Community Discussion on Microsoft Suite of 2013 Preview Releases

August 9, 2012

Kurt Mackie comments on the new SharePoint 2013 in his recent Microsoft Certified Professional Magazine post, “Microsoft Releases Previews of Office 2013, SharePoint 2013, and Exchange 2013.”

Mackie explains the recent preview releases from Microsoft:

Those previews include 2013 versions of SharePoint, Exchange, Lync, Office Web Apps Server, Project, Visio and Office Professional Plus. Microsoft has a single portal for downloading those trial applications, which can be found at its new Office site page here. Those releases come a day after Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Kirk Koenigsbauer, corporate vice president of the Microsoft Office Division, officiated over the launch of the next Office 365, which includes an actual service-enabled version of the full Microsoft Office productivity suite.

The author also discusses possible points of confusion among Office 365 as a service and as a premises-installed Office version. Only recently has Office 365 become cloud enabled. Mackie finishes up his article with a few comments on SharePoint 2013 and Exchange 2013 improvements, with enhanced social networking capabilities in SharePoint being a highlight. With the community buzzing about the new releases, the read may be worth it for you to stay in the loop.

But while you consider migrating options to new versions and new features, look to enrich your system now with a comprehensive and lean solution. Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise provides consistent and comprehensive information access to both corporate and Cloud sources. The seamless Cloud solution makes sure you find the right information you need at any time. Check out the full suite of solutions at Fabasoft Mindbreeze.

Philip West, August 9, 2012

Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext

Brief Recap of Office 2013 Preview Features

August 3, 2012

In “Capturing the Highlights of Office 2013,” some of the main features from the recently released Office 2013 preview are discussed. The author has this to share on new social capabilities:

Microsoft has enhanced the social networking capabilities in SharePoint 2013 and plans to integrate Yammer’s enterprise social networking capabilities when that acquisition closes. Microsoft announced a $US1.2 billion purchase of Yammer in June. There are new social networking features in SharePoint 2013 that provide Facebook-like ways to follow, “like”, and reply to the status of files, sites, tags, and users. The software will suggest items to follow and can aggregate outside feeds from Facebook and LinkedIn.

SkyDrive Pro, team folders, and Case Management site features set for SharePoint 2013 are also discussed. The brief read may be worth a glance to keep up with the new features coming in Office 2013 suite.

SharePoint is a powerful and complex system, and new features are exciting. But an out-of-the-box system is rarely comprehensive. For a lean and complete solution in your SharePoint environment, check out Fabasoft Mindbreeze. Here you can read about the power of information pairing.

Fabasoft Mindbreeze:

 . . . smoothly integrates itself into your website so that the user doesn’t even realize that Cloud services are working in the background. Furthermore, InSite always knows what a user is interested in. Navigation behavior on the website serves as the basis for recognizing their interests. If the user finds themselves on one of your sub-pages on the topic mobility for example, even at this level Fabasoft Mindbreeze InSite still displays further information such as blogs, news, Wikipedia etc. on the relevant topic.

Check out the full suite of solutions at Mindbreeze to see what works for you.

Philip West, August 3, 2012

Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext

IBM Concerned with Personal Mobile Device Security

June 8, 2012

In an age where technology is moving completely towards mobile, including enterprise and content management solutions, concerns about security are valid and growing.  General security awareness regarding mobile technology has not yet caught up to the level that is assumed for desktop or in-network computing.

David Roe gives a full report for CMS Wire in, “IBM Curtails Use of Personal Mobile Devices Over Unsecured App Fears.”

According to an article in the MIT Technology Review, IBM is stopping employees from using their own portable devices in the IBM workplace.

Some of the concern is about business intelligence and keeping a tight lid on proprietary information.

Public file transfer systems like Dropbox have been banned as has Apple’s iCloud; instead, employees use an IBM-hosted version called MyMobileHub as, Horan says, there is the possibility that internal, sensitive information will get loose and into the wild.  Also getting the chop is Apple’s personal assistant Siri based on fears that confidential information will get out. It seems that the licensing agreement says that anything recorded using the app will also be recorded by Apple servers so you can see why IBM might be nervous.

However, this opens up a broader discussion about the security of mobile devices and software, and its continued usage for business essentials such as enterprise search.  SharePoint deployments are common, but secure means to access the farm remotely are plagued with security concerns.  Some third party solutions are doing a good job of anticipating the need and bridging the gap.

We like Fabasoft Mindbreeze and their attention to the mobility needs of the enterprise.

Smartphones and tablets allow you to act quickly in business matters – an invaluable competitive advantage.  Fabasoft Mindbreeze Mobile makes company knowledge available on all mobile devices. You can act freely, independently and yet always securely. Irrespective of what format the data is in.  Full functionality: Search results are displayed homogenously to the web client with regards to clear design and intuitive navigation.

Keep an eye on Fabasoft Mindbreeze and their ability to adapt quickly to the ever changing needs of SharePoint users or enterprise newcomers.

Emily Rae Aldridge, June 8, 2012

Sponsored by Pandia.com

EPiServer Snaps Up Enterprise Search Solution Provider 200OK AB

May 14, 2012

EPiServer is trying to figure out how to make content findable– a long standing problem in content management systems, particularly for SharePoint centric systems. To that end, The Wall Street Journal’s Market Watch reports, “EPiServer Acquires 200OK AB, and Enterprise Search Solution Provider.”

The terms of the deal have not been disclosed. The press release explains:

“200OK AB’s ‘Truffler’ product scales to handle large amounts of information — including user data, social and mobile web content, and product and online transaction data. The solution applies next-generation data management strategies, wherein organizing content and unstructured data are key to streamlined content delivery. With this purchase, EPiServer creates the opportunity for organizations to reduce the boundaries between a website and content housed in other sources by making that data available to the business user or content owner.”

200OK AB is based in Sweden. Truffler technology supports a SaaS solution and promises to hasten time-to-market for new online initiatives. It also pledges speedy deployment and short release cycles for new business solutions.

Also headquartered in Sweden, EPiServer was formed in 1994. The Web content management company emphasizes what they call the four C’s of online engagement: content, community, commerce, and communication. They also host EPiServer World, a developer community with over 15,000 members.

Our view: Why not use the PolySpot system?

Cynthia Murrell, May 14, 2012

Sponsored by PolySpot

Ontology Systems Bests Vivisimo and Information Optimization

May 8, 2012

I read “Ontology Systems Set to Unveil OSS/BSS Intelligence Semantic Search Apps at Management World 2012.” The write up focuses on a forthcoming announcement of technology for “enterprise data alignment.”

When I read this, I thought of IBM Vivisimo’s “information optimization” catchphrase. I am not exactly sure what information optimization means. I think I am unclear about OSS BSS intelligent semantic search apps for enterprise data alignment. The Ontology Systems’ Web site includes detailed information about the company’s method.

My hunch this technology is a search system with semantic functions. The company describes itself this way:

Ontology Systems have caused Communications Service Providers (CSPs) to rethink the way they find and align customer, equipment and service information. CSPs spend vast sums of money attempting to do this via integration but getting usable results is hard. The world’s largest misaligned system is the Internet and you search the Internet. Ontology believes you should search your systems too.

The benefits of the company’s approach are explained in terms of an “ontology” seasoned approach:

Using state-of-the-art semantic search technologies, Ontology quickly finds and aligns business entities in operational, business and infrastructure systems. We provide a single, accurate, enterprise-wide view of customers, services and network assets.  An organization using OSS BSS intelligent semantic search apps for enterprise data alignment can, according to the write up, “increase profit and reduce costs by preventing revenue leaks, improving service management, enhancing customer experience, maximizing network assets and improving the speed and accuracy of migration.”

The conclusion which the company suggests for me is “Ontology is semantic search for Enterprise Data Alignment.”

Stepping back, I had several observations:

  1. Vivisimo’s use of “information optimization” allowed IBM to perceive Vivisimo as a “big data” company. My hunch is that with a phrase which is ambiguous, convincing a cash rich purchaser to buy becomes easier. There are no pesky concrete explanations to block a “pivot” or deft repositioning. The Ontology Systems’ catchphrase is, to me, similar to Vivisimo’s choice of words.
  2. I am not sure what the undefined acronyms mean. I thought briefly about trying to untangle the “OSS BSS” pair, but if the writer did not explain them, it is not important to an addled goose. A brief explanation to an uninformed reader such as I was obviously unnecessary for the company’s target market.
  3. The “ontology” buzzword is used without associations to big data, analytics, and social media. Most of the articles I read about enterprise semantics are shifting from the taxonomy/ontology hooks to concepts which are getting more sales traction. There is a notable example of a well known Microsoft centric vendor scrambling to find a market positioning that captures SharePoint licensees’ interest. Ontology Systems seems to have a unique angle to make money with an ontology centric approach.

You can keep up with some of the vendors in the taxonomy and ontology sector with a subset of our Overflight service. Take a look at our free subsite http://www.arnoldit.com/taxonomy/. When you click on a company name, you can determine if the company is active in the market and get an indication of what is being said about the firm. We will add Ontology Systems to the public facing service so you can track this firm with a mouse click.

Stephen E Arnold, May 7, 2012

Sponsored by PolySpot

Yammer Embraces Search

May 2, 2012

An enterprise social vendor is jumping into search: BrainyardNews announces, “Yammer Update Emphasizes Enterprise, Cloud Search.” Since search vendors are jumping into almost anything with the merest whiff of money, I guess it makes sense for enterprise social network provider Yammer to pursue search. BrainYard editor David F. Carr writes:

“Yammer is introducing ‘universal search,’ along with an option for project or interest groups within a Yammer enterprise social network to sign up for services without necessarily enlisting the company as a whole. . . . To Yammer, universal search makes it possible to search across connections to both enterprise and cloud-based systems integrated with a Yammer network. For example, a search by customer name might turn up automated updates from Salesforce.com, SAP, and a Microsoft SharePoint site, as well as posts by users about that company.”

Uniquely, Yammer saves space by indexing only the metadata coming into a feed, rather than the underlying data, though full-text indexing may appear in the future. The basic social network service is free, and a la carte pricing for premium options gives customers some flexibility.

The new features are part of the spring update Yammer released this month. Other components include: a new tagging method; a Web part that integrates with MS Office 365; updated mobile apps; and the Yammer Embed feature, now moving up from its beta existence.

Launched in 2008, Yammer pioneered the use of secure, private social networks for the purpose of collaboration. More than 80% of Fortune 500 companies currently use the company’s services.

Cynthia Murrell, May 2, 2012

Sponsored by PolySpot

Microsoft Watched and Learned as Markets Matured Over the Years

April 10, 2012

There are currently over 125 million SharePoint users and the goal is to reach 500 million with next release of Office. It is clear SharePoint is a ubiquitous system that continues to grow. And with consumers driving social and mobile demands, it is clear that SharePoint, and all of enterprise search, needs to keep up with the growing demand. Jeff Shuey continues the SharePoint mobile and social discussion in his post, “Social SharePoint – An Oxymoron?

Shuey had this to say,

I wrote a post in 2009 asking — Is Microsoft late to the game? The answer then was yes. However, over the last few years the market has matured and Microsoft has watched and learned. They have taken the long standing Microsoft mantra of Any Place, Any Device and Any Time and have applied some SharePoint salve to it. As the Forbes article states … Microsoft is in a prime position to make it happen.

This is by no means the first discussion on social demands in the enterprise search world, but Shuey does add another interesting level to the discussion by bringing in other sources, like Forbes, and quotes and expert opinions.

Collaboration and social technology development is inevitable as business gets social. To tap into the new possibilities now without having to wait for a new release, consider a third party solution to complete your enterprise search system. We like Fabasoft Mindbreeze. The Mindbreeze solution:

. . . smoothly integrates itself into your website so that the user doesn’t even realize that Cloud services are working in the background. Furthermore, InSite always knows what a user is interested in. Navigation behavior on the website serves as the basis for recognizing their interests. If the user finds themselves on one of your sub-pages on the topic mobility for example, even at this level Fabasoft Mindbreeze InSite still displays further information such as blogs, news, Wikipedia etc. on the relevant topic.

Check out the full suite of solutions at Mindbreeze to see what works for you.

Philip West, April 10, 2012

Sponsored by Pandia.com

Search Vendors and Web Traffic

April 4, 2012

I was fiddling around with Compete.com, a Web analytics outfit. One of the company’s services is to provide usage statistics for urls. I have no idea if these data are in line with the vendors’ Web logs, but one can look at a number of sites’ traffic and do some rough comparisons. You can try the service at www.compete.com. The tables below present some of the data I examined. Vendors, don’t write to tell me Compete data are incorrect. We are looking at data generated by a method. I am not selecting data to make your Web site magnetism weak.

Company Traffic (2- 2012) Comment
Attensity 974 Conferences and news releases
Attivio 973 White papers
Autonomy 12597 Full court press method
BA Insight 0 Microsoft and webinars
Brainware 857 News releases
Concept Searching 0 Webinars
Connotate 5025 News releases and analyst support
Content Analyst 321 Some conference participation
Coveo 2034 Traditional PR
Dieselpoint 1880 Web site
dtSearch 5208 Free downloads
Easy Ask 472 News releases
Endeca 3900 Analyst support
Exalead 20494 Full court press method
Exorbyte 11486 News releases
Funnelback 2640 News releases and conference partici- pation
Hakia 7891 News releases
Lexalytics 710 News releases
Linguamatics 0 Web site
MarkLogic 1088 Full court press method
Recommind 3964 News releases aimed at trade publications
SearchBlox 0 Web site
Sinequa 0 Web site
Vivisimo 7324 News releases
ZyLAB 0 Full court press method
X1 5589 Web site
X1 Discovery 2575 Web site

Here is this sample’s alleged traffic from most traffic to least traffic:

Company Traffic (Feb 2012) Comment
Exalead 20,494 Full court press method
Autonomy 12,597 Full court press method
Exorbyte 11,486 News releases
Hakia 7,891 News releases
Vivisimo 7,324 News releases
X1 5,589 Web site
dtSearch 5,208 Free downloads
Connotate 5,025 News releases and analyst support
Recommind 3,964 News releases aimed at trade publications
Endeca 3,900 Analyst support
Funnelback 2,640 News releases and conference partici-pation
X1 Discovery 2,575 Web site
Coveo 2,034 Traditional PR
Dieselpoint 1,880 Web site
MarkLogic 1,088 Full court press method
Attensity 974 Conferences and news releases
Attivio 973 White papers
Brainware 857 News releases
Lexalytics 710 News releases
Easy Ask 472 News releases
Content Analyst 321 Some conference participation
BA Insight 0 Microsoft and webinars
Concept Searching 0 Webinars
Linguamatics 0 Web site
SearchBlox 0 Web site
Sinequa 0 Web site
ZyLAB 0 Full court press method

Several observations:

  1. There is little correlation between having a Web site and traffic. If you build it, no one may come. Search engine optimization experts are not able to deliver the chunky granola bar stuffed with sales leads I surmise.
  2. Traffic, even for the leaders Exalead (Dassault Systèmes) and Autonomy (Hewlett Packard) is modest when compared to the traffic to the main Dassault and the HP main Web sites. Dassault’s traffic is reported as 56,164 and HP’s, 13,856,775. My thought is that search and content processing is not the home run some folks assume it will be. I don’t think effective search is a commodity. I think search is not hot as other fields; e.g., analytics.
  3. The different marketing methods in use work in some cases and in others not at all. A good example are those companies with Web site traffic so low that Compete.com reports zero traffic. The little known Exorbyte generates an alleged 11,486 while the marketing calisthenics of Webinar centric marketing (BA Insight and Concept Searching) and the open source approach (SearchBlox) yield little traffic. What happens when one marketing method doesn’t perform? Most vendors just try something else. When something works,  vendors just keep doing it until it no longer works. Rinse, repeat.

More work needs to be done to figure out what generates traffic to a group of companies which appear to have modest traction even with the backing of major companies (e.g., Endeca is owned by Oracle). Some of these companies have expensive public relations programs in place. I don’t know how much firms such as MarkLogic and Recommind spend on the flow of news releases, special events, and trade publication by lined articles, but the traffic seems to be an issue.

My thought is that most of the vendors in the search and content processing space face what I would characterize as a “crisis” in marketing. None of the activities produce blockbuster traffic. Obviously, if a Web site has a single unique visitor and that visitor places a $20 million order, the Web site worked. My hunch is that some of these companies are going to kick into what I call “desperation marketing” mode. I see this when I get mindless faux “news” announcements from PR firms stuffed with failed middle school teachers, unemployed socialogy graduate students, and “real” journalists whose magazine or newspaper nuked itself.

“Desperation marketing” is the outcome of watching costs for each sales contact go up without a comparable increase in the close rate. If sales come only when there is cost cutting to win the job, then the financial situation becomes increasingly charged. Desperation marketing leads to rich search engine optimization consultants and white paper work for the “pay to play” consultants. (Yes, this is the coloring agent for the azure chip consulting herd.) Have you heard of webinar fatigue? I have it. How many SharePoint webinars do I need to sit in on to know that SharePoint is a complex and often irritable beastie? Webinar fatigue is what causes a potential attendee to sign up, listen for five minutes, and then move on to checking a Facebook page. Some companies would do better to put the thing on video and go with a YouTube channel with a “register to win a bagel” inducement on a special landing page.

Search and content processing vendors need more than hit-and-miss marketing activities. If I were responsible for a search and content processing company, I would be looking for different ways to generate visibility and sales leads.

A Web site alone won’t do the job. Traditional PR seems to work in some cases and does not work in others. The variable, of course, is the talent of the PR professional and the value proposition the company sets forth. Get the PR wrong or the message wrong, and PR becomes a hit and miss investment. SEO appeared to me to be part of each of these companies’ Web presence. I also have a tally of which of these companies make use of blogs and social media like Twitter, which I may summarize in another blog post. But the data suggest to me that social media is no panacea either. Traditional marketing and PR are expensive, unreliable, and an okay reaction to competitors’ actions.

Is there another path? We think there are some new methods. One interesting one is the Augmentext service. It is worth a quick look.

In the meantime, if you are trying to close deals using a Web site and some old fashioned methods, you may find yourself under increasing pressure. Replacing company presidents, hiring a Mad Ave agency, or signing on with a slick self appointed expert—these are standard methods. The issue becomes making them work in a tough economic and competitive environment.

Stephen E Arnold, April 4, 2012

Sponsored by Pandia.com

Accessing Unstructured Data across Various Platforms of Digitally Published Content

March 23, 2012

One of the key components to successful collaboration is the accessibility of the digitally published content in the information environment, whether it is a wiki, portal, document, blog, etc. In “Communities vs. Portals, Blogs, Wikis, Documents, and More,” the author weighs-in on the issue as it relates to providing relevant and dynamic information to users in an effective way.

The author had this to say:

Communities encourage participation by definition as much as they allow for consumption. And activity streams provide an easy and efficient way to aggregate, consume, share, and engage. With that said, some people like to see a bunch of boxes on a web page in a dashboard / newspaper type view. Fair enough…Of course the value of that information in the portal becomes much less because people can only consume in a traditional portal vs. taking some type of action to collaborate on or share the information & knowledge you have just gained.

The author argues for providing all users, even the ones that don’t yet embrace social business and stick to static publishing, with the ability to subscribe and share. If you have vast amounts of unstructured data in your organization, look to increase the value of your information assets with a third party solution, like Fabasoft Mindbreeze.

No matter where your information is held, on-premise or in the Cloud, Mindbreeze search allows users to easily find and access business knowledge. Here you can read about the user-friendly interface that your tech-laggard users will appreciate.

The Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise user interface is based on Web 2.0 technology and combines simplicity with elegance. The operation is self-explanatory. Work just as you are used to. Access your data from anywhere. Also on smartphones and tablets. Elegant design, easy operation. With you wherever you are. Find and access your enterprise and cloud information straight away.

So while experts in the field continue to discuss ways to increase user adoption through dynamic portals, Fabasoft Mindbreeze is a comprehensive search solution with an intuitive interface out-of-the-box that you can deploy now.

Philip West, March 23, 2012

Sponsored by Pandia.com

Are Search Vendors Embracing Desperation PR?

March 12, 2012

The addled goose is in recovery mode. I have been keeping my feathers calm and unruffled. I am maintaining a low profile. I have undertaken no travel for 2.5 months. I just float amidst the detritus of my pond filled with mine drainage run off. I don’t send spam. I don’t make sales calls. I don’t talk on the phone unless someone pays me. In short, I am out of gas, at the end of the trail, and ready for my goose to be cooked, but I want to express an opinion about desperation marketing as practiced by public relation professionals and PR firms’ search related clients.

A mine drainage pond. I stay here. I mind my business. I don’t spam unlike AtomicPR and Voce Communications type firms. In general, I bristle at desperation marketing, sales, and public relations.

Imagine my reaction when I get unsolicited email from a PR firm such as Porter Novelli. This Porter Novelli PR firm is my newest plight.  Mercifully AtomicPR has either removed me from its spam list or figured out that I sell time just like an attorney but write about PR spam with annoying regularity.

The Porter Novelli outfit owns something call Voce Communications. Voce thinks I am a “real” journalist. I have been called many things, but “journalist” is a recent and inaccurate appellation. The only problem is that I sell time. In my opinion, “real” journalists mostly look for jobs, pretend to be experts on almost anything in the dictionary, worry about getting fired, or browse the franchise ads looking for the next Taco Bell type opportunity.

Spamming me and then reprimanding me for charging for my time are characteristics of what I call desperation marketing. In the last six months, desperation marketing is the latest accoutrement of the haute couture in PR saucisson. Deperation PR is either in vogue or a concomitant of what some describe as a “recovering economy.”

Here’s the scoop: I received an email wanting me to listen to some corporate search engine big wigs tell me about their latest and greatest software widget. The idea, even when I am paid to endure such pression de gonflage is tiring. When someone wants me to participate in a webinar, the notion is downright crazy. I usually reply, “Go away.”

To the Voce “expert” I fired off an email pointing the spammer  to my cv (www.arnoldit.com/sitemap.html) and the About page of this blog. Usually the former political science major or failed middle school teacher replies, “We saw that you were a journalist in a list of bloggers.” After this lame comment, the PR Sasha or Trent stops moves on. No such luck with Voce’s laser minded desperation PR pro.

Here’s what I received:

[Bunny Rabbit] on behalf of EntropySoft.  We have not yet had an opportunity to work together formally yet, but I wanted to reach out to you to see if we can arrange a conversation for you with the executives at EntropySoft – a company that I know you are familiar with given your recent conversation with BA Insights (which is an EntropySoft partner that uses our connector technology) and I know that you have mentioned EntropySoft in past articles for KMWorld.

The advantage that EntropySoft brings to the market is that through the use of its connector technology, EntropySoft can help companies make sense of unstructured data (or as you describe it – tsunami!)  ensuring that IT teams can not only access or connect to just about everything worth connecting to in the KM universe, but that they can also act on it.  Each EntropySoft connection is bi-directional: teams can access and act on everything. So from a SharePoint standpoint, EntropySoft’s connectors can now connect to everything in SharePoint (we just made news on this last week at the SPTechConference in San Francisco, see press release below) enabling search through FAST for SharePoint or the SharePoint Search Server Portal engine, as well as any other enterprise content management systems.

Do you have some available time on your calendar in the next week to have a phone conversation with EntropySoft?  Please let me know what works for you.

Okay, I sure do know about EntropySoft. I have French clients. The two top chiens at EntropySoft know me and find me less than delectable. In the last year, the company has gunned its engine with additional financing, but for me, the outfit provides code widgets which hook one system to another. Useful stuff, but I am not going to flap my feathers in joy about this type of technology. Connectors are available from Oracle, open source, and outfits in Germany and India. Connector technology is important, but it is like many utility-centric technologies—out of sight and out of mind until the exception folder overflows. Then connectors get some attention. How often do you think about exporting an RFT 1.6 file from Framemaker? Exactly. Connectors. There but not the bell of the ball at the technology prom.

A book promoted on the Voce Communications Web site. I was not offered a “free” copy. I bet the book is for sale, just like my time. What would happen if I call the author and asked for a free copy? Hmmm.

Read more

« Previous PageNext Page »

  • Archives

  • Recent Posts

  • Meta