XML Carnage
January 31, 2011
We noted “Learning from our Mistakes: The Failure of OpenID, AtomPub, and XML on the Web.” What caught our attention was this steemtn:
So next time you’re evaluating a technology that is being much hyped by the web development blogosphere, take a look to see whether the fundamental assumptions that led to the creation of the technology actually generalize to your use case. An example that comes to mind that developers should consider doing with this sort of evaluation given the blogosphere hype is NoSQL.
The article points out that the enthusiasm for OpenID, AtomPub, and XML for “the Web” has cooled. What looks like the next big think, I concluded, may not be.
What are the implications for search and content processing vendors?
For those who don’t know what the three technologies are or do, the answer is, “Not much.” Many vendors handle security, intakes, and formats via connectors. I wrote a for fee column about the importance of connectors, filters, and code widgets that make one outfit’s proprietary or tricky file formats easily tappable / importable by anothre vendor’s system. I know that you have been following the i2 Ltd. and Palantir legal hassle closely. If you haven’t, you can get some color in the stories in www.inteltrax.com and my for fee columns.
But, if you are a vendor who has a big investment in one or more of these technologies, the loss of “enthusiasm”—if the source article is accurate—could mean higher costs. Here’s why:
- The marketing positioning and collateral will have to be adapted. Probably not a big deal in the pre-crash days, but now this is a cost and it can be a time sink. Not good when pressure for sales goes up each day. One vendor told me, “We’re really heads down.” No kidding. I don’t think it is work; I think it is survival. A marketing distraction is not a positive.
- Credibility with some customers may be eroded. If you beat a drum for one or more of these three technologies, the client assumes that everyone likes the rhythm. Articles that suggest three “next big things” are really three day old brook trout may beg for air freshener.
- Partners who often just buy the software vendors’ pitches have invested. Now those investments may not have the type of value one associates with certifiation from Microsoft or the sheer staying power of a wild and crazy push by IBM or Oracle. If partners bail out, recovery can be difficult in some markets.
Worth reading the article and thinking about its implications for search and content processing vendors. Might not ruffle your features; could tear off a wing.
Stephen E Arnold, January 31, 2011
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Exclusive Interview: Sam Brooks, EBSCO Publishing
January 18, 2011
We have been covering “discovery” in Beyond Search since 2008. We added a discovery-centric blog called IntelTrax to our line up in September 2010. One of the companies that caught our attention was EBSCO Publishing, one of the leaders in the commercial database, library information, and electronic publishing sectors. EBSCO has embraced discovery technology, making “search without search”, faceted navigation, and other user-centric features available to EBSCO customers. Chances are your university, junior college, middle school, and primary school libraries use EBSCO products and services. Thousands of organizations world wide rely on EBSCO for high-value, third party content, including rich media. You can get the details of the EBSCO content and information services offerings at http://www.ebscohost.com/.
I wanted to know how a company anchored in online technology moved “beyond search” so effectively. I spoke last week with Sam Brooks, senior vice president of EBSCO Publishing. He told me:
As library users have grown accustomed to the simplicity and one-stop shopping of web search engines, EDS allows users to initiate a comprehensive search of a library’s entire collection via a single search box. The true value of EDS is that while providing a simple, familiar search experience to end users, the sophistication of the service combined with the depth of available metadata allows EDS to return extensive results as if the user had performed more advanced searches across a number of premium resources.
EBSCO’s presentation is easily customized. This particular user interface matches the rich options available from such companies as i2 Ltd. and Palantir, two leaders in the “beyond search” approach to information.
The new discovery interface makes it easy to pull together a broad range of content to answer a user’s query. The interface then goes farther. Exploring a topic or following a research thread is facilitated with the hot links displayed to the user. The technology for the user interface is intuitive. Mr. Brooks told me:
By using our EBSCOhost infrastructure as the foundation for EBSCO Discovery Service (EDS), the entire library collection becomes available through a fast, familiar, full-featured experience that requires no additional training. Additionally, unprecedented levels of interface customization allow libraries to use EDS as the basis for creating their own “discovery” service. Currently, users can access EDS via the mobile version of the EBSCOhost interface. Further, there will soon also be a dedicated iPhone/iPad app for use with EDS as well.
For the full text of the exclusive interview, navigate to the Search Wizards Speak feature at this link.
Stephen E Arnold, January 18, 2011
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Any.Do for Voice to Device Actions Technology
January 10, 2011
When I was running around Central America a week ago, I received from one of my two or three readers a link to a story in VC Cafe with the title “Stealthy Startup Any.do Raises $1 Million Seed Round for Voice Mobile Commands. There is precious little information about the company available, but the article mentioned two individuals who have pumped some dough into the outfit. One is Google’s Eric Schmidt and the other is Joe Londsdale, a founder of Palantir. There are some other smart money investors, but I find the Schmidt and Londsdale references most interesting.
What’s Any.do do?
Based on what information I have, one talks to a mobile device and the Any.Do technology figures out what one says. With this information, Any.Do makes the instructions happen. Here’s VC Cafe’s summary:
[Any.Do is] developing technology to translate the user’s natural language voice input to the mobile device into actions, using voice recognition and semantic analysis algorithms…. AnyDo is capable of understanding subtle differences, such as the ability to purchase a product offline vs. online, pay bills on the mobile, purchase insurance, etc, using voice commands on the mobile.
The company’s Web site says, “Any.Do helps you do more of the things you love doing.” You can sign up to get information about the company at http://any.do.
I learned that Any.Do has developed an application for Android. Any.Do seems poised to release a product something this year. If it gets magnetic, maybe the Google will buy the company. I heard that at least one Googler works at the company now.
Stephen E Arnold, January 10, 2011
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Social Media in 2011: Some Wild and Crazy Prognostications
January 1, 2011
Let me be upfront. I am not a social media type of goose. I know that most affluent people under the age of 35 comprise an important social media demographic. I know that most of the outfits that pay me money to dog work don not use social media in some obvious places; namely, customer support or whatever buzzword a 25 year old marketing whiz crafts between sips of a Starbuck’s latte. (More information about organizations limited use of social media for customer feedback is here.)
The article “10 Ways Social Media Will Change in 2011” is quite interesting. I find the 10 reasons a good collection of prognostications. (I do like that word from a Greek root that means foreknowing.) I want to comment on one of the predictions. I am pretty much okay with the other nine, but I have reservations about Number 6, ROI Will Be Redefined.
Image source: http://www.cantrip.org/stupidity.html
Frankly, baloney. The economy is in a tough financial weather system. Many search and content processing companies are struggling to keep their lights on. What available cash these outfits have is often spent running from funding source to funding source looking for an infusion of capital. There’s a lot of cash available for investment, but there are not many search vendors able to match the type of funding that Aster Data at $38 million and Palantir at $90 million have been able to snag in 2010.
The reason. Old fashioned ROI. One does not redefine ROI because people are communicating in old and somewhat refreshing new ways. ROI is, as I recall from my brain numbing days at a blue chip consulting firm, the ratio of income produced by an asset divided by its investment cost.
That’s an algorithm, a numerical recipe. One can invent a new recipe, but the old recipe is just a mathematical sequence, and it is not likely to go away next year or anytime in the next couple of years. I have no doubt that those who live by clinging to the latest online trend will manipulate the words “return on investment” and the acronym “ROI” into some wild and crazy, hip notion.
But social media is not going to get Microsoft or the MBA professors to toss out the ratio that every student, no matter how addled, to memorize. Social media delivers benefits and some of these benefits can be quantified. But change ROI? Baloney.
Stephen E Arnold, January 1, 2011
Freebie just like the comments about social media changing what’s baked into an Excel formula.
OCLC-SkyRiver Dust Up
December 16, 2010
In the excitement of the i2 Ltd. legal action against Palantir, I put the OCLC – SkyRiver legal hassle aside. I was reminded of the library wrestling match when I read “SkyRiver Challenges OCLC as Newest LC Authority Records Node.” I don’t do too much in libraries at this time. But OCLC is a familiar name to me; SkyRiver not so much. The original article about the legal issue appeared in Library Journal in July 29, 2010, “SkyRiver and Innovative Interfaces File Major Antitrust Lawsuit against OCLC.” Libraries are mostly about information access. Search would not have become the core function if it had not been for libraries’ early adoption of online services and their making online access available to patrons. In the days before the wild and wooly Web, libraries were harbingers of the revolution in research.
Legal battles are not unknown in the staid world of research, library services, and traditional indexing and content processing activities. But a fight between a household name and OCLC and a company with which I had modest familiarity is news.
Here’s the key passage from the Library Journal write up:
Bibliographic services company SkyRiver Technology Solutions recently announced that it had become an official node of the Name Authority Cooperative Program (NACO), part of the Library of Congress’s (LC) Program for Cooperative Cataloging. It’s the first private company to provide this service, which was already provided by the nonprofit OCLC—SkyRiver’s much larger competitor in the bibliographic services field—and the British Library. Previously, many institutions have submitted their name authority records via OCLC. But SkyRiver’s new status as a NACO node allows it to provide the service, once exclusive to OCLC in the United States, to its users directly.
For me, this is a poke in the eye for OCLC, an outfit that used me on a couple of project when General K. Wayne Smith was running a very tight operation. I don’t know how management works at OCLC, but I think any action by the Library of Congress is going to trigger some meetings.
SkyRiver sees OCLC as acting in a non-competitive way. Now the Library of Congress has blown a kiss at SkyRiver. Looks like the library landscape, already ravaged by budget bulldozers, may be undergoing another change. I think outline of the mountain range where the work is underway appears to spell out the word “Monopoly.” Nah, probably my imagination.
Stephen E Arnold, December 16, 2010
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IntelTrax Available
November 9, 2010
The new Web log IntelTrax is now available. The free service from the editors of Beyond Search and ArnoldIT.com covers data fusion. The term “data fusion” refers to systems and methods for processing disparate data and information into actionable intelligence. The phrases “business intelligence”, “knowledge management,” “text mining,” “eDiscovery”, and “data analytics” have become imprecise. Marketers apply these terms to a wide range of companies, products and services.
“No one has a definition for these buzzwords. Yet there are important and exciting developments available,” said Stephen E Arnold, publisher of IntelTrax. “This Web log—edited by Patrick Roland, a professional writer—will describe companies, products, and services that are essential where business and technology intersect. Our research reveals that organizations want information about ‘what’s next’ in information access and management. IntelTrax will help readers cut a path through this dense thicket of activity.”
Like Beyond Search, the Web log will present opinions and commentary. Available immediately are more than 150 articles. These range from a discussion of the i2 Ltd.-Palantir legal matter to commentary about the need for an intelligence framework that works. The About section of the Web log explains the blog’s editorial policies. The publication accepts advertising and if a company wants a sponsored write up, those will be included in the Web log and identified as a placed article.
Arnold continued, “In the last 12 to 18 months, a number of specialized software firms have begun to market services to the general business community. Some of these firms’ technologies were funded by or developed for the US intelligence community or a similar country’s governmental entities. Now these companies are offering commercial versions of their products. These software systems move beyond traditional data mining and map mashups. The companies are shifting information retrieval from guessing words that unlock a results list to a proactive, answer-oriented approach to data and information.”
IntelTrax is updated Monday to Friday with a mix of commentary, original features, and summaries of important reports. In addition, IntelTrax will profile specific companies and products. The information in IntelTrax does not duplicate the information in Beyond Search. The content will be distributed via RSS, and you can sign up for an email each day with that day’s headlines. The service is now indexed by Silobreaker, a content processing company serving both the commercial and intelligence sector.
Comments about IntelTrax may be sent to the editor at inteltrax@ymail.com.
Stuart Schram IV, November 9, 2010
Post sponsored by ArnoldIT.com
Arnold Google Column to Informed Market Intelligence
November 8, 2010
After an 18 month run at KMWorld, change is afoot. Beginning with columns submitted in December 2010, Stephen E Arnold’s Google in the Enterprise column moves to Informed Market Intelligence. The monthly analysis of Google’s enterprise products, services, and strategy will appear in ETM, the independent resource for IT executives. You can access the company’s public ETM Web site at www.globaletm.com. Informed Market Intelligence also publishes hard copy as well and, like Mr. Arnold’s discussion of open source search software, some of his Google analyses will appear in other IMI publications.
What’s happened with Mr. Arnold’s KMWorld column? Beginning in December 2010, Mr. Arnold begins a new monthly column that focuses on the use of semantic technology in the enterprise. On tap for KMWorld will be critical looks at some of the surprising applications of semantic technology from some well know enterprise vendors like Autonomy and Exalead as well as explorations of next generation “understanding systems” from companies like Digital Reasoning and Palantir.
Mr. Arnold also contributes for-fee columns on a monthly basis to Information Today, Information World Review, Online Magazine, and Smart Business Network. You are reading a free blog; the good stuff appears in the for-fee columns. Mr. Arnold told me, “No duplication. The blog does one thing, usually broad topics with help from more than seven contributors. The columns do another—incisive discussion of companies, technologies, and business issues. Each column presents my viewpoint about key issues in digital information.”
Will the 66 year old Mr. Arnold be able to sustain this writing schedule? My view is that he won’t have the stamina. Betcha a dollar.
Ken Toth, November 8, 2010
Sponsored by Stephen E Arnold and ArnoldIT.com.
Vamosa Acquired by T-Systems
October 27, 2010
Update: The goose is easily confused. T-Systems, not T-Mobile, purchased Vamosa. I think that Deutsche Telekom owns both of these companies. I see a similarity between the T-Systems’ Web site and the T-Mobile Web sites. The clue is the weird color and the dotted lines. I also heard from an ever-so-polite person who enjoined me in several emails to point out that T-Mobile(owned by Deutsche Telekom) did not acquire Vamosa. T-Systems (owned by Deutsche Telekom) did not buy Vamosa. Interesting because this sort of input attracts my attention; it does not diminish it. My question, “Why such a consoluted structure made more confusing with logos, color, and branding? ” Worth poking around perhaps?
And here’s an alleged official explanation from a person representing himself as affiliated with Kelso PR:
The problem is that in the UK, T-Systems and T-Mobile are different companies, owned by the same overall company, Deutsche Telekom. T-Mobile is a partnership between France Telecom & Deutsche Telekomm [sic], whereas T-Systems is wholly owned by Deutsche Telekom. Indeed, in the UK T-Mobile isn’t called T-Mobile anymore, and is now called “everything everywhere”. We are fine with you describing the purchaser as Deutsche Telekom (the overall owner), or as T-Systems (the actual buyer of Vamosa), but we would prefer if you don’t refer to the purchaser of Vamosa as “T-mobile”, which is a different company altogether. The Vamosa website has the “T-systems” branding running across the top of it. http://www.vamosa.com/ It’s just a simple issue of accuracy of the information. If you have a look here: http://www.heraldscotland.com/business/corporate-sme/t-systems-acquires-ip-and-trademarks-from-collapsed-vamosa-1.1063831 it should be clear how this is being reported in the UK. As I say, thanks so much for responding to this.
A number of questions are swirling through my mind. Got that?
Short honk: T-Mobile (TSystems) has acquired Vamosa. I think of T-Mobile as a third string player in the US mobile market and a reliable wireless provider in the parts of Europe I visit. I was near the arctic circle a couple of years ago and I got a T-Mobile signal. T-Mobile’s purchase of Vamosa interested me. Vamosa embraced the notion of content governance, but I think of the company has having software that transform content. In addition to connectors, the company’s strength was moving a big chunk of content from one system into a form that another system could use. Instead of a human slogging through sample documents, Vamosa offered software to analyze, normalize, and migrate content. A person at KelsoPR.com sent me a news release that said:
The acquisition supports T-Systems’ strategic focus fuelling growth by enabling collaboration and mobility. “Executives are looking for innovative technologies that help them reduce the complexity of managing multiple e-channels, which they rely on to drive knowledge sharing and customer transactions. An increasing number of critical business processes depend on the implementation of a secure and consistent governance structure that ensures employees, partners and customers have access to reliable content at all times and across all screens,” said Peter Row, Vice President of T-Systems UK Systems Integration who led the acquisition. “By expanding our portfolio to target this business issue we will be offering a unique end to end solution for customers in the marketplace.” The market-leading suite of products previously developed by Vamosa Limited, automatically tags digital content, cleans legacy data and seamlessly migrates content into content management systems. On an ongoing basis the software technology ensures corporate standards are adhered to and auto-fixes any breaches it uncovers.
I had heard that T-Mobile was thrashing around in search, content processing, and information services. Maybe this acquisition adds some credence to those rumors. I am not sure about the Vamosa connectors. As you know, I am watching the i2 Ltd / Palantir legal matter which seems to be about reverse engineering connectors in order to hook into proprietary file stores. Connectors and data transformation are emerging as interesting functions which warrant observation.
Stephen E Arnold, October 27, 2010
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Recommind Estimated 2010 Revenues: Fact or Fiction?
October 25, 2010
Last week I heard that Recommind disclosed its revenues. The information I saw surfaced on the e-discovery 2.0 blog in “Recommind Publicly Discloses Its Revenue—and It’s Less than You Might Think.” The write up contained some interesting information, but I don’t know if the figures and factoids are spot on. Nevertheless, I did find the information interesting and in line with what my Overflight model spits out for a privately-held company in the search and content processing business.
Smash cut to the death of the fox in the jaws of the search hounds: Recommind’s estimated 2010 revenue is $23 to $28 million. That’s nothing to sneeze at. Most of the companies chugging along in the search and content processing rendering yard generate less revenue. And even with the outfits with great visibility and a strong client list, the need for cash is growing. Endeca accepted an intravenous drip from Intel and SAP Ventures. High flying Palantir sucked on a $90 million money milk shake this summer. And BA-Insight—a vendor of Microsoft SharePoint snap in systems—palmed $6 million.
The challenge with numbers from privately held companies is that the data are difficult to verify. Heck, try and figure out what publicly traded Amazon spends on R&D and makes on its widely publicized Amazon Web Services product line. Impossible task in my opinion. Move those finances into a private company and figuring out what’s what is tough. Google allegedly used some fancy dancing to trim its tax bill and that arabesque is only now being evaluated.
With regard to finances, a top line revenue figure or a growth rate are handy hand holds for the arm chair analyst or the azure chip consultant. In the real world, some financial types are interest in the company’s long term expenditures for R&D, the debt, the structure of deals’ payouts, executive compensation, etc. Without more numerical grit, who really knows. I recall looking at financial data for one high profile search system and learned that a number of debts had been rolled together, refinanced repeatedly, and the burden was little more than an annoying payment. The approach was similar to the person who buys a new vehicle by looking at the monthly payment, not the cost of the debt. In the Enron and Tyco world, these were old tricks. In the BearStearns Lehman Brothers world, magic accounting is what makes MBA men men and MBA women get a zest for living.
There were some factoids in the write up. Here are ones I noted:
- Recommind is placed on a par with Exterro and kCura. Fascinating to me because Exterro and kCura are what I consider next generation systems.
- Recommind is chasing three markets and according to the write up, Recommind’s revenue from the legal sector is “less than many other companies in the space.” No support but I found this an interesting observation.
- Recommind had a lousy 2009. No big surprise there.
I am not so quick to chastise Recommind for the alleged revenue. Compared to some of the search and content processing vendors I track, that $20 million or so looks pretty good compared to $1.5 to $3.0 million. We don’t know the cost structure or the net, but at least Recommind is still in business. It is, therefore, doing something right which is more than I can say for the search vendors listed on my Death Watch list. I recall I tried to visit the company, but it was too busy to make time for the addled goose. I suppose that’s a marketing ploy of sorts. I still want to understand the difference between the Recommind approach and the Autonomy IDOL approach. But now I am pretty busy and will content myself with recycling the Recommind revenue figures. And as for the “smaller than you might think”, I don’t think too much about Recommind or its revenues. I am a busy goose indeed. For more information about Recommends, navigate to www.recommind.com.
Stephen E Arnold, October 25, 2010
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Coveo Adds Connectors
October 16, 2010
Coveo has announced new information indexing connectors. Among the new connectors are those for Jive SBS Versions 3.0 to 4.5, support for Microsoft SharePoint 2010, and Microsoft Exchange 2010. Coveo updated its connector for Lotus Notes. In the news release, we learned that Coveo is working with Netezza. Earlier this year we heard that Netezza was hooked into Attivio. Netezza, as you may know, is now part of IBM, a company which has been on a mini-spending spree.
One of the interesting comments in the news story was:
Out of the box, Coveo Information Indexing Connectors seamlessly and securely index enterprise-wide systems and data repositories. Coveo-developed connectors offer superior functionality and integration, including with the native security model of each system. Coveo Connectors feature live monitoring and dynamically index new, deleted and modified documents, ensuring just-in-time access to the timeliest information.
Connectors continue to have a pipeline to our in box. The i2 – Palantir legal matter is about connectors. With the green light turned on for this dust up, connectors are edging from back stage to center stage.
More information about Coveo is available at www.coveo.com.
Stephen E Arnold, October 16, 2010
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