HP, Autonomy, and a Context Free Expert Output about Search: The Bet on a Horse Approach to Market Analysis
May 4, 2013
I don’t think too much about:
- Azure chip consultants. You know, these are the firms which make a living from rah rahs, buzzwording, and pontification to sell reports. (I know. I labored at a non-azure chip outfit for what seems like decades. Experience is a good instructor. Oh, if you are a consultant, please, complain about my opinion using the comments section of this free blog.)
- Hewlett Packard. I recall that the company used to make lab equipment which was cool. Now I think the firm is in some other businesses but as quickly as I latch on to one like the Treo and mobile, HP exits the business. The venerable firm confuses my 69 year old mind.
- Autonomy. I think I did some work for the outfit but I cannot recall. Age and the lifestyle in rural Kentucky takes a toll on the memory I admit.
Nevertheless, I read “HP’s Autonomy Could Face Uphill Battle In Data Market.” There were some gems in the write up which I found amusing and illustrative of the problems which azure chip consulting firms and their experts have when tackling certain business issues.
The main idea of the write up for “investors” is that HP faces “challenges.” Okay. That’s a blinding insight. As you may recall, HP bought Autonomy for $11 billion and then a few months later roiled the “investors” by writing off billions on the deal. That was the mobile phone model, wasn’t it?
The write up then pointed out:
HP wanted Autonomy to jump-start its move into software and cloud-based computing. Autonomy is the No. 1 provider of search and retrieval software that companies use to find and share files and other information on their websites and document management systems.
Okay. But that too seems obvious.
Now here comes the kicker. The expert outfit providing inputs to the reporter doing the bull dog grip on this worn out bone is quoted as saying:
“Software license revenue (in this market) isn’t growing at the same rate as before, and we are beginning to see the rise of some new technologies, specifically content analytics and unified information access,” Schubmehl said. These new types of software can be used with types of business analytics software, business intelligence software and other software to help enterprises do a better job of locating specific information, he says, which is the job of search retrieval software.
I don’t know much about IDC but what strikes me from this passage is that there are some assertions in this snippet which may warrant a tiny bit of evaluation.
Will context free analyses deliver a winner? Will there be a Gamblers Anonymous for those who bet on what journalists and mid tier (second string) consultancies promulgate? For more about Gamblers Anonymous navigate to http://www.gamblersanonymous.org/ga/
Here goes:
IBM Launching New Collaborative Communications Products Including Upgrade to Connections
February 26, 2013
The IBM announcement that it will be rolling out new communication products and new upgrades for its existing social networking product, Connections hasn’t really come as a big shock to many. IBM has spent time and money acquiring new technologies and working to integrate those technologies.
CIO’s “IBM To Beef Up Content Management, Analytics In Connections Enterprise Social Product,” takes consumers through some of the basic changes they can expect to see when the products are unveiled on Monday at Connect 2013.
“At a press conference after the session, Mike Rhodin, senior vice president of IBM’s Software Solutions Group, said that the impact of enterprise social technologies in collaboration and front-office business processes like HR and marketing amounts to a “generational shift” that is transforming how companies function, and will do so for the next two decades.”
We aren’t really told which acquisitions are responsible for which upgrades and integrations but if IBM’s dreams come true, the new content management function of Connections will rival that of Microsoft’s SharePoint, a big assertion for sure.
The IBM Employee Experience Suite is one of the few newly designed products that fully explains where the new upgrades came from, in this instance, the human resource management apps are courtesy of the $1.3 billion acquisition of Kenexa.
While still a little cloudy on the content, it will be interesting to keep an eye on IBM over the next year and not just at its product reveal early next week. It’s a sink or swim time in business technology with so many up and coming developers and technologies just waiting in the wings for an opportunity. We’ll see how IBM continues to stack up.
Leslie Radcliff, February 26, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
DataFacet Video
February 15, 2013
DataFacet’s stream of news slowed in late 2012. The outfit seems to be quiet; what’s going on over there? While we wait for their next move, check out the interesting video on the DataFacet Web site, which effectively introduces their product. It begins with a good explanation of “taxonomy,” which might be useful to bookmark in case you need to define the term for someone unfamiliar with the field. The video goes on to show someone using parts of the DataFacet system, which gives a much better idea of what it does than any text explanation could. It’s set to a catchy tune, too.
The product description surrounding the video specifies:
DataFacet provides a taxonomy based data model for your enterprise’s unstructured information along with a sophisticated, yet easy to use, set of tools for applying the data model to your content.
It’s an easy three step process:
- Choose your foundation taxonomies from the DataFacet library of over 500 topic domains
- Customize your taxonomy with DataFacet Taxonomy Manager
- Tag your content with DataFacet Taxonomy Server
DataFacet is already available for the following search and content environments:
- Microsoft SharePoint 2010
- Oracle WebCenter Content
- Apache Solr and Lucene
- MarkLogic Server
- Exalead CloudView
- Coveo Enterprise Search
- Autonomy IDOL
- Less than 1 week turnaround for most custom platform integrations.
DataFacet is actually a joint project, built by taxonomists from WAND and Applied Relevance. Based in Denver, Colorado, WAND has been developing structured multi-lingual vocabularies since 1998. Their taxonomies have been put to good use in online search systems, ad-matching engines, B2B directories, product searches, and within enterprise search engines.
Applied Relevance offers automated tagging to help organizations contextualize their unstructured data. They have designed their user interface using cross-platform JavaScript and HTML5, which gives their application the flexibility to run in a browser, be embedded in a Web page, or be hosted in an Adobe Air desktop application.
Cynthia Murrell, February 15, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Synata Unveils SAAS for the Enterprise
November 22, 2012
Synata is a San Francisco start-up that is soon to unveil as disruptive search platform for the enterprise cloud. As part of their efforts, they are seeking the opinions of major users of the following services: LinkedIn, Google Apps, and Zendesk. The San Francisco Chronicle gives the full perspective in, “San Francisco Startup Bringing Enterprise Search to the Cloud, Looking to Talk to Salesforce, LinkedIn, Zendesk, and Google Apps Users.”
Patrick White, the founder of Synata, gives his overview of the product:
‘Call it decision-point data, or real-time insight, or anything you want, but we’re going to make it insanely simple to search across your cloud data sources easily and get answers quickly.’ said Patrick White, Co-founder and CEO . . . But, the vision for Synata isn’t just about search – it’s also about giving users a really elegant way view data about a single topic or person, even when that data comes from a lot of different places. Eventually the platform will allow users to answer hard questions and find connections in their data they never knew were there.
It looks like Synata is doing two things: enterprise search and Web site search. We have not had much experience with this new product, but it seems like Fabasoft Mindbreeze might already be tackling both of these tasks. Fabasoft Mindbreeze Insite offers Cloud based maintenance-free Web site search for your public facing sites. Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise offers an enterprise search solutions that works as a standalone piece or serves as a compliment to an existing Sharepoint infrastructure. Either way, service is quick, customer-oriented, and cost-efficient. New and exciting names and ideas will continue to pop up in the enterprise world, but sometimes its good to stick to the ones that you know, like Fabasoft Mindbreeze.
Emily Rae Aldridge, November 22, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.
The Google Search Appliance Adds Bells and Whistles
October 18, 2012
A version of this article appears on the www.citizentekk.com Web site.
The Google Search Appliance is getting along in year. A couple of weeks ago (October 2012), Google announced that Version 7.0 of the Google Search Appliance GB-7007 and the GB-9009 was available. The features of the new system are long-overdue in my opinion. Among the new features are two highly desirable enhancements: better security controls, faceted browsing. But the killer feature, in my opinion, is support of the Google Translate application programming interface.
Microsoft will have to differentiate the now aging SharePoint Search 2013 from a Google Search Appliance. Why? GSA Version 7 can be plugged into a SharePoint environment and the system will, without much or fuss, index the SharePoint content. Plug and play is not what SharePoint Search 2013 delivers. The fast deployment of a GSA remains one of its killer features. Simplicity and ease of use are important. When one adds Google magic, the GSA Version 7 can be another thrust at Microsoft’s enterprise business.
See http://www.bluepoint.net.au/google-search/gsa-product-model
Google has examined competitive search solutions and, in my opinion, made some good decisions. For example, a user may add a comment to a record displayed in a results list. The idea of allowing enterprise users add value to a record was a popular feature of Vivisimo Velocity. But since IBM acquired Vivisimo, that company has trotted down the big data trail.
Endeca has for more than 12 years offered licensees of its systems point-and-click navigation. An Endeca search solution can slash the time it takes for a user to pinpoint content related to a query. Google has made the GSA more Endeca like while retaining the simplified deployment which characterizes an appliance solution.
As I mentioned in the introduction, one of the most compelling features of the Version 7 GSAs is direct support for Google Translate. Organizations increasingly deal with mixed language documents. Product and market research will benefit from Google’s deep support of languages. At last count, Google Translate supported more than 60 languages, excluding Latin and Pig Latin. Now Google is accelerating its language support due to its scale and data sets. Coupled with Google’s smart software, the language feature may be tough for other vendors to match.
Enterprise searchers want to be able to examine a document quickly. To meet this need, Google has implemented in-line document preview. A user can click on a hit and see a rendering of the document without having to launch the native applications. A PDF in a results list appears without waiting the seconds it takes for Adobe Reader or FoxIt to fetch and display the document.
What’s not to like? The GSA GB-7007 and GB-9009 delivers most of the most-wanted features to make content searchable regardless of resource. If a proprietary file type must be indexed, Google provides developers with enough information to get the content into a form which the GSA can process. Failing that, Google partners and third-party vendors can deliver specialized connectors quickly.
Exclusive Interview with Runar Buvik Searchdaimon
October 9, 2012
Runar Buvik, one of the founders of Searchdaimon, told Search Wizards Speak, “Searchdaimon is easy to get started with. It ships ready to run and don’t requires any consultants etc. to get you started. We also have a price advantage over comparable systems.”
In an exclusive interview, Mr. Buvik explains how the combination of robust features, a commitment to openness, and competitive pricing makes Searchdaimon a solution for many organizations.
The company was a spinoff from the information retrieval community at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). Fast Search & Transfer SA, now a unit of Microsoft, was developed by engineers from NTNU. Today, Google and Microsoft have research labs in Trondheim, a city with a strong reputation in information retrieval.
Magnus Galåen and Runar Buvik started working on search and retrieval in 1998. Both studying information retrieval at NTNU. In 2002 we met investors with an interest in information retrieval, Stian Rustad and Espen Øxnes. The idea was that we would commercialize the search technology we developed. Today Searchdaimon is growing rapidly in Europe and the US.
The main features of the system are comparable to the features and functions available from HP Autonomy, Endeca, Exalead, and other aggressively marketed systems. For example, Searchdaimon offers filtering, sorting, content federation, search suggestions, spell checking of user queries, stemming and lemmatization, a graphic interface for the administrative services, logs, statistics, and the other components of a modern enterprise information retrieval system. The Searchdaimon system is an enterprise search solution that can index different content types scattered across multiple servers and storage devices. The system offers full text search to end users.
Mr. Buvik said:
The customer can use either on premises or a cloud-based approach. We designed the system to make it easy to deploy Searchdaimon ES in many ways. Most of our customers either run the system as a virtual machine on the customers VMware/ XEN/ VirtualBox servers or in a cloud.
The system is competitively priced and comes, out of the box with filters to index Web sites, RSS feeds, SharePoint, Microsoft Exchange, Twitter, Zendesk, SuperOffice, WordPress and most types of file shares and databases.
The full text of the interview is available at http://goo.gl/xueGc.
Search Wizards Speak is the largest collection of interviews with leading professionals in search, text analytics, and content processing, There are more than 60 interviews available without charge on the ArnoldIT.com Web site. An index of the interviews is at http://goo.gl/mtOSZ.
Stephen E Arnold, October 9, 2012
Sponsored by Augmentext
Tips for Boosting Information Security in the Farm
October 1, 2012
As information storage and access extends to the Cloud and mobile devices, security concerns are an increasing priority for organizations. Rob Rachwald shares five tips to boost information security in his ComputerWeekly.com post, “How to Secure a SharePoint Environment.” Access rights, protecting Web applications, and controlling data migration are just some of the challenges discussed. Addressing compliance mandates is also on the list:
’60% of organizations have yet to bring SharePoint into line with existing data compliance policies. – AIIM 2011.’ Native SharePoint activity monitoring lacks an intuitive, easy-to-use interface for reporting and analytics. Without a third-party solution, businesses must first decode SharePoint’s internal representation of log data before they can access meaningful information. Use enterprise-class technology that combines permissions and activity details to automate compliance reporting.
Rachwald also suggests using a policy framework to build rules across SharePoint’s components to be able to respond in real time to suspicious activity. Investing in the tools to organize, manage, and protect valuable business information assets is part of improving business security. One solution worth a second look is Fabasoft Mindbreeze. Fabasoft is certified and tested according to relevant standards, including ISO 27001, ISO 200000, ISO 9001, and ISAE 3402, for security and reliability. And compliance is checked in regular external audits.
Philip West, October 01, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.
Measuring Emotion in the Enterprise
August 24, 2012
We thought SharePoint incorporated social functions. We also thought Fast Search offered sentiment analysis via Lexalytics‘ technology. More must be needed, since CIO now declares, “Yammer Lets Organizations Measure Emotions in Enterprise Social Networks.” The write up informs us:
“Yammer is adding functionality to its cloud-based enterprise social networking (ESN) software that lets organizations gauge the types of emotions expressed in employee posts.
“The new capability will be provided via an integration with Kanjoya, whose Crane software is designed to identify and analyze ‘sentiment’ in text, Yammer said on Thursday.
“Yammer customers who sign up for this feature will have a new Crane dashboard in their Yammer admin console that will describe the prevalent mood in reactions from employees in the ESN about specific topics.”
The example given—use the software to analyze emails and other communications to determine how employees feel about a recent benefits change.Crane tracks about 80 different emotions; it allows administrators to search by keywords, narrow reactions by office or department, and create graphical representations of their workers’ feelings.
I know such a tool can be more efficient than simply asking employees for their opinions, especially in large organizations. Still, I just can’t ignore the Orwellian aftertaste left by such innovations. Maybe it’s just me.
Cynthia Murrell, August 24, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
New Acquisition Pressures Newsgator
August 14, 2012
A recent Microsoft move may be bad news for NewsGator, ComputerWorld reveals in “Microsoft’s Yammer Buy Raises Questions About NewsGator’s Future.” Yammer and NewsGator are competitors in the SharePoint enterprise social add-on market. Does Microsoft’s acquisition of one spell trouble for the other?
Social Sites is the name of NewsGator’s SharePoint add-on. Since it launched in 2007, it has accumulated an impressive roster of clients. If Microsoft integrates the similarly successful Yammer into SharePoint, that could change. NewsGator CEO J.B. Holston remains optimistic, though, insisting that the two products attract different types of customers. Writer Juan Carlos Perez explains:
“While Yammer is a multi-tenant, cloud-based software, Social Sites is designed for on-premise and dedicated hosted environments, offering IT more controls, [Holston] said.
“‘The fact that Microsoft now owns Yammer doesn’t change the reasons why our clients came to us originally,’ he said, adding that most NewsGator customers aren’t comfortable using this type of software in a multi-tenant cloud. ‘Our customers are hyper-focused on security, governance, scalability and privacy.'”
Not only that, but NewsGator stands out as a developer of applications for specific industries. Will these unique qualities be enough to protect the company? We won’t know for a while, Perez says, since it would take a couple of years for Microsoft to mimic Social Sites with Yammer functionality. If it even chooses to do so at all; Holston thinks Microsoft only loves Yammer for its successful “freemium” business model. Hey, he can hope.
Founded in 2004 and headquartered in Denver, Colorado, NewsGator proclaims a passion for customer satisfaction. The company asserts that they are (so far, I’d add) the social software vendor most deeply integrated into the Microsoft stack.
Yammer launched in 2008, and seems to be very proud to be joining the Microsoft universe. They assert that, with former Facebook innovators on their team, their social products have the advantage of “Facebook DNA.” Interesting.
Cynthia Murrell, August 14, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
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
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