HiQube Update
February 15, 2009
Beyond Search miniprofiled HiQube here in May 2008 when it was launched as a new company. HiQube emerged from Hicare Research (http://www.hicare.it or http://www.hicare.com), which had been bought by Altair Engineering in January 2007 and renamed. Here comes the shuffleboard. In September 2008, Altair and Hicare (which Altair had supposedly absorbed), announced an agreement to continue their business intelligence work independently–both using the HiQube technology.
In my opinion, what the agreement boils down to is that Altair received full ownership of HiQube while the Hicare founders got their company back, and both now have the right to all the software assets of HiQube. Altair and HiQube are moving into engineering software, and Hicare is sticking to its business intelligence product, Lillith. It seems a bit foggy, as the same vague news release was posted on all three sites. Neither hicare.com nor hiqube.com have posted a news post since the one in September (although Hicare had a Lillith update in October). This url–http://www.altair.com/hicare –happily delivered up a 404 on February 14, 2009. But Altair seems to be chugging right along. If more substance becomes available, I will pass it along.
Stephen Arnold, February 15, 2009
Microsoft and Luck, Fate, Whatever
February 15, 2009
I read eWeek’s Microsoft Watch column by Joe Wilcox tagged “Microsoft’s 10 Unlucky Breaks.” You can read it here. The hook for the write up was Friday the 13th, an “unlucky” day. Mr. Wilcox romped through a collection of challenges, gaffes, and fumbles. You will want to read the top 10 unlucky breaks in their entirety, but I want to give you a flavor of the analysis.
For example, Mr. Wilcox points to the lack of “luck” about Microsoft’s share price. He also flagged “the Google economy”. And he identified the World Wide Web as another unlucky factor.
Let’s think about Microsoft and “luck”. I am not certain the word “luck” is the appropriate one to describe the challenges and issues identified by Mr. Wilcox. I recall reading a play in college with the interesting title Oedipus Rex. Oedipus “knew” that he was going to whack his dad and then marry his mom. As Oedipus reacted as a thinking person with some emotional triggers, he did indeed off pops and woe his mother.
The point was that good old Oedipus “knew” what would happen and then he made decisions that delivered his mama to the marriage bed. At the end of the play, poor old Oedipus figured out the consequences of his actions and embraced a life without YouTube.com. Teiresias’ comment sticks in my mind: “It’s a terrible thing to be wise when there’s nothing you can do.”
Microsoft seems be operating within an ecosystem in which failure is predestined. Let me recast these three points in Sophoclean terms:
- Microsoft’s share price. This is a reflection of investor perception about the value of a company. Microsoft’s share price has been in the value stock range for years. Keep in mind that Microsoft had and still has a monopoly of the enterprise desktop operating system. The company’s revenue is north of $65 billion a year. The company is profitable. Yet there’s that share price. That’s not a matter of luck. The share price is an indicator of perceived value. Actions and decisions create the perception. No luck involved.
- The Google economy is not a matter of luck for Microsoft. In 1999, Microsoft hired some AltaVista.com talent but decided to follow a different path. Google hired some AltaVista.com talent and went a different way. Microsoft decided and took actions that today have significant impact on the company’s competitiveness. Google was able to overcome its early mistakes and act opportunistically to implement another company’s business model. Microsoft hired one of the Overture wizards and made decisions that keep Microsoft far behind Google. No luck. Just actions based on what Microsoft executives believed to the appropriate. This is not luck; this is decision making that did not pan out.
- The World Wide Web. No luck there. Microsoft smothered Netscape with “love” and then watched or sort of watched as the Google moved into Web search, then Web applications, and then into the enterprise. Now the Microsoft managers have to get out of the NASCAR grandstand and behind the wheel of a race car. No luck involved. Microsoft watched and now has an older race car which seems to defy souping up to beat the Google’s ride.
I think the unfolding of events documented in Mr. Wilcox’s good list is little more than worry beads that remind me of decisions and actions that have created the present situation. The only predestination is that Microsoft has not learned from its past. Now, like Oedipus, it is in some sense, blind.
Stephen Arnold, February 15, 2009
Enterprise Software Pre-Buy Checklist
February 15, 2009
Enterprise software is a sector showing signs of stress. Some enterprise systems don’t work very well regardless of which vendor’s system is in a data center. Other vendors are gobbling up companies, disregarding the energy depletion that occurs when acquisitions occur. The talk is about synergy, not performance enhancing supplements required to make the deal work. Some buyers are following the “Fire, Ready, Aim” approach to decision making. Other idiosyncrasies exist. I found the Inside ERP “Midmarket ERP Solutions Checklist”, a two page write up interesting. You can download the paper here, but you will have to register to get the document. I don’t want to reproduce the full checklist. I do want to highlight three items and offer a comment about each. Most of the items in the checklist apply to enterprise search and content processing.
- Who is the owner of the project? Good question. In my experience, most organizations rotate “owners”, creating an ownerless situation that helps increase the likelihood of cost overruns.
- What is the specific business problem the system must solve? This basic question is usually answered in clumps of problems. The problem with clumps is that like a shotgun blast no single pellet will kill Bambie. A blast can wound Bambie, not get the job done in a clean, efficient, humane manner. Most enterprise search systems would the information problem and then create havoc as the procurement team tries to chase the wounded problem to ground.
- Will the enterprise system adapt to change? In my experience, enterprise software expects the licensee to change. The result is an SAP type experience which grinds down the customer. Once the system is installed, who has the energy to repeat the process?
As I read this checklist, I said to myself, “That cloud computing approach looks mighty appealing.” Snag the white paper and look at the other items. Soul searching time arrived as I worked through the list.
Stephen Arnold, February 15, 2009
Google’s Radio Ad Failure
February 15, 2009
If you are interested in Google’s failures, you will want to take a quick look at “BIA/Kelsey Commentary: Fratrik on Google’s Departure from Radio.” The is a “free” consultant write up, so keep that in mind where you read the article here. The write up provides a mini analysis of how Google fumbled the ball and withdrew like Jackie Smith, former Dallas Cowboys’ received, famous for dropping a pass that would have won the big one. Google is a digital Jackie Smith when it comes to radio advertising. The most interesting comment in the write up was:
“Radio operators were never comfortable getting in bed with Google,” he said. “Among other things, the Google model asked for information that broadcasters thought was confidential. It also required the purchase of equipment. I heard the pitch when it was first launched, and I couldn’t see how this would be successful.” Why didn’t Google’s entry into the radio advertising market work out? “The initial read three years ago was somewhat positive – they were going to use their core strengths in Internet scalability and transactional efficiencies to attract buyers and sell inventory that local stations were unable to sell. But, even with their model and their reach to many more potential advertisers, they could not sell enough to make it a profitable business line.”
The notion of “comfort” is important. When Googzilla is not comfortable with its potential customers’ comfort with Googzilla, Googzilla says, “Adios.” Kelsey Group write up points out that some broadcasters are embracing digital ad technologies. That’s encouraging to some but not me.
Here’s why.
Traditional broadcasting companies are in the same boat as dead tree publishers. The demographics and the costs of their business model are like a current rushing down the Green River. If you go with the flow, you get carried along. If you try to paddle against the current, you fail, walk, or dock. Googzilla did not just exist; Googzilla wrote off an entire business sector as unable to “get it.” Trouble looms for traditional broadcasters I fear. The Sirius XM financial challenge is a harbinger. Kelsey Group’s article omitted this nuance which surprised me.
Stephen Arnold, February 15, 2009
Google Calendar: Alleged Data Vulnerability
February 14, 2009
Daily Yomiuri Online (a pal of the Associated Press so I won’t be quoting the story) published Google Calendar Suffers Data Leak here. Details are sparse. The incident involved items of personal information. If true, the GOOG continues to struggle with the details of its sprawling online systems. When I see more information from non AP sources, I will offer more links and some commentary. In the meantime, who is looking at your Google Calendar’s personal details. I pulled my Web site calendar and stopped using online calendars more than three years ago. One of my clients in the intelligence community shared some interesting information with me. Looks to me as if those data were pregnant with meaning. The goslings are okay? What about your clutch of calendar items?
Stephen Arnold, February 14, 2009
Mysteries of Online 5: Information Flows that Deconstruct
February 14, 2009
I have some edits to stuff into the Outlook section of my new study Google: The Digital Gutenberg, but I saw another write up about the buzz over a Wall Street Journal editor’s comment that “Google devalues everything.” (Man, those categorical affirmatives are really troubling to this old, addled goose. Everything. Right.) The story in TechDirt has a nifty sub head, “From The No Wonder No One Uses It Department”. You can read the story here. I agree with the whining about the demise of traditional media’s hegemony. For me the most interesting comment in this article was:
The value of the web and Google is that it lets people look at many sources and compare and contrast them qualitatively. Putting up a paywall is what devalues the content. It makes it harder to access and makes it a lot less useful. People today want to share the news and spread the news and discuss the news with others. As a publisher, your biggest distributors should be your community. And what does the WSJ want to do? Stop the community from promoting them. I can’t think of anything that devalues their content more.
TechDirt and the addled goose are standing feather to feather.
I do, however, want to pull out my musty notes from a monograph I have not yet started to write. As you may have noticed, the title of my essay is “mysteries of online,” and this is the fifth installment. I am recycling ideas from my 30 plus years in the digital information game. If you are not sure about the nature of my observations, you will want to read the disclaimer on my About page. Offended readers can spare me the jibes about the addled nature of my views in this free publication.
The future of traditional media. The ground opened and the car crashed. The foundation of the road was gone, eroded by unseen forces. Source: http://gamedame.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/car_sinkhole.jpg
What’s under the surface of the dead tree executive’s comments and also driving in part the TechDirt observations are some characteristics about electronic information. More people have immersed themselves in easy and painless online access. As a result, the flow of “real time” has become the digital amphetamine that whips up excitement and in some cases makes or breaks business models. I want to summarize several of the factors that are now mostly overlooked.
Information Has Force
The idea is that in the post Gutenberg era, digital information can carry quite a wallop. Some people and institutions can channel that force. Others get flattened. My father, for example, cannot figure out what a newstream is on my ArnoldIT.com Overflight service. He simply tunes out the flow because his mental framework is not set up to understand that the flow is the value. One can surf on the flow; one can drown in the flow.
Will these kids read dead tree newspapers, magazines, and textbooks as I did in the 1950s?
Google Fumbles Government Ball
February 14, 2009
MarketWatch ran a story called “Google’s Sales to Uncle Sam in Apparent Decline” here. For me the most interesting information in the write up is the analysis of Office of Management & Budget data that show Google’s government sales declining, not from a lofty peak but from a pile of pennies and nickels. For example, the OMB data reveal that Google’s government sales wizards–if the data are accurate–racked up these revenue figures:
- 2006-$413,9060
- 2008-$81,046
- 2009-$4,030 (since September 2008 to the present).
I am not sure about these figures. Google, true to form, won’t talk to me, and the company’s financial reports are only slightly more helpful than the masterpieces of misdirection generated by Amazon’s financial knights.
Let me offer several observations, which set forth my opinion about these data:
- The GOOG has a number of resellers who sell to the US Federal government. Now MarketWatch is a pretty sharp outfit, backed by the brain trust that delivers CBS into my living room. Perhaps these New York and San Francisco specialists should navigate to the GSA Web site, run a query for Google, and check out the names of the resellers who are the authorized vendors to the US government. One of these outfits ships Google Search Appliances into Federal agencies with monotonous regularity. These authorized resellers collect the dough and then pay Google its share. The US government in general and the OMB in particular does not track these types of sales as Google deals. Trust me. These are Google deals, and the appetite for Google Search Appliances is growing.
- The GOOG has partners who deliver services to various Federal agencies. Same deal as the Google Search Appliance resellers. The partners handle the customer service, do the work, and in some cases collect money. The GOOG bills for certain services; the partners bill for others. The relationship between Google and partners is murky, but the partners servicing the Federal government are an elite crew and the GOOG seems to be well pleased with the sales these outfits are generating.
- Various big integrators in DC Google-ize certain projects. Here’s how this works. The integrators are a type of Google partner. The integrator gets a contract. (No, I won’t name these outfits because I do work for one of the most respected and successful in the Federal space. OMB tallies what the integrator bills, and does not break out the payments the integrators make to the GOOG.
How far off base is the MarketWatch article? Well, here in the goose pond, the goslings and I would characterize the write up as being in the next county. MarketWatch has some big name writers with reputations hewn of dead tree tradition. Too bad the way the Federal government works does not match up with the financial acumen of the researchers, analysts, and writers laboring in the MarketWatch vineyard.
The GOOG in the Federal sector is a disrupter and a big player. Check it out yourself. Navigate to some Federal Web sites and see what search engine is used. Then get a tour of an agency like the Post Office or maybe one of intel outfits. Count the Google Search Appliances. Once you have some first hand data and look into the reseller methods, then give me a call so I can tell you my estimate of Google’s Federal government footprint. In the meantime, when you see a figure like $4,030 attached to Google revenues over a six month period, it ain’t even close.
Stephen Arnold, February 14, 2009
Google Panoramio
February 13, 2009
I included a description of Panoramio in my Google briefings for some clients in 2008. No one in those sessions had ever heard of the service. You can check it out by navigating to www.panoramio.com. The company bought the company which had integrated photography with Google Earth. The GOOG plopped most of the Panoramio functionality into the Googleplex (my term for Google’s infrastructure). The Panoramio blog announcement is here. Panoramio has been discovered by news hounds in the datasphere. Search Engine Roundtable learned that Panoramio users can post questionable content via the service. The main story is here. The images may offend some, and we addled geese quickly pecked elsewhere. The goslings snorted and checked out Panoramio more thoroughly. Several of the more geeky goslings noted that stalkers and others of questionable repute might find this service “interesting”. If more info flaps across our field of vision, we will pass the links along.
Stephen Arnold, February 13, 2009
Overflight Updated
February 13, 2009
Just a quick note to tell you that the ArnoldIT.com Google Web log newstream service, Overflight, has been updated. We have added the Google Web log about social media and tossed in a handful of other Google blogs. You can access the splash page for the free service here. If you are interested in what’s new from Google as set forth in “official” Google Web logs, you can use this pick list to review content from Google’s own grouping of topic areas:
- Google wide news and announcements at http://www.arnoldit.com/overflight/google-wide.html
- Google product information at http://www.arnoldit.com/overflight/products.html
- Google ad programs, including video at http://www.arnoldit.com/overflight/ads.html
- Google developer information which often contains important information applicable to the other topic areas. This is a must read at our goose pond at http://www.arnoldit.com/overflight/developer.html
- Google regional information, which is semi-useful. Hot items like the reorganization in Israel may or may not be announced first in these Web logs at http://www.arnoldit.com/overflight/region.html.
Combine these sources with general Google yip yap and the new ArnoldIT.com Google patent search service at http://arnoldit.perfectsearchcorp.com/, and you can get a useful triangulation of what Googzilla seems to be doing. These services are offered without charge. I want Cyrus (a Googler who does not read Google’s own technical papers and patent documents), assorted breath mint obsessed pundits, multi-tasking mavens, trophy-generation, azure chip consultants, carpetbaggers, and ingenuous parvenus to have a shot at Google information from open sources. Quack.
Stephen Arnold, February 13, 2009
Google Blood Hound: The Movie
February 13, 2009
Privacy mavens will want to read Gizmodo’s “My Tracks for Android Logs Your Day via GPS, Uploads to Google Maps” here. I don’t want to spoil your fun or your paranoia. For me the most interesting comment in the write up by John Mahoney was:
Along with the mapping, the app displays statistics in real time like elevation, distance traveled, speed, etc. My Tracks can also use Google Docs’ little-known but very cool ability to receive the output of web forms in a spreadsheet, so you can track your routes and see your average speed over time.
And, yes, Mr. Mahoney includes a link to a video to make the potential of the My Tracks application quite clear to good guys, to bad guys, and all the guys in between. To crank your fear knob, read this article.
Stephen Arnold, February 13, 2009
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