Adhere Solutions: Sticky Solutions and Connectors
March 31, 2009
I like Adhere Solutions’ software. I should. The company was conceived by my son, Erik S. Arnold. He once worked with the goslings, but he flew the coop to Chicago and services clients worldwide with his sticky solutions and connectors technology. Stuart Schram IV, one of ArnoldIT’s top geese, interviewed Erik Arnold. The full text of the conversation appears below. After the interview, you can read the full text of the Adhere Solutions news release about its newest product
Erik S. Arnold, Adhere Solutions. Quite Googley and reliable I wish to add.
What’s an Adhere?
Adhere Solutions is a Google Enterprise Partner providing products and services that help businesses create solutions based on Google and other cloud computing technologies. We have an experienced team of consultants to help our customers leverage Google’s Enterprise products (Search, Maps, Apps) to create business applications that improve access to information, communication and collaboration. Adhere will compliment Google’s enterprise products with other software and services to meet clients’ needs. Using Google as a foundation delivers applications faster and cheaper than traditional enterprise software approaches, while making end users happy. Few managers understand how they can create high-end solutions leveraging Google technologies.
Why are you providing connectors?
Connectors are an important piece of the puzzle to take advantage of Google technologies. For the GSA, it allows users to search across different sources of information inside an enterprise. I call the the Google Search Appliance a “SaaS in the Box,” because you can do sophisticated things with it if you leverage its APIs. However, you do have to have a good deal of search expertise to use the advanced capabilities.
Adhere Solutions wants to make it easy for GSA customers to index their enterprise data, and our connectors bridge the gap between the GSA and internal content stored in databases, document management systems, etc. This approach is the same as other enterprise software solutions, but customers are shielded through expensive professional services and setup fees. We want to educate the marketplace that they can use the GSA to perform these functions with connectors for a lower cost.
What’s a typical use case for your software?
Good question. I think that connectors in a search environment are easier to understand. We have a customer at a government agency that wishes to index a Documentum system with Google. Our connector extracts the data from Documentation, processes the data, and feeds it to the GSA. This process takes place on a server that outside of the GSA.
Image source: http://homepages.ius.edu/USTEWART/super_glue.jpg
A major reason for our investment in connectors, though, has to do with improvements to Google Apps. Google recently announced its visualization tools (http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2009/03/charts-charts-charts.html), so it is now possible to send selected enterprise data into Google Apps and have access to real-time visualization of your enterprise data. This to me is groundbreaking, I think that it is very cost efficient way to create business intelligence applications in a Google interface.
Can you deliver custom connectors?
We can build custom connectors, but we tend to license our connectors from established software vendors. Connecting into enterprise systems is not new, it is just that until now, no one has packaged a high end connector suite for the GSA. For lack of a better term, Adhere Solutions is more of an integrator than a software company. We use existing high quality products whenever we can.
How does a connector differentiate you from other GSA specialists?
Adhere Solutions is unique in that everyone involved has many years of enterprise search experience. Our goal as a company is to introduce Google into higher end search procurements. While Google Search Appliance is easy to get up and running, it is not uncommon to need help with basic search tasks. What is easy to Google is not easy for everyone. There are many fine GSA specialists who can help with basic setups, but we see ourselves as unique in delivering Google for high end solutions.
How do people reach you?
Write me: erik at adheresolutions dot com or call. Our number is 800 799 0520.
Here’s the full text of the Adhere Solutions news release:
Adhere Solutions Expands Its All Access Connector Suite For the Google Search Appliance to Include Enterprise Content Management Systems
Businesses now can provide employees greater access to enterprise data through the Google Search Appliance’s popular interface
Chicago, IL — March 31, 2009 — Today, Adhere Solutions, a certified Google Enterprise Partner, announced that its All Access Connector for the Google Search Appliance includes instant connectivity to over 30 popular enterprise content management systems, including EMC, Documentum, eRoom, IBM FileNet, and Lotus Notes, Interwoven’s TeamSite and Work Site, Microsoft SharePoint, Open Text, Oracle Stellent, Xerox Docushare and many more.
Adhere Solutions’ connector suite for the Google Search Appliance allows users to find information stored in disparate data sources and applications with Google’s user interface. This relieves users from having to separately search within each application and information repository. The Google Search Appliance combined with the All Access Connector empowers companies to efficiently unify information access and help users quickly find information to effectively perform their job.
“Users don’t particularly know or care about the subtleties of universal search vs. federated search – their mission is not to search, but rather to find. They are also not terribly interested in knowing WHY they cannot search for certain information,” said Dan Keldsen, noted Findability expert, Co-founder and Principal at Information Architect (www.InformationArchitected.com). “If factors in their findability frustrations have been because Google ‘couldn’t get there from here’ – the odds just significantly improved that the Google Search Appliance will be able to search across ALL of your information, rather than the ‘web native’ content Google is known for.”
Indexing connectors for enterprise content management systems are the newest addition to Adhere Solutions’ All Access Connector for the Google Search Appliance, which already includes federated search access to over 5,400 internal and external databases, repositories, subscription content sources, data feeds and business intelligence applications. With this addition Adhere Solutions delivers a suite of secure connectors to reduce the complexity and cost of searching across enterprise data repositories.
“Many organizations struggle with how to unlock their data when they have multiple content and document management solutions dispersed throughout their organization.” said Erik Arnold, Co-founder and President of Adhere Solutions. “We want every manager, IT or otherwise, to know that we enable the Google Search Appliance to provide enterprise search better, cheaper, and faster than other approaches.”
About Adhere Solutions
Adhere Solutions is a Google Enterprise Partner providing products and services that help businesses increase productivity through the accelerated adoption of Google and other technologies. Adhere’s experienced team of consultants help customers leverage Google’s Enterprise Search products, Google Maps, and Google Apps to create business applications that improve access to information, communication and collaboration.
For more information on Adhere Solutions products or services visit the company’s Web site at www.adheresolutions.com or write info@adheresolutions.com.
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If you would like more information on this topic, or to schedule an interview with Erik Arnold, please contact Amy DiNorscio at (312) 380-5772 or write to pr@adheresolutions.com
Stuart Schram IV, March 31, 2009
Forbes Calls Microsoft’s Ballmer Insane
February 15, 2009
Wow, not even the addled goose risks headlines like this one in MetaData: “Steve Ballmer Is Insane” here. There’s no allegedly, slightly, or possibly. Just insane. The writer is Wendy Tanaka, and I am shaking my feathers nervously to ponder what she would call this addled goose. Fricasseed? Silly? Cooked? Addled. No, that won’t work I call myself addled.
What’s insane mean? According to Dictionary.com, a property of Ask.com, a source I really trust, insane denotes three meanings:
- not sane; not of sound mind; mentally deranged.
- of, pertaining to, or characteristic of a person who is mentally deranged: insane actions; an insane asylum.
- utterly senseless: an insane plan.
Ms. Tanaka, whom I opine may be younger than the 65 years for this addled goose, may be younger in mind and spirit than I. She focuses on the lousy economy and Microsoft’s decision to open retail stores. To spearhead the retail effort, Microsoft has snatched a Wal*Mart superstar. In Harrod’s Creek, Wal*Mart is not a store. Wal*Mart is the equivalent of a vacation.
My hunch is that Ms. Tanaka and her sources are skeptical of Microsoft’s push into retailing. She cites an MBA trophy generation type wizard from Technology business Research, an outfit with a core competency in retailing I presume. Mr. Krans, allegedly said:
Apple’s retail store rollout coincided with the introduction of the iPod in 2001, which gave a very compelling reason for consumers to visit its locations. …Microsoft brings no such compelling product to bear in its retail entrance, which makes getting consumers in the door a large obstacle to overcome.
This addled goose thinks there are significant benefits to Microsoft retail stores located in Harrod’s Creek. Read on.
A Baker’s Dozen of Benefits from MSFT Retail Shops
Here are some reasons that this addled goose thinks that the Microsoft retail push is such an interesting idea:
- Retail stores will permit Microsoft to showcase the Zune and related products. I saw a Zune case with happy faces in the local Coconut record shop last September
- Individuals interested in the XBox 360 can buy these at the Microsoft store, eliminating a need to go to BestBuy, GameStop, or the other established retail outlets for this product.
- Procurement teams could take a field trip–much like the Harrod Creek residents’ vacation at Wal*Mart to buy the SharePoint Fast ESP product offerings. I think there will be two, maybe three versions, of SharePoint with Fast technology on offer soon
- The local customer support outfit Administrative Services could drop in to the Microsoft retail shop near Fern Valley Road and grab one or more versions of Dynamics along with Windows Server, SQL Server, and any other server needed to make Dynamics sing a happy song
- Display the wide range of mobile devices running Windows Mobile. I don’t think I have seen every Windows Mobile device in one location. What a convenience to disenchanted Nokia, iPhone, and BlackBerry users.
- Offer the complete line up of Microsoft mice and keyboards. Shame about the nifty Microsoft networking products in the compelling pale orange and green boxes.
- Introduce a service bar with Windows geniuses to address questions from customers. I would drop in to get help when my MSDN generated authentication keys don’t work or when the Word 2007 formatting on a Windows system does not stick, yet the formatting works just fine on a Mac with Word 2007 installed.
- Provide a line up of Microsoft T shirts, caps, and other memorabilia, including the new “old” range of gear with MS DOS era logos
- Purchase CALs for various Microsoft products, eliminating the hassle of dealing with the Platinum, Gold, Silver, and other semi precious metal badged partners
- Purchase Microsoft Consulting support so I can get different Microsoft server products to talk to one another and expose their data and metadata to SharePoint
- Sign up for Microsoft Live.com cloud services and get help with the horizontal and sometimes confusing to me “blank” slate interfaces. See item 7 above.
- Meet Microsoft partners, eliminating the need to go to a trade show to learn about “snap in” products that extend, enrich, and sometimes replace Microsoft components that don’t work as advertised for some customer applications.
- Visit with Microsoft executives. I think of this as an extension of the company’s “open door policy.” Nothing will boost share price more than giving retail customers an opportunity to talk with senior Microsoft executives about Vista, usability testing, prices, variants of Windows 7, the difference between MSN.com and Live.com, and job opportunities.
Insane? Wrong. From Harrod’s Creek, the retail plan makes perfect sense. I wonder if the Microsoft retail shop will be in downtown Harrod’s Creek or out by the mine run off pond on Wolf Creek Road? Maybe we’ll get more than one store just like Taco Bell.
Stephen Arnold, February 15, 2009
Google and Microsoft: The Complexity Spectrum
February 12, 2009
I talked with a small group yesterday about the “big” Microsoft announcement. SharePoint administrators get an opportunity to merge SharePoint and the Fast Search & Transfer technology. You can get some useful information from ChannelWeb here. Mostly vaporware and roadmaps as of February 2009, SharePoint believers will have some to brush up on their content processing integration skills. I think the learning curve will be steep, so quit reading the addled goose’s Web log and dive into the Fast documentation. Hmm. That might be a problem. We tried to locate documentation online and could not locate the information. I had to return my three ring binders when I disengaged from my poking around inside ESP for a well known organization. Sorry, my lips are sealed on which organization. Think acronyms. Think follow the rules.
What surfaced in our discussion was a somewhat tired metaphor. A spectrum. The idea is that the ends are different. Red light waves at one end; blue light waves at the other. The diagram below shows the type of spectrum that elementary school teachers use to educate the kiddies about “light”.
For the purposes of this Web log post, one end is Google. Color Google blue. The opposite end is red. Color Microsoft red. Both companies have many similarities; for example, each is a software company; each competes in Web search; and each covets the enterprise market. Keep in mind. Search is complex. Within a complex task, the notion of a spectrum of complexity suggests that simple may be better. Less hassle. Lower cost. Easier to troubleshoot–sometimes.
One big difference is the positioning of each companies’ technology in the enterprise sector. I want to focus on the subject of behind the firewall search or what most trophy generation wizards call “enterprise search.” Google sales professionals run the game plan and make it clear that the Google Search Appliance or GSA is simple. The system is easy to deploy. Unpack the shipping container, plug in the gizmo, zoom through the administrative screens, and employees can search the processed content. No muss. No fuss. Let the GOOG do the work.
On the other end of the spectrum is Microsoft’s approach to “enterprise search.” For me, the Microsoft search product line is hard for me to understand. There are a couple of versions of search available for SharePoint. One if free; the other comes with an Office server. Earlier this week, Microsoft announced two or three different “versions” of Fast Search & Transfer information retrieval technology. I thought there was the ESP or enterprise search platform and the orphaned Fast Web search. I may have Microsoft’s reality clouded with what I recall Fast Search professionals telling me in the pre buy out era.
Microsoft-Nortel Parallel
January 23, 2009
Matthew Nickasch’s “Could Microsoft Become Another Nortel?” here is an article that would not have occurred to us in Harrod’s Creek, Kentucky. We don’t think too much about non search vendors and Nortel is not a player in the space we monitor. Microsoft is a search vendor. The company has Web search, various test search systems which you can follow here, Powerset (based on long standing Xerox technology), Fast Search & Transfer (a Web search company that morphed into enterprise search then publishing systems and now into conference management).
Mr. Nickasch picks up the theme of the layoffs at Microsoft that were triggered by the firm’s financial results reported in January 2009. For me, the most interesting comment in the article was:
Many large companies have much to learn from the recent events of Nortel, who filed for bankruptcy protection last week. Organizations with disjunct structures and complexly-integrated business functions need to critically evaluate their overall business structure.
I am not a fan of MBA speak, but I absolutely agreed with the use of the word “disjunct”. That is a very nice way of saying disorganized, confused, and addled (just like the goose writing this Web log). Nortel, once a giant, is now a mouse. A mouse in debt at that.
Three notions were triggered by Mr. Nickasch’s apt juxtaposition.
First, could this be the start of a more serious effort to break up Microsoft? Unlike Nortel (Canadian debt, government involvement, global competition), Microsoft could be segmented easily. Shareholders would get a boost from a break up in my view.
Second, what happens to orphans like big dollar acquisitions that have modest profile into today’s competitive enterprise market. I hear about SharePoint. I hear about Silverlight. I even hear about Windows Mobile. I don’t hear about ESP. In case you have forgotten, that’s not paranormal insight; that’s enterprise search platform.
Third, what’s the positioning of on premises software versus cloud software. Microsoft has quite a few brands and is at risk in terms of making clear what tool, system, service, and feature is associated with what product line.
In my opinion, I think Mr. Nickasch has forged a brilliant pairing. A happy quack to him.
Stephen Arnold, January 23, 2009
dtSearch: At a Crossroads
January 9, 2009
For years, vendors with a snap in solution to Microsoft SharePoint were like a soccer player with an unobstructed path to the goal. Microsoft kept out of the way. As long as the vendor had a way to “fix” the baked in SharePoint search system, the vendor had a shot at a sale. Often the only risk was that a competitor would block the shot. Life was good.
The Microsoft changed the rules for SharePoint search. First, the company gave away a baby search application. Next, it included a beefed up version in SharePoint but asked customers to license a separate server to get the system. Then, when that MOSS (Microsoft Office SharePoint Search) system bumped against an internal document limit, Microsoft bought Fast Search & Transfer SA for $1.23 billion.
Since the deal went through last year, Microsoft has not made substantive changes in the Fast Search technology. In fact, the changes have been in trade show swag (see illustration below), the cloud of silence dropped over the police action taken against the company in Norway for alleged wrong doing, and more aggressive sales tactics.
The only difference in booth handouts has been the addition of the phrase “A Microsoft Subsidiary.” Otherwise, same old, same old.
Here’s how the Microsoft sales tactics are alleged to work. I want to avoid talking about foam booth handouts and police investigations. These are matters for wiser geese than I. Microsoft visits with a customer with a clutch of Microsoft products and servers. The Microsoft sales professionals assert that the Microsoft solution is the optimal approach. The customer says, “I want to buy the Google Search Appliance or some other search system.” Microsoft sweetens the deal. The customer says, “I will use Microsoft and its search solution.” The idea is not new. Incentives are standard in search licensing. Microsoft now has a third party solution that is okay if properly resourced. Just make sure you know the implications of “resourced”.
What does this mean to vendors who are dependent on Microsoft’s lousy native search system to create a market?
That’s a good question. I had arranged to get the answers directly from the senior managers at dtSearch last year. Then without warning, dtSearch refused to participate in the Search Wizards Speak series. You can find the list of wizards who have participated here. So far about 30 firms have participated. The holdouts are Google (no big surprise there. The company wants this goose killed and grilled.), Microsoft (on going investigation so no comment I was told), and dtSearch (Microsoft centric search vendor).
Without input from dtSearch, I decided to take a quick look at what the company’s products do and then ask myself some questions about the firm’s reluctance to talk after agreeing to my terms. Brutal are these terms. I submit written questions, prepare a draft, and allow the company to review my final write and suggest changes. So far, the interview subjects have been reasonably happy. One outfit–Paris-based Exalead–reprinted the interview which was subsequently picked up and reproduced in publications as far way from rural Kentucky as Japan.
I remain curious about the impact of the Microsoft Fast tie up on companies like dtSearch. These are smaller firms who could easily be crushed beneath the wheels of the giant Microsoft marketing machine.
dtSearch
Based on the open source information available to me, dtSearch is a privately held company operating in Bethesda, Maryland. Not quite a suburb, Bethesda is home to a number of companies, including the super secret mapping unit of the US government.
The system can be used for publishing and searching database-driven Web sites, incorporation into information management applications, searching of technical documentation, incorporation into forensics applications, email filtering usage, and incorporation into a broad range of vertical-market applications (legal, medical, financial, recruiting and staffing, etc.)
The company advertises in dead tree publications. The firm’s search system is also heavily promoted by Programmers.com and its ecommerce site doing business as Programmers’s Paradise. You can get a full run down on the dtSearch prices by running the query “dtSearch” and clicking through the choices. The system reports that dtSearch begins at $189.99 for a Desktop with Spider v7.55 up to $2,375 for a three server version. Developer versions incur higher license fees, but these require what amounts to a custom price quote.
The features of the three-server versions are:
Information 2009: Challenges and Trends
December 4, 2008
Before I was once again sent back to Kentucky by President Bush’s appointees, I recall sitting in a meeting when an administration official said, “We don’t know what we don’t know.” When we think about search, content processing, assisted navigation, and text mining, that catchphrase rings true.
Successes
But we are learning how to deliver some notable successes. Let me begin by highlighting several.
Paginas Amarillas is the leading online business directory in Columbia. The company has built a new systems using technology from a search and content processing company called Intelligenx. Similar success stories and be identified for Autonomy, Coveo, Exalead, and ISYS Search Software. Exalead has deployed a successful logistics information system which has made customers’ and employees’ information lives easier. According to my sources, the company’s chief financial officer is pleased as well because certain time consuming tasks have been accelerated which reduces operating costs. Autonomy has enjoyed similar success at the US Department of Energy.
Newcomers such as Attivio and Perfect Search also have satisfied customers. Open source companies can also point to notable successes; for example, Lemur Consulting’s use of Flax for a popular UK home furnishing Web site. In Web search, how many of you use Google? I can conclude that most of you are reasonably satisfied with ad-supported Web search.
Progress Evident
These companies underscore the progress that has been made in search and content processing. But there are some significant challenges. Let me mention several which trouble me.
These range from legal inquiries into financial improprieties at Fast Search & Transfer, now part of Microsoft to open Web squabbles about the financial stability of a Danish company which owns Mondosoft, Ontolica, and Speed of Mind. Other companies have shut their doors; for example, Alexa Web search, Delphes, and Lycos Europe. Some firms such as one vendor in Los Angeles has had to slash its staff to three employees and take steps to sell the firm’s intellectual property which rightly concerns some of the company’s clients.
User Concerns
Another warning may be found in the results from surveys such as the one I conducted for a US government agency in 2007 that found dissatisfaction with existing search systems in the 65 percent range. AIIM, a US trade group, 
reported slightly lower levels of dissatisfaction. Jane McConnell’s recently released study in Paris reports data in line with my findings. We need to be mindful that user expectations are changing in two different ways.
First, most people today know how to search with Google and get useful information most of the time. The fact that Google is search for upwards of 65 percent of North American users and almost 75 percent of European Union users means that Google is the search system by which users measure other types of information access. Google’s influence has been essentially unchecked by meaningful competition for 10 years. In my Web log, I have invested some time in describing Microsoft’s cloud computing initiatives from 1999 to the present day.
For me and maybe many of you, Google has become an environmental factor, and it is disrupting, possibly warping, many information spaces, including search, content processing, data management, applications like word processing, mapping, and others.
Microsoft is working to counter Google, and its strategy is a combination of software and low adoption costs. I believe that Microsoft’s SharePoint has become the dominant content management, collaboration, and search platform with 100 million licenses in organizations. SharePoint, however, is not well understood as technically complex and a work in progress. Anyone who asserts that SharePoint is simple or easy is misrepresenting the system. Here’s a diagram from a Microsoft Certified Gold vendor in New Zealand. Simple this is not.
ISYS Search Software CEO Interview
December 1, 2008
Scott Coles has joined ISYS Search Software as the firm’s chief executive officer. Ian Davies, founder, remains the chairman of the company. Among Mr. Coles’s tasks will be to lead the firm’s new strategic direction characterized by an expanded presence in Europe and Asia, specialized vertical-market offerings, a broader channel sales strategy, and a deeper set of embedded search solutions for original equipment manufacturers and independent software vendors.
Coles joins ISYS with a significant background in the commercialization of innovation for multinational corporations, holding senior executive roles with companies such as EDS, Lucent Technologies and Avaya. In the mid-1990s, Scott was the driving force behind the establishment and success of AT&T Bell Labs in Australia.
In his interview with ArnoldIT.com’s Search Wizards Speak, Coles provided information about the company’s focus in 2009.
On this topic, he said:
We are seeing significant increase in other software vendors coming to us to license our engine for incorporation into their products. This marks a general industry trend that I believe will increase significantly in the coming year. A number of applications today that previously had either none or only rudimentary search are finding that their products can be significantly enhanced with a sophisticated search engine. The amount of data that these applications have to deal with is now becoming so large that some form of pre-processing to narrow down to that which is relevant is becoming essential.
Mr. Coles also noted that Microsoft SharePoint continues to capture market share in content management and collaboration. However, the SharePoint user needs access to a range of content and:
ISYS can search all data, both inside and outside of SharePoint. In addition, ISYS provides high quality relevant results through features such as Boolean search operators, multi-dimensional clustering, and many others for which SharePoint users have expressed a desire that are currently not available in the native SharePoint product…we’ve taken great care to ensure our new “intelligent content analysis” methods are reliable, predictable and easily understood by the end user. These include parametric search and navigation, visual timeline refinement bars, intelligence clouds, de-duplication and intelligent query expansion. We’ve even added additional post-query processing to help streamline the e-discovery process. The end result is a core set of new capabilities that help our customers better cull and refine efficiently, without cutting corners on accuracy or relevance.
You can read the full text of the interview with Scott Coles at http://www.arnoldit.com/search-wizards-speak or click here.
Microsoft and Its CRM Strategy
November 30, 2008
Colin Barker’s “How Microsoft Plans to Make Its Mark in CRM” is a must read here. The article is an interview with a Microsoft executive named Brad Wilson. Mr. Barker was firing on all cylinders when he questioned Mr. Wilson. There were a number of interesting points in the interview. Let me highlight several of those that resonated with my research into Microsoft’s CRM products and services.
First, Microsoft has 16,000 CRM customers and more than 750,000 users. Dynamics is not in SharePoint territory but 16,000 is a good number. I wonder why SharePoint doesn’t include CRM functions, hook seamlessly into the flavors of Dynamics, and can’t use the report engine in Dynamics? These questions may be answered at some point in the future.
Second, Dynamics “comes with a choice of either having an on-demand subscription offering or buying the software.” According to Mr. Wilson most of Microsoft’s customers have an on premises installation.
Third, CRM 4.0 is a fully multi-tenanted system that a licensee can deploy “from outside the cloud.” I don’t know exactly what this means, but I wonder if the Microsoft approach to multi tenancy works like Salesforce.com’s system. Salesforce.com has some interesting patent documents which struck me as having quite a broad swatch of claims.
Fourth, “Microsoft is investing more annually on data centers than the complete revenue of all the on-demand players–$1 billion annually.” With 90 percent of the customers using Dynamics on premises, I was not clear about the pace at which customers will shift to Microsoft’s cloud system, if ever?
Fifth, Microsoft is providing portions of the CRM product for free. Will this pricing policy jump start a market or will it devalue the Dynamics solution? Who will pay for the big investments in the cloud if much of the Dynamics system is free or low cost?
There’s more useful information in this interview. Dynamics is going to have an impact on the CRM market and on Microsoft’s bottomline. And what does one do to locate information in a Dynamics system? Use the built in system which works a bit like search in Outlook Express or snag a third party tool.
Stephen Arnold, November 30, 2008
Microsoft and Pricing
November 19, 2008
I saw a new story in Seattle Tech Report here that Microsoft is making is OneCare security service free. A short time later I came across Microsoft’s own news release about this pricing change here. Bundling or giving away services free is not a new idea in software. The notion is to give customers a taste and then sell them more has worked many times. In the Microsoft news release, the company says:
Windows Live OneCare will continue to be sold for Windows XP and Windows Vista at retail through June 30, 2009. Direct sales of OneCare will be gradually phased out when “Morro” becomes available. Regardless of their method of purchase, Microsoft will ensure that all current customers remain protected through the life of their subscriptions.
The marketing technique is little more than shareware or freeware with a catch.
Then I remembered that Microsoft was reducing prices for its Dynamics products. The prices for its cloud services for Exchange and SharePoint were quite competitive as well. Even the Zune, according to CNet news is getting new features and a lower price. You can read “Microsoft Chopping Zune Prices” here.
The question I asked myself, “Will Microsoft’s price cutting and no fee initiatives extend to Microsoft Fast enterprise search?” My hunch is that the Fast ESP search technology may become more affordable in the months ahead. Here’s my reasoning:
- A number of high profile vendors have rolled out more robust content processing solutions that “snap in” to SharePoint. Examples range from Autonomy to Coveo to Exalead to Interse to ISYS to dozens of other vendors. Companies who want to “work around” SharePoint search problems have an abundance of options. Microsoft Fast may have to use severe price cuts to keep customers from getting out of the corral
- As the economic noose tightens on organizations, some vendors may offer a two-fer deal; that is, sign up now, get one year free and pay only for the second year. This approach may be quite appealing in some organizations. In fact, in a recent review of Google prices for the US government, one could easily conclude that Google is keeping this option available to its resellers. The idea is to get shelf space or the camel’s nose into the tent.
- New players may be willing to install a proof of concept for little or no money. These upstarts may provide “good enough” solutions that allow an organization to solve a tough content processing problem without spending much money.
I see the present economic climate forcing some Darwinian actions and Microsoft Fast may have to move quickly or face escalating competition within the Microsoft ecosystem. After spending $1.2 billion for a Web part and a police raid, there may be some strategic pricing changes Redmond may have to consider to adapt to the present enterprise market for search and content processing. If you are a Microsoft champion, please, help me understand if my analysis is on track or off track. Use the comments section and bring along some facts, please. I have enough uninformed inputs from my pals Barry and Cyrus to last the winter.
Stephen Arnold, November 19, 2008
Google Apps: Schools as an Enterprise
November 19, 2008
Microsoft is using SharePoint as a digital Maginot Line in the enterprise. Google seems to be content to move forward incrementally in the enterprise. When the phone rings, Google gets a partner to answer it, and the approach seems to be working. You will want to read the ZDNet blog article “Is There Anything Teachers or Students Need That Google Apps Can’t Do?” here. The writer is Christopher Dawson and he presents some compelling reasons for a school to consider using Google instead of PCs or Macs. Geese are not good student, so I don’t know too much about education. I do know that schools with networked personal computers are in a world of hurt. The systems often don’t work and when they work, teachers are not sufficiently computer literate to use the devices as much more than bright typewriters. Apple and Microsoft have viewed schools as a viable market. If not today, then when the students get some cash, the users will be hooked on the system used in school. Now Google is playing this demographic angle. Judging from the ZDNet blog article, Google’s tactic is working. Cost, not features and cloud computing goodness, is the reason. Schools will find it is cheaper to just let Google do it. If Google becomes the next big thing in school computing, the longer term implications for Google’s competitors may warrant corrective action sooner rather than later.
Stephen Arnold, November 19, 2008
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