 2011
A quote from the MartinButler Research “fact with opinion piece” “Dieselpoint” states
“Dieselpoint is something of a Porsche in the Enterprise Search space. It is very fast, well-engineered, doesn’t carry much excess weight, and its text based searching technology can be made to satisfy almost any search requirement.”
Though the Porsche reference is a somewhat unconventional comparison, to most it sounds like this company deserves a closer look. At first glance the Dieselpoint Web Site seems routine but upon taking a closer look one can’t help but notice that it does not list any current information or events within the last several years but they claim to be a leader in their field. This article says some great things about Dieselpoint but it ultimately leaves more questions than answers. Questions such as “What type of system does Dieselpoint offer??” and “What type of moderate prices and options do they offer?” come up. With more questions than answers it may be that this “Porsche” may be parked on the shoulder of the information superhighway.
Check out our Overflight profile of Dieselpoint. Quiet seems it.
Stephen E Arnold, April 29, 2011
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Evil, Crafty Consultants Exposed
April 20, 2011
Short honk: If you aspire to be a consultant, you will want to read “Seven Dirty Consultant Tricks (and How to Avoid Them).” On the other hand, if you are trying to improve your dirty consultant tricks, you will want to implement each tactic. With unemployed Web masters, journalists, and art history majors in abundance, it is nice to think that an information technology publication focused on “real” information would run this type of how to. Once in a while the goose and goslings in Harrod’s Creek sell a consulting job. I will double check, but I think we are just back woods’ experts lacking such sophisticated tricks. Maybe a training session is needed? I will print out a copy of the Atlantic article published in 2006 which explains how a person became a highly paid consultant with a degree in 19th century philosophy. Art history majors, rejoice! Consulting may be a variant of art forgery.
Stephen E Arnold, April 20, 2011
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Gartner Breaks New Marketing Turf
April 11, 2011
Gartner has a thriving practice in everything to do with digital information. The publicly traded company seems to be sending a message that I hear as “we’re desperate”. Maybe I am wrong but spam from IDG (another researchy-type outfit) that has the subject “Gartner Insight, 3 Top Papers + Win an iPad 2” does not evoke the wood paneled methods of McKinsey & Company, Boston Consulting Group, or Bain (yep, the Bain with the now apocryphal kumbaya sessions at a Holiday Inn on Route 128). As wacky as the blue chip consulting firms are, I find email with the words “insight,” “top papers”, and “win and iPad” quite piercing cries for attention.
First, there are not “3 top papers” on offer. The count seems closer to four, but at my age my eyesight is failing. See for yourself whether I got the number four correct:
The other signals that reached me via spam email was the big button that said “Register Now.”
The angle, of course, is leads and input into how Gartner can improve. I also found this enjoinder fascinating:
I will definitely forward the spam message to my one friend, a 70 year old with a beat up truck and a limp.
One positive note: Gartner and IDG got a free mention in a free blog which contains information for which one does not have to register, enjoin a friend, or miscount to access. Of course, the quality of information in Beyond Search is miserable, but we don’t even spam. Heck, we don’t follow up on proposals, return phone calls, or attend conferences where “pay to play” is the new business model.
Objectivity is what one thinks it is, right? And what about search? No white papers about enterprise search? No quadrant? Sigh.
Stephen E Arnold, April 11, 2011
Freebie but no drawing to win an iPad. How is that drawing conducted by the way?
Microsoft Favored to Win Smartphone War, Really?
April 10, 2011
I am an optimist. I see blue sky behind gray clouds. I see flowers beneath the snow.
Here in Kentucky, we figured it was wishful thinking to include the University of Kentucky Wildcats in the final four on the March Madness brackets. We were all very surprised when this ideal became a reality. However, we believe this is just poor statistical reasoning: “IDC Beancounters Predict Microsoft to Win Smartphone War.” Wow. Microsoft cannot update its smartphone software. I don’t know one person who owns a Microsoft smartphone.
By 2015, the IDC states that Android will be the top smartphone competitor, followed closely by Microsoft. Apple will be booted down to third place. Android will continue to dominate, however, with half the market and the other divided between Blackberry and Apple based off current market predictions. According to the write up:
The report said that smartphone vendors will ship a total of more than 450 million smartphones this year, up from 303.4 million in 2010. IDC predicts that the smartphone market will grow four times faster than the overall handset market.
Other predictions include the Symbian market will transfer to Microsoft after its recent merger with Nokia and Hewlett Packard’s WebOS will never gain much of a foothold. Don’t rely heavily on IDC’s predictions. Back in 2006, the beancounters never accounted for the rise of the iPhone or Android. The University of Kentucky’s win was a sweet surprise, but based off current market trends unless Microsoft creates the next big phone, Android runs out of batteries, or Apple just fails, this won’t happen. And I am an optimist, not a consulting firm trying to pump up revenues, get headlines, and compete with other mid tier consulting firms for clients.
Even more intereseting is that Gartner, a rival to IDC, issued a report that said the same thing. You can check out the Gartner predictions at http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1622614.
Coincidence or a Microsoft PR push? We will never offer an opinion on the cheesecloth separating independent consulting firrms and clients with a real need to flash cash.
Whitney Grace, April 10, 2011
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Caveat Software
March 22, 2011
“Time to Rethink the Analyst Firm?” puts it to IT analysts and their clients, straight-up: Firms need to make changes in how they do business, and their clients should hold them accountable.
Author Dennis Howlett cites and expounds upon five recommendations from Zia Yusof :
Get industry-specific. Instead of developing horizontal software for the masses, analysts should develop more individualized solutions for specific industries. Yet few analysts have the courage to champion the smaller, lesser-known vendors that are filling these niches.
Rate the analysts/firms. A mechanism should be developed by which software buyers rate analysts and firms and share these ratings with other potential software buyers within a given industry.
Keep it transparent. Analysts should be upfront about how they make money, and disclose the vendors they are doing business with. If they don’t the client should ask.
Ditch the IT lingo. Analysts and vendors need to make information clear and understandable.
Go Indy. Some of the smaller, independent analyst firms are doing things the big guys can’t (or won’t). Some mentioned in the article were Constellation Research, Panorama, Computer Economics and Redmonk.
For software buyers, here are the important take-aways:
There was some useful advice tool The write up emphasizes that everyone should be aware that analysts work for vendors first and you second. What you’re hearing from the analyst may be PR from the vendor rather than objective information. We recommend that you ask questions and expect full transparency. Not everyone has an About page that explains what’s what.
We have one other tip as well: Verify whatever information you get from your analyst.
Robin Broyles, March 22, 2011
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Consultant Identifies Employment Opportunity
March 12, 2011
Read Write Web has the article, “Forrester: Business Intelligence Careers Offer Hope for IT Workers.” It reiterates what we already know: tough job market for information technology workers. Forrester, a consulting firm that often links sweeping generalizations with for-fee reports, recommends that IT specialists should focus their energies on business intelligence.
We learn from this assertion that Developers, integrations professionals, and database administrators are well prepared for BI careers. But—and it is an important caveat—the hopefuls will need to bolster their skills by actively working in business intelligence. Is this somewhat circular?
The article pointed to these consultant observations about business intelligence:
Organizations are increasing investment in this area.
- BI is not easily outsourced and requires quite a bit of face-to-face collaboration with management
- BI projects need to be iterated on a frequent and ongoing basis
- BI hiring is already up dramatically
My colleagues and I at ArnoldIT.com are not sure what business intelligence means. The more we talked about this employment assertion, we concluded that there is a Catch 22 operating: one needs to be working on an active BI project to become familiar with these technologies otherwise one cannot learn the skills. We do agree that information professionals should continue to improve analytical and technical skills.
After reading this article the only thought that came to me was, “really?” Autonomy does not use the phrase “business intelligence”. What’s that tell us? Well, $800 million in revenue suggests that the phrase is probably not necessary to enjoy financial success.
Whitney Grace, March 12, 2011
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Teradata Crows; Risky Bets Are No Shows
February 19, 2011
Yowza. Point your browser at “Independent Analyst Firm Declares Teradata ‘the Most Scalable, Flexible, Cloud-Capable EDW Solution in Today’s Market”. I am not sure traditional databases or data warehouses are going to do the job for the type of big data we consider. If you are a Fortune 1000 company, you will want to buy a brand name. Teradata is the champ, according to an “independent analyst firm.” Okay, maybe. What is more interesting is that the nifty graphic showing the big dogs in big data has a couple of interesting categories; namely, Risky Bets and Contenders. Why does this interest me? There are no entries listed. I can name some new contenders. I can also name some risky bets. In fact, some of those contenders would, in my judgment, rank ahead of the big dogs in the mid tier consulting firm’s listing. Why are there any companies in the Risky Bets and Contenders? Let’s speculate.
- No one at the consulting firm knows anything about this sector so the notion of identifying Risky Bets and Contenders does not come up as a consideration.
- The smaller companies, the open source outfits, and the companies operating outside the US are “off the radar” because the likelihood of getting these outfits to become clients and consumers of the consulting firm’s reports is low. I too would chase those most likely to be prospects and skip the small fish.
- The whole set of categories is ill conceived. Why not lump everyone into the achievement culture ranking of “Great”, “Even Greater,” and “The Bestest Ever.”
No complaints about Teradata or even the companies that bring up the dull normal ranking of “Strong Performers.” I love this consulting stuff. It makes real news and gives anyone in the magic whatever cause to celebrate. But I still wonder why there are no Risky Bets.
Stephen E Arnold, February 19, 2011
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