No Big Deal: Beyond Search Passes 8,000 Articles
May 6, 2012
Beyond Search began in January 2008. I wanted to find a way to keep track of the most interesting news which I had been placing in my Overflight system. You can see some of the Overflight functionality at www.arnoldit.com/trax or www.arnoldit.com/taxonomy. A few days ago, Beyond Search passed the 8,000 post mark. You can search the archive of content using either the site search system, provided by Blossom.com, or the Google Custom Search Engine which indexes site content plus the links Beyond Search editors include in stories. Blossom is the search box at the top of the page. The CSE is labeled “Google.”
You can use the content to track a leading vendor; for example, enter the query “Autonomy” in the site specific search box and you see the events which we consider significant. You can also get my personal views on online products and services. Just run a query for “mysteries of online.” You can use the categories to limit a display to indexed content. No index is perfect, but you can look at a result set for a hot topic like “indexing” with a mouse click or two.
Now about the content.
First, I am not running a news operation. In fact, I don’t do news. Neither my editorial team nor I are real journalists. I am supposed to know about medieval religious sermons in Latin. The writers are mostly librarians or researchers who have been trained to produce the equivalent of a debate note card. I learned how to prepare 5×8 inch note cards when I returned to the US from Brazil and entered a wonderful American high school. Let’s see. That was in 1957 or 1958. In short, I have been doing one thing as my core research method for more than 50 years. Do you think I am going to change because a PR maven, an unemployed middle school teacher, an English major turned search expert or a Panda wants me to? In case you don’t know the answer, the answer is, “No.”
Second, we run sponsored content. We use Google AdSense. We run ads for companies who want to get a message in front of my two or three readers. I wish I knew what the business model for Beyond Search is, but the content continues to flow, seven days a week, year round. When I was in intensive care in January for more than a week, the content flowed. I know one of the editors smuggled my laptop into the hospital lock up where I was. We kept publishing. Those working on the blog just kept on going. My writing was given an extra cycle of editing because I was, quite literally close to being a gone goose. Keep in mind that the only difference between a note card content object and sponsored content is that the subject of the write up gets a chance to provide input to an editor. The ironic or cynical comments remain. If I get fascinated with a topic, I write about it or get one of the editors to produce content objects on the subject. So you will find certain topics get covered and then dropped, it is because I lose interest. You want news? Find a real journalist. Examples of what I follow and then drop range from European search systems to ways to federate the text and numeric data associated with building a fungible product like a personal computer.
Third, I am usually biased, often incorrect, and completely indifferent to the hottest trends that azure chip consultants pump out to sell consulting work. If you read the content in Beyond Search or any of the blogs which we produce, you have the obligation to think about what we present and make your own judgment about its usefulness, accuracy, or appropriateness for your particular situation.
Fourth, I use the content in Beyond Search for my columns in Enterprise Technology Management magazine, Online magazine, Information Today (a library oriented tabloid), KMWorld (an enterprise information tabloid), and Searcher magazine (a specialist publication for people who know how to use the old fashioned Dialog and Lexis systems). The content in my for fee articles is closer to the type of reports I prepare for my one or two clients. I am not a great writer. I try to look at popular or emerging technical trends and put them into the frame of my experience. If you want stories that reinforce received wisdom, you will find Beyond Search inappropriate for your needs. In my for fee columns, I knit together a number of items of information and interpret those items in a business context. The for fee columns, therefore, go beyond what is in the free blog.
My plan is to keep the information stream flowing and free. If you have a comment to make about the point of view or the information in a content object (my word for article or story), use the comments section of the blog. If you write me with spam, silly news releases, and baloney I did not specifically request—be advised: I may write about what I call “desperation marketing.” Don’t like the term? Well, I do, and it is accurate. The facile notion of “pivoting” a company is mostly marketing baloney. I don’t like baloney.
For more information about the editorial policies or how to contact us to get access to our two or three readers, navigate to the About page.
Stephen E Arnold, May 6, 2012
Sponsored by Stephen E Arnold
New Formotus Release Seeks to Provide Enhanced SharePoint Mobile Experience
May 4, 2012
Formotus recently announced a new version of its mobile business application platform with enhanced SharePoint integration and capabilities. The new release is discussed in the Virtual-Strategy.com press release, “Collaborate without Complexity: SharePoint Mobile Workflow Platform for iPad and Android Released by Formotus.”
The new release is summarized:
Formotus makes it possible for organizations to create and deploy custom mobile business applications built around Microsoft® Office InfoPath™ forms. The new feature set announced today enables companies to implement flexible collaboration frameworks with robust forms that can be routed and shared among mobile users in a wide variety of ways. Formotus mobile workflow forms require no SharePoint modifications and work with any version including on-premises, hosted, and Office 365 SharePoint Online.
The new possibilities, such as mobile workflow forms and social collaboration, are discussed in the release along with example scenarios that are now supported. Formotus CEO Adriana Neagu says that the new version is “a whole new task-oriented mobile experience that is easier, smarter, more beautiful, more powerful. The fact is, a person using our platform on an iPad or Android tablet, won’t be able to tell that there is any SharePoint behind the workflow.” These are big and exciting claims for not only workflows, but the whole mobile experience.
SharePoint is no doubt the go-to content management system for all kinds of organizations and enhanced mobile capabilities will surely be an appeal for users. But for complex workflows and successful social collaboration, users also need efficient and effective access to valuable business knowledge. It seems that the experts at Fabasoft Mindbreeze understand the value of powerful search and mobile access.
makes company knowledge available on all mobile devices. You can act freely, independently and yet always securely. Irrespective of what format the data is in. Full functionality: Search results are displayed homogenously to the web client with regards to clear design and intuitive navigation.
With the full functionality of Fabasoft Mindbreeze for Enterprise and united on-premise and Cloud data, users will be able to act quickly in business matters with smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices. Read more about the full suite of solutions at http://www.mindbreeze.com/.
More on Formotus: Founded in October 2005 by Adriana Neagu, co-inventor of Microsoft Office InfoPath, and serial entrepreneur Joe Verschueren, Formotus technology enables companies to rapidly create a business solution ? without any coding ? that works across platforms so companies can design once and deploy anywhere. Formotus looks to future-proof companies because the same forms that work on today’s devices will also work on the new devices that they will support tomorrow.
Philip West, May 4, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Growing Need for Lifecycle Management
May 4, 2012
A recent report entitled “TechVision 2020” that was produced by business research and consulting firm Frost & Sullivan defines 50 innovative and transformative solutions across nine industry sectors, including information and computer technology as well as advanced manufacturing and automation, and confirms the supply chain’s need for more technology to support evolving business strategies.
The report’s comprehensive methodology is described in an article entitled “Technological Developments Gain Traction across Supply Chain” that recently appeared on the website for Supply & Demand Chain Executive:
“TechVision 2020 showcases each selected technology, closely assessing the potential of a given technology platform to understand the true market opportunities, while evaluating the risk-reward elements. It appraises technology maturity and adoption ratings, possible year of impact and patent landscape, examines private and government funding trends, and explores future technology and application roadmaps.”
Among those technologies recognized as vital in this report are those supporting product lifestyle management (PLM) as developments in such platforms continue to gain adoption worldwide. Ahead of the curve, Inforbix has created a cloud-based, scalable, and affordable PLM solution that enables companies to efficiently find, reuse, and share product data and to effectively respond to market changes.
Tonya Weikel, May 4, 2012
A Love Letter to SharePoint
May 3, 2012
SharePoint is indeed everywhere. A reader cannot avoid the topic in the blogosphere. And while SharePoint adoption at times seems obligatory, loving SharePoint does not have to be. Andy Moore tackles the topic of SharePoint devotion in, “SharePoint, I Love You.”
Moore begins:
That conquering sound you hear is SharePoint, and it is nothing short of apocalyptic. You’ll see it mentioned elsewhere a couple times in this White Paper: The fastest growing business application in Microsoft history (making it pretty much everyone’s history), 20,000 SharePoint users have been added every day for the last five years. That’s kind of astonishing.
The white paper he mentions is a KMWorld offering available for download at the above link. Among the reasons listed for SharePoint dominance are: integration between the front office solutions and back-office repository, ubiquitous nature of other Microsoft solutions, and an affordable price point. One contributor talks of a “synergistic combination of tools that you can’t find on any other platform.”
We agree but disagree. Fabasoft Mindbreeze, a leading third-party enterprise solution, boasts an integrated suite of solutions to meet all of your companies information storage and retrieval needs. Products include web site search, mobile appliances, enterprise search, and connectors to address interoperability with other software.
The center of excellence for your company’s digital knowledge, information pairing brings enterprise and Cloud together.
Understanding content, semantic search
Mobility – Access on smartphones and tablets
In real-time – Search as Cloud service
Access to all data sources
Extensible with connectors
Fulfills compliance requirements
While SharePoint may hold the lion’s share of the market, we expect smart third party solutions like Fabasoft Mindbreeze to make bigger and bigger market gains.
Emily Rae Aldridge, May 3, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Making Sense of Product Data
May 3, 2012
As more and more industries are faced with holding the responsibility of their products throughout its entire lifecycle the problem of big data is becoming much more common than ever before. A recent Enterprise Efficiency article, “Data Gold in Product Information”, examines the issues facing enterprises in regards to product lifecycle management (PLM) and the resulting data.
According to the article,
“PLM encompasses a number of systems often thought of as discrete processes, including product design, system engineering, product portfolio management, and manufacturing process management, all wrapped within product data management (PDM). For CIOs, each of these represents a significant store of intellectual property…The question is, what are you doing to make this data work for its living? Have you yet begun applying big-data business analysis techniques to the massive stores of unstructured (and structured) data sitting in the PDM repositories?”
This simple call to action has been echoing across industries for a few years now and it does not appear to be fading. Companies must realize that data is only growing and as more processes become connected the need to make sense of it all will only grow. Thankfully, PLM solutions are available for companies of all sizes. Quality data management solutions are the only way for companies to gain control of their data and begin using it to advance their goals.
Catherine Lamsfuss, May 3, 2012
SharePoint Sites Offers Customized Solutions
May 2, 2012
Perhaps one of the more useful aspects of SharePoint 2010 is the Sites feature, allowing customization of numerous sites based on included templates. Jennifer Mason of CMS Wire explores in, “SharePoint 2010 Sites: One Infrastructure for All Your Business Web Sites.”
Sites are one of the most powerful components within SharePoint. In fact, they are the foundation for many of the different solutions that can be built within SharePoint. By using Sites we can quickly build many different focused solutions, including items like:
Team Collaboration Areas
Corporate Intranets
Public Websites
Blogs
Database Tracking Solutions (Access Templates)
The solution is essentially one of convenience, as the templates themselves are not touted as anything beyond ordinary. Users often remark on SharePoint’s ability to keep them on the one platform, looking internally to SharePoint for all of their information needs.
We propose Fabasoft Mindbreeze as a smart third party solution and compliment to an existing SharePoint infrastructure. While a web site is relatively easy to create, endowing that web site with a smart and efficient search feature is much harder. Fabasoft Mindbreeze InSite provides unrivaled searchability for your public facing web sites.
Fabasoft Mindbreeze InSite…
- is intuitive and user friendly.
- is instantly ready for use as a Cloud service. It turns your website into a user-friendly knowledge portal for your customers.
- recognizes correlations and links through semantic and dynamic search processes. This delivers pinpoint accurate and precise “finding experiences”.
- is the perfect website search for your company.
No installation, configuration or maintenance required.
So if your organization is looking for a way to take your public web sites to the next level, improving user satisfaction, consider adding Fabasoft Mindbreeze InSite.
Emily Rae Aldridge, May 2, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Technology and Manufacturing Industry in the United Kingdom Adds a New Firm
May 2, 2012
Theorem Solutions, a British firm that provides engineering data services and solutions, recently joined the UK’s Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC), a Coventry-based facility in which the British government has invested £40.5 million to promote innovation in high technology manufacturing processes with the assistance of various industrial, academic, and institutional partners.
Among the MTC’s other industrial members are Rolls-Royce, Aero Engine Controls, and Airbus UK, while its academic research partners include the universities of Birmingham, Loughborough, and Nottingham. In an article entitled “Theorem Solutions Joins the Manufacturing Technology Centre” that recently appeared on the blog on Dassault Systèmes’ website PLM Market Place.com, the UK’s commitment to developing more efficient data exchange through the creation of the MTC and the subsequent recruitment of partners such as Theorem is emphasized:
“The MTC provides a high quality environment for the development and demonstration of new technologies on an industrial scale, providing a unique opportunity for manufacturers to develop new and innovative processes and technologies in a low risk environment.”
Among the data management solutions critical to the MTC’s mission of enhancing British manufacturing processes is product lifecycle management (PLM) technology, which enables companies to efficiently find, reuse, and share product data enterprise-wide and, as a result, to respond in a more strategically advantageous way to their markets.
Tonya Weikel, May 2, 2012
GSX Streamlines SharePoint Monitoring
May 1, 2012
Every SharePoint developer knows that a SharePoint infrastructure requires a lot of love and attention. Monitoring is essential to heading off major problems. GSX Solutions is now offering an automated way to monitor enterprise environments. Market Watch gives a full report in, “GSX Assures Around-the-Clock Performance for Microsoft Exchange and SharePoint.”
GSX Solutions, the global leader in proactive, consolidated monitoring and reporting of enterprise collaboration environments, including Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft SharePoint, BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) and Lotus Notes, today announced its latest release of GSX Monitor & Analyzer assures around-the-clock availability and performance for Exchange 2010 and SharePoint. The new release provides pinpoint alerts that enable Exchange and SharePoint administrators to head off emerging issues before they impact the business and dramatically reduce user complaints.
Claiming that the service can alert you to your emerging enterprise issues before they impact the line of business, GSX definitely has a market. Such monitoring can save a SharePoint team a lot of costly time and energy in manual monitoring. We think an addition of a third-party enterprise solution may also help ensure that problems do not occur in the first place.
The suite of solutions offered by Fabasoft Mindbreeze lead the pack in terms of interoperability and ease of use. They function on their own or in addition to an existing SharePoint installation. Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise is an intuitive, efficient enterprise alternative, that has been proven to save users time and improve user satisfaction.
Be well informed – quickly and accurately. The data often lies distributed across numerous sources. Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise gains each employee two weeks per through focused finding of data (IDC Studies). An invaluable competitive advantage in business as well as providing employee satisfaction.
It is important to have a lot of tools at your disposal when overseeing a large SharePoint installation. But as hotly anticipated as SharePoint 2013 may be, we believe that the wave of the future will be smart, agile third party solutions such as the ones created by Fabasoft Mindbreeze. Be sure to check out all that they have to offer.
Emily Rae Aldridge, May 1, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Global Future for Manufacturing and Product Development
May 1, 2012
CIMdata, Inc., a consulting and research firm focusing on product lifecycle management (PLM) solutions, recently sponsored PLM Market & Industry Forums in Ann Arbor, Michigan; Heidelberg, Germany; Shanghai, China; and Tokyo, Japan.
These forums offered an opportunity for over 150 representatives from various PLM-centered academic entities and technology and service providers to learn specifics about the state and trends of the PLM market, particularly in regards to market growth across the PLM industry as well as the performance of the leading regional and global enterprises offering PLM solutions. CIMdata also plans to release a PLM Market Analysis Report series, which will provide more details about the global PLM market and will include a volume focusing on China.
In a press release entitled “CIMdata Successfully Completes Global PLM Market & Industry Forum Program” that recently appeared online at 24-7pressrelease.com, Stan Przybylinski, CIMdata’s director of research, underscored the value of these activities:
“The sessions provide a great way for members of the PLM economy to learn about the common challenges they face, and to get to know and network with other firms that they may not meet in the competitive marketplace.”
Inforbix, a provider of cloud-based product data management solutions for companies in a variety of industries and locations, strongly supports the innovation and networking fostered by such events as these and looks forward to the collaborative results that may emerge in the global PLM industry.
Tonya Weikel, May 1, 2012
Buried Alive by Data
May 1, 2012
This recent blog post on the Search Technologies’ Web site makes some amusing and thought provoking comparisons between the reality TV show “Hoarding, Buried Alive!”, and the state of unstructured data within some organizations.
This phrase—I am absolutely overwhelmed by this, I just don’t know where to start” — is attributed to both a hoarder on a TV show. The speaker is contemplating how to tackle a sink piled with dirty dishes. The phrase also applies to an enterprise search program manager contemplating how to begin a project.
The article, Buried Alive by Data is worth a read for the amusement value alone. However, it also makes some important points. Discipline and due process are key part of the success recipe. For enterprise search, the award-winning search assessment methodology is cited as a proven approach to project discipline. The comparison made between the lawlessness of a hoarder’s kitchen and the average corporate file share may seem somehow familiar to many readers.
Iain Fletcher, May 1, 2012
Sponsored by Search Technologies
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