Yahoo 2015: A Xoogler in the Drink, Calls in the MBAs for a Rescue
November 10, 2015
Years ago, when Google was a foundling, the myth of the brilliance of the Googler was fresh, new. Xooglers have had a good run. Work at the 24×7, wild and wonderful outfit for a few years. Then cash in and become an investment banker, an entrepreneur, or a senior manager.
Yahoo did the Xoogler thing. There was chatter years ago that the Yahoo was going to be a big deal in the exciting Internet world with mobile, smart software, semantics, apps, and original content.
How is that working out?
I read “Yahoo Hires McKinsey to Mull Reorg, as Mayer Demands Exec Pledge to Stay” to find out. Interesting analysis from a person in a good position to observe and gather information. Among the tidbits I jotted down were:
- The new swing for the fences initiative is Project Index. Index? That’s an exciting concept.
- Yahoo does not want to lose key staff. Who does?
- The top Xoogler hired the bluest of the blue chip consulting firms to help put some revenues on the books.
Okay, another big plan. Just like those at Google except and this is a classic “but for” construction—ad revenue. Google has it. Yahoo has less. A home run is unlikely to win the game in which Yahoo finds itself.
Losing staff? The fix is not to lock a professional down in my opinion. Working with a company is a choice. When folks decide not to work with an outfit, no contract will fix the free agent mentality of certain folks. The effort may cause people to bail out.
And the McKinsey thing? Blue chip consulting is a darned exciting type of work. Who is the client? The Xoogler? The Board of Directors? The stakeholders? Consider the answer, gentle reader. Blue chip consulting firms may not have all the answers, but the blue chip firms know how to set their agenda and then follow up.
What will McKinsey do? Preserve McKinsey. Yahoo may be in for some surprises because not even the smartest Xooglers in the world see opportunity quite the same way blue chip consulting firms do.
McKinsey did not hire Yahoo. Yahoo allegedly hired McKinsey. Who has the power now?
Stephen E Arnold, November 10, 2015
Quote to Note: Axil Springer on Planning
November 5, 2015
Here’s a delicious statement attributed to Mathias Doepfner, an Axil Springer big gun. For context, remember that Axil Springer bought the Financial Times for something north of $1.3 billion. Now the quote:
“A takeover of this size … is neither planned nor foreseeable.”
Maybe an impulse buy like Google’s purchase of Motorola? I assume that Volkswagen did not plan or foresee the consequences of its emission control software behavior. German management approaches certain decisions in an interesting way: Neither planned nor foreseeable.
Stephen E Arnold, November 5, 2015
It Is Not a Bird in the Law Firm
November 3, 2015
In science-fiction, artificial intelligence is mostly toyed around with in robots and androids. Machines that bear artificial intelligence either try to destroy humanity for their imperfection or coexist with humanity in a manner that results in comedic situations. In reality, artificial intelligence exists in most everyday objects from a mobile phone to a children’s toy. Artificial intelligence is a much more common occurrence than we give our scientists credit for and it has more practical applications than we could imagine. According to PR Newswire one of the top artificial intelligence developers has made a new deal for their popular product, “RAVN Systems’ Artificial Intelligence Platform Is Deployed At Berwin Leighton Paisner.”
RAVN Systems is known for their top of line software in enterprise search, unstructured big data analytics, knowledge management, and, of course, artificial intelligence. The international law firm Berwin Leighton Paisner recently deployed RAVN Systems’s RAVN Applied Cognitive Engine (RAVN ACE). RAVN ACE will work in the law firm’s real estate practice, not as a realtor, but as the UK’s first contract robot. It will use cutting-edge AI to read and interpret information from documents, converting unstructured data into structured output. RAVN ACE will free up attorneys to complete more complex, less menial tasks.
“Matthew Whalley, Head of Legal Risk Consultancy at BLP commented, ‘The robot has fast become a key member of the team. It delivers perfect results every time we use it. Team morale and productivity has benefited hugely, and I expect us to create a cadre of contract robots throughout the firm. If the reaction to our first application is any indication, we will be leading the implementation of AI in the Law for some time to come.’ ”
RAVN ACE has more applications than writing real estate contracts. It can be deployed for financial services, media, telecommunications, and more. Taking over the menial tasks will save on time , allowing organizations to reinvest time into other projects.
Whitney Grace, November 3, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
HP Management on Deal Making
November 2, 2015
I love it when management wizards makes comments about management—at other companies. Navigate to “HP Enterprise’s Whitman Pans Dell’s EMC Purchase over Debt.” When you read this comment from HP’s top dog, keep in mind that HP bought DEC and Compaq and flubbed the revenue. Then HP bought Autonomy and wrote off $8 billion of the purchase price.
Here goes:
But, the reality is that we are two years ahead of the game and it will be difficult for others to catch up. First, let me give a little context. To pay back the interest on the $50 billion of debt that the new combined company will have on their balance sheet, Dell will need to pay roughly $2.5 billion a year in interest alone. That’s $2.5 billion that they will allocate away from R&D and other business critical activities, which will keep them from better serving their customers.
In case HP has forgotten, Amazon seems to be doing okay in the cloud market. What is the cost of the Autonomy acquisition? Hmm.
That’s HP.
Stephen E Arnold, November 2, 2015
Neglect Exposes Private Medical Files
October 28, 2015
Data such as financial information and medical files are supposed to be protected behind secure firewalls and barriers that ensure people’s information does not fall into the wrong hands. While digital security is at the best it has ever been, sometimes a hacker does not to rely on his/her skills to get sensitive information. Sometimes all they need to do is wait for an idiotic mistake, such as what happened on Amazon Web Services wrote Gizmodo in “Error Exposes 1.5 Million People’s Private Records On Amazon Web Services.”
Tech junkie Chris Vickery heard a rumor that “strange data dumps” could appear on Amazon Web Services, so he decided to go looking for some. He hunted through AWS, found one such dump, and it was a huge haul or it would have been if Vickery was a hacker. Vickery discovered it was medical information belonging to 1.5 million people and from these organizations: Kansas’ State Self Insurance Fund, CSAC Excess Insurance Authority, and the Salt Lake County Database.
“The data came from Systema Software, a small company that manages insurance claims. It still isn’t clear how the data ended up on the site, but the company did confirm to Vickery that it happened. Shortly after Vickery made contact with the affected organizations, the database disappeared from the Amazon subdomain.”
The 1.5 million people should be thanking Vickery, because he alerted these organizations and the data was immediately removed from the Amazon cloud. It turns out that Vickery was the only one to access the data, but it begs the question what would happen if a malicious hacker had gotten hold of the data? You can count on that the medical information would have been sold to the highest bidder.
Vickery’s discovery is not isolated. Other organizations are bound to be negligent in data and your personal information could be posted in an unsecure area. How can you get organizations to better protect your information? Good question.
Whitney Grace, October 28, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Vodafone Improves Search Management
October 20, 2015
More than 8,000 call center agents use Vodafone’s internal knowledge management platform dubbed AskVodafone to access client information. AskVodafone’s old system was not performing as well as it used, so the company decided to upgrade to Exorbyte. Motor Traffic runs down Vodafone’s upgrade process in the article, “Exorbyte Matchmaker Managed Over 2 million Searches A Month On The Platform AskVodafone.”
Vodafone wanted to shorten an agent’s processing time on phone calls. The solution required faceted search, keyword suggestions, more accurate search results, and information related to a caller’s issue. Exorbyte created an individualized solution for Vodafone and they were given the job:
“Through the experience with the Exorbyte solutions and, of course, the existing site license used in the company the contract has been awarded directly to Exorbyte. These Andreas Vieth, Product Manager Search: ‘Due to the long and successful collaboration with Exorbyte it was logical for us to continue with them in the modernization of AskVodafone portal and to develop synergies between these and the Exorbyte search on the Vodafone website.’”
The solution indexes over 25,000 Web sites and it has increased the center’s data quality and results relevancy. The end result is that over 8,000 calls and 50,000 searches performed on AskVodafone are resolved faster and with better information.
Whitney Grace, October 20, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Lexmark, a Printer Supply Company, Receives Hold Rating from Analysts
October 20, 2015
The article on Dakota Financial News titled Lexmark International Given Average Recommendation of “Hold” by Brokerages (NYSE: LXK) piles on the bad news for Lexmark, a company best known for its printer supply services. It is a tough time to be in the printing business, and Lexmark has received numerous analyst ratings of “Hold” and “Sell.” The article details the trend,
“Lexmark International (NYSE:LXK) traded down 0.59% during trading on Wednesday, hitting $28.59. The company had a trading volume of 259,296 shares. Lexmark International has a one year low of $27.22 and a one year high of $47.69. The stock has a 50-day moving average of $30.27 and a 200 day moving average of $39.70. The company’s market capitalization is $1.76 billion…The company reported $0.97 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.85 by $0.12. “
Certainly not a vote of confidence in Lexmark, which owns both Brainware and ISYS Search Software. The article goes into some detail about the companies other work beyond printer supplies including enterprise content and process management software and healthcare archive with integration abilities for unstructured patient information. Perhaps these extras are saving the company from falling entirely into the “sell” category and maintaining at “Hold.”
Chelsea Kerwin, October 20, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Coveo Touts Secure, Intelligent Cloud Search
October 19, 2015
Security is a perpetual concern, especially for those who work in the cloud. Enterprise search firm Coveo want us to know they take security very seriously. Their press release, “Coveo Completes Security Evaluation for cloud-Based Intelligent Search Offerings,” is posted at MarketWatch. The question is, “What does secure mean?” The definition may depend on one’s knowledge of the exploit world.
The write-up states:
“Marking its commitment to be the most secure intelligent search provider in the marketplace, Coveo announced that it has completed a comprehensive evaluation of data security and compliance procedures and processes. Coveo engaged with Brightline CPAs & Associates, which conducted a series of tests to evaluate the effectiveness of operations and controls that address data integrity and security. With data security threats on the rise across various industries and around the world, Coveo recognizes how important it is to provide clients of its cloud, intelligent search offerings with the highest security standards. Over the years, Coveo has implemented a set of industry-standard operations, infrastructure and services to ensure the integrity and privacy of customer data, including:
— SOC II and SOC I examinations
— Strong logical and physical access controls
— Systematic application and source code scanning
— Comprehensive background checks on all employees
— 24/7/365 live, dedicated operations and security teams
— Formal, ongoing 3rd party compliance and security reviews”
We are reminded that Coveo was recently named “most innovative leader” for the second year running in the Gartner Enterprise Search Magic Quadrant, with that report lauding the company’s “unusually rich security functions.” Founded in 2005, Coveo maintains offices in the U.S. (SanMateo, CA), the Netherlands, and Quebec.
Cynthia Murrell, October 19, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Web Site Search Goes Camping
October 12, 2015
It is a common fact that if you are a major retailer and your Web site’s search function is horrible, you are losing millions of dollars in sales. Cabela’s is the world’s largest marketer of hunting, fishing, camping, and other outdoor merchandise decided to upgrade their Web site with GroupBy says PR Newswire in the press release, “Cabela’s And GroupBy Partner To Improve Site Search.”
With GroupBy’s advice, Cabela’s has made a good choice:
“After careful evaluation, Cabela’s selected Searchandiser to replace their Oracle Endeca site search, as they required a robust solution that would deliver accurate search results and an improved user experience for their customers. ‘At Cabela’s we strive to continually improve our customer experience and search relevance is an opportunity area we have identified,’ said Scott Johnstone, Cabela’s Technology Partner Relationship Manager. ‘To that end, we are partnering with GroupBy Inc. to leverage their merchandising tools, search expertise and the underlying technology.’”
As Cabela’s market expands, with Searchandiser creates a better online shopping experience for users with more secure transactions. Any outdoor enthusiast with tell you that equipment is vital for a good adventure. As more people are heading outside to experience the great outdoors, they rely on a decent Web site to order their supplies and gear. Cabela’s is set to meet the new surge with better searching functionalities.
Whitney Grace, October 12, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Business Intelligence and Data Science: There Is a Difference
October 6, 2015
An article at the SmartDataCollective, “The Difference Between Business Intelligence and Real Data Science,” aims to help companies avoid a common pitfall. Writer Brigg Patton explains:
“To gain a competitive business advantage, companies have started combining and transforming data, which forms part of the real data science. At the same time, they are also carrying out Business Intelligence (BI) activities, such as creating charts, reports or graphs and using the data. Although there are great differences between the two sets of activities, they are equally important and complement each other well.
“For executing the BI functions and data science activities, most companies have professionally dedicated BI analysts as well as data scientists. However, it is here that companies often confuse the two without realizing that these two roles require different expertise. It is unfair to expect a BI analyst to be able to make accurate forecasts for the business. It could even spell disaster for any business. By studying the major differences between BI and real data science, you can choose the right candidate for the right tasks in your enterprise.”
So fund both, gentle reader. Patton distinguishes each position’s area of focus, the different ways they use and look at data, and their sources, migration needs, and job processes. If need to hire someone to perform these jobs, check out this handy clarification before you write up those job descriptions.
Cynthia Murrell, October 6, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph