Microsoft Gives Users Better Features in Update
October 2, 2013
Microsoft decided it was time to give its SharePoint Cloud users more features, says ZDNet in “Microsoft Raises SharePoint Online Upload Limits To 2 GB, Allows .Exe Uploads.” What is exciting users the most is the upload size has been changed from the miniscule 250 MB to 2 GB. In a world where users are producing more video and image driven content the measly 250 MB could not handle user content. Other updates include an extended period for files in the recycling bin, more file types are supported, and raised limits on site collection and list lookup thresholds.
The update is a big jump for SharePoint Cloud users, who have been working with the equivalent of a basic package for years. While users are happy about the update, there are security concerns will the new file additions:
“Addressing security concerns that could arise from allowing users to upload .exe and .dll files, Microsoft notes that SharePoint will “not execute any arbitrary EXEs or DLLs” uploaded by users from a team site or SkyDrive Pro account. It points out that SharePoint only accepts uploads from authenticated users and has Microsoft’s inbuilt AV engine amongst other layers of defense.”
It is all taken care of nice and neat. Microsoft is looking to improve SharePoint user experience and they are on the right track. Stephen Arnold of Arnold IT, a renowned search expert, wonders how search will be handled with the upgrade. They may need to beef it up just like the other features.
Whitney Grace, October 02, 2013
Tahoe Partners are Microsoft Business Critical
September 28, 2013
Tahoe Partners is a Chicago-based consulting firm that was recently awarded as a Microsoft Business-Critical SharePoint program. You can read all the details in the press release, “Tahoe Partners Selected to Microsoft Business Critical SharePoint Program.”
The article gives a little more information about the BCSP program:
“The Business-Critical SharePoint (BCSP) partner program is focused on expanding the market for building and delivering business-critical solutions by connecting line-of-business (LOB) systems with SharePoint.”
But according to Stephen E. Arnold, an industry leader in search technologies, a SharePoint stamp of approval does not go very far these days. In his article, “Software: Its Dark Side and Search,” Arnold states the trouble with current enterprise search options:
“Findability is not making much progress. I am not sure the developers are to blame. Computational boundaries, the complexity of language, and the ‘needs’ of the busy worker contribute to systems which are increasingly alike. The enterprise search systems are equally useful and equally disappointing. Good business for consultants and technical wellness staff comes from the present situation.”
So perhaps the Microsoft BCSP is just an acknowledgement that SharePoint only works well when supplemented and augmented.
Emily Rae Aldridge, September 28, 2013
Dassault Reaches to Australia New Zealand
September 12, 2013
I have lost track of Dassault, a firm which acquired Exalead a few years ago. Exalead dropped off my radar with its cloud approach to 360 degree information access. I do get an annual request for me to listen without compensation to a “briefing” about the Exalead technology. I have severe webinar fatigue, and I have a tough time differentiating the marketing pitches from different search vendors. As I approach 70 years of age, the diagrams strike me as interchangeable. The terminology used reminds me of a cheerleading session. The PowerPoints are little more than placards saying, “Big Data, Analytics, NoSQL, CRM. Go Team.” The only thing missing from the briefings is a band and hard data about strong revenue and profits generated by the company’s must-have products.
Search is repositioning in an effort to avoid marginalization. Most of the go-to customers already have up to five enterprise search systems. My hunch is that most large organizations are unaware of the total number of “findability” and “business intelligence” systems in their organizations.
Vendors, recognizing a saturated market, have had to either sell out (Brainware, Endeca, Exalead, Fast Search & Transfer, ISYS Search, and Vivisimo) or jump from one buzzword to another in a quest for additional venture funding and revenue.
Cheerleading is show business. Image courtesy of the US Department of Defense at http://www.defense.gov/News/NewsArticle.aspx?ID=44522
I read “Firstservis Partners Dassault Systèmes to Push Big Data App.” The write up said:
The 3DEXPERIENCE platform brings structure, meaning and accessibility to data across the heterogeneous enterprise information cloud and combines the sophisticated search, access and reporting typically associated with databases with the speed, scalability and simplicity of the Web.
More interesting to me is the reason for this jump to Big Data. According to the write up:
“Their decision to re-platform their business on EXALEAD applications was then validated by Gartner’s 2013 Magic Quadrant Report where the brand was named as the most visionary of enterprise search vendors,” he [Firstservis director, Andrew Young] said.
What I find interesting is that an azure chip consulting firm opened the eyes of Dassault to what it could do with Exalead technology. Now Dassault bought Exalead in 2010 for about $160 million. After three years, a third party has guided a scientific company with 11,000 passionate people, 1790,000 customers, 3,500 (3,501 I suppose if I count Firstservis), and “long term strategy” (See http://www.3ds.com/about-3ds/).
With the pundits and poobahs hoarse from repetition of the “Big Data, Analytics, and CRM” cheer, I found the story interesting and indicative of the challenges those with “enterprise search systems” face.
Will the fans show up for the game? Image courtesy of NOAA at http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/GEOID/GSVS11/images/Longhorn_Stadium_Flippable_Seats.jpg
My hunch is that enterprise search remains a problem. The marketing issue becomes a communication problem. When a company cannot find information, enterprise search is the culprit. Most firms have quite a bit of search experience. Dissatisfaction among users is the norm. So a new positioning is required not just by Dassault but by most of the vendors who used to be in the search business.
Software: Its Dark Side and Search
September 10, 2013
I read “The Dark Side of Software Development That No One Talks About.” Well, excuuuuse me — as Steve Martin the comedian once said — my goslings and I have yammered about “bad” developers and the rise of the nerd kings for years.
A couple of the goslings are/were nerd kings until they discovered one or more of these areas of interests: People of the opposite sex or just interspecies interaction in general, money, power, clients who cannot log in to an email account, automobile racing, weapons. I think I have covered some of the interests. If I omitted some triggers, excuuuuse me.
Well, snacks are available at many high-tech firms. How about an Odwalla and some trail mix? A happy quack to Family Wings for the image: http://familywings.org/from-star-wars-to-heart-wars/come-to-the-dark-side-cookies/
The write up points out, “Software developers are jerks.” The write up explains the jerkiness reasonably well. Among the characteristics mentioned are:
Not everyone has your best interests at heart
Vileness (great word, by the way)
Bloated egos (I thought every CEO needed a jet plain and a trophy nerd)
The “cure”, quite surprisingly, is almost Jungian:
there needs to be more of us—especially those of us who’ve been in the field for awhile—who tell people why they can do it and how easy it really is.
My view is less psychy.
First, since most folks can click a mouse, this expertise immediately converts to technical expertise. Consequently the likelihood that a development project will move forward as if on Teflon is zero. Everyone has an informed opinion, and the folks with “power” dictate what happens. Just look at interfaces which are unusable or odd ball iPad apps which are almost unusable without mindless tapping for evidence.
Second, the split between those who can code and those who cannot is another type of one percent societal split. Talking about a method is different from implementing the method in software. Since it is more fun to talk than work, the process of creating an innovation effectively stops. Does the world need another wearable device like a smart watch? I suppose so, but what are the fancy watchmakers doing? Those throwbacks keep making watches some of which cost more than an Autonomy, Endeca, or SharePoint Search implementation. Nissan is doing a smart watch. Great idea.
Third, the need for software solutions is rising rapidly. I just heard a podcast which argued that Microsoft needs to focus only on apps. That’s a great idea. My wife has an iPhone and I can’t figure out which colorful icon does what. We need more apps. I think that top developers can meet this need whether I understand the solution or not.
Stepping back, let me ask a question. Does any of the enterprise software work without legions of technical experts applying bandages 24×7? Of the hundreds of thousands of apps, how many are in for the long haul? Of the thousands of open source programs, how many will survive the loss of a couple of key committers?
Software and the type of experts described in the article have helped make modern life brittle. With expertise concentrated and the constructs on the edge of functionality, will the software infrastructure support an increasingly complex future?
And what about search? Findability is not making much progress. I am not sure the developers are to blame. Computational boundaries, the complexity of language, and the “needs” of the busy worker contribute to systems which are increasingly alike. The enterprise search systems are equally useful and equally disappointing. Good business for consultants and technical wellness staff comes from the present situation.
Stephen E Arnold, September 10, 2013
Inter Gator: Federated Search from Germany
August 14, 2013
Short honk: We learned about Industrie Consulting. At this link, the inter:gator enterprise search system is explained briefly. What are the “unique” propositions for this search system? The Web page mentions in German (English translation below):
- A system which searches “all” information. (Isn’t this a categorical affirmative?)
- Access controls
- Semantic functions
- A navigator results viewer (hyperbolic map)
- A dashboard. Widgets display search results in different forms on the dashboard.
- “Attractive” price.
The company opened its doors about a decade ago it appears. The system appears to be related to TextDog if the Wikipedia entry is accurate. The system may be based on Lucene. You can download white papers and marketing materials which explain the system. Point your browser to a page with a SharePoint-centric url: http://goo.gl/87ULSW
You may want to brush up on your German. I did not spot any English language information on the firm’s Web site. When you search for information about the company, be aware that the spelling “inter:gator” can produce results with the string in quotes changed to “integrator.” The use of special characters and seemingly innocuous misspellings can have an impact on the relevance of the results of the query.
Stephen E Arnold, August 14, 2013
Sponsored by Xenky
Lucene Solr Updates Released
July 12, 2013
The latest Developer Break news update on The H gives a rundown on the most important notes for developers. Read the full story at, “Developer Break: Lucene, Solr, Spring Roo, Node.js, PyQt 5 and more.”
The update begins with a focus on the latest in the world of Apache Lucene Solr:
“Apache’s Lucene search library and Solr search platform have had a bug fix update to version 4.3.1. The Lucene 4.3.1 update includes fixes for a deadlock bug and an optimisation, while Solr’s 4.3.1 update offers many fixes for SolrCloud. Downloads for Lucene and Solr are available from the usual mirrors.”
Value-added solutions that are built upon open source have the benefit of constant updates and improvements due to the frequent update schedule kept by open source solutions. Unlike proprietary solutions, like Microsoft SharePoint for instance, major updates are not rolled out every few years, but rather small, continuous, unobtrusive improvements are the norm. LucidWorks, which uses Apache Lucene and Solr as the basis of its architecture, benefits from the cost effectiveness and scalability that open source brings. Frequent improvements to the architecture mean that users are never lagging behind.
Emily Rae Aldridge, July 12, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
HP Offers Autonomy Powered Legacy Data Solution
July 9, 2013
What happens when old data meets new technology? The result is not always pretty. Now, reports ITProPortal, “HP Autonomy Launches Legacy Data Cleanup Software for Improved Info Governance.” The software, called Legacy Data Cleanup, is underpinned by Autonomy’s ControlPoint and hauls outdated information into the light where it can be accessed, classified and, if appropriate, safely deleted. The write-up tells us:
“Legacy data is sometimes called ‘dark data,’ as it is effectively wasted space on limited storage, forcing organisations to buy more storage and hindering the modernisation of infrastructure and the transition to the cloud. This data includes obsolete SharePoint sites, old email stores, and a variety of other files that no longer serve any function.
“The Legacy Data Cleanup solution helps businesses identify this unnecessary data and remove it responsibly, leaving an audit trail behind to meet company data retention policies. It can also help with the establishment of a records management system, which offers improved access to and more efficient legal holds on old data.”
The write-up asserts that most organizations have a legacy data problem, though for many the issue has not yet become prominent. It also notes that it is best to address the issue before an eDiscovery demand or a security breach rears its head. True enough; is HP‘s new software the solution?
Cynthia Murrell, July 09, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
At the Top of the BI Stack
June 28, 2013
Business intelligence tools are becoming a big priority for even small businesses. TopCultured supplies some guidance for those considering their options in, “The 4 Biggest Business Intelligence Companies.” We were a little surprised that writer Drew Hendricks included Microsoft on this list.
The write-up begins:
“Finding the meaning behind mountains of raw data can be a difficult task, especially for companies that have not been monitoring their processes on a regular basis. Keeping an eye on business intelligence can tell stories of new opportunities, potential verticals for growth, and identify dangerous problems, allowing companies to enact a solution.
“As business intelligence becomes more accessible to smaller companies and startups, with app developers driving mobile solutions, the need for BI-trained workers and software solutions goes up. Take a look at the four top business intelligence companies out there now.”
With that, the list begins. Roambi is lauded for being easy to use and interpret. YellowFin boasts a bird’s-eye-view of a company’s strengths and weaknesses. In at number three, Domo is flexible enough to be used throughout an organization. Microsoft‘s SharePoint—well, I suppose being “considered the industry standard” does give the veteran platform some standing.
See the article for more on each of these companies. Organizations would do well to carefully consider their needs and investigate all options before choosing a BI platform.
Cynthia Murrell, June 28, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
The Consumerization of Enterprise File Sharing
May 13, 2013
TechCrunch ran a story on a new enterprise file sharing tool, Docurated, which launched at Disrupt NY during Startup Battlefield. “Docurated is an Enterprise Service to Search and Collect the Data You Need From Your Files” tells us that this technology moves beyond the file and folder metaphor and focuses on searching for the documents needed and collecting them.
This new enterprise search tool is poised to compete with the likes of Sharepoint and Autonomy in addition to Google Drive in a way. Interestingly, they have integrative capabilities with Dropbox, another potential competitor. A notable difference that the article points to is that Docurated only crawls content to make it searchable but does not actually host any files.
We looked a little further into the technology on their website and learned the following about their positioning:
“While storage boxes in the cloud have created the ability to amass more files, we still have to find and consume what we need when we need to tell our story. Docurated is your go-to destination for all of your content. No more files or folders. It turns all your documents into useable materials for your content dashboards, presentations, meetings, pitches, etc. in PowerPoint or PDF formats. Docurated provides you with the ability to turn every one of your documents into individual pages that are then presented to you based on relevance to your topic search…”
The branding and utmost focus on the user experience signal that Docurated is looking to make a name for itself through bringing the consumerization of enterprise search around to home plate. We will be on the look out to follow how distruptive this technology turns out to be; Coca-Cola and Netflix are both using it already.
Megan Feil, May 13, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Enterprise Portal Shoots for Back End Integration at Lower Cost
May 9, 2013
New Liferay adapters will be available in Q3 2013 that they hope will bring more affordability to back-end integration. Liferay’s services hinge on the portal model, bringing a marketplace to enterprises where users can choose various enterprise pieces that work together to create a customized solution. Read more about the latest partnership in the CMS Wire article, “Enterprise Portal Liferay Partners with TIBCO Software for Lower Cost Back-End Integration.”
The article touts the merits of such strategic partnerships:
“When two ecosystems get together, the result can be a bigger landscape. This week, enterprise portal vendor Liferay announced a new partnership with infrastructure provider TIBCO Software that is intended to simplify Liferay Portal’s integration with SAP, SharePoint, JD Edwards, Peoplesoft, Lotus Notes, Siebel and other systems. Via the partnership, customers can have a portal-based application that connects through TIBCO’s ActiveMatrix BusinessWorks platform to backend systems.”
Portal integration is important, particularly for this style of service. However, for some smaller organizations, an out-of-the-box solution might be best, particularly for those who are exploring an enterprise search solution for the first time. For these organizations, LucidWorks might be worth exploring. LucidWorks is built on the open source strength of Apache Lucene/Solr and is ready to go out-of-the-box. Specializing in Big Data or traditional enterprise search, LucidWorks’ power is in its award-winning customer service and support.
Emily Rae Aldridge, May 9, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
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