Silobreaker Serves Swiss Soldiery
May 15, 2012
Switzerland’s Department of Defense, Civil Protection, and Sport (DDPS) will soon be relying on Solobreaker’s considerable data management chops, MarketWire announces in “Silobreaker Delivers Enterprise Software to Swiss Armed Forces.” The software underpins a turnkey open source intelligence (OSINT) solution provided by LearningWell, a Swedish integration consulting firm.
The write up quotes Kristofer Månsson, Silobreaker’s CEO:
“Situational awareness and contextual insight are essential and time-critical requirements for any corporate or governmental organization today. Yet, users are drowning in information, and cutting through the proliferation of content from both traditional and social media represents significant challenges, which cannot be met by the use of conventional search methods. We are very pleased that customers keep recognizing our products as leading edge for analytical and sense-making purposes, as well as for the efficiency of their prompt implementations.”
Yes, the “big data” phenomenon is placing big demands on organizations everywhere. Silobreaker’s Enterprise Software Suite is a robust tool for making sense of it all. It covers workflow from beginning— back end content, aggregation, indexing, classification and storage— to end— front-end search, filtering, analysis, visualization, user collaboration, report generation, and decision support. The software handles both structured and unstructured content with aplomb, and manages data from both inside and outside sources, both horizontally and vertically.
Founded in 2005, Silobreaker has headquarters in London and Stockholm. Their solutions facilitate teamwork across user groups through strong single user platforms that provide information aggregation, analytical tools, and collaboration features. Besides the aforementioned Enterprise Software Suite, the company offers Silobreaker Premium, a powerful intelligence and media monitoring SaaS tool for corporate, financial, NGO and government agency users. Silobreaker’s products help many private, corporate, academic, financial and government organizations worldwide with intelligence, media-monitoring, risk management, and early warning capabilities.
Cynthia Murrell, May 15, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
The Heat in SharePoint Semantics: May 4 to May 10
May 15, 2012
This week SharePoint Semantics shared some informative articles that pointed readers towards presentations and tips on how use SharePoint to make the best out of your business.
“Tips for Maximizing SharePoint For Corporate Communications Success” provides readers with an recap of a recent presentation along with several other resources to supplement the topic including: a PowerPoint presentation, a case study, an article, and a training.
Blogger Ken Toth informs:
“The free resources may be worth checking out if you’re looking to boost communications success in your organization. Maximizing SharePoint to manage your content and communications is no doubt a priority for success.”
Another informative post was “Presentation Recaps from Connect With the Experts SharePoint Day Now Available.” The article recaps a recent SharePoint presentation by Ant Clay where he spoke on SharePoint Performance and Business Intelligence.
After sharing Clay’s highlights from the day, Toth states:
“Stimulating conversation with fellows in the SharePoint community is a great way to participate in continuing education, get new ideas, and to develop a network of colleagues to call on throughout your SharePoint deployment and maintenance process. Slides from the presentations on why SharePoint works and how to govern it are also included if you missed the day’s talk.”
Another helpful article that offers solutions and applications on all versions of SharePoint is “Best Practices and Tips for Using Corasworks and SharePoint to Improve Work Processes.”
Suggested tools that better service the customer include: an app request system, task management and an app catalog.
Toth thinks:
“The best practices may be worth reviewing, especially to get tips for weekly programmatic reviews. We also know that it is best practice to use a powerful search feature to connect your users with the valuable information they need. Look to Smartlogic to enrich your metadata and provide an enhanced search and navigation experience with the Semaphore Content Intelligence Platform.”
Toth is absolutely right. Using a third party solution to solve your SharePoint needs is always an excellent idea for those who are not interested in taking the time and energy necessary to do the research on your own.
Jasmine Ashton, May 15, 2012
Grade School Students Explore with Dassault Platform
May 15, 2012
For a long time now the engineering community has relied on CAD/CAM friendly product lifecycle management (PLM) solutions to aid in all aspects of product design and manufacturing. Now, high school students at Notre Dame Preparatory School are getting the opportunity to get a jump start over their competition by learning and mastering Dassault Systèmes’ PLM 3D platform as explained in the article, “Notre Dame Preparatory School Adopts Dassault Systèmes 3D Experience Platform”, on the Sun-Herald.
The idea behind the adoption of the generally engineer-only platform is for students to be introduced to the fun stuff of engineering hopefully eliminating negative stereotypes that might keep talented youth from pursuing careers in the field.
As the article explains of Notre Dame’s use of the software:
“Equipped with technologies implemented by today’s leading manufacturers, students are creating products — from initial design through 3D prototype — for a variety of industries, including automotive, consumer goods, energy, aerospace and defense. The 3D Experience platform and applications serve as the backbone for Notre Dame Prep’s emerging engineering curriculum, which supports the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) Education Coalition initiative focused on STEM education required in order for the U.S. to remain an economic leader in the global marketplace.”
Stories like this would not have been possible even a few years ago. Thanks to advances in cloud technology PLM platforms can be utilized just about anywhere. Data management solutions providers are realizing the value in thinking outside the box and we applaud Dassault Systèmes’ collaboration with Notre Dame Prep School for encouraging youth in such a non-traditional manner.
Catherine Lamsfuss, May 14, 2012
Inteltrax: Top Stories, May 7 to May 11
May 14, 2012
Inteltrax, the data fusion and business intelligence information service, captured three key stories germane to search this week, specifically, hot trends among the industry.
The hottest trend in most businesses is change and “How an Analytic Firm Handles Challenges” highlights the rapidly evolving Petri dish of data analytics.
The law has been a major topic of talk and “Google Indiscretions Prove Need for Secure Data Mining” looks at how the search giant’s analytics arm might be violating laws and trust.
Partnerships have been the biggest trend in big data this year and “Clients Win When Big Data Partners” examines Cloudera’s recent teamwork.
These are just a sampling of the big time changes moving this industry forward at a frantic pace. It’s exciting and you can catch the thrill every day as we cull analytic news from around the globe.
Follow the Inteltrax news stream by visiting www.inteltrax.com
Patrick Roland, Editor, Inteltrax.
May 14, 2012
SharePoint 2015 Highly Anticipated
May 14, 2012
If you are a follower of Microsoft and its products, you are used to the inherent mystery and anticipation that accompanies its often belabored and long-suffering releases of major software. Kurt Mackie updates on the latest information on upcoming releases in, “Office and SharePoint ’15′ Expected in Early 2013.”
Veteran Microsoft reporter Mary Jo Foley unearthed a few clues about Microsoft’s product roadmap for this year and the next. Last week, Foley pointed to two Microsoft charts, reportedly given to partners, that show approximately when we might see certain Microsoft on-premises products and cloud-based services emerge. The documents are a bit dated, originating from Dec. 22, 2011, and lack details about the arrival of Windows 8 and Windows Server 8. However, Microsoft did confirm to Foley that charts were given to partners and show ‘forward-looking information.’
The article goes on to predict that Exchange, Microsoft Office, and SharePoint, all in their “15” versions, are expected for general availability early 2013. We cannot help but wonder why there is so much pageantry surrounding Microsoft major releases. For a company with so much pull in the general technology world, it seems smaller more frequent updates would keep them more relevant as the competition grows stiffer.
One third-party solution keeping the competition tight for Microsoft in enterprise search is Fabasoft Mindbreeze. Mindbreeze is particularly efficient at updating their offerings without major releases that disrupt workflow. Visit the Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise page to note the changes made available in the quarterly releases over the last couple of years. Updates to the Cloud enterprise offering are even more frequent and more subtle.
It seems to us that at a certain point a ship does get too big to turn. This may be where Microsoft is heading, with software offerings so overwhelming that implementers at the local level have to plan months in advance just for an update. For a software solution that is current, intuitive, and less disruptive, consider a smart third-party solution like Fabasoft Mindbreeze.
Emily Rae Aldridge, May 14, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Complementary Enterprise Applications for Data Management
May 14, 2012
Omnify Software, a provider of product lifecycle management (PLM) solutions, will host presentations at the upcoming Consona Connect 2012 conference that will focus on the integration of PLM and enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications within organizations. Among the topics that will be covered are the elimination of manual data entry, the automation and integration of engineering and documentation processes, and product development compliance.
As described in a press release entitled “Omnify Software to Present at Consona Connect 2012” that recently appeared on the PCB 007 website, this tandem implementation of PLM and ERP technologies can provide product development and operational benefits:
“Integration between ERP and PLM systems allows direct sharing of engineering and manufacturing data through an automated process, resulting in improved data integrity across the organization.”
Manufacturers hoping to implement this integrated data management approach and harness its potential for shorter product development cycles, accelerated innovation, and increased operational profitability should seek out secure, cloud-based, scalable, intuitive, and cost-effective PLM solutions that allow the entire enterprise to find, reuse, and share product data with maximum efficiency.
Tonya Weikel, May 14, 2012
HP Politics: Alleged Inside Info about the Autonomy Deal
May 14, 2012
Ah, HP management in action. Business Insider reveals, “HP Finance Chief Tried to Stop $11.7 Billion Acquisition, but Lost.” Believing the proposed purchase of Autonomy to be too expensive, HP CFO Cathie Lesjak aired her objections privately to then-CEO Léo Apotheker. The chief was not swayed. Lesjak felt so strongly that she crossed him in a board meeting, stating her objections.
As we know, the deal went through anyway, but what does the clash say about the culture of the beleaguered business? Columnist Matt Rosoff notes:
“The conflict was just one of many examples of how Apotheker lost control over the complicated political landscape at HP, and he was ousted less than two months later.
“The thing is, the conventional wisdom in Silicon Valley says that Lesjak was probably right. One CEO of an enterprise company that does not compete with HP told us that he thought the valuation was completely insane, and grounds for firing Apotheker even without all his other slip-ups. Some HP partners have also criticized the deal, and Oracle said they passed on the deal at $6 billion because it was too expensive.”
It looks like Lesjak, who, incidentally, sat in the CEO chair for a while in 2010, may know what she’s talking about. We hope Meg Whitman heeds her words better than Apotheker did.
Cynthia Murrell, May 14, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
Publishers Sour on Apps
May 12, 2012
Have you noticed a slowdown in attempts to app-ify traditional publications? Technology Review describes "Why Publishers Don’t Like Apps." Writer Jason Pontin describes early attempts of publishers to cure their Internet woes with apps. They seem to have expected tablet and smartphone users to relate to the written word more like, well, the written word than like a Web site. Sure, most of the projects supported some limited interactability, but publishers also expected people to be happy viewing simple replicas of print materials. And, they expected to be able to charge for this paltry access.
Problems abounded from the beginning, including grossly underestimating costs (an age-old problem), and technical difficulties converting print matter into apps. The write up emphasizes:
"But the real problem with apps was more profound. When people read news and features on electronic media, they expect stories to possess the linky-ness of the Web, but stories in apps didn’t really link. The apps were, in the jargon of information technology, ‘walled gardens,’ and although sometimes beautiful, they were small, stifling gardens. For readers, none of that beauty overcame the weirdness and frustration of reading digital media closed off from other digital media.
"Without subscribers or many single-copy buyers, and with no audiences to sell to advertisers, there were no revenues to offset the incremental costs of app development. With a couple of exceptions, publishers therefore soured on apps."
Ah, so publishers don’t like apps because the golden goose is a sparrow and lays small monetary eggs. Got it.
Cynthia Murrell, May 12, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
Document Management, The Future and the Cloud
May 11, 2012
There is a lot of serious negotiating going on regarding the future of document management and the inevitable movement to the Cloud. Transitioning to the Cloud eases the burden of ownership and upkeep. Yet, there are other issues to consider such as security, compliance, and buy-in from employees. A full discussion is provided in the story, “Does the Future of Document Management Lie in the Cloud?”
The author discusses the needs of IT managers, and even conveys that IT managers are finding their users to have increasingly higher expectations:
They also want secure remote access from anywhere, and not just via computers, either: smartphones, netbooks, and tablet computers must be full participants. Corporate management has its requirements as well: reliable backup and resilient business continuity, so that a localised outage doesn’t leave information workers idle. And both groups never want to be told that storage has filled up.
So how does an organization juggle the needs of user experience, security, compliance, and storage? Many third-party solutions are emerging that do a good job of attending to all of these needs, while providing continuous updates as the technology progresses. One such third-party solution that we like is Fabasoft Mindbreeze. Their Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise solution is highly adaptable and intuitive, all while performing well against the competition in the Cloud.
In its integration with Mindbreeze Insite, Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise utilizes the power of Wikipedia and internal sources to feed public-facing websites.
Mindbreeze InSite integrates itself smoothly into Mindbreeze’s hybrid model. As before in Fabasoft Folio Cloud and Wikipedia, you can now make your own website searchable in the Cloud with InSite and make this data source instantly available to all internal users.
For users who want to move to the Cloud, but are concerned about potentially negative side effects, consider smart third-party solutions such as those offered by Fabasoft Mindbreeze.
Emily Rae Aldridge, May 11, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Technology Solutions for CAD Based Document Control
May 11, 2012
Since many of their business decisions require quick action, manufacturers must remain aware of emerging technology and should implement those solutions that allow for the most efficient access to and application of their internal operational and product information.
For example, as described in the press release entitled “Global Competitiveness in Mining Industry Depends on Technology” that recently appeared on ITWeb’s site, Kumba Iron Ore’s Sishen Mine in South Africa recognized that its SAP-based system for managing the documents associated with its production processes as well as its computer-aided design (CAD) engineering drawings required an update to reflect the operation’s need for a more functional and secure electronic document control system that allowed for version control and document digitization. A supplementary product to Sishen’s SAP system that addressed these product lifecycle management (PLM) needs was designed and implemented in partnership by NokusaEI and CIDEON Software. As described by Dolf Engels, a solution analyst with Sishen, this updated system has benefits beyond enhanced document access and security:
“Changing to the new system is also a huge improvement to the maintenance timescale. Processes were sped up, efficiencies were enhanced and value-add was received through additional compliance and risk reduction components.”
Inforbix also provides cloud-based, scalable, and affordable PLM solutions that enable enterprises to find, reuse, and share CAD drawings and other vital product and operational data.
Tonya Weikel, May 11, 2012
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