Search and Text Analytics in New Fall Wardrobe
July 18, 2008
Clarabridge, according to CRM Today, has announced a new program for its business partners. You can read about the deal here. The most interesting portion of the announcement is the positioning that Clarabridge is adopting. I think of these fresh, clever ways to package search and text analytics as the fall collections of fashion houses. Clarabridge is described as “a leading provided of customer experience management solutions”. The acronym is CEM. In order to deliver better CEM, Clarabridge employs search and other technologies. If you want to know more about Clarabridge, click here. The headline on the Web site describes the company as one which delivers “customer experience intelligence”. I assume that the CEM and CEI are closely related. Clarabridge’s founder did a stint at MicroStrategy, a company that has an interesting track record in business intelligence.
Stephen Arnold, July 18, 2008
Business Week Sees through the Clouds
July 18, 2008
Sarah Lacy, Valley Girl, wrote “On Demand Computing: A Brutal Slog”. You can read the full text of her essay here. The story carries a date of July 18, 2008, so the text should be available for a short period of time. I know that I have been frustrated trying to locate Business Week stories in the past, so hopefully the site’s retention policy is more in step with my research needs and yours.
Business Week occupies a middle ground between the Harvard Business Review type of story (case examples, charts, checklists, and chatty case studies) and the Economist’s pro-business, pro-catty writing that combines odd ball statistics with “isn’t that obvious” types of juxtapositions.
Sarah Lacy’s look at cloud computing–also known as on demand computing, software as a service, and a dozen other acronyms–was interesting to me. First she hits the point that it can be tough to get revenue and expenses in line. Her phrase, which I well may appropriate in some future writing, is, “It’s [the Web] just as good at displacing revenue as it is in generation sources of it.” Dead on.
Also, she hits two often ignored “costs” associated with the cloud computing razzmatazz: [a] the difficulty of selling cloud services to prospects who don’t get it or just don’t trust it and [b] the tendency of certain high tech markets to become monopolies.
You will want to check out Nick Carr’s analysis of this topic here. Mr. Carr does not disagree with Ms. Lacy’s analysis. However, as nifty as Ms. Lacy’s essay is, there are two related points upon which I wish to comment:
First, Google’s approach to cloud computing is what I call “pull marketing”. Salesforce.com, Microsoft.com, and most of the organizations Ms. Lacey mentions in her essay, engage in “push marketing”. A sales professional makes a call and tries to close a deal. Not only is this grossly inefficient and expensive, it quickly exhausts the sales team and the sales and marketing budget. Google, on the other hand, rides in Salesforce.com’s car and occasionally waves its pom poms. Google also works to reach those in university programs who will enter the work place in a couple of years. The idea is that these individuals will want to use Google at work. So, Google once again gets a free ride into an organization. The approach is indirect and inefficient unless you have another source of revenue and are not in a particular hurry. Oracle, Microsoft, and other vendors appear to be shifting from pure push marketing to “buy” marketing. The idea is to make it financially attractive for a prospect to shift to cloud computing. Once hooked, I suppose, the vendor has got the fish in the basket.
Second, the success of cloud computing depends on a vendor’s ability to build a big, fast, redundant supercomputer that is reliable. Anyone with a credit card and an email can set up a baby cloud service on a low cost services provider or more upscale to the Amazon Web services system. There’s not much of a barrier to entry, but as the number of users climbs, then real engineering has to be in place. There was a reason why prior to the break up AT&T was a monopoly. AT&T had to do a lot of engineering, research, and guaranteeing to become a monopoly. The second and third tier players in the pre break up telco world were doomed to be niche players. So, consolidation is only part of the story. The rest of the story will be brand identify and really serious engineering for scale. The winner in cloud computing will be the present day’s equivalent of AT&T in the 1950s. Ms. Lacy is writing about border skirmishes. The real battle will be fought on many fronts in a global theater. Furthermore, the shoot out will take place regardless of the economy, regulations, and business school pronouncements. Engineering, not marketing, may be the deciding factor. A touch of creative destruction may add zest as well.
Based on my research, the winner in cloud computing will replicate the type of computing an individual has with a powerful device, pounded flat like a tortilla, and filled with applications, services, and functions. Cloud computing is a big digital burrito stuffed with the goodies organizations crave but have to deal with as individual ingredients. So my take, cloud computing is a convenience food in digital form, perfect for the young at heart and those who want to do computing on the run. For a drawing of a digital burrito, check out The Google Legacy here.
Stephen Arnold, July 18, 2008
Google: More Low Blows
July 18, 2008
The economy is sinking. Most companies are trying to cut costs and boost profitability or just stay out of the red. Google has been taking some low blows in the wake of its 2nd quarter 2008 revenue report. Stephen Shankland “Live Blog: Google Roses Loses Bloom Again” provides a good summary of what’s right and what’s wrong for Google with its financial results. You can read his essay here.
The best way to summarize what Google did is to show you this chart, which was included with Mr. Shankland’s essay:
The gross revenues are rising. The profit was $1.25 but less than the Wall Street mavens wanted. The result is that Google gets sucker punched.
You can find dozens of stories on this theme on news aggregation services.
My view is that Google is no longer the under dog. No matter what the company does, Google will be punched, kicked, and jabbed. As Google grows larger, the zippy percentage gains in previous years are harder to replicate. The GOOG is closing in on $20 billion in annual revenue.
Largely ignored is Google’s ability to tweak payouts for AdSense. None of the folks covering Google has talked with large AdSense customers about their smaller Google checks in the run up to this quarter. But I think Googzilla can withstand the abuse and no one is likely to probe how Google can twiddle the knobs to hit whatever numbers it wants to hit.
Stephen Arnold, July 18, 2008
Google: Stepping on the Enterprise Search Gas Pedal
July 18, 2008
Richard Martin’s “Pressed by Rivals, Google Accelerates Enterprise Search Efforts” is a revelation. The story appeared on July 17, 2008, and you can read the full text here. (You may see an annoying fly over ad and then be redirected. The wacky url worked for me.)
In my opinion, The most interesting point in the scoop was:
Unifying a single search interface across those varied systems, which often use different protocols and programming languages, has become something of a holy grail.
The religious metaphor is lost on me, but I think Mr. Martin’s point is that search is supposed to make it possible to access data, regardless of its location or format, from one interface.
I agree.
My view is that this is not a search problem and, therefore, the GOOG, Microsoft, and the companies mentioned in the article will not solve this problem with search technology.
The challenge is transformation of data in such a way that new operations are possible. Who wants to search? I want to know where a particular item comes from and how certain I can be that the item is accurate or good enough to use in a decision.
In my opinion, talking about enterprise search is a waste of time. Google is definitely going to deliver, but the solution will not be a search technology. The problem is better resolved in terms of data management. Google has some interesting technology in this practice area, and I discuss it in my new study Beyond Search, published by the Gilbane Group.
Stephen Arnold
Google: A Digital Ceramic Brake Pad
July 17, 2008
TechCrunchIT is one of my favorite Web information services. I read Nik Cubrilovic’s July 16, 2008, analysis “Why Google Slows own Acquired Companies”. You will want to read the full text of the essay here. In addition to offering a compelling array of data to support his assertion that Google hobbles its acquired companies, he includes a snapshot of the Google Technology Stack. I have a different view of the technology stack in use at Google, but it contains more layers and includes such exotica as Google janitor bot engine, Haskell, and other nerd-xotica. You will also pick up some useful insights to the perils of a once-limber start up struggling like a Marine recruit on a double time run through the desert whilst taking fire. That’s a hurry up, lay down, hide, rest, run like the devil, and duck down process. A 1,000 meter stretch can take quite a bit of time to traverse. No one is shooting live rounds at the GOOG, but lawyers, being transparent, and planning a space flight have much the same effect.
However, I think there are several other factors that one must consider when thinking about the fate of Google acquisitions. These ideas are developed more fully in my 2007 study, Google Version 2.0 here. Let me highlight three and, as always, invite your comments.
- Google buys companies for people, not technology, business models, or traffic. The need for talent, particularly in math, physics, and engineering is tough for Google to satisfy with traditional recruiting techniques. This is the “just buy ‘em and put ‘em to work” motivation for an acquisition.
- Google buys companies because the company is cool. I have identified several acquisitions that fit into this category. Nothing happens with the company and the founders often leave, annoyed that Google handled the acquisition as if it were a toy in Google’s flak-attracting day care center.
- Google buys companies and keeps it secret if possible. I have identified one such acquisition. The technology is quite important to Google, and the company goes to great lengths to minimize outsiders’ awareness of the purpose of the technology and the identity of the individuals working on some of these crucial areas.
- Google buys a company and converts or modifies the technology to fit into a larger Google service. The rework may be done in a matter of weeks or it can take longer. The rework time is not important. The key factor is when Google wants to slipstream the building block into a larger service.
You can find a reasonably complete list of Google acquisitions here. In Google Version 2.0 I plot most acquisitions by year and I discuss a handful of the more important buy outs prior to 2007 when my study was published. I have updated the material, but this is available as part of my for-fee work. One acquisition is the subject of a for-fee report by one of the world’s best known research firms. The announcement of this report will come from that company. My agreement with the firm prevents me from providing specifics.
Stephen Arnold, July 17, 2008
Explicit User Input: The Future of Web Search
July 17, 2008
TechCrunch has an intriguing Web log post called “Is This the Future of Search?” After scanning the text, watching the video, you will want to read the comments to this post. I find it difficult to summarize multi-media Web log posts. My take is that Google is showing some users a Digg-like interface; that is, a user can provide input with a click about the value of a result, add a link, and with little effort on Google’s part, provide a full complement of user input functions. With the acquisition of JotSpot, Google can out Digg Digg with a user creating in the midst of a query or other Google action a “new” Web page. I provided raw material for an Outsell analysis last year, and few took notice of Google’s ability to morph into a publisher. Digg-like features are a fraction of Google’s content acquisition and creation capabilities. Traditional publishers, are you tracking Google as a digital William Randolph Hearst?
Among the more than 100 comments is one that I think centers of what is going on. Ben writes:
Ouch. I’m betting Kevin Rose is wishing he cashed up when he had one of those many opportunities.
I’d be a little worried if I were Mr Calacanis also.
Based on my research, my view of these Digg-like features are a bit like a double-edged sword equipped with those nifty barbs and hooks like this:
Source: http://www.myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=9497
Here’s how I interpret Google’s Digg-iness:
- Google wants to brandish a threatening weapon without actually striking anyone. This is digital saber rattling. Google shows strength, maybe intimidates or causes a competitor to think about selling or partnering with Google
- The GOOG is pushing the tip of the sword into the flesh of a opponent, forcing the opponent to get out of the way. If the opponent does not move the way the Google Jedi wants, a quick thrust and twist ends the opponent’s life. Death comes but it is painful.
- Googzilla is taking practice swings in order to use the cutting edge of its technology to hack its way through the social search opponents. Limbs and other digital body parts will be summarily removed as Googzilla stomps forward swinging the deadly blade.
I think the Digg-iness of Google is designed to position Google to buy one or more entities, force one or more entities to become partners in the manner of Nokia-Symbian’s sudden love affair with the GOOG, or outright war.
Stephen Arnold. July 17, 2008
Symbian: Simpatico toward Google
July 17, 2008
Symbian [http://www.symbian.com/] makes open source operating systems for mobile phones and has been building reference designs for telecommunications companies for years. Nokia, its major stakeholder, recently announced that it’s going to buy the rest of Symbian’s shares and turn it over in its entirety to the Symbian Foundation, a new group backed by several mobile phone companies that have pooled their knowledge and resources to create one big, happy, open-source, royalty-free, customizable Symbian platform.
Enter the Googlemeister. It’s about to launch a new product: Android [http://code.google.com/android/]. Android is (drum roll) “the first complete, open, and free mobile platform” and was developed by a group of more than 30 technology and mobile companies.
Symbian’s CEO said in a July 16 article here [http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/20080716/tc_pcworld/148477] that the company has a good relationship with Google and cooperation between the two companies is possible. But he also defends Symbian and basically questions why Google is pitching Android as if Symbian didn’t exist.
Perhaps Symbian sees the hammer about to fall.
Google has grown far beyond just being an Internet portal and is a serious player in the telecommunications industry. You know the “walk softly and carry a big stick” credo? There isn’t a big enough stick for Symbian to carry to ward off Google. It might not be a bad idea to embrace the GOOG’s services and functions.
Jessica Bratcher, July 17, 2008
Blinkx Actions and Rumors
July 17, 2008
Blinkx is in the news again. As you may know, Blinkx is a video search service. Beta News reported on July 16, 2008, that the company is taking offensive and defensive action. You can read Jacqueline Emigh’s story “Rumored Google Target Blinkx Teams with Microsoft, Others” here.
Ms. Emigh cites another Web log. The paragraph of interest to me was:
“Speculation is rising around a potential acquisition of Blinkx, a video search engine, by either Google or News Corp. (and possibly Yahoo),” noted a blog posting in May by Heather Dougherty, director of research at the Hitwise market research firm.
Blinkx reports that it you can search over 26 million hours of video from Google Video, YouTube, MetaCafe, and others.
Among Blinkx’ new deals are tie ups with:
You can learn more about Blinkx here. The Register offers a different angle here.
I am not sure what to make of this story. In 2005, Blinkx was an independent company according to this posting in Search Engine Watch. I have heard that the company is linked to Autonomy, but I need to look into this alleged tie up more closely.
The phrase “sharpened its defense and offense” continues to puzzle me. Does Blinkx want to be purchased by Google or Yahoo? Does Blinkx want to remain independent? More information is needed.
Working Hypotheses
My working hypotheses are:
- This is a PR play, designed to increase visibility of Blinkx and focus attention on what are partnering deals, probably not big money makers yet.
- Blinkx is a hot property, and the company’s management is aggressively positioning the search engine for acquisition
- Video search is a money pit, and the company is pursuing tie ups in hopes of finding a formula to boost revenues and get the stock moving upwards.
The honking goose will fly over its available information and update this Blinkx coverage. My earlier essay about Blinkx is here.
Stephen Arnold, July 17, 2008
Enterprise Search: It’s Easy but Work Is Never Done
July 17, 2008
The Burton Group caught my attention with its report describing Microsoft a couple of years ago as a superplatform. I liked the term, but the report struck me as overly enthusiastic in favor of Microsoft’s server products.
I was surprised when I saw part one of Margie Semilof’s interview with two Burton Group consultants, Guy Creese and Larry Cannell. These folks were described as experts in content management, a discipline with a somewhat checkered history in the pantheon of enterprise software applications. You can read the first part interview here. The interview carries a July 15, 2008, date, and I am capturing my personal thoughts on July 16, 2008. That’s my mode of operation, a euro short and a day late. Also, I am not enthusiastic about CMS experts making the jump to enterprise search expertise. The leap can be made, but it’s like jumping from the frying pan into the fire.
The interview contains a rich vein of intellectual gold or what appears to me to be sort of gold. I jotted down two points made by the Burton experts, and I wanted to offer some color around selected points. When you read the interview, your conclusions and take aways will probably differ from mine. I am an opinionated goose, so if that bothers you, quit reading now.
Let me address two points.
First, this question and answer surprised me:
Question: How much development work is require with search technology?
Answer by Guy Creese, Burton Group expert in content management: It’s pretty easy… Usually a company is up and running and can see most of its documents without trouble.
Yikes. Enterprise search dissatisfies anywhere from half to two thirds of a system’s users. Enterprise search systems are among the most troublesome enterprise applications to set up, optimize, and maintain. Even the Google Search Appliance, one of the most toaster like search solutions, takes some effort to get into fighting shape. Customization requires expertise with the OneBox API. “Seeing documents” and finding information are two quite different functions in my experience.
Second, this question and answer ran counter to the research I conducted for the first three editions of Enterprise Search Report (2004-2006) and my most recent study Beyond Search (2008).
Search technology has some care and feeding involved. How do companies organize the various tasks?
Answer by Guy Creese, Burton Group expert in content management: This is not onerous. Companies don’t have huge armies [to do this work], but someone has to know the formats, whether to index, how quickly they refresh. If no one worries about this, then search becomes less effective. So beyond the eye candy, you have to know how to maintain and adjust your search.
“Not onerous” runs counter to the data I have gathered in surveys and focus groups. “Formats” invoke transformation. Transformation can be difficult and expensive. Hooking search into work processes requires analysis and then customization of search functions. Search that processes content in content management systems often require specialized set up, particularly when the search system indexes duplicate or versioned documents. Rich text processing, a highly desirable function, can wander off the beaten path unless customization and tuning are performed.
Observations
There are a handful of people who have a solid understanding of enterprise search. Miles Kehoe, one of the Verity wizards, is the subject of a Search Wizards Speak interview that will be published on ArnoldIT.com on July 21, 2008. His company, New Idea Engineering, has considerable expertise in search, and you can read his views on what must be done to ensure a satisfactory deployment. Another expert is my son, Erik Arnold, whose company Adhere Solutions, specializes in customizing and integrating the Google Search Appliance into enterprise environments. To my knowledge, neither Mr. Kehoe nor Mr. Arnold characterizes search as a “pretty easy” task. In fact, I can’t recall anyone in my circle of professional acquaintances describing enterprise search as “pretty easy.”
Second, I am concerned that content management systems are expanding into applications and functions that are not germane to these systems’ capabilities. For example, CMS needs search. Interwoven has struck a deal with Vivisimo to provide search that “just works” to Interwoven customers. Vivisimo has worked hard to create a seamless experience, but, based on my sources, the initial work was not “pretty easy”. In fact, Interwoven had a mixed track record in delivering search before hooking up with Vivisimo. But CMS vendors are also asserting that their system is social. Well, CMS allows different people to index a document. I think that’s a social and collaborative function. But social software to me suggests Digg, Twitter, and Mahalo type functionality. Implementing these technologies in a Broadvision (if it is still paddling upstream) or Vignette might take some doing.
Third, SharePoint (a favorite of Burton if I recall the superplatform document) is a polymorphic software system. Once it was a CMS. Now it is a collaboration platform just like Exchange. I think these are marketing words slapped on servers which are positioned to make sales, not solve problems. SharePoint includes a search function, which is improving. But deploying a robust search system within SharePoint is hard in my experience. I prefer using third party software from such companies as ISYS Search Software or the use of third-party tools. ISYS, along with Coveo, offer systems that are indeed much easier to deploy, configure, and maintain than SharePoint. But planning and experience with SharePoint are necessary.
I look forward to the second part of this interesting interview with CMS experts about enterprise search. Agree? Disagree? Quack back.
Stephen Arnold, July 17, 2008
Google: Web Search Market Share Increasing, Again
July 16, 2008
Silicon.com ran Stephen Shankland’s essay “Google’s Search Share Continues to Creep Up.” You can read the full text here. In the flurry of news about Google-Viacom, Google-Microsoft-Yahoo, and Google everywhere, I missed this point:
Its share increased from 68.29 per cent in May to 69.17 per cent in June, the analyst firm said. Over the same period, Yahoo! dropped from 19.95 per cent to 19.62 per cent and Microsoft dropped from 5.89 per cent to 5.46 per cent.
In my little world, a company under such intense media scrutiny and in the midst of legal hassles on a number of fronts, this is interesting. In fact, I can’t recall reading about a company increasing market share while coming under attack from many different quarters, in different countries, and in different technical areas.
I looked up the term monopoly to refresh my memory. The Wiktionary provided this memory nudge to me:
A situation in which solely one company exclusively provides a particular product or service, dominating that market and generally exerting powerful control over it; An exclusive control over the trade or manufacture of a commodity; A company dominating a market in one of the above manners.
If one is a stickler, the loop hole is exclusively. Google is not the only provider of no-charge Web search. I can choose to use Live.com, Yahoo.com, Baidu.com (or have one of my interns tackle Chinese for me), and hundreds of other services which I list here.
In Google Version 2.0, which you can learn more about here, I don’t spend much time discussing Google’s domination of Web search. I accept that hegemony as the status quo. After all, Google’s been grinding forward for 10 years without significant opposition except from Baidu.com and Yandex.com and maybe a couple of other companies operating outside of the ken of US pundits. In North America, despite lots of hand waving and public relations, no vendor has been able to focus the technical effort on search to leap frog Google. As a result, Google has had time to improve its operation and increase its lead as Mr. Shankland points out.
The real challenge that Google presents is that its Web search and ad business is so dominant that getting a better or clearer view of the company is very difficult. In my research, I have learned that Google has an application platform. Search and advertising are just two very successful applications running on the Google infrastructure. This means that Google could enter other markets at low incremental cost.
The company is moving into other markets now, but taking baby steps and following an unorthodox approach. Much has been made of the departure of Google executives who have cashed out or grown tired of the idiosyncrasies of life at the GOOG. Some of the recent information I have gathered suggests that Google is adapting to its work force changes. Those adaptations are likely to make it even more difficult to predict what Google will do next. Consider that:
- Google is hiring smart, young engineers and giving them freedom to make decisions as long as there are data to back up those decisions. This approach increases risk to a certain degree and it also makes surprises more likely.
- Google’s innovation process of pushing out products and services has slowed, which reflects more management discipline. Nevertheless, if a beta generates a positive result, Google flows resources to that service in response to clicks. The addition of “voting” to search results is a current example of this Darwinian behavior.
- Google is concatenating its services in roll up patent applications. Google is becoming more seamless which reduces complexity to some degree and allows faster response to market conditions.
Google’s not the exclusive provider yet. But unless the competition gets into gear, only lawyers and Google’s own management missteps will prevent Google’s extending its reach.
Stephen Arnold, July 16, 2008
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