NASA Seeks Friends In All Spheres
December 4, 2012
MEI Company shared good news for their team through a news release, “Nasa Selects Millennium for Safety Support Contract at Wallops Flight Facility.” They will be providing the flight, ground and institutional safety support for NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.
NASA’s sounding rockets program office, balloon program office, and aircraft office are all located within Wallops.
Hailing the contract as a symbol of NASA’s commitment to safety, the article quotes MEI CEO T. Trase Travers. He mentions the critical nature of the missions Wallops supports.
The article delves into the specifics:
“As part of the Wallops Safety Office Contract, Millennium [MEI] will perform flight safety analysis, provide ground and pad safety support, and ensure institutional safety through compliance with NASA and Occupational Safety and Health Administration standards. This work includes wind weighting, range safety analysis, cryogenic safety, explosives safety, electronic emissions safety, fire protection, industrial hygiene, pressure systems, lifting devices, emergency preparedness and other related safety support.”
Another indexing outfit has been tapped by NASA. By our tally, NASA is licensing its heart out with Concept Searching and now MEI. An interesting turn of events to say the least.
Megan Feil,December 04, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
SearchHub is More than a Forum
December 3, 2012
SearchHub.org is the latest open source community resource offered by LucidWorks in support of Lucene and Solr developers specifically. More than a blog or a forum, SearchHub is an interactive community to exchange ideas. One new item of interest is a session video, “Solr 4: The SolrCloud Architecture.” Read this description to see if this video might be helpful for you or your organization:
“In this talk, Lucene/Solr committer Mark Miller will discuss the low level architecture and design decisions around SolrCloud and distributedLucene Revolution 2012 Download Presentation indexing. Come learn about the latest work on Solr’s new scaling and fault tolerance solution – how it works and how we built it.”
In addition to this session video, there are screencasts, other conference videos, and many how-to instructional pieces. Also, there is a wonderful compilation of resources on the Reference Materials page. Documentation, comparisons, white papers, and tutorials are all included.
SearchHub.org is another way for LucidWorks to give back to the open source community, supporting Apache Lucene and Solr. However, some users may benefit even more from the utilization of LucidWorks products including LucidWorks Search and LucidWorks Big Data. These products are ready to go out-of-the-box and are supported by the industry-vetted power of LucidWorks.
Emily Rae Aldridge, December 03, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Enterprise Search: Is a Golden Age Coming?
December 2, 2012
Let’s recap the enterprise search market. I am 68, so I remember the glory days of SDC Orbit, RECON, and SMART. If you are with me chronologically, think mainframes, batch processing, and the lousy bandwidth which was available within the computer room.
By 1982 even traditional publishers were trying to figure out what to do with digital information. Remember the original New York Times’ search system? Remember the original Dow Jones online system and its desktop search interface? Dow Jones used BRS Search, now part of the OpenText quiver of separate information retrieval arrows. IBM pushed STAIRS.
By the mid 1990s, there were university computing graduates who were on the search bandwagon, even though it was built on a Citroen Deux Chevaux. Think Personal Library Software and Backrub, the precursor of our beloved Google search appliance.
Most of today’s enterprise search systems are as modern as this Citroen Deux Chevaux. A happy quack to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Deux-chevaux-rose-pink-2CV-citroen.JPG for this image.
In the late 1990s, the enterprise search market was pulling together threads of different ideas which sort of worked. The first wave of “brand” name vendors date from the 1996 to 2000 period and include Autonomy, Convera, Endeca, Fast Search & Transfer, and Verity. Most of these companies survive either as units of larger firms or as genetic strands woven into various search consulting firms like Comperio and Search Technologies. Google, I want to point out, is using technology which dates from the mid 1990s. So much for the difference between PR and enhanced CLEVER-ness.
When we hit the mid 2000s, the landscape has become barren. There are plenty of innovations and there are entrepreneurs who have embraced the magic of search sub-disciplines like latent semantic indexing, natural language processing, goosed Bayesian, and mish-mashes of every possible indexing and retrieval method. The notable shift in search since 2005 has been the emergence of Lucene, Solr, and Xapian, among other open source information retrieval options.
Have we reached the end of the line?
Nope. The Golden Age is coming.
In 2013, Beyond Search will add coverage of next generation vendors poised to rework search. On Tuesday, December 5, you will be able to read an interview with the chief technology officer of a little known search and content processing vendor named Cybertap. You can dip into the archives of my Search Wizards Speak’s series and get more insight about where search is headed by reading the interviews with such experts as:
- Christopher Ahlberg, www.recordedfuture.com
- Paul Doscher, www.lucidworks.com
- Mike Sorah, http://www.imtholdings.com/
- Luca Scagliarini, http://www.expersystem.net
- Chris Westphal, http://www.visualanalytics.com
Apelon Expands with New Staff
November 29, 2012
The Sacramento Bee recently published the news release “Stuart Nelson, MD, FACMI, Joining Apelon” announcing that the respected scientist will augment Apelon consulting resources and remain heavily involved in research and development of informatics technology.
According to the article, Dr. Stuart Nelson, a well known healthcare informaticist, will be joining the company as Chief Innovation Officer. As CIO he will contribute to Apelon customer engagements and develop projects under Apelon’s infrastructure.
When explaining Nelson’s background, the article states:
“For the last sixteen years he has been at the US National Library of Medicine leading numerous initiatives of national importance. As Director of Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) Content, he managed the development of this seminal compendium of over 150 computer-based healthcare terminologies. Subsequently, as Director of the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) Development and Content, Nelson led teams that designed, maintained and deployed MeSH, the primary indexing methodology for all the NLM’s biomedicine literature. Most recently, Stuart was the developer and producer of RxNorm, a standard vocabulary for clinical drugs, now a national standard for communication of medication information between healthcare systems. His RxNorm work has led to additional computer-based drug systems including the DailyMed, a website of information about clinical drug products.”
Nelson has an impressive background. We are looking forward to seeing what innovations he will bring to Apelon.
Jasmine Ashton, November 29, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
HP Autonomy: Thoughts about Big Deals for Search Vendors
November 28, 2012
I just finished my Information Today column for next month (January 2013). I thought briefly about about focusing on the Hewlett Packard Autonomy matter which is a tad too much in the news at the moment.
Caveat emptor. Hasn’t anyone heard this reminder? The deal is over. Type A MBAs, whiz kid lawyers, and blue chip consultants crawled all over this deal. The HP board approved the deal which was roughly 10X more than Microsoft paid for the exciting Fast Search & Transfer technology thrill ride.
I choose not to tackle HP and Autonomy directly. What I decided to do was work through some of the business cases I have encountered over the year which make murky financial water the status quo. The players in these examples which I characterize at a high level and as a non accountant are like the predators in the Amazon River. I wanted to point out that some of the deals related to search, content processing, and analytics can be models of complexity theory for math experts at the Santa Fe Institute to ponder. Normal lawyers and accountants and the run of the mill MBA are out of their depth in my experience when thinking about a search plus services tie up.
As I was finishing the article, my alert service beeped. The occasion was the arrival of articles about letters from Autonomy placed in “open source” and an equally public response from Hewlett Packard. You can find more information in the “Former Autonomy CEO Challenges HP” article in MarketWatch or you can wade through the lists of stories posted on Techmeme.
I don’t have a dog in this fight. I have several observations I want to capture before the slip away from me as I get ready to head to South America.
The 1957 Studebaker Golden Hawk I almost bought in 1963 came with a sidewalk guarantee. Search and content processing systems are warranted in a similar manner by their sellers. The Wikipedia explanation of caveat emptor makes the meaning of this Latin catchphrase clear: Under the principle of caveat emptor, the buyer could not recover from the seller for defects on the property that rendered the property unfit for ordinary purposes. The only exception was if the seller actively concealed latent defects or otherwise made material misrepresentations amounting to fraud. See Wikipedia
First, the gap between some investors’ expectations for revenue from search and content processing greatly exceed reality. I have been around the information retrieval business for a week or two. In that time, I have encountered people who believe that their findability or indexing system will generate Google sized dollars. I tell these folks that Google generates Google sized dollars from ads, not its search technology. Only a handful of companies have been able to generate more than $100 million from search. These companies are the anomalies, not the rule. My hunch is that like the “smart money” that blew $50 million on one promising system, dreams can be expensive. As you may know, the folks who support the high expectations catch “spreadsheet fever”. The result is that when the money is finally sorted out, search is an expensive proposition. There’s a reason why IBM embraces open source search. May I suggest you read my IDC reports on this open source search subject.
Second, the crazy valuations are like the promises of teenagers in love. The parents, if they know, view such tie ups with skepticism. Just try and tell that to the two teens who have the force which through the green fuse drives the flower. In the grip of this “force”, history and hard facts play a modest role to play. What takes over is mutually reinforcing inputs from the youthful lovers on a hormone high. Deal lust works in the teen way. Is this why so many gray heads get into doing bigger and bigger deals under more and more false time constraints. Pant. Pant. Pant. I can hear the breathing now. Those contracts have to be signed, the commissions most definitely earned, and the money transferred pronto. Is it any surprise why so many acquisitions go off the rails? The parties to big deals include the buyer, the seller, the lawyers, the accountants, the partners, and the consultants. If that line up of professionals does not make clear how Voltaire’s bastards operate, read John Ralston Saul’s book on the subject.
Protecting and Maintaining Web Site Search Rankings
November 23, 2012
Web site search rankings are important. There is no denying that search engine optimization (SEO) is an important and necessary endeavor for those who earn their livelihood on the Web. But getting there is only half the battle when it comes to SEO. Simply achieving the rankings isn’t enough – you must hold onto them. Entrepreneur tells us how in, “3 Steps to Protecting Your Website’s Search Rankings.”
The author begins:
You’ve worked hard to follow search engine optimization (SEO) best practices to earn high rankings for your website in the search engine results pages (SERPs). After weeks or even months of content creation, customer outreach and link building efforts, you’ve finally reached a coveted spot in the rankings. Unfortunately, your hard work isn’t over. To understand why, think about the difficulty of maintaining your ideal body weight. While taking off pounds can be a challenge, keeping the weight off is often an even bigger struggle. Similarly, maintaining high rankings in the natural search results can be even more of a challenge than obtaining them in the first place.
One way to add a level of currency and usability to your Web site (both of which improve SEO) is to add an effective Web site search function like Fabasoft Mindbreeze Insite. Insite comes from a trusted leader in enterprise, Fabasoft Mindbreeze, and its automatic indexing is maintenance free and requires no installation. Insite is just one way to ease the heavy burden of Web site maintenance and the struggle to achieve and maintain high search engine rankings.
Emily Rae Aldridge, November 23, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.
dtSearch Rolls Out New Filters
November 21, 2012
Dr. Dobb’s software development website recently reported on new proprietary search features that cover online and offline data types in the article, “New dtSearch Document Filter Products.”
According to the article, dtSearch, a text retrieval software company that allows users to instantly search terabytes of text, has announced the latest release of its product line. Version 7.70 sees improved document filters embedded across the entire dtSearch product line.
The article states:
“The new version extends the document filters to add image support to Word (.doc/.docx), PowerPoint (.ppt/.pptx), Excel (.xls/.xlsx), Access (.mdb/accdb), RTF, and email files including Thunderbird (mbox/.eml) and Outlook (.pst/.msg) files. The release displays these formats showing highlighted hits in context with both text and images. The release also adds support for Japanese Ichitaro documents.
dtSearch’s proprietary document filters support a broad range of data types from “Office” documents: MS Office, OpenOffice, RTF, PDF to emails and also MS Exchange, Outlook, Thunderbird — all with nested attachments.”
This company has received impressive reviews regarding their search power and indexing abilities. We can only assume that dtSearch 7.70 will be even better.
Jasmine Ashton, November 21, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
The Coming Financial Crunch on Search Vendors
November 17, 2012
I sat through three, maybe four, “We’re doing great!” teleconferences this week. In one of those teleconference Go To Beating things, I was told, “We think that there is great opportunity in enterprise search.”
I agreed but one cannot call “search” search. Search, in my opinion, have become a new four letter word. But this person insisted that he and his team had the solution to the revenue ceiling problem. Now the concept of a “revenue ceiling” may be unfamiliar to those running companies in a crazed effort to get enough cash to pay last month’s bills. To me, “revenue ceiling” is what keeps most enterprise search vendors below the $20 million in revenue benchmark. In fact, since I have been tracking the enterprise search sector, the companies which have blown past $20 million are no longer in play. These outfits are now part of larger firms, managed by people who are or, should I say, were confident that making oodles of money from enterprise search technology was a “no brainer.”
A happy quack to http://goo.gl/xQMP0 for this inspirational image.
So what’s happening to my through the ceiling outfits? HP owns Autonomy and based on the grim financial results HP continues to report, Autonomy is not lofting HP to new revenue heights. The Endeca crowd managed to get revenues north of $150 million before the sale to Oracle. I have not heard that the Endeca team is pushing Mark Hurd aside due to their financial performance. I do know that Endeca is now just one more arrow in the Oracle quiver of tools and solutions. And Fast Search & Transfer? Microsoft does not break out revenues from Fast which once reported revenues of $170 million. The number was revised downward and I picked up a rumor that some in the Sinofsky free environment were looking at Fast Search as a technological equivalent of a 68 year old soccer player. It’s great the fellow remembers to go to the game, but in a crunch, let’s let gramps watch the 20 somethings win the game.
So, search has been a tough sector to make payoff big. Autonomy, much to the chagrin of the “real” consultants sold for $10 billion. But the real important point is that no other firm to my knowledge has been able to make almost a billion from “search.” Keep in mind that giants like IBM and Google can make numbers dance the tango. But for most search and content processing companies, revenue life and cost control have been similar to earning enough in a war zone to buy a new Rolls Royce. It can be done, but a close look at how may not be a wise idea.
Smash cut to these interesting developments:
- Yahoo is putting more heat on employees and may fire thousands of Yahooligans. See Yahoo CEO Mayer Cuts End-of-Year “Week of Rest” for Employees, While Prepping Plans to Cull Bottom 20 Percent of Staff
- The brains behind Netflix’ brilliant pricing moves alleges that Amazon is losing $1 billion a year on streaming video. (My reaction was, “That number seems low.” The reference is at Netflix CEO: Amazon Losing Up to $1 Billion a Year on Streaming Video
- Apple’s stock continues to decline. some folks think there are worms in the cook’s Thanksgiving pie. See Apple’s Stock Price Falls to Lowest Point in Six months
Some Oracle Secrets Revealed
November 16, 2012
We’ve found a resource for Oracle users at the Independent Oracle UCM Knowledge Center: “Secrets of the Full Text Search.” This clearly written and illustrated article explores the details of Oracle Content Server’s full text indexing. This might be one to peruse now, then tuck away for future reference. Writer Dmitri Khanine explains:
“Spend 15 min to understand exactly how Content Server’ Full Text search is working!
“This article takes you behind the scenes and shows you exactly how the full text indexing works in Oracle Content Server. If you ever tried to troubleshoot your search, indexer, batch loader or a performance issue – without a full understanding of how the things really work under the hood – I don’t have to tell you how much time this article can really save you. So without any further due – here it comes.”
And with that, Khanine dives into the technical details, walk-through style. Once you have your full text search enabled and options configured, he takes you through creating and working with a PDF.
I will share the one point Khanine saw fit to emphasize with a paragraph full of italics—since only the latest revision of any document is stored in the IdcColx tables, full text searches are only done on the latest released revision. See the article for more such technical tidbits.
Cynthia Murrell, November 16, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
New KnowledgeLake Capture Features Announced
November 14, 2012
KnowledgeLake, Inc., headquartered in St. Louis, develops document imaging related products and solutions for Microsoft SharePoint. In the press release, “KnowledgeLake Continues to Advance the Capabilities of Capture Solution for Microsoft SharePoint,” some new KnowledgeLake capabilities are announced. The author states:
Tightly integrated with Microsoft SharePoint, KnowledgeLake Capture enables end users to easily scan and index documents and store them in the appropriate SharePoint repository. A few of the new developments added to the robust solution include the ability to scan and index documents faster, scan multiple batches at a time, added language support and advances to prioritization functionality.
This is also added about Capture capabilities:
Capture’s sophisticated Batch Processing and Monitoring, allow for multiple documents of many different types to be scanned, viewed and indexed efficiently.
It seems like KnowledgeLake is making a few strides in SharePoint solution development. But when it comes to extending SharePoint capabilities, you may want to consider industry leaders, like Mindbreeze, that provide more than just SharePoint tailored services and have already been offering robust document indexing capabilities. Fabasoft Mindbreeze provides comprehensive access to business knowledge for everyone on the team and is backed by a customer focused support team that shares your purpose. The Microsoft SharePoint and Exchange Connectors facilitate comprehensive incorporation of all your electronic data repositories.
Philip West, November 14, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
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