Beyond Search Content Flow
December 22, 2014
To my two or three readers:
We will be reducing the flow of stories from December 18, 2014, to January 1, 2015. Coverage in Beyond Search will be expanded to include the new Cyber OSINT data stream and including content about NGIA (next generation information access). I will be moving the IDC/Schubmehl content to the Xenky.com Web site to make on going references to the reputation surfing easier to reference.
Enjoy the holidays.
Stephen E Arnold, December 22, 2014
Google News in Spain: The Sound of Declining Traffic
December 17, 2014
Well, the Googley conquistadores seem to have caught the attention of the Spanish news sites. I read “External Traffic to Spanish News Sites Plummets after Google Move.” I find it remarkable that “real” journalism outfits fail to understand the power of the GOOG. Axil Springer pumped millions into Qwant. I bet you use that Pertimm-based service each and every day, right? A quick dust up with the Google, and the German publisher rolled over like my clueless boxer Tess. She is deaf, has three good legs, and one eye. But Tess figures stuff out without have to do much more than be aware of her environment. Perhaps there is a lesson there?
Is Tess the rescue boxer smarter than the average European publisher chock full of “real” journalistic wizardry? I can make a good case for Tess. She uses Google to help me research Cyber OSINT and NGIA.
The write up states:
Spanish publishers are now asking for help from the government because of the impact of the law, even though Google warned that it would have to remove their links if the law was passed (any links to Spanish sites are also removed from other content on non-Spanish versions of Google News, but they remain available through a regular Google search).
The reality is that the folks with the wonky logo and teenagers on the payroll are the gatekeepers. If you are not in Google, you do not exist. This applies to cold blooded northern Europeans and the more excitable southern Europeans. Thomas Mann explained this is his novels. Well, some “real” journalists may want to refresh their memories. Reality check: Google has traffic power. Sartre provided some insight in No Exit. I have an idea. Let’s run a modern European literature class for “real” journalists. Yes, students, you can use Google. I excuse from class the wizards at IDG/IDC who suggested that Google pull out of Europe. Europe may request that Google remain available. Look for a report from IDC expert Dave Schubmehl explaining why Google should put its tail between its legs and scurry back to Silicon Valley.
Stephen E Arnold, December 17, 2014
A Fine Idea from IDG: Google, Bail Out of Europe
December 15, 2014
I found this write up presumptuous. Imagine a traditional publishing company and owner of the mid-tier consulting company IDC providing unsolicited suggestions to the Google. (IDC as you may recall employs the “expert” Dave Schubmehl, who has be known to sell work with my name on it via Amazon. Information is here.)
Navigate to this write up: “Why Google Should Leave Europe.” The story suggests that Google should turn its back on Europe. Okay, great idea. The wizards at IDG/IDC do not have a suggestion for replacing Google’s European revenue. The analysis appears to overlook the Android/Chrome business. The stroke of genius ignores the government contracts on which a few, industrious Google labors. Nope. Bail out. Abandon ship. Leave the market to the stellar alternatives like Qwanta, Exalead Search, and my favorite Yandex.
Here’s a passage I noted when I stopping laughing:
Google is more popular among the European public than any other region in the world. The company has higher than 90% market share in Europe simply because users there prefer it over alternatives. (The company has less than 68% market share in the U.S.) So European corporations and the politicians they lobby are out to destroy Google even as the European public loves Google. To summarize, you have government obsessively and shamelessly pushing unfair protectionism under the guise of various righteous bureaucratic causes and hammering away with censorship, fines, threats, bans and constant harassment. Sound familiar? It should. This is the situation found itself in China five years ago.
Now if I am not mistaken, Google’s issues with China are country specific, not a couple of dozen countries with only a subset of “Europe” united, however loosely, by the European Community thing.
The logic of the mid-tier thinkers is that Google should bail out.
I don’t want to spend any time pointing out that the idea has some hurdles to overcome. I would remind you, gentle reader, that Google has stakeholders. Some of these folks are “European.” Nuking the value of the company with the IDG/IDC approach would create what I would describe as pushback.
You can identify two or three other reasons why cutting ties with Europe might not be a great maneuver at this time. Are you familiar with Google’s employees in Europe? What about Google’s operation in Switzerland? Oh, well, details do not trouble an outfit that sells my content without my permission on a digital Wal-Mart.
If Google does follow this advice, I would be mildly surprised. Perhaps IDG and IDG should turn its attention on remediating its contract processes, its reselling of my content without my permission, and coming up with forecasts that are able to put McKinsey, Bain, and Boston Consulting Group to shame.
That, however, is probably of less interest than offering Google unsolicited advice that sails into the digital aether to disappear. Quickly I assume.
Stephen E Arnold, December 15, 2015
Sentient Technologies: AI via Barbados and Hong Kong
December 14, 2014
I noted a blog post in the Wall Street Journal called “Artificial Intelligence Company Sentient Emerges from Stealth.” The company then had an enthusiastic PR person named Peter Lo contact me. I asked for a list of the company’s patents. These are public documents and the law librarian and paralegal who work with me on my research for Cyber OSINT are ever at the ready to provide a list of patent information to me.
Not Sentient, the “just emerging from stealth company.” Here’s what I received in response to a polite, legitimate request for patent numbers:
Hi Stephen,
We’re checking on the patent numbers to see if we can share these publicly and will disclose if we can do so.
Best,
Peter [on behalf of Sentient Technologies, Zenogroup]
I pointed out that patents were in the US as far as I knew information available at USPTO, via Google, and free services that seem to be as plentiful as Microsoft Surface ads on televised basketball games.
Mr. Lo from Zenogroup replied:
Hey Stephen,
Completely understood that patents are public. We’re checking if we can give the exact numbers to share those details specifically. While these patents can be found publicly, the company overall has been careful about revealing the precise patents so as not to tip off other competitors.
Will let you know what we have!
Best,
Peter
Well, Peter replied a couple of days later with this information:
About two days later I received this information from Mr. Lo, who at this point, had become a center of interest for my research team:
Hi Stephen,
I certainly didn’t mean to come off as trying to withhold any information. I’m sorry if I gave that impression. Here’s the patents numbers for the Evolutionary Algorithm (EA) patents that we’ve been granted thus far. You’re also welcome to Google other patents by Babak Hodjat, Sentient Founder and Chief Scientist, to see where we’re building our expertise. Please feel free to also Google the patents by our other founders for more of the team’s collective background.
· 8825560 – Distributed evolutionary algorithm for asset management and trading
· 8527433 – Distributed evolutionary algorithm for asset management and trading
· 8768811 – Class-based distributed evolutionary algorithm for asset management and trading
Please don’t hesitate to ask any questions, and I’m sorry regarding the impression I gave you earlier. Happy to help if you need anything else.
Best,
Peter
So, case closed, right? No.
I asked one of the ArnoldIT goslings to check the the company a bit more closely, particularly the claim made about patents in the PR spam email I received on December 9, 2014:
Sentient now has 15 U.S. patents – 6 issued and 9 pending.
My researcher pointed out that the email from Mr. Lo contained references to three patent documents. The clever ArnoldIT professional told me that we should have received 12 patent application and patent numbers.
Math is a strong suit of this particular researcher.
In poking around, we found that the folks involved with Sentient have or had some connection with Sentient Technologies Holdings Ltd, which in turn, is hooked with Genetic Finance (Barbados) Limited. A fair number of the inventions are related to finance; for example:
Distributed evolutionary algorithm for asset management and trading United States Patent 8825560 B2 · Filed: 05/15/2013 · Published: 09/02/2014
Abstract: The cost of performing sophisticated software-based financial trend and pattern analysis is significantly reduced by distributing the processing power required to carry out the analysis and computational task across a large number of networked individual or cluster of computing nodes. To achieve this, the computational task is divided into a number of sub tasks. Each sub task is then executed on one of a number of processing devices to generate a multitude of solutions. The solutions are subsequently combined to generate a result for the computational task. The individuals controlling the processing devices are compensated for use of their associated processing devices. The algorithms are optionally enabled to evolve over time. Thereafter, one or more of the evolved algorithms is selected in accordance with a predefined condition.
Assignee:
Genetic Finance (Barbados) Limited (Belleville, BB)
Inventors:
Hodjat, Babak (Dublin, CA, US)
Shahrzad, Hormoz (Dublin, CA, US)
Blondeau, Antoine (Hong Kong, CN)
Cheyer, Adam (Oakland, CA, US)
Harrigan, Peter (San Francisco, CA, US)
Others relate to executing algorithms via a network; for example:
DISTRIBUTED NETWORK FOR PERFORMING COMPLEX ALGORITHMS United States Patent Application 20140006316 A1 · Filed: 08/29/2013 · Published: 01/02/2014
Abstract: A server computer and a multitude of client computers form a network computing system that is scalable and adapted to continue to evaluate the performance characteristics of a number of genes generated using a software application running on the client computers. Each client computer continues to periodically receive data associated with the genes stored in its memory. Using this data, the client computers evaluate the performance characteristic of their genes by comparing a solution provided by the gene with the periodically received data associated with that gene. Accordingly, the performance characteristic of each gene may be updated and varied with each periodically received data. The performance characteristic of a gene defines its fitness. The genes may be virtual asset traders that recommend trading options, and the data associated with the genes may be historical trading data.
Assignee:
GENETIC FINANCE (BARBADOS) LIMITED (Belleville, BB)
Inventors:
Hodjat, Babak (Dublin, CA, US)
Shahrzad, Hormoz (Dublin, CA, US)
Blondeau, Antoine (Hong Kong, CN)
Cheyer, Adam (Oakland, CA, US)
Harrigan, Peter (San Francisco, CA, US)
The company has a Web site, it seems, for its financial applications. It looks like this:
The company also has an artificial intelligence centric Web site. It looks like this:
The company, according to Crunchbase here, has raised more than $140 million. Founded in 2007, Crunchbase describes the company this way:
Using advanced Artificial Intelligence technology, massively distributed computing, and a scientific approach to the verification of newly discovered strategies, Genetic Finance delivers novel solutions to complex problems in a wide variety of fields.
Sentient is described this way in an IDC article (without the ministrations of Dave Schubmehl it seems):
Sentient works on scaling artificial intelligence to help companies solve problems: “We take machine learning AI and algorithms – and scale them dramatically so by that we tailor and distribute them around thousands of sites and millions of processors.” Sentient has been around for about six years and has managed to raise a total of $143 million in funding. The founding team actually worked on the technology that became Siri, Apple’s famous voice-controlled virtual assistant. I ask Blondeau if his work on Siri influenced what Sentient are working on now.
Fresh from the research for my forthcoming monograph CyberOSINT, several thoughts wafted through my mind as my researchers bored me with this information:
First, it seems that the “play” for sentient is to repurpose “smart” trading methods for more general purpose applications; hence, the stealth and the second Web site.
Second, the company does not equip Zenogroup to email a person receiving PR spam a list of public documents. Instead the company operates as if it were one of the firms providing specialized services to the law enforcement and intelligence communities. I did a quick check on the vendors known to me to be involved in law enforcement and intelligence, and Sentient rated a hit on the WSJ blog I mentioned but nothing else. Perhaps my files are incomplete? My thought is that pretending to be secret and being secret are two different things. Maybe not?
Third, the Barbados connection fascinates me. Years ago I encountered a financial professional working on a business matter with me. In our conversations, he identified what he called flashing yellow lights. Among those were senior managers who operated away from the primary place of business. Another was having legal incorporation at some interesting places.
Net net: Once again PR backfires for companies trying to cash in with their artificial intelligence technology. I think this company will be interesting to monitor. At the February 2015 CyberOSINT Conference in Washington, DC, I will ask around about Sentient’s technology.
There is a great deal of talk about artificial intelligence. However, human intelligence may be needed when trying to whip up buzz. I suppose the approach works in Barbados, but it does not work in rural Kentucky.
We have added this company to our forthcoming and very public Overflight for CyberOSINT. News about this free service will be available in early 2015 and no PR professional will flog you with stealth baloney.
Stephen E Arnold, December 14, 2014
Storage, Like Search, a Commodity: Key Vendors Omitted from the Report
December 9, 2014
Nothing spotlights the hungry like a price war. Low prices win. Now what happens to the expensive option? If you are Ferrari and enjoy a cult following of big money car people, you are sort of in business. If you offer expensive online storage, well, that is a good question.
Navigate to “IBM, NetApp Suffer As Storage Buyers Shun Mainstream Suppliers.” The write up points out:
A year ago IBM would have been the third-ranked vendor, but its revenues fell 7.2 per cent to $866m, giving it fourth place. Not so Big Blue is failing to keep up with modern storage technologies and its ageing product set has less and less appeal to customers.
The report from the ever resourceful, expert packed IDC (yep the outfit that sold my information on Amazon without my permission) looks at the world through glasses that give me a headache.
In terms of search, I recall that Coveo was at one time the supplier of search to this outfit. Since IBM bought NetApp, I am not sure what happened to the deal.
Vendors of search hoping for a home run by tagging on to a storage vendors’ wagon train may also be disappointed at the outlook for Big Blue.
Omitted from the mid tier consulting firm’s study were the many low cost storage options that are “good enough.” I, for example, use low cost online storage services and just set up the system to allow each system to copy data from my happy little Drobo. Cheap, multiple copies onsite and off site and none of the crazy pricing that accompanies the folks IDC studies like a Ouija board. I suppose IDC could consult its very own oracle, Dave (surf on Arnold) Schubmehl. Why not?
Stephen E Arnold, December 9, 2014
Attivio Is Now an Oracle Competitor, Not a Search Vendor
December 7, 2014
I read “Oracle Competitor Attivio Promotes Stephen Baker to CEO.” Quite a surprise because Attivio is a search-and-retrieval company with a layer of analytics wrappers. Founded by former Fast Search & Transfer executives, the company ingested more than $30 million in venture funding and now has to generate a return for the stakeholders.
I am not sure if Oracle perceives Attivio as a competitor. MarkLogic, an XML data management vendor, also positioned itself as an Oracle competitor. After hitting a wall at about $60 million and grinding through some new presidents, MarkLogic is keeping a low profile in the markets I track.
Now Attivio may be following this MarkLogic path. Two of the founders of Attivio are moving up. Below Ali Riaz and Sid Probstein is Stephen Baker. Mr. Baker also was a Fast Search & Transfer professional. He worked at RAMP Holdings afar a stint at Reed Elsevier where he was responsible for—wait for it—search.
Attivio co-founder Will Johnson is now the chief technology officer. Mr Johnson is another Fast Search alum. He has worked at GetConnected as—wait for it—a search architect.
My thought is that saying Attivio is a competitor to Oracle is one way to connect semantically with “Oracle.”
But as MarkLogic’s trajectory has demonstrated, there is more to saying a company is “like” Oracle than generating revenue on the scale of Oracle.
Both Attivio and MarkLogic are information access companies. Both want to generate more revenue for their stakeholders. Perhaps a management shift will do the trick.
My view is that if Oracle thought either Attivio or MarkLogic offered a unique, high value service, Oracle would have acquired these companies. Oracle may buy Attivio and MarkLogic. I think the catalyst would be generating and demonstrating rapid revenue growth, expanding margins, and a track record of sustainable revenues. i look forward to a glowing analysis of each firm by IDC’s “expert” Dave Schubmehl in the next month or so. Maybe saying something does make reality change?
Stakeholders want a payback. Management change is a precursor to even more significant activity to benefit those who pumped tens of millions into what may be an old-school approach to information access.
Stephen E Arnold, December 7, 2014
King CONsumer Service Starts in January 2015
December 5, 2014
I have been trying to figure out where to put items of interest and maybe some humor. A new site called “King CON” sumer will be the place for some of the helpful things that companies do for their customers, suppliers, admirers, and stakeholders. For example, we will collect the IDC “surfing on my name” content (a sport practiced by “expert” Dave Schubmehl). We will post photos of the non-helpful design features of some retail stores (a maze behind vegetables that rival those of the British aristocracy’s maze gardens), and activities of quotidian folks like CON-tractors, pain-ters, and representatives of “we’ll get the quote to you tomorrow” (stated weekly until we gave up calling the vendor). I have had an artist create a character called “King Con”, which is short for a consumer anti-hero. Stay tuned for news.
Stephen E Arnold, December 5, 2014
Mid Tier Consultants Try the Turkey Tactic
November 27, 2014
Entering 2015, the economy is not ripping along like some of the MBAs suggest. Life is gloomy for many keyword search, content management, and indexing system vendors. And for good reason. These technologies have run their course. Instead of being must have enterprise solutions, the functions are now utilities. The vendors of proprietary systems have to realize that free and open source systems provide “good enough” utility type functions.
Perhaps this brutal fact is the reason that search “expert” Dave Schubmehl recycled our research on open source software, tried to flog it on Amazon without my permission, and then quietly removed the reports based on ArnoldIT research. When a mid tier consulting firm cannot sell recycled research taken without permission for sale via Amazon for the quite incredible price of $3,500 for eight pages of information garbling our work, you know that times are tough for the mid tier crowd.
Are the turkeys the mid-tier consultants or their customers? Predictions about the future wrapped in the tin foil of jargon may not work like touts who pick horses. The difference between a mid tier consulting firm and a predictive analytics firm is more than the distance between an art history major and a PhD in mathematics with a Master’s in engineering and an undergraduate degree in history in my opinion.
Now the focus at the mid tier consulting firms is turning to the issue of raising turkeys. Turkeys are stellar creatures. Is it true that the turkey is the only fowl that will drown itself during a rain storm. My grandmother told me the birds will open their beaks and capture the rain. According to the Arnold lore, some lightning quick turkeys will drown themselves.
For 2015, the mid tier consultants want to get the Big Data bird moving. Also, look for the elegant IoT or Internet of Things to get the blue ribbon treatment. You can get a taste of this dish in this news release: “IDC Hosts Worldwide Internet of Things 2015 Predictions Web Conference.”
Yep, a Web conference. I call this a webinar, and I have webinar fatigue. The conference is intended to get the turkeys in the barn. Presumably some of the well heeled turkeys will purchase the IDC Future Scape report. When I mentioned this to a person with whom I spoke yesterday, I think that individual said, “A predictions conference. You are kidding me.” An, no I wasn’t. Here’s the passage I noted:
“The Internet of Things will give IT managers a lot to think about,” said Vernon Turner, Senior Vice President of Research at IDC. “Enterprises will have to address every IT discipline to effectively balance the deluge of data from devices that are connected to the corporate network. In addition, IoT will drive tough organizational structure changes in companies to allow innovation to be transparent to everyone, while creating new competitive business models and products.”
I think I understand. “Every”, “tough organizational changes,” and “new competitive business models.” Yes. And the first example is a report with predictions.
When I think of predictions, I don’t think of mid tier consultants. I think of outfits like Recorded Future, Red Owl, and Haystax, among others. The predictions these companies output are based on data. Predictions from mid tier consultants are based on a wide range of methods. I have a hunch that some of these techniques include folks sitting around and asking, “Well, what do you think this Internet of Things stuff will mean?”
Give me the Recorded Future approach. Oh, I don’t like turkey. I am okay with macaroni and cheese. Basic but it lacks the artificial fizz with which some farmers charge their fowl.
Stephen E Arnold, November 27, 2014
Elasticsearch Ups the Pressure on LucidWorks (Really?)
November 23, 2014
I am not too keen on videos. I prefer reading hard copies. I did find the video referenced in “Elasticsearch Uses Power of Community for Open Source Analytics” useful. My team and I are putting the finishing touches on a report that points out how enterprise search vendors have been leapfrogged by vendors rarely considered by mid tier consultants and the self appointed experts in search. The video drives home a simple point: Combining open source technologies delivers information access functions that are more useful to users than laundry lists, odd ball point and click suggested content, and confusing mash ups of information presented without context.
Why the reference to Lucid? One of the firm’s presidents had been involved with Jaspersoft, an open source analytics outfit. Despite this “inside track”, Elasticsearch has powered past Lucid, leaving that open source vendor struggling to reach parity with Elasticsearch. Elasticsearch itself faces challenges, but that’s the name of the game when keyword search is the keystone of a service. For now, Elasticsearch leaves competitors rushing to close the gap. By the way, this subject was the focal point of one of Dave Schubmehl’s IDC reports that surfed on my name. The juicy part about the “gap” was edited from my original write up. Nevertheless, the facts remain valid. Kudos to Elasticsearch.
Stephen E Arnold, November 23, 2014
Mid Tier Consultants Scratch One Another’s Back
November 14, 2014
I received at my Yahoo email account an email from IDC. That’s the outfit that published content with my name on Amazon’s book store without my permission. Yep, that IDC. Here’s what I received on November 14, 2014:
The key line is “Magic Quadrant: Key Players in the WCM Market.” I clicked that link and was redirected to this page:
So what we have is IDC, employer of the “expert” Dave Schubmehl, pointing to Gartner and one of its fascinating, mostly marketing oriented Magic Quadrants. When I clicked the “Get this now” button, here’s what appeared:
If this url will not resolve, contact the mid tier consultants. Perhaps one of the “experts” will provide you access.
This is one of those tony consultant reports. I recall reading that no one—and I mean no one—is supposed to reproduce, republish, recycle, or reinvent this quadrant thing. After all, it includes really clear information asserting that some companies are niche players, some challengers, some visionaries, and some leaders.
I assume it is really good to be a visionary. In this sort of odd ball collection of vendors, HP and IBM are leaders in content management. Well, that does not square with my perception of either company. IBM is like a waif, wandering from business explanation to Watson application in an almost random way. HP is busy splitting itself in two, explaining to various legal eagles why its purchase of Autonomy has become a two year old’s finger painting, not a work of financial art, and jumping back into mobiles and tablets as it tries to become a leader in cloud computing.
Let’s set aside the arbitrary classification of companies. I have explained numerous times that the original BCG matrix was based on data. The Gartner matrix is based on secondary information, mostly from companies who have some type of relationship with magic.
My point is that IDC, a mid tier outfit, is promoting another mid tier outfit. Does one scratch the back of a stranger on the R train at 11 35 pm Saturday night? Nope, back scratching stakes me as a somewhat personal, connected relationship.
I am getting nervous thinking about this familiarity, particularly when some folks may accept the mid tier firm’s work as objective, independent, and unbiased. Perhaps I am wrong, but this coziness is an indication that marketing may be more important than information.
Stephen E Arnold, November 14, 2014
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