Implementing with Intent
November 7, 2011
In a blog dedicated to document management news, the haphazard implementation of SharePoint is highlighted. Read the full commentary at, “SharePoint Surge Continues but Strategies Are Lacking.”
A recent survey by AIIM (Association for Information and Image Management) has found that less than 50% of SharePoint implementations were subject to a formal business case, and only half of those required a financial justification. As a result, most did not have a management plan as to which of SharePoint’s many features were to be used, and where. Meanwhile, SharePoint deployment is proceeding rapidly, with 22% of respondents reporting it to be in use by 100% of office staff. This adoption rate is set to double by this time next year.
SharePoint is the current enterprise fad, with the adoption rate growing exponentially. However, is the effort even effective or worthwhile if the implementation is done without planning? Customized installation is costly but without customization the platform is virtually useless. Furthermore, a highly customized system can create a steep learning curve for new users.
One solution we found in our research is Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise. We learned from Mindbreeze:
A corporate-wide information platform maintaining and continuously expanding a well-funded knowledge base needs the greatest possible flexibility. Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise links the most common data sources in corporations and organizations by special connectors, establishing the basis for further links to the creative utilization of internal corporate knowledge.
With Mindbreeze, the learning curve for new users is lessened and day-to-day work is more efficient for staff. Customization is automatic and relevant. To get the most out of your SharePoint installation, implement with intent and look into Fabasoft Mindbreeze.
Emily Rae Aldridge, November 7, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Spotlight: Mindbreeze for Easy Search and Access
November 4, 2011
CMS Wire weighs in on SharePoint 2010 and its viability as an internet site CMS. In, “Is SharePoint 2010 the Right Web CMS for Your Internet Site?” Michal Pisarek makes an argument for the integration of SharePoint 2010 as a broad web content management system.
Although the author argues that SharePoint 2010 has made improvements over the 2007 version, some issues remain.
Of course the breadth of SharePoint’s capabilities can also serve as its downfall. If your organization has specific needs that need deep vertical capabilities than you should be considering the cost of implementing this custom functionality on the SharePoint platform.
If this is the case then you might be better served with a niche solution, rather than the broader set of features that SharePoint offers. A product like Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise makes it easy to really handle adaptive and personalized website content. So your site acts like an information hub that adapts to users’ behavior on your site. Search-driven content as a building block of a next generation web content management functionality. Where SharePoint lags, Mindbreeze bridges the gap with your website, intranet, or mobile applications. Find more details at, “Search & Information Access as easy as 1-2-3.
“Showing search results in your Web site is hard? A new API to learn because your Web site uses a different programming language than available from your search engine vendor? Read on and learn how easy it can be to search-enable your content.”
An explanation of features follows, including personalized, search-driven and contextualized content. This Mindbreeze tutorial demonstrates how easy it is to add Fabasoft Mindbreeze functionality to a site, without much more than basic knowledge of HTML and JavaScript. We agree that SharePoint 2010 improves usability, but if ultimate efficiency and precision are desired, Mindbreeze is the best solution for search and information access.
Emily Rae Aldridge, November 4, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Google Amazon Dust Bunnies
October 13, 2011
The addled goose has a bum eye, more air miles than a 30 something IBM sales engineer, and lousy Internet connectivity. T Mobile’s mobile WiFi sharing gizmo is a door stop. Imagine my surprise when I read “Google Engineer: “Google+ Example of Our Complete Failure to Understand Platforms.” In one webby write up, the dust bunnies at Google and Amazon were moved from beneath the bed to the white nylon carpet of a private bed chamber.
I am not sure the information in the article is spot on. Who can certain about the validity of any information any longer. The goose cannot. But the write up reveals that Amazon is an organization with political “infighting”. What’s new? Nothing. Google, on the other hand, evidences a bit of reflexivity. I will not drag the Motorola Mobility event into this brief write up, but students of business may find that acquisition worth researching.
Here is the snippet which caught my attention:
[A] high-profile Google engineer … mistakenly posted a long rant about working at Amazon and Google’s own issues with creating platforms on Google+. Apparently, he only wanted to share it internally with everybody at Google, but mistaken shared it publicly. For the most part, [the] post focuses on the horrors of working at Amazon, a company that is notorious for its political infighting. The most interesting part to me, though, is … [the] blunt assessment of what he perceives to be Google’s inability to understand platforms and how this could endanger the company in the long run.
I want to step back. In fact, I want to go into MBA Mbit mode.
First, this apparent management behavior is the norm in many organizations, not the companies referenced in the post.I worked for many years in the old world of big time consulting. Keep in mind that my experiences date from 1973, but management idiosyncrasies were the rule. The majority of these management gaffes took place in a slower, not digital world. Sure, speed was important. In the physics of information speed is relative. Today the perceived velocity is great and the diffusion of information adds a supercharger to routine missteps. Before getting too excited about the insights into one or two companies, most organizations today are perilously close to dysfunction. Nothing special here, but today’s environment gives what is normal some added impact. Consolidation and an absence of competition makes the stakes high. Bad decisions add a thrill to the mundane. Big decisions weigh more and can have momentum that does more quickly than a bad decision in International Harvester or NBC in the 1970s.
Second, technology invites bad decisions. Today most technologies are “hidden”, not exposed like the guts of a Model T or my mom’s hot wire toaster which produced one type of bagel—burned. Not surprisingly, even technically sophisticated managers struggle to understand the implications of a particular technical decision. To make matters worse, senior mangers have to deal with “soft” issues and technical training, even if limited, provide few beacons for the course to chart. Need some evidence. Check out the Hewlett Packard activities over the last 18 months. I routinely hear such statements as “we cannot locate the invoice” and “tell us what to do.” Right. When small things go wrong, how can the big things go right? My view is that chance is a big factor today.
Third, the rush to make the world social, collaborative, and open means that leaks, flubs, sunshine, and every other type of exposure is part of the territory.. I find it distressing that sophisticated organizations fall into big pot holes. As I write this, I am at an intelligence conference, and the rush to openness has an unexpected upside for some information professionals. With info flowing around without controls, the activities of authorities are influenced by the info bonanza. Good and bad guys have unwittingly created a situation that makes it less difficult to find the footprints of an activity. The post referenced in the source article is just one more example of what happens when information policies just don’t work. Forget trust. Even the technically adept cannot manage individual communications. Quite a lesson I surmise.
In search and content processing,the management situation is dire. Many companies are uncertain about pricing,features, services, and innovation. Some search vendors describe themselves with nonsense and Latinate constructions. Other flip flop for search to customer support to business intelligence without asking themselves, “Does this stuff actually work?” Many firms throw adjectives in front of jargon and rely on snake charming sales people to close deals. Good management or bad management? Neither. We are in status quo management with dollops of guessing and wild bets.
My take on this dust bunny matter is that we have what may be an unmanageable and ungovernable situation. No SharePoint governance conference is going to put the cat back in the bag. No single email, blog post, or news article will make a difference. Barn burned. Horse gone. Wal-Mart is building on the site. The landscape has changed. Now let the “real” consultants explain the fix. Back to the goose pond for me. Collaborate on that.
Stephen E Arnold, October 13, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
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RIM Creates BlackBerry App to Address Needs of Changing Workforce
October 11, 2011
Wireless innovation company Research in Motion (RIM), The creator of the BlackBerry Solution in 1999, has now revealed a BlackBerry Client for Microsoft Sharepoint.
In addition to being budget friendly, the BlackBerry Client app has many user benefits for individuals and businesses. User benefits include, among other things, app integration with core BlackBerry features and functions and content searches across multiple SharePoint sites.
The complete solution is also great and easy to use for IT departments with BlackBerry Enterprise Server. Many fortune 500 companies plan on using the product in the coming weeks.
According to RIM Mobilizes Microsoft SharePoint on BlackBerry, Victor Garcia, chief technology officer at HP Canada, said of the product:
In a world of continuous connectivity, businesses and governments require products, services and information faster and more reliably than ever before. The BlackBerry Client for Microsoft SharePoint helps to address the needs of today’s mobile workforce with new tools and mobile applications to enable collaboration and productivity.
Mobile computing remains a challenge for enterprises. The applications such as this one from RIM offer tantalizing promises. Is the hardware up to delivering the functionality promised by such apps? Searching Sharepoint on the go a necessary function, perhaps, a delivered solution, it remains to be seen.
Jasmine Ashton, Oct 11, 2011
Funnelback Tunes in Telstra
September 15, 2011
Telstra recently announced its new telecommunications site, www.nowwearetalking.com.au, will be hosted by Funnelback, as reported in the article, Funnelback Launches New Search for Telstra, on Blog Hosting Info. Telstra, Australia’s leading provider of telecommunications and information services, provides basic telephone services, mobile phone services as well as broadband and internet. They pride themselves on their vast geographical coverage of mobile and fixed network infrastructure, and provide
The Funnelback technology, which is a commercial product for sure, will allow users of the new site to search within blog posts, comments, forum posts, and online discussions for information. Funnelback’s promise to clients is that their services “comprehensively tailor the search facility to deliver on your business objectives.”
Funnelback offers commercial search engine services that help companies manage their online activities. As their website explains,
Funnelback can search across a myriad of corporate content repositories including websites, intranets, shared drives, SharePoint, Email systems and databases. For additional flexibility, it can be deployed as a fully managed, SaaS solution, installed within your firewall or hosted in the cloud. No matter how large or small your organization, we can tailor a solution to suit your business needs and information architecture.
As more and more digital data is being sent and received within companies, the need for content management grows. Companies, such as Funnelback, help maximize production and worker effectiveness by allowing humans to work on higher-level thinking projects and the computers sort through the myriad of data.
Catherine Lamsfuss, September 15, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com, publishers of The New Landscape of Enterprise Search
OpenText: Search to Teaching Is Not the Deal about Selling Services?
September 8, 2011
Another data management, search, collaboration vendor does the “we are in a new business” quick step. Searching with the Stars could be a TV sensation because there are more twists, dips, and slides in the search and content ballroom than in an Arthur Murray Advanced Beginners’ class.
Navigate to “Open Text acquires Peterborough’s Operitel”. The news is that one Canadian firm snapped up another Canadian outfit. What makes this interesting is that I was able to see some weak-force synergy between Nstein (sort of indexing and sort of data management) and OpenText, owner of lots of search, content processing, and collaboration stuff plus an SGML database and the BASIS system. But the Operitel buy has me doing some speculative thinking.
Here’s the passage which caught my attention:
Operitel’s flagship LearnFlex product is built on Microsoft Corp.’s .NET platform and is a top tier e-learning reseller for the Windows maker. Open Text also has a long standing partnership with Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft.
I see more Microsoft credibility and a different way to sell services. OpenText strikes me as a company with a loosely or mostly non integrated line up of products. The future looks to be charging into the SharePoint sector, riding a horse called “eLearning.”
In today’s business climate, organic growth seems to be tough to achieve even with RedDot and a fruit basket filled with other technologies. (What happened to OpenText’s collaboration product? What happened to the legal workflow business? I just don’t know.) So how does a company which some Canadians at Industry Canada see as one of the country’s most important software companies grow? Here’s the answer:
Open Text’s growth-by-acquisition strategy has recently won accolades among the analyst community. The company purchased Maryland-based Metastorm Inc. for US$182-million, Texas-based Global 360 Holding Corp. for US$260-million and U.K.-based WeComm Ltd. for an undisclosed amount all in the past six months.
My hunch is that OpenText may want to find a buyer. Acquisitions seem to be a heck of a lot easier to complete than landing a major new account. I am not the only person thinking that the business of OpenText is cashing out. Point your browser at “Amid Takeover Fever, Open Text Looks Like a Bargain.” Here’s a key point in my opinion:
Open Text shares have climbed about 20 per cent this year, an increase that would pale in comparison to what would happen if a potential buyer emerged offering a premium similar to what HP has given Autonomy.
So we see a big payday for Autonomy has triggered a sympathetic response at the Globe & Mail, among “analysts”, and I am pretty sure among some OpenText stakeholders.
Several observations:
First, bankers think mostly about their commissions and fees. Bankers don’t think so much about other aspects of a deal. If there is a buck to be made from a company with a burlap sack of individual, solutions, and services, the bankers will go for it. Owning a new Porsche takes the edge off the winter.
Second, competitors have learned that other companies are a far greater threat than OpenText. A services firm can snag some revenue, but other vendors have been winning the big deals. The OpenText strategy has not generated the top line revenue growth and profit that a handful of other companies in search and content processing have achieved. So the roll up and services play looks like a way to add some zip to the burlap bag’s contents.
Third, customers have learned that OpenText does not move with the agility of some other firms. I would not use the word “glacial,” but “stately” seems appropriate. If you know someone with the RedDot system, you may be able to relate to the notion of rapid bug fixes and point releases. By the way, RedDot used to install an Autonomy stub as the default search engine. I find this interesting because OpenText owns BRS search, Fulcrum (yikes!), and the original Tim Bray SGML data management and search system. (Has SGML and XML come and gone?)
I am not willing to go out on a limb about a potential sale of OpenText, but I think that the notion of eLearning is interesting. Will OpenText shift its focus back to collaboration and document management much as Coveo flipped from search to mobile search to customer support and then back to search again. Canadian search and content processing vendors are interesting. Strike up the music. Another fast dance is beginning. Grab your partner. Search to services up next.
Stephen E Arnold, September 9, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com, publishers of The New Landscape of Enterprise Search
Simplexo Search
January 3, 2011
Short honk: I learned about Simplexo earlier this year. The company provides “optimized search for your mobile.” The company has a product that makes it possible for a user of Simplexo to search a desktop computer from a mobile device or a Web browser. Yahoo UK reported in “Simplexo Aims to Simplify Remote Desktop Searches”:
Simplexo said that the software could find emails in Outlook and Exchange Server, as well as documents in SharePoint, spreadsheets and database records, and can scour social networking applications such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
The service is to go live early in 2011. If you are interested in this type of product, navigate to this link and sign up.
Stephen E Arnold, January 3, 2011
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Anti Search in 2011
November 1, 2010
In a recent meeting, several of the participants were charged with disinformation from the azurini.
You know. Azurini, the consultants.
Some of these were English majors, others former print journalists, and some unemployed search engine optimization experts smoked by Google Instant.
But mostly the azurini emphasize that their core competency is search, content management, or information governance (whatever the heck that means). In a month or so, there will be a flood of trend write ups. When the Roman god looks to his left and right, the signal for prognostication flashes through the fabric covered cube farms.
To get ahead of the azurini, the addled goose wants to identify the trends in anti search for 2011. Yep, anti search. Remember that in a Searcher article several years ago, I asserted that search was dead. No one believed me, of course. Instead of digging into the problems that ranged from hostile users to the financial meltdown of some high profile enterprise search vendors, search was the big deal.
And why not? No one can do a lick of work today unless that person can locate a document or “find” something to jump start activity. In a restaurant, people talk less and commune with their mobile devices. Search is on a par with food, a situation that Maslow would find interesting.
The idea for this write up emerged from a meeting a couple of weeks ago. The attendees were trying to figure out how to enhance an existing enterprise search system in order to improve the productivity of the business. The goal was admirable, but the company was struggling to generate revenues and reduce costs.The talk was about search but the subtext was survival.
The needs for the next generation search system included:
- A great user experience
- An iPad app to deliver needed information
- Seamless access to Web and Intranet information
- Google-like performance
- Improved indexing and metatagging
- Access to database content and unstructured information like email.
Intel Stream Number 2 Available
October 27, 2010
ArnoldIT.com’s Intel Stream podcast for October 27, 2010, is now available. The podcast focuses on the intersection of business intelligence and technology. In this week’s 10 minute program, Stephen E Arnold comments about the proposal for the US government to archive Federal workers’ social media postings and content, T-Mobile’s surprising acquisition of Vamosa, Recommind’s 2010 revenues revealed by a competitor, an online SharePoint 2010 cost estimator, and a free download of sentiment analysis software. You can listen to the audio program by navigating to http://arnoldit.com/podcasts/ and clicking on the October 27, 2010 Intel Stream program.
Stuart Schram IV, October 27, 2010
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Azurini Lock In Analysis Baffles the Goose
August 3, 2010
I know, I know. Consulting firms have to be “real” and “objective” and “mavenesque.” I accept that. But the write up “Burton Group: Avoid Office 2010 Lock-In, Stick with Office 2007” wowed me. Microsoft buys lots of consulting, research, and advice. As a result, those who want to get jobs with the Redmond fun lovers often find a way to put a honey colored light on almost any product, service, or initiative. How many raves did I read about Vista? How many times have I heard about the wonders of MSN, now Live something? How many times have I heard experts explain the impact of Microsoft’s mobile strategy, its search strategy, its social strategy, its cloud strategy, and other strategies. The addled goose sure does not generate $70 billion a year in revenue and Microsoft does. So, guess who is really smart? Time’s up. Microsoft.
But a consulting firm criticizing Microsoft albeit somewhat indirectly? That is amazing, and it means to me that maybe the fondness Microsoft once felt for Burton has faded. Maybe Burton no longer loves Microsoft? Maybe there are other forces in play? Who knows.
What is clear is that Burton suggests an organization that embraces Office 2010 may be a candidate for lock in. Lock in means that a vendor calls the shots, not the client. The only way to get free is to break out. In fact, that’s one of the appeals of open source software. An organization using open source software believes it has more freedom than when chained to a giant SharePoint installation, an even bigger Microsoft Exchange construct, and the 40 other servers that Microsoft has on offer.
My view is that Microsoft is not the only enterprise software vendor looking to get shelf space and then become a monoculture in a client organization. Does IBM seek to monopolize hardware, software, and services? In my experience, you better understand the way Big Blue operates before your local IBM vice president gets a temporary office down the hall from your company’s president. Same with the Google.
So what strikes me as interesting is not the lock in angle. That’s old news. The criticism of a big outfit like Microsoft has caught my attention. Is one of the azurini changing colors?
Stephen E Arnold, August 3, 2010
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