HP Salvation May Lie in Big Data
January 7, 2013
After all the bad blood between Hewlett-Packard and the folks from Autonomy, could it be that Autonomy’s technology will be HP’s salvation? CRN’s Kevin McLaughlin says it just might, at least in part, in “Can Big Data Actually Be the Thing that Saves HP?” McLaughlin begins by summing up HP’s recent problems:
“Things couldn’t get much worse for Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ). HP’s stunning announcement last month that it was taking an $8.8 billion write-down and launching an investigation into accounting improprieties related to its $11.1 billion Autonomy acquisition came amid a host of financial struggles for the IT giant. Some are due to industry headwinds, such as slowdowns in PC and printer sales and weakening enterprise IT spending. Other problems are of HP’s own doing, such as its $8 billion charge from its 2008 acquisition of EDS and an enterprise services business hampered by an outdated infrastructure and sales model.”
So what is the struggling tech giant to do? The article notes that, with big data’s growing importance, HP had better leverage it’s big-data tech immediately. Apparently, Meg Whitman, HP’s CEO, agrees; she says her company is extending both the technology from Autonomy and the analysis software from Vertica across their hardware lines.
Yes, big data in printers may just save the day. Who could have predicted that?
Cynthia Murrell, January 07, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Efforts for Open Government Forge Ahead
January 3, 2013
Openness and transparency are huge themes across the globe in terms of government, in addition to many other industries and businesses. The UK concentrated on pushing their efforts in this direction over the last few years and we are seeing a similar push for it on this side of the pond. Open government is discussed in more detail in the recent Semantic Web article, “oeGOV: Open Government Through Semantic Web Technologies.”
One of the initial efforts in the U.S. has been Barack Obama’s memo to the heads of Executive Departments and Agencies. Since that memo, there have been a number of related initiatives. It seems that transparency and accountability have been used as synonymous concepts in many of these cases.
The article informs us:
“Placing increasing amounts of raw data on the Web is a good first step towards government transparency. But for it to be truly useful it needs to be connectable. Since data coming from different sources is idiosyncratic, connecting across data sets today requires heroic efforts from brigades of programmers. To truly support the transparency goals, government data needs to be Findable, Interpretable, Decidable and Actionable, in short FIDA-friendly.”
We completely agree that FIDA represents a good set of goals to shoot for, however the issues of standardization and implementation remain. Additionally, we find this all extremely interesting in reference to recent surveillance decisions related to the “open” Internet.
Megan Feil, January 03, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Future Remains Uncertain for National Information Exchange Model
January 3, 2013
Information is the only global currency and it is by no means a limited resource. The National Information Exchange Model (NIEM) Resource Database sees this and was initially developed out of a desire for a government-wide, standards-based approach to exchanging information.
Twenty states found that there were too many bureaucratic policies involved in exchanging information across state and city government lines and thus began the NIEM. This effort became known as the Global Justice Information Sharing Initiative.
The website continues on the background of this project and the Department of Homeland Security‘s connection:
“Parallel to the GJXDM effort was the stand up of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The mention of metadata in the president’s strategy for homeland security in the summer of 2002 galvanized the homeland security community to begin working towards standardization. These collaborative efforts by the justice and homeland security communities—to produce a set of common, well-defined data elements for data exchange development and harmonization—lead to the beginnings of NIEM.”
While it is difficult not to find this interesting, at the end of the day this is a government initiative in a time of severe financial challenges and we cannot help but wonder if this will hamper efforts to push forward. For now, take a look at the resource database while you can.
Megan Feil, January 03, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
WAND Partnership with Concept Searching Unveiled
January 2, 2013
A new partnership was revealed for WAND Inc recently. WAND is a developer of structured multi-lingual vocabularies. Digital Journal covered the story about the strategic partnership with Concept Searching in their article, “Concept Searching Selected as Founding Strategic Partner in the WAND Within Partnership Program.”
Concept Searching offers automatic semantic metadata generation, auto-classification, taxonomy management software. Because they have met the requirements from the new WAND Within program, they have been named one of the founding partners.
Additionally, smartStructures has emerged as a marketing collaboration between Concept Searching’s advanced technology platform, WAND Foundation Taxonomies, and industry expertise. These vertically aligned solutions will be available only from Concept Searching directly or from a set of certified partners.
The article offers more insight into the history of WAND:
“The WAND taxonomies have been used for the last fourteen years by organizations that want to benefit from industry and business function specific Foundation Taxonomies, to accelerate taxonomy development and management. The WAND Within™ partnership program is designed specifically for industry leading vendors in the taxonomy market, who add superior technology value to provide clients with powerful solutions to manage unstructured content.”
This sticks out as an interesting tie-up and therefore one that we will keep our eyes on since these companies are positioning themselves such a way that looks as if it could be meaningful.
Megan Feil, January 02, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Data Intelligence
January 2, 2013
Helping to keep people safe is a large part of what the analysis specialist firm Data Intelligence does. The company serves organizations in the realms of defense, intelligence, cyber security, and law enforcement. They don’t stop there, though; the outfit also supplies tools for social media analysis, financial intelligence, recruiting, business intelligence, marketing, and business integration. Software consulting is also on their sizable plate.
Data Intelligence has a nifty video for potential customers who would like to get an idea of their offerings. Their central product is the Entity Analytical Platform, which emphasizes collaboration and information linking and displays results in a unique knowledge graph. Their site describes the software:
“Social collaboration tool for linking together Big Knowledge Graphs combined with Search & Discovery at Cloud Scale
- Link together custom networks that relate to your business model
- Collaborate among your team and follow areas of interest
- Search smarter: ‘Who worked with James at Data Intelligence in 2012’
- Discover business insights as data is transformed into intelligence”
Data Intelligence was formed by James Kraemer, and is located in Washington, DC.
Cynthia Murrell, January 02, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
IBM Forgets About Vivisimo
January 1, 2013
IBM wants to take a bite out of Big Data by educating people on the topic and then encouraging them to use their products. One of the ways that IBM does this is through its Redbooks publications. A recent publication called IBM InfoSphere Streams V3.0: Addressing Volume, Velocity, and Variety that discusses how a Big Data platform will allow people to structure and use their data:
“There are multiple uses for big data in every industry—from analyzing larger volumes of data than was previously possible to driving more precise answers, to analyzing data at rest and data in motion to capture opportunities that were previously lost. A big data platform will enable your organization to tackle complex problems that previously could not be solved using traditional infrastructure. As the amount of data available to enterprises and other organizations dramatically increases, more and more companies are looking to turn this data into actionable information and intelligence in real time. Addressing these requirements requires applications that are able to analyze potentially enormous volumes and varieties of continuous data streams to provide decision makers with critical information almost instantaneously. “
The publication suggests using IBM InfoSphere as the enterprise platform for Big Data developments. The InfoSphere can be used as a testing ground for analyzing the data and deciding the best ways to govern it. Did IBM forget about its “other” Big Data” platform, though? Vivisimo was acquired to be the spotlight of Big Data for IBM. Why is it not discussed here?
Whitney Grace, January 01, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
SharePoint Gets a Stricter Governance Tool
December 31, 2012
SharePoint is Microsoft’s glorified collaborative content management platform. It usually provides decent out-of-the-box solutions for managing projects and allowing users to work and share on content collectively, but sometimes it needs help from an IVP to make it better. Metavis is an add-on software solutions provider and according to Web Media 360 they have “Metavis Introduces New SharePoint Governance Enhancement Tool.”
The new governance tool is called Informant and is currently in its beta phase. It is supposed to help control the comings and goings of files outside of SharePoint. These actions hold a security risk for all enterprise-based companies:
“Metavis says it is the transfer of content beyond the confines of SharePoint which holds the gravest potential consequences in terms of undermining the integrity of an enterprise’s content management and security strategy. Such transfers, says Metavis, have become more frequent owing to the proliferation of file sharing platforms.”
Informant will help SharePoint users monitor and control transfers in their SharePoint environment as well as tagging, archiving, and placing permissions on files. Securing data is a big part of any information governance. Technology makes it so easy to steal information, but it also makes it easier to lock it down. Take precautions to monitor your data.
Whitney Grace, December 31, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Gannett Wants Better Content Management
December 31, 2012
Gannett is a media and marketing company that represents USA Today, Shop Local, and Deal Chicken. One can imagine that such a prolific company has a lot of data that needs to be organized and made workable. Marketing and media companies are on the forefront of the public eye and if they do not get their client’s name out in the open, then it means less dollars in the bank for them. One way this could happen is if they do not centralize a plan for information governance. The good news is “Gannett Chooses ITM for Centralized Management of Reference Vocabularies,”as reported via the Mondeca news Web site. Mondeca is a company that specializes in knowledge management with a variety of products that structure knowledge in many possible ways. Its ITM system was built to handle knowledge structures from conception to usage and the maintenance process afterward. ITM helps organize knowledge, accessing data across multiple platforms, improved search and navigation, and aligning/merging taxonomies and ontologies.
Gannet selected Mondeca for these very purposes:
“Gannett needed software to centrally manage, synchronize, and distribute its reference vocabularies across a variety of systems, such as text analytics, search engines, and CMS. They also wanted to create vocabularies and enrich them using external sources, with the help of MEI. Gannett selected ITM as the best match for the job. At the end of the project, Gannett intends to achieve stronger semantic integration across its content delivery workflow.”
Gannett is sure to discover that Mondeca’s ITM software will provide them with better control over its data, not to mention new insights into its knowledge base. Data organization and proper search techniques are the master key to any organization’s success.
Whitney Grace, December 31, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Unstructured Information Has Many Possibilities and Dangers
December 31, 2012
Unstructured information has been piling up for years and it was not until the Big Data boom of early 2012 did people really begin to see its hidden potential. Like a huge boulder rolling down hill, unstructured information uses have taken off and businesses are doing their best to take advantage of the new information streams. There are many cases, however, where businesses do not know the first place to begin. OpenText has caught onto this need and they have started a new series: “Introducing the OpenText CEO White Paper Series.” The first paper was only recently published (talk about fresh) and OpenText’s CEO Mark J. Barrenechea wrote it. Here is a brief explanation about what to expect from the new series:
“’Each corporate information asset represents both risk and value to today’s organization. Every email is a potential smoking gun and every contract the potential solution to a costly litigation. At the same time, unstructured information is today’s oil, and being able to capture, preserve, manage, and capitalize on it is the next frontier of competitive business. EIM acts as a force multiplier in helping organizations unlock the untapped value of unstructured information, while complying with regulatory requirements and ensuring that corporate data is safe.’”
OpenText, we are waiting for more to come out. People need this information for their Big Data projects. Think of it as structured and unstructured information for dummies.
Whitney Grace, December 31, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Google Spanner Achieves the Impossible
December 27, 2012
Wired has posted a thorough article about a recent Google tech breakthrough in its “Exclusive: Inside Google Spanner, the Largest Single Database on Earth.” This database, like many other Googley projects, grew out of the company’s solution to an internal problem—collaborating between their scattered offices without being slowed down by the delay that usually plagues global communications and data sharing.
“Spanner is a creation so large, some have trouble wrapping their heads around it. But the end result is easily explained: With Spanner, Google can offer a web service to a worldwide audience, but still ensure that something happening on the service in one part of the world doesn’t contradict what’s happening in another. . . .
“Before Spanner was revealed, many didn’t even think it was possible. Yes, we had ‘NoSQL’ databases capable of storing information across multiple data centers, but they couldn’t do so while keeping that information ‘consistent’ — meaning that someone looking at the data on one side of the world sees the same thing as someone on the other side. The assumption was that consistency was barred by the inherent delays that come when sending information between data centers.”
Google’s engineers have found a way, though, one that involved creating its own time-keeping mechanism and ended up reducing costs in the bargain. It is well worth reading the article for the details.
What caught our eye most, though, is the hostility toward Google in some of the comments. I won’t reproduce them here, but we wonder: why the chip on the community’s shoulder?
We officially love Google.
Cynthia Murrell, December 27, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
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