Manufacturing Industry on Brink of PaaS Revolution
June 28, 2012
Everyone knows how cloud technology has transformed how the world does business and how data is stored and shared. Software-as-a-Service was created solely from the cloud and allowed small and midsized businesses in many industries access to software that traditionally was much too expensive for smaller budgets. The latest cloud-based technology is Platform-as-a-Service according to the SYS-CON Media article, “How PaaS Can Change Manufacturing Software”, and offers even more than SaaS.
The article explains PaaS’s many capabilities by pointing out,
“PaaS also allows manufacturers to:
- Upgrade manufacturing add-ons before vendor releases
- Purchase a wide diversity of apps that are designed to be interoperable
- Get third-party developers to quickly build customized solutions
Beyond that, the cheaper developments costs that PaaS enables can allow third-party developers to pass along these savings to manufacturers. Of course, the PaaS options that can serve the manufacturing industry today are relatively few and are still maturing.”
We expect that as PaaS grows in popularity (there are very limited vendors now for PLM solutions) the manufacturing industry will realize its great potential and an increase in PLM solutions adoptions will be the result. PaaS is now primarily aimed at small and midsized businesses because of its limitations but as it improves larger companies will be able to incorporate it into their existing PLM solutions.
Catherine Lamsfuss, June 28, 2012
SharePoint Projects Easily Spiral Out of Control
June 27, 2012
As any SharePoint developer knows, a project can easily get out of control. Original estimates are often overrun and decimated as glitches and problems occur. The ShareMuch blog tackles this issue in its piece, “Did You Think About: Why Do We Go Over the Estimates on SharePoint Projects?”
The author begins:
Just as everyone you and I are going over the estimates on many SharePoint projects; it doesn’t matter how much experience you have. With more experience you might be able to mitigate the outcomes of going over estimates, but avoiding going over the estimates, in a first place, is not so trivial. I’m sure you already thought about the whole “going over the estimates” problem and even have few answers why it happened; most of those answers are probably related to stakeholders on a project and other events.
He goes on to explain that instead of focusing on specific solutions, the focus should be on the reasons why this happens and better prevention.
We think that one effective prevention technique is to bring a smart third party solution on board, a solution like Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enteprise. Fabasoft Mindbreeze is a leading Austria-based company. Its products stand alone or work alongside an existing SharePoint infrastructure. Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enteprise is fully scalable, with updates available at least once per quarter, avoiding the need for continuous customization and over-shot budgets. Mindbreeze backs up what they sell – read feedback from their many satisfied customers.
Emily Rae Aldridge, June 27, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Sinequa Questions Big Data
June 27, 2012
Sinequa’s Business Search Blog recently reported on big data in the article “Big Data: Marketing Nirvana or the Next Big Bubble to Burst.”
According to the article, Big Data is a phrase that many organizations misuse in order to pump up their services. This is unfortunate for those companies that really do have something to offer to this burgeoning market.
The market the Sinequa is referring to is one where enterprises and administrators have to deal with vast amounts of unstructured data that come in a variety of formats and sources. Therefore, the market is created by companies that create products and services that extract the useful information from this large mess of data.
Sinequa then goes on to plug its solution by stating:
“At Sinequa, we have been dealing with Big Data (in the above sense) for quite some time: Our Unified Information Access solution has been used by large enterprises and administrations to plough through billions of data base records, business transactions, and unstructured data of all sorts, like documents, emails, and social network data. Our semantic analyses and Natural Language Processing have served to make sense of this magma of data, and to create structure where there was none. All this in order to find sense in chaos. The challenge for us was to combine deep analysis with high performance in dealing with big volumes.”
While Sinequa’s customers benefit from the fact that they have been creating Big Data solutions for quite some time, that doesn’t mean that that their solution is the only solution to structuring the unstructured data. The point is, however, a valid one.
Jasmine Ashton, June 27, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
Swedish Technia Innovative Forum to Be the Best
June 27, 2012
As product lifecycle management (PLM) solutions grow in popularity it is no surprise to see companies from around the globe interested to learn how PLM can benefit their organizations. That is why it is also no surprise that this year’s Technia Innovative Forum in Stockholm, Sweden is slated to be the biggest and most popular to date according to the article, “Technia: Technia Organizes the Nordic’s Largest Innovation and PLM Event at Cirkus in Stockholm”, on The Swedish Wire.
The article quoted Technia CEO, Jonas Gejer, as saying,
“This year’s approach has the potential of turning out to be the most interesting one ever. We have a fantastic line-up of speakers and also many interesting activities during the day. I look forward to discussing with our visitors how PLM can create winning and innovative strategies for tomorrow’s products.”
With so many PLM solutions flooding the market right now it is a wonder that companies have any idea where to begin. For small and midsized companies having the financial ability to even shop for PLM solutions is probably still new and intimidating. When shopping around the most important thing companies should remember is that without the proper training and ongoing support a PLM solution is useless. For that reason we recommend Inforbix, a new data management solutions provider, focusing on helping their clients find, share and reuse data to the fullest extent possible to reduce waste and duplication.
Catherine Lamsfuss, June 26, 2012
Comperio Provides a Safety Net at SharePoint
June 27, 2012
Entering a Misspelled word during internet search can lead to a few moments of irritation, but in the business world things become even more complicated. Typing one wrong letter can often send users spiraling downward towards a promotional disaster. Fortunately, some providers are hanging up a few safety nets to prevent the fall.
Microsoft just revamped Bing to recognize common errors during internet search. According to, ‘Bing reveals efforts to help with human search errors Bing will remember key words and phrases most frequently used. To correct issues the search feature itself was altered as:
“We used to show synonyms as part of our recourse links and this would open up some surface area for showing alterations. The query “define interesting” highlights an example where the recourse link was unnecessary. In this case, showing the Recourse Link didn’t enhance the experience. We’ve removed the Recourse Links in cases where we are very confident that they add little value or distract users.”
Basically, Microsoft created a net to catch errors in advance and Comperio can implement similar functions within SharePoint using Fast technology. The safety net Comperio provides can help catch users before they fall into the uncomfortable realm of presentation faux pas. They can customize the programming towards the specific needs of the business to increase efficiency.
Comperio is respected worldwide as experts on search driven solutions and search enabled business models. Comperio told Beyond Search:
“We serve their clients with innovative services and products in order to create truly engaging user experiences. We allow users to not only find what they are looking for but also discover information and surface new insights from relationships across data and content.”
For more information about Comperio, visit the firm’s Web site at www.comperiosearch.com.
Jennifer Shockley, June 27, 2012
Sponsored by HighGainBlog
Does IBM Dominate Enterprise Social Software?
June 27, 2012
For the third year in a row, market research firm IDC has found IBM to be the biggest seller of enterprise social software, according to eWeek’s “IBM Is Social Business Software Leader: Study.” According to the IDC study, last year IBM grew faster than any competitor, and nearly twice as fast as the overall market (no slouch at 40% growth). In addition, the write up reveals:
“IBM said more than 35 percent of Fortune 100 companies have adopted its social software offerings including eight of the top 10 retailers and banks. IBM’s social business software and services combine social networking capabilities with analytics to help companies capture information and insights into dialogues from employees and customers and create interactions that translate into real value, the company said.”
Yes, that’s what these systems do. IBM’s social networking platform, available both on-site and in the cloud, is called IBM Connections. But what about Watson? Isn’t that system social? We don’t see much of Watson, so is that system anti-social? Just a thought.
IDC expects the enterprise social platform market to reach $4.5 billion by 2016; that’s a 43% growth over those next four years. They see businesses aiming to apply social capabilities to every aspect of their operations—a huge boon for companies in that field. Is the social hype really as pervasive as this study suggests?
With Microsoft’s recent move in enterprise social software, I wonder if IBM is overstating its case.
Cynthia Murrell, June 27, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
Google and the Enterprise: Success Ahead?
June 27, 2012
Google is having delusions of success in areas where their competition is wearing the crown. They may rule the search industry, but their sorely lacking in other enterprises according to the article Google Generates $1 Billion On Five Enterprise Products: Can You Name Them?.
The article stated:
“Google books more than 96% of its revenue from ads. The remaining ~ 4% comes pretty much from its enterprise products.”
“Some 1,200 Google employees work on these various enterprise products, too. That’s about 3.6% of Google’s total headcount.”
“Google also has a network of 2,500 certified partners, including big traditional IT consultants like Accenture and Cognizant, as well as smaller partners to serve small and mid-size businesses. In those terms, Google’s enterprise business is actually the size of a fairly large company.”
You may not be aware, but Google’s five enterprise businesses are:
- Google Apps (including Gmail and Google Drive)
- Google Search Appliance
- Google Cloud Services
- Geospatial and mapping products
- Chromebooks for businesses
Google’s position on the profit throne when it comes to enterprise search or advertising is undisputed. However, their revenue in the competitive world of Apps, cloud computing and mapping makes them appear as mere peasants in that fast moving industry. Seriously, after a decade of effort, five unknown products and $1 billion in revenue, is this really success?
Jennifer Shockley, June 26, 2012
Usage of Controls and Web Parts in SharePoint 2010
June 26, 2012
Different SharePoint sites have different components, and tracking usage for each site can be challenging. Powershell is a solution that can help manage this issue. The ideas are fully developed by Waldek Mastykarz in his piece, “Tracking the Usage of Controls and Web Parts in SharePoint 2010.”
Mastykarz states:
When deploying a new version of a component, one of the things that you have to do in the planning phase is to determine the impact of that upgrade. This is even more important in context of shared components where one component can be used on multiple sites. By finding out which sites they are exactly you can more precisely plan for testing and availability which in result should help you manage the expectations of your customers.
While finagling with plug-ins and add-ons will assist in the customization process, SharePoint is not meant to be intuitive or easily used out-of-the-box. Its strength is in its size and scope, and yet that is also its weakness. An agile third party solution like Fabasoft Mindbreeze is an easy way to customize SharePoint all at once. Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise can stand alone or compliment an existing SharePoint infrastructure, eliminating the need for individual customization of various components. Mindbreeze customers are rewarded with quick and meaningful search results.
Emily Rae Aldridge, June 26, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Cloud Based Software Solutions for Small Businesses
June 26, 2012
With cloud-based technology, small businesses now have access to product lifecycle management (PLM) solutions that typically were only available previously to large enterprises employing a client-server approach.
This evolution is described in the article entitled “PLM for the Rest of Us” that recently appeared on the Web site for Desktop Engineering,
“Several PLM providers have figured out ways to repackage their large-enterprise products so they can be applied to smaller enterprises, at a more reasonable cost. There are also new providers who are small and midsize themselves. They continue to develop and provide the kind of no-frills data management and project management solutions their peers could use. These products are often characterized by low IT overhead, fast implementation, and modular structure (you can adopt them incrementally as your needs grow). The real game changer is the cloud, the internet’s ubiquitous reach and accessibility. By unshackling PLM from the previous client-server architecture to web-hosted structure, some providers managed to deliver solutions with unprecedented affordability.”
Clearly, those PLM providers offering cloud-based solutions that enable their clients to easily find, reuse, and share their product data offer the innovation, customization, and scalability that will prove compelling to small businesses in need of effective data management.
Tonya Weikel, June 26, 2012
Inteltrax: Top Stories, June 18 to June 22
June 25, 2012
Inteltrax, the data fusion and business intelligence information service, captured three key stories germane to search this week, specifically, some fast-moving news in the big data business.
Our story, “Small Businesses Need Analytics Too” showcases the rising tide of small companies improving business through big data.
With the rise in big data business, “Analytic Customer Support Reaches New Heights” shows how helping the customer is helping vendors differentiate themselves.
Perhaps no news is bigger than the money IBM is spending on big data, as we covered in “IBM Sees the Future and Invests.”
The news landscape is always changing in big data. We’ll keep an eye on the small businesses and the IBMs and everyone in between to keep readers up to date, everyday.
Follow the Inteltrax news stream by visiting www.inteltrax.com
Patrick Roland, Editor, Inteltrax.
June 25, 2012
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