Semantic Search May have Google on the Offensive
October 2, 2012
Search Engine Watch follows the latest in the world of search and they are filling us in on the latest competition to Google, Wolfram|Alpha’s Siri. Some see semantic search as the future, with Siri being the leader of that particular parade. Google may therefore be in jeopardy of becoming outdated and irrelevant. Read the full analysis in “Is Google Afraid of the Big Bad Wolfram?”
The article also gives a good introduction to the new buzz term semantic web:
Search experts have been talking up the ‘semantic web’ for years and no doubt you will have read about how it will ‘transform the landscape.’ For those that have not yet had had the pleasure, let’s explain the basics of what it really means.
While semantic web has many facets, intrinsically it is about organizing data in a way that helps understand the user intent behind a search query. It makes that process easier by mapping things like the relationship between words and phrases to ‘entities’ (people, places, etc). The word semantics literally means ‘the study of meaning.’
So is semantic search important and how can it benefit your organization? Yes, the future is moving toward semantics. But there are ways to incorporate semantic search into your web presence without your own personal army of developers or spending a fortune on an outsourced solution. Fabasoft Mindbreeze brings semantic search to your web presence through its InSite web site search. Insite is immediately ready to use as a Cloud service and can bring your organization into the latest search technology without the customary pain and suffering.
Emily Rae Aldridge, October 2, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.
Tips for Boosting Information Security in the Farm
October 1, 2012
As information storage and access extends to the Cloud and mobile devices, security concerns are an increasing priority for organizations. Rob Rachwald shares five tips to boost information security in his ComputerWeekly.com post, “How to Secure a SharePoint Environment.” Access rights, protecting Web applications, and controlling data migration are just some of the challenges discussed. Addressing compliance mandates is also on the list:
’60% of organizations have yet to bring SharePoint into line with existing data compliance policies. – AIIM 2011.’ Native SharePoint activity monitoring lacks an intuitive, easy-to-use interface for reporting and analytics. Without a third-party solution, businesses must first decode SharePoint’s internal representation of log data before they can access meaningful information. Use enterprise-class technology that combines permissions and activity details to automate compliance reporting.
Rachwald also suggests using a policy framework to build rules across SharePoint’s components to be able to respond in real time to suspicious activity. Investing in the tools to organize, manage, and protect valuable business information assets is part of improving business security. One solution worth a second look is Fabasoft Mindbreeze. Fabasoft is certified and tested according to relevant standards, including ISO 27001, ISO 200000, ISO 9001, and ISAE 3402, for security and reliability. And compliance is checked in regular external audits.
Philip West, October 01, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.
Intel Trax Top Stories September 20 to September 27
October 1, 2012
This week the IntelTrax advanced intelligence blog published a series of articles that explained the importance of integrating analytics solutions to increase performance efficiency within the workplace.
Big data can be quite confusing. That is why it is always great to listen to the opinions of experts in the field. “John Whittaker on the Need for Data Integration for Big Data Analytics” explains why successful big data analytics requires integrating data from a multitude of sources.
When explaining why big data integration is necessary, Whittaker said:
“One of the big aspects that people are trying to get a handle right now, and one of our major uses, is big data analytics. Once you get beyond the Google or Facebook use cases and start talking about how the rest of us will use big data, it is going to be analytics. Whenever you’re doing analytics, you want to marry information from different sources. You might want to be able to correlate what’s happening within your ERP and the operational data that might exist there, with experiential data from your website. The operational data often tends to reside in relational databases, but when you’re talking about experiential data, about how people are utilizing your website or what people are saying on social media about you, that sort of data resides within the unstructured big data world of Hadoop. It’s really about being able to marry these sources together into one environment and drive better decisions based on the information there is the primary value that the big data environment is going to provide for the normal enterprise.”
Along with integrating big data, many experts are also making predictions regarding the future of big data. “Predicting the Next Big Thing in Big Data” talks about some of the new up in comes in the industry that may make a big impact.
When explaining a new report that has come out, the article states:
“Big Data – The Next Big Thing”, a first-of-its-kind report on the ‘Big Data’ industry, focusing on the opportunities, challenges, and its impact on businesses globally. ‘Big Data’ relates to rapidly growing, structured and unstructured datasets with sizes beyond the ability of conventional database tools to store, manage, and analyze them.
The report identifies five key insights on global ‘Big Data’ trends and the opportunity it throws up for IT and analytics players in India. First, Big Data has become all-pervasive with the potential to create significant benefits for a number of sectors. The early adopters driving the business with appetite for Big Data analytics are industries such as Manufacturing, Retail, Financial Services, Telecom and Healthcare.”
In “Marketing Analytics Industry Expected to See Dramatic in India” references a report that shows companies are increasingly using marketing analytics technology as a way to stay ahead of their competition. This is particularly relevant in India because the marketing analytics industry is expected to grow from $200 million to $1.2 billion by 2012.
The report explains:
“Over the past few decades, the evolution in traditional media and the emergence of digital media has revolutionized the way products are sold to the customers. Marketing analytics play a pivotal role in helping marketers take informed data-driven decisions and effectively reach out to the audience. The marketing analytics industry is poised for exponential growth and India will be one of the foremost forces leading this revolution. This report is an effort to showcase potential of analytics to organizations, analytics players and prospective employees and will help pave the way for concerted effort to increase the usage.”
While these articles may discuss different aspect of big data, they all have one thing in common. They all call for a need for companies to invest in solutions that evolve with the times. Digital Reasoning is a big data analytics company that works within nearly every business sector to promote automated understanding over human effort.
Jasmine Ashton, October 1, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT, developer of Augmentext.
Quick Tips for Boosting Web Site Search Rankings
September 28, 2012
With the growing number of active Web sites, getting noticed online can be a challenge for small businesses. TheStar.com shares some insight on the topic and provides tips for improving a site’s search rankings. Jeff Quipp’s article, “Seven Tips to Improve Website Search Rankings,” starts off the list of tips with adding secure links to your site, updating content regularly, and adding variety to the content.
The author has this to say about social media integration:
Ensure the site is “social media optimized” – With the growing influence that social media has on a company’s relationship with potential and existing customers, it’s vital to ensure all website pages have the company’s social profile icons (i.e., Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest). These icons encourage and make it easy to share the information and increase the chance of it being found in a search.
Quipp also points out that keywords should be used in page titles and offering valuable and unique content that is user-friendly will help boost search rankings. Part of making a site user-friendly is a comprehensive search feature. Fabasoft Mindbreeze offers InSite, a Cloud based service that allows you to generate search tabs on your site to customize the searching experience for your visitors. With semantic and faceted search, site visitors can quickly and easily locate your content.
Philip West, September 28, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.
IBM Content Navigator Demonstration
September 27, 2012
Short honk: Thanks to the reader who alerted us to a demonstration of IBM Content Navigator. The demo runs about six minutes and provides glimpses of “findability.” If you are an IBM follower, you might want to check out http://goo.gl/6i7hT.
Stephen E Arnold, September 27, 2012
Sponsored by Augmentext
Amazon Web Services Announces Online Marketplace for Selling Reserved Instances
September 27, 2012
In the PCWorld.com post, “Amazon Web Services Allows Users to Sell Reserved Instances,” Mikael Ricknas discusses the recent Amazon announcement of an online marketplace where users of cloud computing services will be able to sell their reserved server instances to other companies. Riknas explains reserved instances:
Reserved instances allow avid cloud users to lower their cloud costs by making a one-time payment to reserve compute capacity for a specified term, and in turn, receive a discount on the hourly charge, Amazon said. For example, a standard Linux instance costs from US$0.08 per hour, while a reserved instance with a one-year term and light utilization costs $69 plus $0.039 per hour. That cost divided by the discount means that it is a good deal after running the instance for more than 70 days.
Ricknas says the change is an effort to make the marketplace more attractive and flexible. The announcement may be worth the read if you’ve been looking at Cloud options, especially to learn more about the fees associated with the one-time transactions. You may also consider Fabasoft Mindbreeze’s InSite solution. InSite is a Cloud service that brings together all content from your Web sites, blogs, social media networks, and more so that information can be indexed and accessed remotely with proven security.
Philip West, September 27, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.
Deconstructing HP Autonomy and Its Eight Answers
September 26, 2012
All Things Digital ran a story called “Eight Questions for Hewlett Packard Software Head George Kadifa.” Let me nudge aside any thoughts that the interview and the questions were presented as public relations and marketing. I want to view the comments or “answers” as accurate. Once I have highlighted the points which caught my attention, I want to offer some side observations from my goose pond in rural Kentucky.
First, there were two passages which addressed the $12 billion Autonomy purchase.
The first was information about a recent planning meeting. The Autonomy staff were on deck and ready for duty. The key statement for me was this one:
Basically when you look at Autonomy, the core unit is the IDOL Engine, which is the unique capability of meaning-based computing. We’re going to double down on that. In our labs in Cambridge, England, we have 40 or 50 mathematicians writing algorithms. And we’re going to build a team here in the U.S. to productize it and create a platform around it because it has that potential. Frankly, the way Autonomy was managed previously, they put a lot more emphasis into enabling applications, which was fine, but our belief is that there’s a broad agenda, which is creating a platform around meaning-based computing. So we will maintain those apps, but at the same time we’ll open up the capabilities to a broader set of players outside HP.
Makes sense. Pay $12 billion for IDOL. Leverage it.
The second was semi-business school thinking about how to grow Autonomy’s business. Here’s the passage I noted:
In Europe, they tend to make things complex in order to create more value. For example, they saw the IDOL engine as too complex to just give it to people. Instead they thought they should acquire vendors and then create value by enabling applications. Here we take something that’s complex and we ask how we might simplify it in order to give it more scale for a bigger market. So some of that difference was cultural, and some of it was that I think they fell in love with these acquisitions. … We think Autonomy’s technology has broader implications.
I urge you to read the full “eight questions” and the answers. Now my observations:
- Productizing IDOL or any search engine can be difficult. When I use the word “difficult,” I mean time consuming, expensive, and timetable free. Buying a search engine and sticking it in a product or service looks easy. It is not. In fact, IBM has elected to use open source search to provide the basics. Now IBM is working hard to make money from its value add system, the game show winner Watson. There may be a product in “there”, but it is often to find a way to make money. HP has to pay back the $12 billion it spent and then grow the Autonomy business which was within shouting distance of $1 billion.
- The notion that Europeans see the world differently from HP is interesting. I am not sure how European Autonomy was. My view is that Autonomy’s senior management acquired companies and did upselling. As a result, only Autonomy broke through the glass ceilings behind which Endeca, Exalead, ISYS, and Fast Search & Transfer were trapped. Before applying business school logic to Autonomy, perhaps one should look at how other acquired search vendors have paid off. The list is, based on my research, a short one indeed. Microsoft, for example, has made Fast Search a component of SharePoint. With Fast Search nearing or at its end of life, Microsoft faces more search challenges, not fewer. HP may find itself with facing more challenges than it expects.
- The notion of “broader applications” is a popular one. Dassault Systèmes, acquired Exalead, which is arguably better and more recent technology than IDOL. But Dassault’s senior managers continue to look for ways to convert a more modest expenditure for Exalead into a river of revenue. Dassault has a global approach and many excellent managers. Even for such an exceptional firm, search is not what it seemed to be; that is, a broad application which slots into to many customer needs. Reality, based on my research for The New Landscape of Search, is different from the business school map.
HP is making an trip which other companies have taken before. My view is that HP will have to find answers the these questions, which were not part of the interview cited above:
First, how will HP pay off the purchase price, grow Autonomy’s revenue, and generate enough money to have an impact on HP’s net profit? My work has pointed out that cost control is the major problem search vendors face. It takes money to explain a system no matter how productized it becomes. It takes money to support that technology. It takes money to enhance that system. It takes money to hire people who can do the work. In short, search becomes a bright blip on most CFOs’ radar screens. HP may be different, but I am not sure that the cost issue will remain off the radar for very long.
Second, IDOL is a complex collection of software components. The core is Bayesian, but much of the ancillary IDOL are the add ons, enhancements, and features which have been created and applied to base system over the last two decades. Yep, two decades. In search, most of the systems which have figured in big deals in the last two years date from the mid to late 1990s. The more modern systems are not search at all. These new systems leap frog key word search and push into high value opportunities. HP may be forced to buy one of more of these next generation systems just to stay in the “beyond search” game.
Third, HP is a large company and it faces considerable competition in software. What makes HP interesting is that it has not been able to make its services business offset the decline in personal computers and ink. HP now wants to prove that it can make services work, but as the Inquirer pointed out in mid August 2012:
HP’s write-down of EDS might have resulted in just a paper loss – the firm didn’t actually lose $9bn in cash – but it provides an insight into how a decade of mismanagement has left HP in a bad situation. The fact is that HP cannot lay the blame on diminishing PC sales because its enterprise business, printing and services divisions all reported losses, too. For HP to write down the purchase of EDS, a company it paid $13.9bn for just four years ago, strongly suggests that those who were at the helm of HP in the run-up to that acquisition simply had no clue as to how much EDS was really worth and how to incorporate the company into HP. The value of any company can go down over time – just look at AOL, Microsoft or Yahoo – but for an established business such as EDS to be overvalued by almost $10bn just four years after being acquired is nothing short of gross incompetence by HP in both the purchase and the subsequent handling of the firm once it became a part of HP.
I don’t fully agree with the Inquirer’s viewpoint. But one fact remains: HP must demonstrate that it can manage a complex business based on IDOL, a technology which is not a spring chicken. The man who did manage Autonomy to almost $1 billion in sales is not longer with HP. In the history of enterprise search and content processing, Mike Lynch was unique. Perhaps the loss of that talent will continue to impact HP’s plans for a different approach to the market for Autonomy’s technology?
Life extension treatments are available, but these often do not work as expected and can be expensive. Most fail in the end.
Stephen E Arnold, September 25, 2012
Sponsored by Augmentext
Moving to SharePoint 2013: Planning Necessary
September 25, 2012
Many organizations will want to take advantage of the new features, services, and functions of SharePoint 2013 and SharePoint Search 2013. “Planning the Infrastructure Required for the new App Model in SharePoint 2013” makes clear that a shift to Microsoft’s 2013 enterprise systems requires planning and preparation.
Because the name of the solution is the same, many SharePoint administrators may feel that SharePoint 2013 is a routine upgrade. The article points out: “SharePoint 2013 brings with it a brand new application model, which we euphemistically refer to as the ‘app model’ or ‘cloud app model’. “
The scope of the planning required, according to Steve Peschka, includes, the development model, the security model, and the infrastructure. The article jumps from broad themes into quite specific information about modifications to url formation. For an administrator with this specific concern, the information is useful. The recommendation focuses on creating additional Web applications.
Comperio, one of the world’s leading specialists in search and content processing, approaches SharePoint planning by considering the context of the client’s needs, the existing SharePoint implementation, and the requirements the client has which can benefit from the 2013 solution. Comperio’s search engineers can handle the technical details of an implementation, but these are integrated into the roll out of a SharePoint system which considers budget, timetable, and existing resources.
According to Jørn Ellefsen , CEO and founder of Comperio:
Search matters. Our approach is to gather information, analyze the data, and develop a migration plan which focuses on meeting client requirements. Our engineers specialize in the search element of SharePoint for SharePoint migrations. However, our capabilities embrace the preparation and post-migration work that are important to SharePoint licensees.
Comperio’s approach to SharePoint Search reduces the time and cost of a shift from an existing SharePoint installation to the latest version of SharePoint. For more information about Comperio Search’s SharePoint 2013 planning and implementation services, visit www.comperiosearch.com.
Stephen E Arnold, September 25, 2012
Sponsored by Augmentext
The Community Weighs in on SharePoint 2013 Sans Design View
September 25, 2012
The SharePoint community has no doubt noticed the absence of design view in SharePoint 2013 with many MVPs wondering about support for existing applications, as well as what the future of building full-scale applications will look like. Caroline Marwitz continues the conversation in the WindowsITPro.com post, “Will You Miss SharePoint Designer Design View in SharePoint 2013?” Marwitz shares a fellow MVPs perspective on the change:
Ironically, one of the most realistic responses came from a SharePoint MVP who has built his recent professional life around SharePoint Designer. Asif Rehmani wrote, ‘Design View is not coming back and that’s a fact. Now the question becomes: What do we do with all of the solutions that we have made using the Design View? How do you support it going forward? That’s the Million dollar question on everyone’s mind who is close to this functionality change.’
Marwitz explains she leans toward those who want Design View back, but mainly because she can sympathize with those who are losing a tool they’ve come to count on. But some in the community have also voiced their belief that SharePoint Designer is part of what’s wrong with SharePoint.
As the community adjusts to the changes, it highlights that for some users there will be gaps in the SharePoint system. Adding a third party application is one way to extend SharePoint capabilities, such as with the Information Pairing feature from Fabasoft Mindbreeze. Here you can read about increased SharePoint efficiency with Mindbreeze, “A survey by German market analysts has shown that practically every second company uses SharePoint. However, in SharePoint only one facet of a company’s knowledge can be presented. Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise 2012 puts an end to this shortcoming.”
Philip West, September 25, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.
Coming Article Series to Focus on SharePoint 2013 Features from the Executive Perspective
September 24, 2012
Descriptions and highlights of the coming SharePoint 2013 features have been a hot topic in the community. Symon Garfield takes another look at how these features might be used in the organization in his upcoming series of articles on the topic at CMSWire.com. The series starts off with, “The Executive’s Guide to SharePoint 2013: Understanding Communities.”
Community Sites provide a forum experience in the SharePoint environment which enables members to contribute information and ask for help from fellow members, according to the Microsoft TechNet Web site. Garfield explains that communities of purpose share a common objective while networks share loose associations with the main goal to just stay in touch. And with a community of purpose, members can make contributions and develop ideas and solutions for the purpose. Garfield explains how it relates to SharePoint 2013:
SharePoint 2013 includes a template to use as the basis for creating community web sites. At the heart of a community site is a discussion board which members can use to begin conversations on a specific topic, or to post questions to the rest of the community. Site moderators can create categories to organize the discussion threads. This supports the contribution element of the community process. Members can post replies to topics, or to other replies, and they can rate topics and replies…This facilitates the feedback element of the community process.
Collaboration capabilities are imperative as businesses develop rich community cultures. To tap into the new possibilities, consider a third party solution to complete your enterprise search system. Fabasoft Mindbreeze provides comprehensive access to business knowledge for everyone on the team and is backed by a customer focused support team that shares your purpose.
Philip West, September 24, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.
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