New Google App Puts Chrome on the iPad
November 30, 2011
Clever? Stealthy? Sneaky? Cute? Smart?
Don’t know.
In the battle between Apple and Google, it appears that the search giant has come out with new way to come out on top, and search is not the primary focus. Google has created a search app that is superior to the experience of any Android tablet and puts the core Chrome elements onto an Apple product.
If you are wondering why Google has suddenly decided to stop innovating for it’s own products, and has chosen to invade Apple’s, The Next Web article“Google Just Used It’s Search App to Sneak Most of Chrome OS onto the iPad” states:
The reasons why it has shipped a pack of its most potent apps in one convenient dashboard are evident if you look at the tablet landscape as we know it. Google’s “official” version of Android is losing the tablet race, flat out. Products from manufacturers that have no access to an ecosystem beyond the Android Market have proven not to work. Now, Amazon has launched the Kindle Fire, which stands to quickly attain ’2nd place’ status behind the iPad, utilizing a tweaked version of Android that Google will gain nothing from.
iOS devices account for 2/3 of mobile searches on Google’s platform, making it the largest outlet for Google’s primary product, ads. Google recognizes this fact and has created an app for its fans who use Apple products.
With such a seamless integration, it appears that Apple may not be able to separate itself from Google, no matter how hard they try. This is a certainly a clever move on Google’s part but definitely not the most innovative. Is this the new Google?
Jasmine Ashton, November 30, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Inteltrax: Top Stories, November 21 to November 25
November 28, 2011
Inteltrax, the data fusion and business intelligence information service, captured three key stories germane to search this week, specifically, the highs and lows of recent analytics news.
On the high side, was our story “Speech Analytics Market Approaches Billions” that chronicled the success of applying unstructured big data analytic techniques to recorded speech, such as in call centers.
On the low side, we found “Mobile BI Takes a Surprising Misstep” explores how the once bustling mobile BI market recently took a hit.
And somewhere in the middle, we found “In-Memory Databases Cause a Stir” attempted to draw the line between traditionalist and futurists of analytics.
It’s a wild ride every week in the world of big data analytics. Sure things go bust, underdogs appear from nowhere and divisions are drawn. Stay tuned to see where it all leads.
Follow the Inteltrax news stream by visiting www.inteltrax.com
Patrick Roland, Editor, Inteltrax.
November 28, 2011
Turkey Argument: Which Came First iPhone or Android?
November 28, 2011
The competition between Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android apparently wasn’t laid to rest with the death of Steve Jobs. While Jobs heatedly demanded in his biography that the Android was a stolen Apple product, the search giant Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt begs to differ.
In the recent CNET article “Google’s Schmidt: Android ‘Started before the iPhone Effort” Schmidt was quoted saying:
Steve is a fantastic human being and someone who I miss very dearly. As a general comment, I think most people would agree that Google is a great innovator and I would also point out that the Android effort started before the iPhone effort.
While the Android company was founded in 2003, several years before the launch of the first iPhone, Apple launched the iPhone in 2007 and the first Android was not released until 2008. Also, Schmidt’s service on the Apple board of directors during the iPhone’s development, gives his claim a bit less credibility.
As both company’s products continues to advance, I’m sure that the feud between Apple and Google will not end here. However, why did the turkey cross the road? To get either an iPhone or an Android device?
Jasmine Ashton, November 28, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Talking to a Mobile Phone: Who Did Artificial Intelligence First?
November 25, 2011
First, Google worked on its Android before Apple got in gear with its iPhone. Now, Microsoft did voice search on a phone before Apple. You can get the scoop in a serial content experience; that is, a video, referenced in Forbes’ “Microsoft’s Craig Mundie On Siri: Been There, Done That.” More and more frequently I marvel at the expertise of a commercial enterprise, public relations professionals, and “real” journalists to cook up scintillating insights. Here’s the passage which caught my attention on Turkey Day:
Mundie, in fact, contends that Apple has been stressing that feature on the new phone due to a lack of other truly novel improvements in the latest version of the phone.
I understand sour grapes. I mean the tablet thing must have annoyed some professionals at Microsoft. The only point I would mention is that Apple sells a modest number of mobile phones yet sucks in more than half of the money. Unlike Microsoft, Apple did not have to induce a mobile phone player to make phones. And unlike Android, Apple seems to have so far avoided the “what operating system version to I have” problem.
How does one address a slow news day when you are a “real” publication? Maybe do a video interview? Thank goodness Beyond Search is neither “real” journalism nor a “real” consulting firm. The goose is indeed unreal.
Stephen E Arnold, November 25, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Adobe Back Out of the Enterprise
November 16, 2011
We came across another interesting write up from Megan Feil on the shifting business approach at Adobe. Here’s what we found:
When the markets invariably change, does a company follow suit and 180 with the changing times? Well, we know how Adobe responds after reading Mac World’s report on Adobe’s restructuring in their article, “Adobe to Reduce Enterprise Software Investment.” Adobe sees digital media and digital marketing products as the areas with the potential for astronomical growth and they want to cash in.
Adobe is changing things up for their company, but predictably choosing the safe route. It will continue to invest in its Creative Suite products and place more emphasis on HTML 5. As far as marketing goes, they plan on investing in analytics and reporting, especially on mobile devices and social networks.
Mac World quotes their CFO’s statement:
“We believe that by focusing resources on two large initiatives and shifting our business model, we can drive faster and more predictable growth in [fiscal year 2013] and beyond,” CFO Mark Garrett said in a statement.
Their enterprise software brought in less than 10 percent of their overall revenue last quarter, so it seems like they might be making a good move for their business. In regards to enterprise software in general, Adobe seems to be snubbing the possibilities this market has for expansion. With the consumerization of information technology, there are wide open spaces of room for companies to innovate software and applications for the enterprise. It’s all about tapping into what users want: business intelligence with intuitive ease.
We think that this shift is illustrative of how a company’s direction can shift. It is interesting to note that they are concentrating on HTML5 instead of Flash for the mobile world. We did find that Polyspot’s business intelligence approach was already poised to handle the mobile economy. Our colleague Constance Ard over at Answer Maven is pretty adamant about mobile: “If companies do not account for personal and business mobile devices in their enterprise information management they will suffer the consequences.” Guess it’s good that there are software companies that can help.
Andrea Hayden, November 16, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Mindbreeze Offers Standalone Enterprise Solution
November 14, 2011
CMS Wire follows the latest trends in enterprise CMS in “Forrester Wave Q4 2011: Bye-Bye Enterprise CMS Suites, Content-Centric Apps Are King.” Content needs are becoming more complex and organizations are turning to multiple solutions and away from a single CMS suite.
“The first dynamic that the Forrester report identifies shows that companies are no longer looking to a single enterprise CMS suite to solve all their content needs. There are a number of reasons for this, but looming over them all is the fact that changing content-types and greater use of, and need to manage, unstructured content is pushing many companies to use whatever application suits, from whatever vendors are providing those applications, to solve specific business problems. And then, of course, information workers have to be able to use all these applications.”
Relying on the variety of vendors might not be the solution to the changing enterprise landscape. Instead, choosing an agile and capable vendor like Mindbreeze seamlessly solves all of your business needs on multiple levels: mobile, web, and enterprise. When multiple vendors are utilized, information workers are forced to train on a variety of platforms and applications. Using one flexible solution like Mindbreeze saves valuable training time.
“SharePoint, and in particular the new release, Forrester argues, which provides ‘ECM for the masses’ has forced many vendors to rethink strategies and move towards more content-centric development. As a result, competing vendors have been obliged to move toward specific content sets to differentiate themselves from it. Consequently, the market is now divided into a number of different types of players.”
Instead of being forced into this trend, and choosing different vendors for different content, choose one reliable vendor like Fabasoft Mindbreeze. Applications are still content-centric, but in a smart and streamlined way, all underneath the banner of one dependable name.
*Disclaimer – Mindbreeze is currently upgrading their website. Links will be checked and if problems arise they will be updated. Thanks for your patience.
Emily Rae Aldridge, November 14, 2011
MIndbreeze Mobile for SharePoint
November 8, 2011
Mobile devices are quickly gaining ground on personal computers as the primary entry point to the internet and other online resources. Any discussion of enterprise software is incomplete without devoting attention to mobile access. Waldek Mastykarz analyzes the effectiveness of SharePoint 2010’s mobile device support in, “Inconvenient SharePoint 2010 Mobile Redirect.” Mastykarz’s main complaint with SharePoint mobile access is its unsuitability for internet-facing Web sites because its lack of support for anonymous users. We learned:
Not only is the standard mobile experience useless on an Internet-facing website, but it also cannot be turned off. The mobile redirect is baked into the request processing module provided with SharePoint (the SPRequestModule HTTP module) and there is no on/off switch provided that you could flip to make it go away.
The author explains several workaround options for mobile access, but is quick to mention that no workaround is seamless and none completely fix SharePoint’s limitations. A solution like Fabasoft Mindbreeze Mobile is a better overall fit for this and other SharePoint shortcomings. We learned from Fabasoft that:
Fabasoft Mindbreeze Mobile uses a browser-based Client that is specifically adapted to the requirements of smart phones such as BlackBerry, iPhone and Android. Only three kilobytes of memory and the installation of one single certificate are required. After these steps are taken, the corporate installation of Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise – and thus all connected data sources – can be accessed through the usual Mindbreeze URL.
Additionally, Mindbreeze maintains continuous checks of existing access rights. Improving the users’ experience, every information object can be opened in Mindbreeze mobile in a preview mode that features the accompanying metadata. Enterprise solutions are useless without effective and efficient mobile solutions. Look into Mindbreeze as a good solution for increasing the usability of SharePoint’s mobile enterprise access.
Emily Rae Aldridge, November 8, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
The Appification of Finding Info
October 29, 2011
It looks like another intelligence company is moving analytics access to the iPad. According to the October 4 news release “FirstRain’s New iPad App Delivers Visual Business Monitoring,” analytics software company FirstRain recently launched an iPad app that allows customers to quickly scan and understand critical market developments impacting their businesses with the convenience of a tablet device.
The app has several exciting new features including: Seamless integration with your Web-based and iPhone or Android environment, prioritized views of the highest-value, real-time content, and an easy, intuitive look-and-feel which quickly shows you relevant real-time updates on topics, companies and industries.FirstRain CEO Penny Herscher said:
Knowing and understanding critical developments that impact your revenue, your customers and your market has never been this quick or easy. We work closely with our customers, and it’s clear they want to consume FirstRain’s unique Business Web intelligence wherever they are or on whatever device they’re using. FirstRain for iPad offers an elegant way for users to quickly absorb the high-value intelligence uncovered, delivered and prioritized by our patented Business Monitoring Engine.
While this product seems like a great new addition to the analytics software arsenal, I wonder if end users will simply take a quick look, make a decision, and then learn that the data was misunderstood. While speed is good, it is not the answer to every analytics challenge.
Jasmine Ashton, October 29, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Voice Search: Getting Siri-ly
October 26, 2011
There is more hostility in the next search interface wars, and this time it sounds vaguely similar to a gaggle of middle school girls badmouthing the one lucky kid who got the newest thing.
At the recent AllThingsD conference, Google’s head of Android, Andy Rubin, made some snide comments about Apple’s Siri interface. Rubin said there shouldn’t be a distinction between tablet apps and phone apps, and he also believes your phone shouldn’t be an assistant. It should be for communicating. He must have momentarily forgot about Android’s apps and Google’s voice searches. Microsoft’s Windows Phone president, Andy Lee, also criticized Siri, saying it “isn’t super useful” and that Windows Phone 7’s voice interactivity uses “the full power of the internet, rather than a certain subset.
Fast Company’s article, “Why Google And Microsoft Are Bad-Mouthing Apple’s Chatty Siri” tells us more about the new interface:
“One thing Siri does that may have both Google and Microsoft quaking in their boots is to act as a first sift “layer” for users trying to query the internet for information. When you speak to Siri the data gets whizzed off by Apple to its cloud servers, where the speech is processed and then interpreted–a process that, we imagine, involves trying to see if the query is answerable via a fact-based query to Wolfram Alpha… or a review-based query via Yelp…”
In my opinion, Google and Microsoft must be nervous. Maybe Siri could interfere with Google and Bing ad revenue? Siri is offering a very novel way of interacting with your device, a program that is just in its beta phase with plans to move to the iPad and the Mac. Looks like Google and Microsoft may be getting a bad rep for falling behind, and my advice is to leave the gossip for middle school and catch up.
Andrea Hayden, October 26, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Tableau 6.1 Available for Apple iPad
October 25, 2011
App mania is in full stride.
Seattle based rapid-fire business intelligence software producer, Tableau Software, http://www.tableausoftware.com/ has gained recognition for performing “simple business analytics,” has now made Tableau 6.1 available for public use and can be made available on the iPad. This is important because most apps insulate the user from of the messy fiddling old style enterprise applications required. Some were beyond the MBA and required a programmer, who, in theory, could verify that data were clean and the functions appropriate to the data set available.
The Tableau blog post “Tableau Makes Business Intelligence Faster and Mobile” states:
The new version delivers automatic touch and gesture optimized support for the Apple iPad, whether views are accessed via Tableau’s new iPad App or via Mobile Safari. In addition, Tableau enhanced its in-memory analytics engine with increased query and loading performance. People can also rapidly update existing extracts in Tableau’s data engine. Other improvements include localization and new maps.”
In addition to having an even faster in-memory data engine, what’s really cool about this new version is that through the new iPad app, you can still create quick and easy interactive dashboards and reports from both Tableau Server and Tableau Public. There is no need for up-front design changes or maintaining multiple versions of workbooks to serve multiple platforms and when a view is accessed from the iPad, Tableau automatically detects and optimizes the user experience.
Several observations:
- Will end users know what data delivered the output?
- Are the data fresh? How will end users know?
- Will end users make a decision based on a graph and some highlights?
Our thought is, “Many users will accept what’s on the iPad as accurate.” In some situations, the assumption may be incorrect by a little or a lot.
For more information on Tableau 6.1 and any other Tableau happenings, feel free to check out the company blog.
Jasmine Ashton, October 25, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
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