SAS Simplifies Text Analysis
June 8, 2011
Let’s face it, time is money. (Some former SEO Panda victims, assorted art history majors, and a few MBAs perceive time as opportunity to contemplate the magnitude of their student loans and monthly cash flows.)
Wading through archives to find the answers to your questions is labor intensive and more work than watching reruns on TV.
We found “New SAS Industry Taxonomy Rules Starter Kits Enhance the Speed to Value of Text Analytics” promises to be the answer to some of these problems. It can cut search time from months to weeks by creating a structured taxonomy. The story asserted:
Building taxonomies from scratch can be daunting. But with the new SAS Industry Taxonomy Rules starter kits, organizations get a jump start, and can move more quickly from document and text chaos to value and insight from their unstructured data.
However, the use of taxonomy isn’t anything new. Many businesses recognize the value of categorizing their archives in order to save time and in the end money.
The same thing goes for digital archives of electronic documents, SAS helps to organize the electronic and save valuable time and money by using the most effective integrated capabilities on the market today both in its ability to combine structured and unstructured data. It also utilizes predictive analytics to remember what documents or areas are searched most as well as allowing customers to customize their systems to fit individual needs.
Sounds like a win win.
Leslie Radcliff, June 8, 2011
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, the resource for enterprise search information and current news about data fusion
Exalead Makes a Sage Move
June 1, 2011
We have no qualms over recurrent expressions of our appreciation and enthusiasm for the Exalead brand.
A long time leader in the field of search enabled applications and data management software, the company continues to prove itself relevant in a landscape that shifts more frequently than the iTunes’ Recent Hits page.
The most recent news we saw about Exalead, a unit of Dassault Systèmes, comes in the form of a deal with the Sage Group. Sage is one of the leaders in enterprise resource planning (ERP). Sage will use Exalead’s technology in the Sage ERP X3 system.
The write up “Sage Innovates with Exalead CloudView to Enhance Its ERP User Experience” said:
CloudView brings the speed and simplicity of consumer Web search to the Sage ERP X3 user experience, offering flexible natural language search across all Sage database content, including both data and metadata. Offered as a simple drag-and-drop Gadget in the Sage portal, CloudView-powered Sage Search enables users to locate information anywhere in the system using a single text box: no training, complex forms or SQL queries required. Moreover, fuzzy matching and flexible search refinement by dynamic results categories help ensure search success even when a user’s query is incomplete, misspelled or imprecise.
CloudView may give Sage a turbo boost. With this deal, Sage and Exalead jump up the enterprise charts to super group status.
Micheal Cory, June 1, 2011
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, the resource for enterprise search information and current news about data fusion
EMC: Lots of Initiatives and Now an Appliance
June 1, 2011
EMC has been busy. The company has announced a wide range of initiatives. The flow of announcements has been overwhelming. We did notice “SAS Will Be Available On A Database Appliance From EMC,” SAS has announced that it will begin to offer SAS High Performance Analytics. The system will be available on an EMC database appliance.
The blog asserted:
This new offering from SAS on the EMC Greenplum Data Computing Appliance will provide an environment for customers to perform analytical exploration and development on all data to complement their regular analytic operations.
Clients will be able to form models that take into account their data from each department and showcase all the possible scenarios. Being able to see the whole picture definitely gives customers a more accurate picture to enable to them to make better decisions. In addition when compared to current technology, SAS High-performance Analytics blows the competition out the water and solves problems in seconds rather than hours. This appliance could be in the running for best in class.
However, with appliances proliferating in some organizations, management of yet another toaster is, in our experience, beginning to generate some pushback.
April Holmes, June 1, 2011
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, the resource for enterprise search information and current news about data fusion
The Analytics Path: Search Sits at the Kerb
May 30, 2011
According to the Technology Review article “The Future of Analytics” IBM is working on the next generation of Analytics technology and has set out of develop technology that can handle the massive amounts of data. The team led by Chid Apte:
“is developing algorithms and other techniques that can extract meaning from data, and it is trying to find ways to use these methods to solve business challenges.”
In his interview with Tom Simonite, Apte indicated that the company was trying to take company data as well as social information data and work with clients to see how both sources can be used to handle business problems. The team even helped to develop the popular QA technology that was used on the Watson on Jeopardy and they hope to bridge this QA problem solving technology into their system.
Apte concluded by emphasizing the ever present need for a better way to handle large scale data. If IBM can pull it off they will have hit the jackpot.
IBM has a Tundra truck stuffed with business intelligence, statistics, and analytics tools. IBM has no product. IBM, in my view, has an opportunity to charge big bucks to assemble these components into a system that makes customers wheeze, “No one ever got fired for buying IBM.”
Well, it used to be true. And it is probably true for MIT grads. Today? Maybe. Tomorrow? Maybe not.
April Holmes, May 30, 2011
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, the resource for enterprise search information and current news about data fusion
Consultant Benchmarks Business Intelligence
May 27, 2011
Business intelligence has seen tremendous growth and with so many different companies on the market all vying for clients it can become difficult for business owners to know exactly which one will adequately fit their needs.
We learned that InetSoft is a sponsor of the Aberdeen’s Group Agile BI Benchmark Study, which provides a detailed survey and analysis of how companies are currently using their business intelligence products and how they improve.
We found the notion of agile business intelligence interesting. Traditionally business intelligence required trained specialists and programmers with the ability to convert an end user’s dreams into the cold, hard reality of a report. Today end users want to do their own report building and data analysis. In our experience, this sounds great in a pitch focused on reducing headcount. However, in some situations, flawed data leads to even more suspect business decisions.
We learned from the announcement about the study that:
Agile BI is business intelligence that can rapidly adapt to meet changing business needs.
Okay.
Many of those surveyed admitted they were not delivering their business intelligence products on time and found it difficult to make timely decisions. Those companies that earned “Best In Class” were those that were able to provide fully interactive BI to their users. The write up asserted:
Managers need to get “hands-on” to interact with and manipulate data if they are to meet the shrinking timeframe for business decisions that they face.
Without building a solid foundation and taking control BI cannot be fully effective and is like a bird with no wings.
You can obtain a free complimentary copy of the report please visit http://goo.gl/3WujV. We have no idea how long the free report will be available. Act quickly.
Stephen E Arnold, May 27, 2011
Freebie
More from IBM Watson: More PR That Is
May 19, 2011
IBM keeps flogging Watson, which seems to be Lucene wrapped with IBM goodness. We have reported on the apparent shift in search strategy at IBM; to wit, search now embraces content analytics. Many vendors are trying to spit shine worn toe cap oxfords in an effort to make search into a money machine. Good luck with that.
Network World tells us that “Watson Teaches ‘Big Analytics.’” Ah, more Watson hyperbole.
Skillful big analytics is necessary to make use of big data, of course, and in most cases speed is also a factor. Watson demonstrated proficiency at both with its Jeopardy win. Now, IBM hopes to use those abilities in enterprise products. As well they should; the need for such tools is expanding rapidly.
“Businesses successfully utilizing big analytics can take this process of knowledge discovery even further, identifying questions, exploring the answers and asking new questions based on those answers. This iterative quality of data analysis, rather than incremental exploration, can lead to a deeper understanding of business and markets, and begin to answer questions never before considered.”
Yep, we think we get it: Big data and a robust big analytic product are increasingly necessary to stay competitive. What we want to know, though, is this: when is all this going to change Web or Internet search? When will the Watson product be “a product”? Enough PR. That’s easy. How about a useful service we can test and compare to other systems?
Cynthia Murrell May 19, 2011
Freebie
New Landscape of Enterprise Search Details Available
May 18, 2011
Stephen E Arnold’s new report about enterprise search will be shipping in two weeks. The New Landscape of Enterprise Search: A Critical Review of the Market and Search Systems provides a fresh perspective on a fascinating enterprise application.
The centerpiece of the report are new analyses of search and retrieval systems offered by:
Unlike the “pay to play” analyses from industry consultant and self-appointed “experts,” Mr. Arnold’s approach is based on his work in developing search systems and researching search systems to support certain inquiries into systems’ performance and features.
, to focus on the broad changes which have roiled the enterprise search and content processing market. Unlike his first “encyclopedia” of search systems and his study of value added indexing systems, this new report takes an unvarnished look at the business and financial factors that make enterprise search a challenge. Then he uses a historical base to analyze the upsides and downsides of six vendors’ search solutions. He puts the firm’s particular technical characteristics in sharp relief. A reader gains a richer understanding of what makes a particular vendor’s system best suited for specific information access applications.
Other features of the report include:
- Diagrams of system architecture and screen shots of exemplary implementations
- Lists of resellers and partners of the profiled vendors
- A comprehensive glossary which attempts to cut through the jargon and marketing baloney which impedes communication about search and retrieval
- A ready-reference table for more than 20 vendors’ enterprise search solutions
- An “outlook” section which offers candid observations about the attrition and financial health of the hundreds of companies offering search solutions.
More information about the report is available at http://goo.gl/0vSql. You may reserve your copy by writing seaky2000 @ yahoo dot com. Full ordering information and pricing will be available in the near future.
Donald C Anderson, May 18, 2011
Post paid for by Stephen E Arnold
Autonomy Mines Iron Mountain
May 16, 2011
I have written about Stratify in the three editions of the Enterprise Search Report which I wrote when “search” was hot, and in my Gilbane report named after this blog. Since late 2010, Stratify (originally named Purple Yogi which got some In-Q-Tel love in 2001) has gotten lost within Iron Mountain’s labyrinth of organizational tunnels. Now Iron Mountain seems to face significant financial, technical, business, and management challenges. The details of what Autonomy snagged are fuzzy, but based on the sketchy information that flowed to me since May 12, 2011, here’s what I have been able to “mine”:
Autonomy mines Iron Mountain for revenue, customer, and upsell “gold.” Image source: http://www.davestravelcorner.com/articles/goldcountry/article.htm
- Autonomy will get the archiving, eDiscovery, and online back up business of Iron Mountain
- No word on the fate of Mimosa Systems which Iron Mountain bought in early 2010. (My recollection is that Mimosa used a mid tier search solution obtained from a third party. I want to link Mimosa with dtSearch, but I may be mistaken on that point.)
- Autonomy will apply is well-honed management method to the properties. Expect to see Autonomy push ever closer to $1.0 billion in revenues, maybe this calendar year.
You can get some numbers from the news item “Autonomy Acquires Some Iron Mountain Digital Assets for $380 Million.”
Stratify’s technology was the cat’s pajamas years ago. More recently, the technology has lagged. Iron Mountain’s own difficulties distracted the company from its digital opportunities. My view is the Iron Mountain made an all to familiar error: Online looks easy but looks are deceiving.
Some of the former Web masters, failed “real” journalists, and self appointed search experts will enjoy the opportunity to berate Autonomy for its acquisitions and growth tactics, but I think those folks are wrong.
Autonomy does manage its acquisitions to generate stakeholder and customer value.
In fact, Autonomy’s track record with its acquisitions is, in my opinion, better than either Google’s or Microsoft’s. As for Endeca, that company has fallen behind Autonomy due to different management strategies and growth tactics. Don’t believe me?
Just look at Autonomy’s track record, top line revenue, profits, and customer base, not tweets from a yesterday thinker at a lumber-filled, pay to play meet up.
Stephen E Arnold, May 16, 2011
Freebie.
Digital Reasoning Continues to Expand
May 16, 2011
Move over Palantir and i2 Ltd. Digital Reasoning is expanding due to its rapid growth. As reported in MSN’s “Digital Reasoning Introduces Federal Advisory Board,” the data analytics leader has created a board to guide its push into the federal market. We learned:
With the federal government’s increased focus on cloud computing, (Digital Reasoning’s) flagship product Synthesys® provides a unique Entity Oriented Analytics solution that enables government agencies to tap into the power of big data. The Advisory Board represents a team with unique insight into the requirements of Big Data, text analytics and intelligence solutions for government agencies.
The board members are: Gen. William T. Hobbins, who retired as Commander, U.S. Air Forces in Europe; Bob Flores, founder and president of Applicology Inc., who spent 31 years in the US intelligence community; Anita K. Jones, who managed the Department of Defense’s science and technology program; Capt. Nick Buck, who spent 15 years in National Security Space, including 10 years in the National Reconnaissance Office; and Mike Miller, currently president of M4 Associates and previously VP of Juniper Networks’ Public Sector Division where he was responsible for all business with Juniper’s Public Sector customers in the US. This kind of talent should be valuable guiding Digital Reasoning’s federal sector strategy.
We have tracked this Franklin, Tennessee, company since its inception. To get some insight into the firm’s approach, you may want to read these two interviews ArnoldIT.com, the owner of this news service, conducted with Tim Estes, the founder of Digital Reasoning. The February 2010 interview explores the core technology of the firm and how it differs from other vendors’ methods. The December 2010 interview probes the new version of the firm’s flagship technology.
Stephen E Arnold, May 16, 2011
Freebie
Visualization Components
May 15, 2011
David Galles, of the Computer Science University of San Francisco, gives us a useful collection of visualization components in his “Data Structure Visualizations” list. The structures and algorithms addressed include the Basics, Indexing, Sorting, Heap-like Data Structures, Graph Algorithms, Dynamic Programming, and “Others.”
In his page discussing visualizations, Galles explains,
The best way to understand complex data structures is to see them in action. We’ve developed interactive animations for a variety of data structures and algorithms. Our visualization tool is written in JavaScript using the HTML5 canvas element, and run in just about any modern browser — including iOS devices like the iPhone and iPad, and even the web browser in the Kindle! (The frame rate is low enough in the Kindle that the visualizations aren’t terribly useful, but the tree-based visualizations — BSTs and AVL Trees — seem to work well enough).
Galles also provides a tutorial for creating one’s own visualizations. Check it out if you’re wrestling with your own complex data structures. As search vendors thrash and flail, business intelligence looks like a promising market sector. Nothing sells business intelligence like hot graphics. Just ask Palantir.
Cynthia Murrell May 15, 2011
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