Onix Inks Deal With Federal Government
May 11, 2012
A $34.9 million contract with the federal government has recently been inked and means big business for a Detroit Avenue tech company.
Onix Networking will provide cloud-computing services to the Department of the Interior, according to the Lakewood Patch article, “Lakewood Company Lands $35 Million Contract with Federal Government.” The company, founded in 1992, provides services like cloud computing, storage solutions, and Enterprise search. It is also a Google-centric vendor. The article asserts:
“The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday that the Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said shifting to a cloud-based email system will modernize the ways the agency does business and cut costs, amounting to ‘good government, plain and simple.’
He added that the contract is part of an initiative to ‘leverage modern technology to save up to $500 million in taxpayer dollars by 2020.’
The news may mean more growth for the Detroit Avenue company as it looks to expand into its nearly 40,000-square-foot location in the Georgetown Row half of the former Bonne Bell headquarters at the corner Detroit and Graber avenues.”
What else does this news release mean? Since Onix is a long-standing partner with Google (the first Google Premier Enterprise company to be precise,) it means the Google Search Appliance, at least in the US government market, is still alive and kicking.
Andrea Hayden, May 11, 2012
Sponsored by Ikanow
Feds End Contract with Oracle
April 30, 2012
Oracle has taken a big hit recently, when the Feds decided to pull the trigger on nixing Oracle contracts.
This hit will cost Oracle dearly. According to the article on ZDNet, “Feds Nix Oracle Blanket Contract,” the government is reported to have spent $388 million with Oracle last year. While the loss may seem like pennies to a company turning over more than $37 billion, the repercussions may be felt more widely. The ZDNet article asserts:
“Neither party is commenting beyond what has already been said but it will almost certainly mean Oracle will need to go back to the negotiating table for unfulfilled contracts. In the meantime, government buyers can be sure that Oracle sales people will be all over them to maximise spend in the run up to Oracle’s year end, which falls 31st May. The Feds can also be sure that Oracle will send in its audit crews, keen to wring out the most they possibly can from whatever is left on the table.”
The implication lies precisely in what the government is not saying: why exactly they chose to end the relationship. If more businesses decide to follow suit, does this open the door for open source, Microsoft, and Google?
Andrea Hayden, April 30, 2012
Sponsored by Ikanow
Is ZyLAB Warning the European Union?
April 7, 2012
I know search and content processing are important. I wonder, however, if the companies in this sector believe that with a long lever, they can move governmental entities. I thought campaign contributions were required.
ZyLAB’s Press Room informs us, “’EU Reform of Data Protection Rules Complicate Cross Border Litigation’, Warns ZyLAB.” We wonder: how may EU entities are attentive to warnings? Maybe the financial crisis in Spain, oil, and unemployment are on the radar too? Anything’s possible.
At issue here are existing or proposed rules that ZyLAB warns will affect any company with US business connections, such as the proposed reform of data protection rules by the European Commission last January and the new Sedona Conference International Principles on Discovery, Disclosure & Data Protection published last December. The write up asserts:
“In an international business environment organizations can become involved in complex, high-stake regulatory investigations that cross international boundaries. When that happens, it is not easy to grasp the full spectrum of international litigation issues to resolve cross-border disputes. ‘Firm control over all of your data and having machine assisted monitoring and audit procedures incorporated in your compliance strategy, will be essential in helping an organization to deal with the contradictory requirements of eDiscovery versus privacy law and data protection rules,’ says Johannes C. Scholtes, chairman and chief strategy officer of ZyLAB.”
The company offers a series of webinars and roundtables that address these issues, the first of which is titled, “Cross-Border Litigation: Preparing for the Unknown.” See the write up for more details.
EU, listen up!
Cynthia Murrell, April 10, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Baidu Besting Google in China
March 26, 2012
It comes as no surprise that Google is not faring well in China. Digimind reports, “Baidu vs. Google: the Battle of Search engines in China.” (The link is in French; if you don’t read French, run the site through Google’s Translator.)
Baidu is the Chinese search engine that has challenged Google’s market share in that country. Largely because it was willing to cooperate with government censors where Google was not, Baidu has taken the lead there. The write up describes the Chinese engine:
“The engine Baidu was founded in 2000. A simple search engine, it has become a multi-faceted site offering a range of services (a community of Questions / Answers, a ‘Wikipedia’, an instant messaging …). Baidu is to launch just such a new version of its browser.”
Here are the stats behind the battle: Baidu receives over 80% of Chinese queries, as opposed to Google’s 11%. Baidu’s net income last year was up by 88% over the previous year. 88%! Finally, even Google’s measly 2% stake in its rival is gone, jettisoned during the company’s censorship conflict with the Chinese government.
Even though it cost the Goog, we still say it made the right choice in refusing to cave to China’s demands. Sometimes doing the right thing requires some sacrifice.
Stephen E. Arnold, March 26, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
More Allegations about Fast Search Impropriety
March 8, 2012
With legions of Microsoft Certified Resellers singing the praises of the FS4SP (formerly the Fast Search & Transfer search and retrieval system), sour notes are not easily heard. I don’t think many users of FS4SP know or care about the history of the company, its university-infused technology, or the machinations of the company’s senior management and Board of Directors. Ancient history.
I learned quite a bit in my close encounters with the Fast ESP technology. No, ESP does not mean extra sensory perception. ESP allegedly meant the enterprise search platform. Fast Search, before its purchase by Microsoft, was a platform, not a search engine. The idea was that the collection of components would be used to build applications in which search was an enabler. The idea was a good one, but search based applications required more than a PowerPoint to become a reality. The 64 bit Exalead system, developed long before Dassault acquired Exalead, was one of the first next generation, post Google systems to have a shot at delivering a viable search based application. (The race for SBAs, in my opinion, is not yet over, and there are some search vendors like PolySpot which are pushing in interesting new directions.) Fast Search was using marketing to pump up license deals. In fact, the marketing arm was more athletic than the firm’s engineering units. That, in my view, was the “issue” with Fast Search. Talk and demos were good. Implementation was a different platter of herring five ways.
Fast Search block diagram circa 2005. The system shows semantic and ontological components, asserts information on demand, and content publishing functions—all in addition to search and retrieval. Similar systems are marketed today, but hybrid content manipulation systems are often a work in progress in 2012. © Fast Search & Transfer
I once ended up with an interesting challenge resulting from a relatively large-scale, high-profile search implementation. Now you may have larger jobs than I typically get, but I was struggling with the shift from Inktomi to the AT&T Fast search system in order to index the public facing content of the US federal government.
Inktomi worked reasonably well, but the US government decided in its infinite wisdom to run a “free and open competition.” The usual suspects responded to the request for proposal and statement of work. I recall that “smarter than everyone else” Google ignored the US government’s requirements.
This image is from a presentation by Dr. Lervik about Digital Libraries, no date. The slide highlights the six key functions of the Fast Search search engine. These are extremely sophisticated functions. In 2012, only a few vendors can implement a single system with these operations running in the core platform. In fact, the wording could be used by search vendor marketers today. Fast Search knew where search was heading, but the future still has not arrived because writing about a function is different from delivering that function in a time and resource window which licensees can accommodate. © Fast Search & Transfer
Fast Search, with the guidance of savvy AT&T capture professionals, snagged the contract. That was a fateful procurement. Fast Search yielded to a team from Vivisimo and Microsoft. Then Microsoft bought Fast Search, and the US government began its shift to open source search. Another consequence is that Google, as you may know, never caught on in the US Federal government in the manner that I and others assumed the company would. I often wonder what would have happened if Google’s capture team had responded to the statement of work instead of pointing out that the requirements were not interesting.
Is NASA Technically Savvy?
March 6, 2012
I don’t know about you, but I would think twice about any technology NASA selects. This applies to Windows SharePoint, taxonomy systems, search, and maybe hand sanitizer. Why? I read “NASA Admits to Being Hacked 13 Times Last Year.” If true, not good. How about this passage’s allegation:
The space agency reported to Congress this week that it had been hacked a total of 13 times last year, including one China-based attack that gained complete access and control of mission critical systems as well as employee accounts.
If you want to go into space, NASA is out of the game. Probably a good idea. If I want to search for NASA data, should I use Jike.com?
Stephen E Arnold, March 6, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Working Towards a Budget Friendly Military
March 2, 2012
There is no shortage of military supporters, and articles that applaud these men and women for their sacrifices to protect the United States and its interest. However, according to the WAND Action Center article “WAND and the Military Budget – What We Are Up Against” the United States military desperately needs a budget overhaul. “There is only one way to get the changes WAND believes are necessary: an informed citizenry. U.S. citizens are deeply disturbed about our economic problems, rising inequalities, and the perception that our country is falling behind, yet haven’t made the link between that and the devastating costs of our military.”
WAND believes that being a major military power and protecting other nations is of little importance if we cannot handle our own problems at home. This is a somewhat unusual yet interesting view of the military and politics and the battle lines that some groups have drawn. It seems that some believe even the US Military needs an allowance.
Interesting approach to marketing taxonomies.
April Holmes,March 2, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
NASA to Another Type of Cloud
February 25, 2012
Yep, cost cutting is rampant in the US government.
NASA is accelerating into the ether and it seems to us that the agency plagued with exogenous complexity is retrenching. Government Computer News reveal, “NASA Wants to Put Web Services in Agile-Like Cloud.” The agency wishes to unite content management for its disparate facilities under nasa.gov. Writer Rutrell Yasin relates:
The target environment for Web services is an ‘agile, cloud-based enterprise infrastructure’ that provides the three cloud delivery models — infrastructure as a service, software as a service and platform as a service — according to a draft statement of work NASA issued Feb. 6. The Web infrastructure will service internal and public-facing applications and sites, using an interoperable, standards-based and secure environment, the document states.
Collaboration tools are also on the wish-list, and NASA’s Office of the CIO will make sure the changes adhere to the Representational State Transfer architecture model and other best practices. (Well, that’s good.)
The agency will primarily turn to open-source solutions; we welcome that direction but must ask: is cost control now the order of the day? The answer is, “No matter what buzzwords or woolen cloth is draped over the explanation, the budget crunch is forcing changes which will embrace lower-cost options and headcount reductions. Grants in a girdle are next are in development.
Cynthia Murrell, February 25, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
The CIA Technology Revolution
February 22, 2012
Interesting article from Reuters, a unit of the deeply troubled Thomson Reuters organization. The “real news” story’s headline caught my attention: “CIA to Software Vendors: A Revolution Is Coming.” I thought link bait, but when I read the story I realized there was another factor in play.
The write up reports:
The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency told software vendors on Tuesday that it plans to revolutionize the way it does business with them as part of a race to keep up with the blazing pace of technology advances.
So this is a contracting shift, not a fundamental adjustment of the outfit which purchases systems which all to often may not play well with others. Some folks call this characteristic of government information technology “silos” or “chimneys.” The idea, which may not apply to the folks looking to shift procurement focus, is that systems and content are “walled” off or “sealed” off from other systems which want to tap into data or information. The result is the mad scramble for information, which often involves late nights, pizza, and manual work.
According to Reuters:
Rather than stick with traditional all-you-can-eat deals known as “enterprise licensing agreements,” the CIA wants to buy software services on a “metered,” pay-as-you-go basis, Ira “Gus” Hunt, the agency’s top technology officer, told an industry conference.
The article included a quote to note:
“The big data problem is the analysis of it,” he [a government official] said. Existing tools “do not aid users … in the mission timelines.”
The headline suggested to me that the technology would shift. Nope, the story makes clear that the CIA will buy stuff on the taxi meter model. Wow. That’s a lot of vendors.
Several observations:
- Taxi meter pricing induces anxiety in budget officers. The reason is that sometimes the driver gets lost and runs up the tab floundering around. Instead of capping costs, taxi meters open the door to pricing surprises.
- Shifts in the government, not just the intelligence community, take time. When I worked in Washington for Halliburton NUS, one elected official to whom I was detailed for a year, told me, “A new president arrives and issues an order. By the time the order makes it way from the top of an agency to the bottom and back up, the president is running for another term.” Speed is not part of the bureaucratic process no matter what some assert.
- A number of agencies, maybe not the CIA, have long term relationships in place. Think in terms of a five year contract. How does one shift an existing agreement with contractual terms regarding payments to the taxi meter model. In my experience, carefully.
Worth watching this development and the Reuters’ headlines for that matter.
Stephen E Arnold, February 22, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Apple and the US General Services Administration
February 16, 2012
Short honk: I read “RIM’s BlackBerry loses General Services Administration business to iPhone.” I am assuming that the information in the write up is reasonably accurate. The point of the news story was to tell me that Research in Motion now has to deal with Apple iPhones and iPads in the juicy US government market. One of the more interesting statements in the story was:
The GSA also plans to allow federal purchases of Android devices, although the enterprise in general has avoided enthusiastic adoption of devices running Google’s platform due to a lack of robust support for a variety of features that are important to corporate users, including IPSec VPNs, Microsoft’s Exchange Server and device administration tools to monitor, manage and police the enforcement of desired policies.
Why this paragraph? Easy. Google which has long coveted the US government as a customer now finds that Apple is pushing its cute little nose into the big spending, mostly confused government procurement process. Forget Research in Motion. This news story indicates that Apple can make life tough for Google in more than online music and mobile devices in the consumer market.
How will Google respond? No clue, probably in a Googley way.
Stephen E Arnold, February 16, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
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