Is Google Headed for the Big Computer Room in the Sky? Actually Yes It Is
June 9, 2025
Just a dinobaby and no AI: How horrible an approach?
As freshman in college in 1962, I had seen computers like the clunky IBMs at Keystone Steel & Wire Co., where my father worked as some sort of numbers guy, a bean counter, I guessed. “Look but don’t touch,” he said, not even glancing up from his desk with two adding machines, pencils, and ledgers. I looked.
Once I convinced a professor of poetry to hire me to help him index Latin sermons, I was hooked. Next up were Digital Equipment machines. At Halliburton Nuclear a fellow named Bill Montano listened to my chatter about searching text. Then I bopped into a big blue chip consulting firms and there were computing machines in the different offices I visited. When I ended up at the database company in the early 1980s, I had my own Wang in my closet. There you go. A file cabinet sized gizmo, weird hums, and connections to terminals in my little space and to other people who could “touch” their overheated hearts. Then the Internet moved from the research world into the mainstream. Zoom. Things were changing.
Computer companies arrived, surged, and faded. Then personal computer companies arrived, surged, and faded. The cadence of the computer industry was easy to dance to. As Carmen Giménez used to say on American Bandstand in 1959, “I like the beat and it is easy to dance to.” I have been tapping along and doing a little jig in the computer (online) sector for many years, around 60 I think.
I read “Google As You Know It Is Slowly Dying.” Okay, another tech outfit moving through its life cycle. Break out your copy of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s On Death and Dying. Jump to Acceptance section, read it, and move on. But, no. It is time for one more “real news” write up to explain that Googzilla is heading toward its elder care facility. This is not news. If it is, fire up your Burroughs B5500 and do your inventory update.
The essay presents the obvious as “new.” The Vox write up says:
Google is dominant enough that two federal judges recently ruled that it’s operating as an illegal monopoly, and the company is currently waiting to see if it will be broken up.
From my point of view, this is an important development. Furthermore, it has nothing to do with the smart software approach to search. After two decades of doing exactly what it wanted, Google — like Apple and Meta — are in the spotlight. Those spotlights are solar powered and likely to remain on for the foreseeable future. That’s news.
In this spotlight are companies providing a “new” way to search. Since search is required to do most things online, the Google has to figure out how to respond in an intelligent way to two — count ‘em — big problems: Government actions and upstarts using Google’s own Transformer innovation.
The intersection of regulatory action and the appearance of an alternative to “search as you know it” is the same old story, just jazzed up with smart software, efficiency, the next big thing, Sky Net, and more. The write up says:
The government might not be the biggest threat to Google dominance, however. AI has been chipping away at the foundation of the web in the past couple of years, as people have increasingly turned to tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity to find information online.
My view is that it is the intersection, not the things themselves that have created the end-of-the-line sign for the Google bullet train. Google will try to do what it has done since Backrub: Appropriate ideas like Yahoo, Overture, and GoTo advertising methods, create a bar in which patrons pay to go in and out (advertisers and users), and treat the world as a bunch of dorks by whiz kids who just know so much more about the digital world. No more.
Google’s legacy is the road map for other companies lucky or skilled enough to replicate the approach. Consequently, the Google is in Code Red, announcing so many “new” products and services I certainly can’t keep them straight, and serving up a combination of hallucinatory output and irrelevant search results. The combination is problematic as the regulators close in.
The write up concludes with this statement:
In the chaotic, early days of the web, Google got popular by simplifying the intimidating task of finding things online, as the Washington Post’s Geoffrey A. Fowler points out. Its supremacy in this new AI-powered future is far less certain. Maybe another startup will come along and simplify things this time around, so you can have a user-friendly bot explain things to you, book travel for you, and make movies for you.
I disagree. Google became popular because it indexed Web sites, used some Clever ideas, and implemented processes that produced pages usually related to the user’s query. Over time, wrapper software provided Google with a way to optimize its revenue. Innovation eluded the company. In the social media “space”, Google bumbled Orkut and then continued to bumble until it pretty much gave up on killing Facebook. In the Microsoft “space,” Google created its own office and it rolled out its cloud service. There have not had a significant impact in the enterprise market when the river of money flows for Microsoft and whatever it calls its alleged monopolistic-inclined services. There are other examples of outright failure.
Now the Google is just spewing smart software products. This reminds me of a person who, shortly before dying, sees bright lights and watches the past flash before them. Then the person dies. My view is that Google is having what are like those near death experiences. The person survives but knows exactly what death is.
Believe me, Google knows that the annoying competitors are more popular; to wit, Sam AI-Man and his ChatGPT, his vision for the “everything” app, and his rather clever deal with Telegram. To wit, Microsoft and its deals with most smart software companies and its software lock in the US Federal government, its boot camp deal with Palantir Technologies, and its mind-boggling array of ways to get access to word processing software.
Google has not proven it can deal with the confluence of regulators demanding money and lesser entities serving up products and services that capture headlines. Code Red and dozens of “new” products each infused with Gemini or whatever the name of the smart software is today is not a solution that returns Google to its glory days.
The patient is going through tough times. Googzilla may survive but search is going to remain finding on point information. LLMs are a current approach that people like. By itself, it will not kill Google or allow it to survive. Google is caught between the reality of meaningful regulatory action and innovators who are more agile.
Googzilla is old and spends some time looking for suitable elder care facilities.
Stephen E Arnold, June 9, 2025
China Slated To Overtake US In AI Development. How about Bypass?
May 28, 2025
China was scheduled to become the world’s top performing economy by now. This was predicted in the early 2000s, but the Middle Kingdom has experienced some roadblocks. Going through all of them would require an entire class on world history and economics. We don’t have time for that because SCMP says, “China To Harness Nation’s Resources To AI Self-Reliance Ambitions."
Winnie the Pooh a.k.a. President Xi Jinping told the Communist Party’s inner circle that he plans to stimulate AI theory and core technologies. Xi wants to leverage his country’s “new whole national system” to repair bottlenecks like high end chips. The “new whole national system” is how the Community Party describes directing resources towards national strategic goals.
Xi is desperate for China to overtake the US in AI development. This pipe dream was crushed when the US placed tariffs on Chinese goods. While the tariff war is on hiatus for a few months, it doesn’t give China a desperate leg up.
Xi said:
“‘We must acknowledge the technological gap, redouble our efforts to comprehensively push forward technological innovation, industrial development and applications, and the AI regulatory system,’ state news agency Xinhua quoted Xi as saying. ‘[China should] continue to strengthen basic research, and concentrate on conquering core technologies such as high-end chips and basic software, so as to build an independent, controllable, and collaborative AI basic software and hardware system. ‘[We should then] use AI to lead the paradigm shift in scientific research and accelerate scientific and technological innovation breakthroughs in various fields.’”
So said Winnie the Pooh. He’s searching for that irresistible pot of honey while dealing with US and Trump bumblebees. Maybe if he disguises himself as a little black raincloud instead of a “weather balloon” he might advance further in AI? However, some tension in the military may lead to a bit of choppy weather in what is supposed to be a smooth, calm sea of agreement.
Let’s ask Deepseek.
Whitney Grace, May 28, 2025
Microsoft Investigates Itself and a Customer: Finding? Nothing to See Here
May 26, 2025
No AI, just a dinobaby and his itty bitty computer.
GeekWire, creator of the occasional podcast, published “Microsoft: No Evidence Israeli Military Used Technology to Harm Civilians, Reviews Find.” When an outfit emits occasional podcasts published a story, I know that the information is 100 percent accurate. GeekWire has written about Microsoft and its outstanding software. Like Windows Central, the enthusiasm for what the Softies do is a key feature of the information.
What did I learn included:
- Israel’s military uses Microsoft technology
- Israel may have used Microsoft technology to harm non-civilians
- The study was conducted by the detail-oriented and consistently objective company. Self-study is known to be reliable, a bit like research papers from Harvard which are a bit dicey in the reproducible results department
- The data available for the self-study was limited; that is, Microsoft relied on an incomplete data set because certain information was presumably classified
- Microsoft “provided limited emergency support to the Israeli government following the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks.”
Yeah, that sounds rock solid to me.
Why did the creator of Bob and Clippy sit down and study its navel? The write up reported:
Microsoft said it launched the reviews in response to concerns from employees and the public over media reports alleging that its Azure cloud platform and AI technologies were being used by the Israeli military to harm civilians.
The Microsoft investigation concluded:
its recent reviews found no evidence that the Israeli Ministry of Defense has failed to comply with its terms of service or AI Code of Conduct.
That’s a fact. More than rock solid, the fact is like one of those pre-Inca megaliths. That’s really solid.
GeekWire goes out on a limb in my opinion when it includes in the write up a statement from an individual who does not see eye to eye with the Softies’ investigation. Here’s that passage:
A former Microsoft employee who was fired after protesting the company’s ties to the Israeli military, he said the company’s statement is “filled with both lies and contradictions.”
What’s with the allegation of “lies and contradictions”? Get with the facts. Skip the bogus alternative facts.
I do recall that several years ago I was told by an Israeli intelware company that their service was built on Microsoft technology. Now here’s the key point. I asked if the cloud system worked on Amazon? The response was total confusion. In that English language meeting, I wondered if I had suffered a neural malfunction and posed the question, “Votre système fonctionne-t-il sur le service cloud d’Amazon?” in French, not English.
The idea that this firm’s state-of-the-art intelware would be anything other than Microsoft centric was a total surprise to those in the meeting. It seemed to me that this company’s intelware like others developed in Israel would be non Microsoft was inconceivable.
Obviously these professionals were not aware that intelware systems (some of which failed to detect threats prior to the October 2023 attack) would be modified so that only adversary military personnel would be harmed. That’s what the Microsoft investigation just proved.
Based on my experience, Israel’s military innovations are robust despite that October 2023 misstep. Furthermore, warfighting systems if they do run on Microsoft software and systems have the ability to discriminate between combatants and non-combatants. This is an important technical capability and almost on a par with the Bob interface, Clippy, and AI in Notepad.
I don’t know about you, but the Microsoft investigation put my mind at ease.
Stephen E Arnold, May 26, 2025
Salesforce CEO Criticizes Microsoft, Predicts Split with OpenAI
May 20, 2025
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff is very unhappy with Microsoft. Windows Central reports, “Salesforce CEO Says Microsoft Did ‘Pretty Nasty’ Things to Slack and Its OpenAI Partnership May Be a Recipe for Disaster.” Writer Kevin Okemwa reminds us Benioff recently dubbed Microsoft an “OpenAI reseller” and labeled Copilot the new Clippy. Harsh words. Then Okemwa heard Benioff criticizing Microsoft on a recent SaaStr podcast. He tells us:
“According to Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff: ‘You can see the horrible things that Microsoft did to Slack before we bought it. That was pretty bad and they were running their playbook and did a lot of dark stuff. And it’s all gotten written up in an EU complaint that Slack made before we bought them.’ Microsoft has a long-standing rivalry with Slack. The messaging platform accused Microsoft of using anti-competitive techniques to maintain its dominance across organizations, including bundling Teams into its Microsoft Office 365 suite.”
But, as readers may have noticed, Teams is no longer bundled into Office 365. Score one for Salesforce. The write-up continues:
“Marc Benioff further indicated that Microsoft’s treatment of Slack was ‘pretty nasty.’ He claimed that the company often employs a similar playbook to gain a competitive advantage over its rivals while referencing ‘browser wars’ with Netscape and Internet Explorer in the late 1990s.”
How did that one work out? Not well for the once-dominant Netscape. Benioff is likely referring to Microsoft’s dirty trick of making IE 1.0 free with Windows. This does seem to be a pattern for the software giant. In the same podcast, the CEO predicts a split between Microsoft and ChatGPT. It is a recent theme of his. Okemwa writes:
“Over the past few months, multiple reports and speculations have surfaced online suggesting that Microsoft’s multi-billion-dollar partnership with OpenAI might be fraying. It all started when OpenAI unveiled its $500 billion Stargate project alongside SoftBank, designed to facilitate the construction of data centers across the United States. The ChatGPT maker had previously been spotted complaining that Microsoft doesn’t meet its cloud computing needs, shifting blame to the tech giant if one of its rivals hit the AGI benchmark first. Consequently, Microsoft lost its exclusive cloud provider status but retains the right of refusal to OpenAI’s projects.”
Who knows how long that right of refusal will last. Microsoft itself seems to be preparing for a future without its frenemy. Will Benioff crow when the partnership is completely destroyed? What will he do if OpenAI buys Chrome and pushes forward with his “everything” app?
Cynthia Murrell, May 20, 2025
Google Advertises Itself
May 16, 2025
- The signals about declining search traffic warrant attention. SEO wizards, Google’s ad partners, and its own ad wizards depend on what once was limitless search traffic. If that erodes, those infrastructure costs will become a bit of a challenge. Profits and jobs depend on mindless queries.
- Google’s reaction to these signals indicates that the company’s “leadership” knows that there is trouble in paradise. The terse statement that the Cue comment about a decline in Apple to Google search traffic and this itty bitty ad are not accidents of fate. The Google once controlled fate. Now the fabled company is in a sticky spot like Sisyphus.
- The irony of Google’s problem stems from its own Transformer innovation. Released to open source, Google may be learning that its uphill battle is of its own creation. Nice work, “leadership.”
Bing Goes AI: Metacrawler Outfits Are Toast
May 15, 2025
![dino-orange_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_[1]_thumb](https://www.arnoldit.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/dino-orange_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_1_thumb-1.gif "dino-orange_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_[1]_thumb")
No AI, just the dinobaby expressing his opinions to Zillennials.
The Softies are going to win in the AI-centric search wars. In every war, there will be casualties. One of the casualties will be metasearch companies. What’s metasearch? These are outfits that really don’t crawl the Web. That is expensive and requires constant fiddling to keep pace with the weird technical “innovations” purveyors of Web content present to the user. The metasearch companies provide an interface and then return results from cooperating and cheap primary Web search services. Most users don’t know the difference and have demonstrated over the years total indifference to the distinction. Search means Google. Microsoft wants to win at search and become the one true search service.
The most recent fix? Kill off the Microsoft Bing application programming interface. Those metasearch outfits will have to learn to love Qwant, SwissCows, and their ilk or face some-survive-or-die decisions. Do these outfits use YaCy, OpenSearch, Mwmbl, or some other source of Web indexing?
Bob Softie has just tipped over the metasearch lemonade stand. The metasearch sellers are not happy with Bob. Bob seems quite thrilled with his bold move. Thanks, ChatGPT, although I have not been able to access your wonder 4.1 service, the cartoon is good enough.
The news of this interesting move appears in “Retirement: Bing Search APIs on August 11, 2025.” The Softies say:
Bing Search APIs will be retired on August 11, 2025. Any existing instances of Bing Search APIs will be decommissioned completely, and the product will no longer be available for usage or new customer signup. Note that this retirement will apply to partners who are using the F1 and S1 through S9 resources of Bing Search, or the F0 and S1 through S4 resources of Bing Custom Search. Customers may want to consider Grounding with Bing Search as part of Azure AI Agents. Grounding with Bing Search allows Azure AI Agents to incorporate real-time public web data when generating responses with an LLM. If you have questions, contact support by emailing Bing Search API’s Partner Support. Learn more about service retirements that may impact your resources in the Azure Retirement Workbook. Please note that retirements may not be visible in the workbook for up to two weeks after being announced.
Several observations:
- The DuckDuckGo metasearch system is exempted. I suppose its super secure approach to presenting other outfits’ search results is so darned wonderful
- The feisty Kagi may have to spend to get new access deals or pay low profile crawlers like Dassault Exalead to provide some content (Let’s hope it is timely and comprehensive)
- The beneficiaries may be Web search systems not too popular with some in North America; for example, Yandex.com. I have found that Yandex.com and Yandex.ru are presenting more useful results since the re-juggling of the company’s operations took place.
Why is Microsoft taking this action? My hunch is paranoia. The AI search “thing” is going to have to work if Microsoft hopes to cope with Google’s push into what the Softies have long considered their territory. Those enterprise, cloud, and partnership set ups need to have an advantage. Binging it with AI may be viewed as the winning move at this time.
My view is that Microsoft may be edging close to another Bob moment. This is worth watching because the metasearch disruption will flip over some rocks. Who knows if Yandex or another non-Google or non-Bing search repackager surges to the fore? Web search is getting slightly more interesting and not because of the increasing chaos of AI-infused search results.
Stephen E Arnold, May 15, 2025
Google Innovates: Another Investment Play. (How Many Are There Now?)
May 13, 2025
No AI, just the dinobaby expressing his opinions to Zillennials.
I am not sure how many investment, funding, and partnering deals Google has. But as the selfish only child says, “I want more, Mommy.” Is that Google’s strategy for achieving more AI dominance. The company has already suggested that it has won the AI battle. AI is everywhere even when one does not want it. But inferiority complexes have a way of motivating bright people to claim that they are winners only to wake at 3 am to think, “I must do more. Don’t hit me in the head, grandma.”
The write up “Google Launches New Initiative to Back Startups Building AI” brilliant, never before implemented tactic. The idea is to shovel money at startups that are [a] Googley, [b] focus on AI’s cutting edge, and [c] can reduce Google’s angst ridden 3 am soul searching. (Don’t hit me in the head, grandma.)
The article says:
Google announced the launch of its AI Futures Fund, a new initiative that seeks to invest in startups that are building with the latest AI tools from Google DeepMind, the company’s AI R&D lab. The fund will back startups from seed to late stage and will offer varying degrees of support, including allowing founders to have early access to Google AI models from DeepMind, the ability to work with Google experts from DeepMind and Google Labs, and Google Cloud credits. Some startups will also have the opportunity to receive direct investment from Google.
This meets criterion [a] above. The firms have to embrace Google’s quantumly supreme DeepMind, state of the art, world beating AI. I interpret the need to pay people to use DeepMind as a hint that making something commercially viable is just outside the sharp claws of Googzilla. Therefore, just pay for those who will be Googley and use the quantumly supreme DeepMind AI.
The write up adds:
Google has been making big commitments over the past few months to support the next generation of AI talent and scientific breakthroughs.
This meets criterion [b] above. Google is paying to try to get the future to appear under the new blurry G logo. Will this work? Sure, just as it works for regular investment outfits. The hit ratio is hoped to be 17X or more. But in tough times, a 10X return is good. Why? Many people are chasing AI opportunities. The failure rate of new high technology companies remains high even with the buzz of AI. If Google has infinite money, it can indeed win the future. But if the search advertising business takes a hit or the Chrome data system has a groin pull, owning or “inventing” the future becomes a more difficult job for Googzilla.
Now we come to criterion [c], the inferiority complex and the need to meeting grandma’s and the investors’ expectations. The write up does not spend much time on the psyches of the Google leadership. The write points out:
Google also has its Google for Startups Founders Funds, which supports founders from an array of industries and backgrounds building companies, including AI companies. A spokesperson told TechCrunch in February that this year, the fund would start investing in AI-focused startups in the U.S., with more information to come at a later date.
The article does not address the psychology of Googzilla. That’s too bad because that’s what makes fuzzy G logos, impending legal penalties, intense competition from Sam AI-Man and every engineering student in China, and the self serving quantumly supreme type lingo big picture windows into the inner Google.
Grandma, don’t hit any of those ever young leaders at Google on the head. It may do some psychological rewiring that may make you proud and some other people expecting even greater achievements in AI, self driving cars, relevant search, better-than-Facebook ad targeting, and more investment initiatives.
Stephen E Arnold, May 13, 2025
Google: Making Users Cross Their Eyes in Confusion
May 9, 2025
No AI, just a dinobaby watching the world respond to the tech bros.
I read “Don’t Make It Like Google.” The article points out that Google’s “control” extends globally. The company’s approach to software and design are ubiquitous. People just make software like Google because it seems “right.”
The author of the essay says:
Developers frequently aim to make things “like Google” because it feels familiar and, seemingly, the right way to do things. In the past, this was an implicit influence, but now it’s direct: Google became the platform for web applications (Chrome) and mobile applications (Android). It also created a framework for human-machine interaction: Material Design. Now, “doing it like Google” isn’t just desirable; it’s necessary.
Regulators in the European Union have not figured out how to respond to this type of alleged “monopoly.”
The author points out:
Most tech products now look indistinguishable, just a blobby primordial mess of colors.
Why? The author provides an answer:
Google’s actual UI & UX design is terrible. Whether mass-market or enterprise, web or mobile, its interfaces are chaotic and confusing. Every time I use Google Drive or the G Suite admin console, I feel lost. Neither experience nor intuition helps—I feel like an old man seeing a computer for the first time.
I quite like the reference to the author’s feeling like an “old man seeing a computer for the first time.” As a dinobaby, I find Google’s approach to making functions available — note, I am going to use a dinobaby term — stupid. Simple functions to me are sorting emails by sender and a keyword. I have not figured out how to do this in Gmail. I have given up on Google Maps. I have zero clue how to access the “old” street view with a basic map on a mobile device. Hey, am I the only person in an unfamiliar town trying to locate a San Jose-type office building in a tan office park? I assume I am.
The author points out:
Instead of prioritizing objectively good user experiences, the more profitable choice is often to mimic Google’s design. Not because developers are bad or lazy. Not because users enjoy clunky interfaces. But because it “makes sense” from the perspective of development costs and marketing. It’s tricky to praise Apple while criticizing Google because where Google has clumsy interfaces, Apple has bugs and arbitrary restrictions. But if we focus purely on interface design, Apple demonstrates how influence over users and developers can foster generations of well-designed products. On average, an app in Apple’s ecosystem is more polished and user-friendly than one in Google’s.
I am not sure that Apple is that much better than Google, but for me, the essay makes clear that giant US technology companies shape the user’s reality. The way information is presented and what expert users learn may not be appropriate for most people. I understand that these companies have to have a design motif or template. I understand that big companies have “experts” who determine what users do and want.
The author of the essay says:
We’ve become accustomed to the unintuitive interfaces of washing machines and microwaves. A new washing machine may be quieter, more efficient, and more aesthetically pleasing, yet its dials and icons still feel alien; or your washing machine now requires an app. Manufacturers have no incentive to improve this aspect—they just do it “like the Google of their industry.” And the “Google” of any industry inevitably gets worse over time.
I disagree. I think that making interfaces impossible is a great thing. Now here’s my reasoning: Who wants to expend energy figuring out a “better way.” The name of the game is to get eyeballs. Looking like Google or any of the big technology companies means that one just rolls over and takes what these firms offer as a default. Mind control and behavior conditioning is much easier and ultimately more profitable than approaching a problem from the user’s point of view. Why not define what a user gets, make it difficult or impossible to achieve a particular outcome, and force the individual to take what is presented as the one true way.
That makes business sense.
Stephen E Arnold, May 9, 2025
Knowledge Management: Hog Wash or Lipstick on a Pig?
May 8, 2025
No AI. Just a dinobaby who gets revved up with buzzwords and baloney.
I no longer work at a blue chip consulting company. Heck, I no longer work anywhere. Years ago, I bailed out to work for a company in fly-over country. The zoom-zoom life of the big city tuckered me out. I know, however, when a consulting pitch is released to the world. I spotted one of these “pay us and we will save you” approaches today (April 25, 2025, 5 42 am US Eastern time).
How pretty can the farmer make these pigs? Thanks, OpenAI, good enough, and I know you have no clue about the preparation for a Poland China at a state fair. It does not look like this.
“How Knowledge Mismanagement is Costing Your Company Millions” is an argument presented to spark the sale of professional services. What’s interesting is that instead of beating the big AI/ML (artificial intelligence and machine learning drum set), the authors from an outfit called Bloomfire made “knowledge management” the pointy end of the spear. I was never sure what knowledge management. One of my colleagues did a lot of knowledge management work, but it looked to me like creating an inventory of content, a directory of who in the organization was a go-to source for certain information, and enterprise search.
This marketing essay asserts:
Executives are laser-focused on optimizing their most valuable assets – people, intellectual property, and proprietary technology. But many overlook one asset that has the power to drive revenue, productivity, and innovation: enterprise knowledge.
To me, the idea that one can place a value on knowledge is an important process. My own views of what is called “knowledge value” have been shaped by the work of Taichi Sakaya. This book was published 40 years ago, and it is a useful analysis of how to make money from knowing “stuff”.
This essay makes the argument that an organization that does not know how to get its information act together will not extract the appropriate value from its information. I learned:
Many organizations regard knowledge as an afterthought rather than a business asset that drives financial performance. Knowledge often remains unaccounted for on balance sheets, hidden in siloed systems, and mismanaged to the point of becoming a liability. Redundant, trivial, conflicting, and outdated information can cloud decision making that fails to deliver key results.
The only problem is that “knowledge” loses value when it moves to a system or an individual where it should not be. Let me offer three examples of the fallacy of silo breaking, financial systems, and “mismanaged” paper or digital information.
- A government contract labeled secret by the agency hiring the commercial enterprise. Forget the sharing. Locking up the “information” is essential for protecting national security and for getting paid. The knowledge management is that only authorized personnel know their part of a project. Sharing is not acceptable.
- Financial data, particularly numbers and information about a legal matter or acquisition/divestiture is definitely high value information. The organization should know that talking or leaking these data will result in problems, some little, some medium, and some big time.
- Mismanaged information is a very bad and probably high risk thing. Organizations simply do not have the management bandwidth to establish specific guidelines for data acquisition, manipulation, storage and deletion, access controls that work, and computer expertise to use dumb and smart software to keep those data ponies and information critters under control. The reasons are many and range from accountants who are CEOs to activist investor sock puppets, available money and people, and understanding exactly what has to be done to button up an operation.
Not surprisingly, coming up with a phrase like “enterprise intelligence” may sell some consulting work, but the reality of the datasphere is that whatever an organization does in an engagement running several months or a year will not be permanent. The information system in an organization any size is unstable. How does one make knowledge value from an inherently volatile information environment. Predicting the weather is difficult. Predicting the data ecosystem in an organization is the reason knowledge management as a discipline never went anywhere. Whether it was Harvey Poppel’s paperless office in the 1970s or the wackiness of the system which built a database of people so one could search by what each employee knew, the knowledge management solutions had one winning characteristic: The consultants made money until they didn’t.
The “winners” in knowledge management are big fuzzy outfits; for example, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, and a few others. Are these companies into knowledge management? I would say, “Sure because no one knows exactly what it means. When the cost of getting digital information under control is presented, the thirst for knowledge management decreases just a tad. Well, maybe I should say, “Craters.”
None of these outfits “solve” the problem of knowledge management. They sell software and services. Despite the technology available today, a Microsoft Azure SharePoint and custom Web page system leaked secure knowledge from the Israeli military. I would agree that this is indeed knowledge mismanagement, but the problem is related to system complexity, poor staff training, and the security posture of the vendor, which in this case is Microsoft.
The essay concludes with this statement in the form of a question:
The question is: Where does your company’s knowledge fall on the balance sheet?
Will the sales pitch work? Will CEOs ask, “Where is my company’s knowledge value?” Probably. The essay throws around a lot of numbers. It evokes uncertainty, risk, and may fear. It has some clever jargon like knowledge mismanagement.
Net net: Well done. Suitable for praise from a business school faculty member. Is knowledge mismanagement going to delivery knowledge value? Unlikely. Is knowledge (managed or mismanaged) hog wash? It depends on one’s experience with Poland Chinas. Is knowledge (managed or mismanaged lipstick on a pig)? Again it depends on one’s sense of what’s right for the critters. But the goal is to sell consulting, not clean hogs or pretty up pigs.
Stephen E Arnold, May 8, 2025
IBM: Making the Mainframe Cool Again
May 7, 2025
No AI, just the dinobaby expressing his opinions to Zellenials.
I a ZDNet Tech Today article titled “IBM Introduces a Mainframe for AI: The LinuxONE Emperor 5.” Years ago, I had three IBM PC 704s, each with the eight drive SCSI chassis and that wonderful ServeRAID software. I suppose I should tell you, I want a LinuxONE Emperor 5 because the capitalization reminds me of the IBM ServeRAID software. Imagine. A mainframe for artificial intelligence. No wonder that IBM stock looks like a winner in 2025.
The write up says:
IBM’s latest mainframe, the LinuxONE Emperor 5, is not your grandpa’s mainframe
The CPU for this puppy is the IBM Telum II processor. The chip is a seven nanometer item announced in 2021. If you want some information about this, navigate to “IBM’s Newest Chip Is More Than Meets the AI.”
The ZDNet write up says:
Manufactured using Samsung’s 5 nm process technology, Telum II features eight high-performance cores running at 5.5GHz, a 40% increase in on-chip cache capacity (with virtual L3 and L4 caches expanded to 360MB and 2.88GB, respectively), and a dedicated, next-generation on-chip AI accelerator capable of up to 24 trillion operations per second (TOPS) — four times the compute power of its predecessor. The new mainframe also supports the IBM Spyre Accelerator for AI users who want the most power.
The ZDNet write up delivers a bumper crop of IBM buzzwords about security, but there is one question that crossed my mind, “What makes this a mainframe?”
The answer, in my opinion, is IBM marketing. The Emperor should be able to run legacy IBM mainframe applications. However, before placing an order, a customer may want to consider:
- Snapping these machines into a modern cloud or hybrid environment might take a bit of work. Never fear, however, IBM consulting can help with this task.
- The reliance on the Telum CPU to do AI might put the system at a performance disadvantage from solutions like the Nvidia approach
- The security pitch is accurate providing the system is properly configured and set up. Once again, IBM provides the for fee services necessary to allow Z-llenial IT professional to sleep easy on weekends.
- Mainframes in the cloud are time sharing oriented; making these work in a hybrid environment can be an interesting technical challenge. Remember: IBM consulting and engineering services can smooth the bumps in the road.
Net net: Interesting system, surprising marketing, and definitely something that will catch a bean counter’s eye.
Stephen E Arnold, May 7, 2025
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
