Inteltrax: Top Stories, October 10 to October 14
October 17, 2011
Inteltrax, the data fusion and business intelligence information service, captured three key stories germane to search this week, specifically, how analytic technology depends so heavily on funding and what those dollars signify.
Our feature story this week, “Palantir Back From the Grave,” http://inteltrax.com/?p=2775 details how one BI company suffered some near-fatal blows, but has bounced back with new software and confidence, thanks to some new funding.
Another funding-centric tale was our story, “Opera and Xignite Make Waves by Raising Millions” http://inteltrax.com/?p=2573 that showed two smaller companies on the rise thanks to some big time investments.
We turned the tables with “Actuate Analytics Contest Gets Attention” http://inteltrax.com/?p=2541 to show how one company is supporting the next generation of analytic thinkers by offering their financial support.
Money makes the big data globe spin, it’s no secret. But funding carries a lot of meaning in this industry, usually it’s a sign of impending success. We’ll see if that theory holds true, as we follow these and other stories in the ever-expanding world of data analytics.
Follow the Inteltrax news stream by visiting
Patrick Roland, Editor, Inteltrax.
Real Consultants and Real Analysts Take a Hit
September 12, 2011
The Washington Post must have had a bad experience with self appointed experts. Read “The investor’s Dilemma: Earnings, Valuation and What to Do Now.” As you work through the write up, think about Microsoft’s purchase of Fast Search for $1.2 billion, Oracle’s purchase of InQuira for an estimated $66 million, Palantir’s recent intake of another $68 million, and Hewlett Packard’s interesting $11 billion purchase price for Autonomy.
Now think about the write ups from the “real” consulting companies, the trade magazines with lists of “top” companies, and the speakers on some conference programs with three or more slots in a two day period. What’s going on? The write up in the Washington Post seems to have pinpointed an important change in “analyst” behavior. Here’s the snippet I noted:
… I suspect the error is about something else. Structural changes at Wall Street firms are just as likely to be the cause. Research analysts used to work for trading and asset management divisions of big Wall Street banks. Since the 1990s, they have mostly migrated to underwriting. That’s where all the money is made. This change has changed the job of the analyst. They do far less critical analysis and far more “cheerleading.” Robert Powell, editor of Retirement Weekly, confirms it: Regarding the stocks that make up the S&P1500, Powell noted that not a single one has a Wall Street consensus “sell” rating on it. This is pretty damning proof that forecasting errors may be because of inherent structural bias.
I have a simpler way of explaining what’s going on. First, in an effort to generate revenue, analysts are now in the “pay to play” business. But wait. Conferences are also selling speaking slots for booth / exhibit purchasers or sponsors who provide “bags” for give aways, drinks at receptions, or logos for giant banners that identify who is silver, gold, or platinum. What about lists? These are hooked in to speaking, ads, or the fraternity of the trade show.
Now keep in mind that I run content for clients. We even produce information services that explain the ins and outs of financial services, rocket science technology, and silliness about social media. When I give a talk, I get money, a free meal, and, if I am lucky, two nights at a hotel without stars.
The point is that I am an addled goose, dabbling in odds and ends. The folks touched upon in the Washington Post article try to generate an aura of analytic objectivity. None of these poobahs, satraps, failed Webmasters, and unemployed English majors would dare to suggest that their work is little more than a clumsy payola, old style advertorial, or flat out fluff.
The disconnect between facts and value is fascinating. Can one believe anything from anyone in the advisory business? I hope so. I think I can filter the goose feathers from the giblets. My hunch is that others cannot, will not, or do not think goose feathers are anything by gold. Believe me, goose feathers are not gold. Goose feathers can absorb a hit. Worth having a few around if you are a “real” consultant.
Stephen E Arnold, September 12, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
IBM Acquires i2 Ltd.
September 1, 2011
IBM purchased i2 Group. Founded in 1990 by Mike Hunter, i2 is a widely used content processing and case management system for law enforcement and intelligence professionals. The company received the EuroIntel Golden Candle Award, for its contribution to the global intelligence community. On several occasions, the ArnoldIT team worked on some i2 products several years. The company has moved outside the somewhat narrow market for sophisticated intelligence analysis systems.
“IBM Acquiring I2 for Criminal Mastermind Software” reported:
IBM plans to fuse i2’s products with its own data collection, analysis and warehousing software. It will then offer packages based on this combinations to organizations looking to spot suspicious behavior within vast collections of data.
Not surprisingly, there has been considerable confusion about the company. Part of the reason is that the name “i2” was used by a back office and supply chain company. The firm benefited from its acquisition from the low profile Silver Lake Sununu. Silver Lake purchased i2 from Choicepoint in 2008 for about $185 million. “IBM Bolsters Big Data Security Credentials with i2 Buy” opines that the deal was worth more than $500 million, a fraction of what UK vendor Autonomy commanded from Hewlett Packard in August 2011.
i2’s technology is not well understood by those without direct experience using the firm’s pace setting products. One example in the Analyst’s Notebook, a system which allows multiple case details to be processed, analyzed, and displayed in a manner immediately familiar to law enforcement and intelligence professionals. i2 acquired Coplink, developed at an academic institution in Arizona.
The core technology continues to be enhanced. i2 now provides its system to organizations with an interest in analyzing data across time, via relationships, and with specialized numerical recipes.
My position is that I am not going to dive into the specific features and functions of the i2 system. If you want to know more about i2’s technology, you can visit the firm’s Web site at http://www.i2group.com/us. The Wikipedia page and many of the news and trade write ups about i2 are either incorrect or off by 20 degrees or more.
What will IBM “do” with the i2 technology? My hunch is that IBM will maintain the present market trajectory of i2 and expose the firm’s technology to IBM clients and prospects with specific security needs. Please, appreciate that the nature of the i2 technology is essentially the opposite of software available for more general purpose applications. My view is that IBM will probably continue to support the integration of i2 Clairty component with the Microsoft SharePoint platform. Like the descriptions of Autonomy’s technology, some of the write ups about i2 may require further verfication.
We have reported on the legal dust up about the i2 ANB file format and some friction between Palantir and i2 in Inteltrax. Most of the legal hassles appear to be worked out, but contention is certainly possible going forward.
I have been a fan of i2’s technology for many years. However, some firms have moved into different analytical approaches. In most cases, these new developments enhance the functionality of an i2 system. Today we are featuring an editorial by Tim Estes, founder of Digital Reasoning, a company that has moved “beyond i2.” You can read his views about the Autonomy deal in “Summer of Big Deals”. More information about Digital Reasoning is available at www.digitalreasoning.com. Digital Reasoning is a client of ArnoldIT, the publisher of this information service.
Stephen E Arnold, September 1, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Recommind and Predictive Coding
June 15, 2011
The different winners of the Kentucky Derby, Preakness, and Belmont horse races cast some doubt on predictive analytics. But search and content processing is not a horse race. The results are going to be more reliable and accurate, or that is the assumption. One thing is 100 percent certain: A battle over the phrase “predictive coding” in the marketing of math that’s in quite a few textbooks is brewing.
First, you will want to read US 7,933,859, Systems and Methods for Predictive Coding.” You can get your copy via the outstanding online service at USPTO.gov. The patent was a zippy one, filed on May 25, 2010, and granted on April 26, 2011.
There were quite a few write ups about the patent. We noted “Recommind Patents Predictive Coding” from Recommind’s Web site. The company has a Web site focused on predictive coding with the tag line “Out predict. Out perform.” A quote from a lawyer at WilmerHale announces, “This is a game changer in eDiscovery.”
Why a game changer? The answer, according to the news release, is:
Recommind’s Predictive Coding™ technology and workflow have transformed the legal industry by accelerating the most expensive phase of eDiscovery, document review. Traditional eDiscovery software relies on linear review, a tedious, expensive and error-prone process . . . . Predictive Coding uses machine learning to categorize and prioritize any document set faster, more accurately and more defensibly than contract attorneys, no matter how much data is involved.
Some push back was evident in “Predictive Coding War Breaks Out in US eDiscovery Sector.” The point in this write up is that other vendors have been offering predictive functions in the legal market.
Our recollection is that a number of other outfits dabble in this technological farm yard as well. You can read the interview with Google-funded Recorded Future and Digital Reasoning in my Search Wizards Speak series. I have noted in my talks that there seems to be some similarity between Recommind’s systems and methods and Autonomy’s, a company that is arguably one of the progenitors of probabilistic methods in the commercial search sector. Predecessors to Autonomy’s Integrated Data Operating Layer exist all the way back to math-crazed church men in ye merrie old England before steam engines really caught on. So, new? Well, that’s a matter for lawyers I surmise.
With the legal dust up between i2 Ltd. and Palantir, two laborers on the margins of the predictive farm yard, legal fires can consume forests of money in a flash. You can learn more about data fusion and predictive analytics in my Inteltrax information service. Navigate to www.inteltrax.com.
Stephen E Arnold, June 15, 2011
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, the resource for enterprise search information and current news about data fusion
Digital Reasoning Continues to Expand
May 16, 2011
Move over Palantir and i2 Ltd. Digital Reasoning is expanding due to its rapid growth. As reported in MSN’s “Digital Reasoning Introduces Federal Advisory Board,” the data analytics leader has created a board to guide its push into the federal market. We learned:
With the federal government’s increased focus on cloud computing, (Digital Reasoning’s) flagship product Synthesys® provides a unique Entity Oriented Analytics solution that enables government agencies to tap into the power of big data. The Advisory Board represents a team with unique insight into the requirements of Big Data, text analytics and intelligence solutions for government agencies.
The board members are: Gen. William T. Hobbins, who retired as Commander, U.S. Air Forces in Europe; Bob Flores, founder and president of Applicology Inc., who spent 31 years in the US intelligence community; Anita K. Jones, who managed the Department of Defense’s science and technology program; Capt. Nick Buck, who spent 15 years in National Security Space, including 10 years in the National Reconnaissance Office; and Mike Miller, currently president of M4 Associates and previously VP of Juniper Networks’ Public Sector Division where he was responsible for all business with Juniper’s Public Sector customers in the US. This kind of talent should be valuable guiding Digital Reasoning’s federal sector strategy.
We have tracked this Franklin, Tennessee, company since its inception. To get some insight into the firm’s approach, you may want to read these two interviews ArnoldIT.com, the owner of this news service, conducted with Tim Estes, the founder of Digital Reasoning. The February 2010 interview explores the core technology of the firm and how it differs from other vendors’ methods. The December 2010 interview probes the new version of the firm’s flagship technology.
Stephen E Arnold, May 16, 2011
Freebie
Visualization Components
May 15, 2011
David Galles, of the Computer Science University of San Francisco, gives us a useful collection of visualization components in his “Data Structure Visualizations” list. The structures and algorithms addressed include the Basics, Indexing, Sorting, Heap-like Data Structures, Graph Algorithms, Dynamic Programming, and “Others.”
In his page discussing visualizations, Galles explains,
The best way to understand complex data structures is to see them in action. We’ve developed interactive animations for a variety of data structures and algorithms. Our visualization tool is written in JavaScript using the HTML5 canvas element, and run in just about any modern browser — including iOS devices like the iPhone and iPad, and even the web browser in the Kindle! (The frame rate is low enough in the Kindle that the visualizations aren’t terribly useful, but the tree-based visualizations — BSTs and AVL Trees — seem to work well enough).
Galles also provides a tutorial for creating one’s own visualizations. Check it out if you’re wrestling with your own complex data structures. As search vendors thrash and flail, business intelligence looks like a promising market sector. Nothing sells business intelligence like hot graphics. Just ask Palantir.
Cynthia Murrell May 15, 2011
As Search and Analytics Merge: Visualizations Surge
May 7, 2011
“6 Great Data Visualization Applications” provides some interesting screen shots and links to exemplary graphical presentations of result sets. The drivers for visualization are MBAs looking to add sizzle to their otherwise narcotized PowerPoints and big data. When running a query against petabytes of data, a laundry list is essentially useless. With top results distorted by spam and SEO machinations, I find it difficult to pinpoint what I need to answer a question. I find myself falling back on traditional research methods such as notecards, looking up information in books (printed and digital), and talking to people who allegedly know their stuff.
Assume you want some snappy visualizations. The article from Techlozenge will help you out. You get a screen shot and a brief description of six tools. These include:
- DiskSpaceFan
- Google Chart Tools
- Mindmap
- Newsmap
- Treesize Free
- WinDirStat
Of this group, I found the Newsmap and Google Chart Tools links the most useful. You may want to take a look at these examples. Keep in mind that these are not industrial strength toolsets like those provided with Palantir and Digital Reasoning. The idea is to provide some examples.
Stephen E Arnold, May 7, 2011
Freebie
Automated Understanding: Digital Reasoning Cracks the Information Maze
March 4, 2011
I learned from one reader that the presentation by Tim Estes, the founder of Digital Reasoning, caused some positive buzz at a recent conference on the west coast. According to my source, this was a US government sponsored event focused on where content processing was going. The surprise was that as other presenters talked about the future, a company called Digital Reasoning displayed a next generation system. Keep in mind that i2 Ltd. is a solid analyst’s tool with technology roots that stretch back 15 years. (I did some work for the founder of i2 a few years ago and have a great appreciation for the case value of the system for law enforcement.) Palantir has some useful visualization tools, but the company continues to attract attention from litigation and brushes with outfits with some interesting sales practices. Beyond Search covered this story here and here.
ArnoldIT.com sees Digital Reasoning’s Synthesys as solving difficult information puzzles quickly and efficiently because it eliminates most of the false path or trial-and-error of traditional systems. Solving the information maze of real world flows is now possible in our view.
The shift was from semi-useful predictive numerical recipes and overlays or augmented outputs to something quite new and different. The Digital Reasoning presentation focused on real data and what the company called “automated understanding.”
For a few bucks last year, one of my colleagues and I got a look at the automated understanding approach of the Synthesys 3 platform. Tim Estes explained that real data poses major challenges to systems that lack an ability to process large flows, discern nuances, and apply what Mr. Estes described as “entity oriented analytics.”
Our take at ArnoldIT.com is that Digital Reasoning moves “beyond search” in a meaningful way. The key points we recall from our briefing was the a modular approach eliminates the need for a massive infrastructure build and the analytics reflect what is happening in a real time flow of unstructured information. My personal view is that historical research is best served by key word systems. The more advanced methods deliver actionable information and better decisions by focusing on the vast amounts of “now” data. A single Twitter message can be important. A meaningful analysis of a flow of Twitter messages moves insight to the next level.
Is Customer Support a Revenue Winner for Search Vendors?
February 26, 2011
In a word, “Maybe.” Basic search is now widely available at low or
InQuira has been a player in customer support for a number of years. The big dogs in customer support are outfits like RightNow, Pega, and a back pack full of off shore outfits. In the last couple of weeks, we have snagged news releases that suggest search vendors are in the customer support business.
Two firms have generated somewhat similar news releases. Coveo, based in Canada, was covered in Search CRM in a story titled “2011 Customer Service Trends: The Mobile Revolution.” The passage that caught our attention was:
The most sophisticated level of mobile enablement includes native applications, such as iPhone applications available from Apple’s App Store, which have been tested and approved by the device manufacturer. Not only do these applications offer the highest level of usability, they allow integration with other device applications. For example, Coveo’s mobile interface for the company’s Customer Information Access Solutions allows you to take action on items in a list of search returns, such as reply to an email or add a comment to a Salesforce.com incident. Like any hot technology trend, when investing in mobile enablement it is important to prioritize projects based on potential return on investment, not “cool” factor.
Okay, mobile for customer support.
Then we saw a few days later “Vivisimo Releases New Customer Experience Optimization Solution” in Destination CRM. Originally a vendor of on-the-fly clustering, Vivisimo has become a full service content processing firm specializing in “information optimization.” The passage that caught our attention was:
Vivisimo has begun to address the needs of these customer-facing professionals with the development of its Customer Experience Optimization (CXO) solution, which gives customer service representatives and account managers quick access to all the information about a customer, no matter where that information is housed and managed—inside or outside a company’s systems, and regardless of the source or type. The company’s products are a hybrid of enterprise search, text-based search, and business intelligence solutions. CXO also targets the $1.4 trillion problem of lost worker productivity fueled by employees losing time looking for information. “All content comes through a single search box,” Calderwood says, “which reduces the amount of time to find information.” CXO works with an enterprise search platform that indexes unstructured data, and a display mechanism that uses analytics to find the data. It sits on top of all the systems and applications a company can have—even hosted applications—and pulls data from them all. It can sync up with major systems from Remedy, Siebel, SAP, Oracle, Microsoft, Salesforce.com, and many others.
So, customer support and customer relationship management it is.
Promises are easy to make and sometimes difficult to keep. Source: http://dwellingintheword.wordpress.com/2009/12/29/172-numbers-30-and-31/
I have documented the changes that search and content processing companies have made in the last year. There have been significant executive changes at Lucid Imagination, MarkLogic, and Sinequa. Companies like Attensity and JackBe have shifted from a singular focus on serving a specific business sector to a broader commercial market. Brainware is pushing into document processing and medical information. Recommind has moved from eDiscovery into enterprise search. Palantir, the somewhat interesting visualization and analytics operation, is pushing into financial services, not just government intelligence sectors. There are numerous examples of search vendors looking for revenue love in various market sectors.
So what?
I see four factors influencing search and content processing vendors. I am putting the finishing touches on a “landscape report” in conjunction with Pandia.com about enterprise search. I dipped into the reference material for that study and noted these points:
- Repositioning is becoming a standard operating positioning for most search and content processing vendors. Even the giants like Google are trying to find ways to lash their indexing technology to words in hopes of increasing revenue. So wordsmithing is the order of the day. Do these firms have technology that will deliver on the repositioned capability? I am not sure, but I have ample evidence that plain old search is now a commodity. Search does not generate too much excitement among some organizations.
- The niches themselves that get attention—customer support, marketers interested in social content, and business intelligence—are in flux. The purpose of customer support is to reduce costs, not put me in touch with an expert who can answer my product question. The social content band wagon is speeding along, but it is unclear if “social media” is useful across a wide swath of business types. Consumer products, yes. Specialty metals, not so much.
- A “herd” mentality seems to be operating. Search vendors who once chased “one size fits all” buyers now look at niches. The problem is that some niches like eDiscovery and customer support have quite particular requirements. Consultative selling Endeca-style may be needed, but few search vendors has as many MBA types as Endeca and a handful of other firms. Engineers are not so good at MBA style tailoring, but with staff additions, the gap can be closed, just not overnight. Thus, the herd charges into a sector but there may not be enough grazing to feed everyone.
- Significant marketing forces are now at work. You have heard of Watson, I presume. When a company like IBM pushes into search and content processing with a consumer assault, other vendors have to differentiate themselves. Google and Microsoft are also marketing their corporate hearts into 150 beat per minute range. That type of noise forces smaller vendors to amp up their efforts. The result is the type of shape shifting that made the liquid metal terminator so fascinating. But that was a motion picture. Selling information retrieval is real life.
I am confident that the smaller vendors of search and content processing will be moving through a repositioning cycle. The problem for some firms is that their technology is, at the end of the day, roughly equivalent to Lucene/Solr. This means that unless higher value solutions can be delivered, an open source solution may be good enough. Simply saying that a search and retrieval system can deliver eDiscovery, customer support, business intelligence, medical fraud detection, or knowledge management may not be enough to generate needed revenue.
In fact, I think the hunt for revenue is driving the repositioning. Basic search has crumbled away as a money maker. But key word retrieval backed with some categorization is not what makes a customer support solution or one of the other “search positioning plays” work. Each of these niches has specific needs and incumbents who are going to fight back.
Enterprise search and its many variants remains a fascinating niche to monitor. There are changes afoot which are likely to make the known outfits sweat bullets in an effort to find a way to break through the revenue ceilings that seem to be imposed on many vendors of information retrieval technology. Even Google has a challenge, and it has lots of money and smart people. If Google can’t get off its one trick pony, what’s that imply for search vendors with fewer resources?
It is easy to say one has a solution. It is quite another to deliver that solution to an organization with a very real, very large, and very significant problem.
Stephen E Arnold, February 26, 2011
When Intelligence Methods Go Out of Bounds
February 21, 2011
For many years, the ArnoldIT.com team has supported different next-generation technology firms. It is important to go “beyond search”, but the question is, “How far should an organization go to get work to keep revenues flowing?” We have worked from some interesting US government agencies. We built plumbing for a couple of information “push” systems that bridged the gap between search and actionable intelligence. In the course of that work, we have been successful in separating commercial work from the intelligence work.
Fact is, most of the companies with which we have some knowledge operate in a similar matter. Keeping the commercial application of technology distinct from the non-commercial application of technology has been a standard practice. No one told me to keep the work distinct. The learning was imparted by culture, first at the nuclear unit of Halliburton and later at the technology unit of the original, pre-break up Booz, Allen & Hamilton.
In search and content processing technology, life has become more complicated for three reasons. First, there is intense pressure on firms with next generation technology to generate revenue. Information processing software is among the most costly to develop, enhance, and enrich. With that pressure for funding comes some different expectations about what to do to pay the bills.
Second, there is more awareness of what can be done with flows of data processed by next generation systems. Even the least sophisticated Web search user recognizes that the ads are either related to the subject of the search or reasonably pertinent to the particular user.
Source: My home town newspaper. The Peoria Journal Star.
Going after the ball when out of bounds.
Third, the cultural boundaries of distinct information communities is becoming more porous. Information technology osmosis is now a fact of life.
When one combines these three factors, one consequence has been the disquieting disclosure that a number of firms appear to be using certain types of information technology in ways that run counter to expectations. The example fresh in my mind is the disclosure of emails, PowerPoints, and chit chat about the use of next generation information technology to “bring down” Wikileaks and individuals associated with that Web site.
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
