Microsoft Teams: More, More, More
January 12, 2021
Last week I was on a Zoom video call. Zoom is pretty easy to use. What’s interesting is that the cyber security organizer of the meeting could not figure out how to allow a participant to share a screen. Now how easy is it to use Microsoft Teams compared to Zoom? In my opinion, Microsoft Teams is a baffler. The last thing Teams needs is another dose of featuritis. Teams and Zoom both need to deal with the craziness of the existing features and functions.
I have given up on Zoom improving its interface. The tiny gear icon, one of the most used components, is tough for some people to spot. Teams has a couple of donkeys laden with wackiness; for example, how about those access controls? Working great for new users, right? But Microsoft who is busy reinventing itself from Word and SharePoint wants to be the super Slack of our Rona-ized world. Sounds good? Yep, ads within Office 10 are truly an uplifting experience for individuals who use Windows 10 to sort of attempt work. Plus, Teams adds Channel calendars. Great! More calendars! Many Outlooks, many search systems, and now calendars! In Teams!
I noted this BBC write up: “Pupils in Scotland Struggle to Get Online Amid Microsoft Issue.” I thought teachers, parents were there to help. The Beeb states:
A number of schools, pupils and parents have reported the technology running slowly or not at all.
What’s Microsoft say? According to the Beeb:
A Microsoft spokesperson said: “Our engineers are working to resolve difficulties accessing Microsoft Teams that some customers are experiencing.” When pressed on whether demand as a result of home schooling was causing the issue, Microsoft declined to comment.
Just like the SolarWinds’ misstep? Nope, just working to make Teams more interesting. Navigate to “Microsoft Teams Is Getting a More Engaging Experience for Meetings Soon.” If the write up is accurate, that’s exactly what Microsoft has planned for its Zoom killer. The write up reports an item from the future:
Microsoft is working on making Teams meetings more engaging using AI and a “Dynamic View” to give more control over meeting presentations.
And what, pray tell, is a more engaging enhancement or two? I learned that in the future (not yet determined):
The Dynamic view is said to let you see what’s being shared and other people on the call at the same time. With the call being automatically optimized in a way that lets participants both see the important information that’s being shared and the people presenting it in a satisfying way.
News flash. The features appear to add controls (hooray, more controls) and the presentation seems just fine for those high-resolution displays measured in feet, not inches.
Bulletin. Just in. More people are using mobile devices than desktop computers. How is Teams on a mobile device with a screen measured in inches, not feet?
Oh, right. Featuritis and tiny displays. Winners. Maybe not for someone over the age of 45, but that’s an irrelevant demographic, right?
Stephen E Arnold, January 12, 2021
Some Happy, Some Sad in Seattle Over Cloud Deal Review
July 12, 2018
I know little about the procurement skirmishes fought over multi billion dollar deals for cloud services. The pragmatic part of my experience suggests that the last thing most statement of work and contract processes produce is efficient, cost effective contracts. Quite a few COTRs, lawyers, super grades, and mere SETAs depend on three things:
- Complex, lengthy processes; that is, work producing tasks
- Multiple vendors; for example, how many databases does one agency need? Answer: Many, many databases. Believe me, there are many great reasons ranging from the way things work in Washington to legacy systems which will never be improved in my lifetime.
- Politics. Ah, yes, lobbyists, special interests, friends of friends, and sometimes the fact that a senior official knows that a person once worked at a specific outfit.
When I read, “Deasy Pauses on JEDI Cloud Acquisition,” I immediately thought about the giant incumbent database champions like IBM Federal Systems and Oracle’s government operations unit.
Department of Defense CIO Dana Deasy wants a “full top down, bottom up review” of the JEDI infrastructure acquisition.
But there was a moment of reflection, when I realized that this procurement tussle will have significant impact on the Seattle area. You know, Seattle, the city which has delivered Microsoft Bob and the Amazon mobile phone.
Microsoft and Amazon are in the cloud business. Microsoft is the newcomer, but it is the outfit which has the desktops of many government agencies. Everyone loves SharePoint. The Department of Defense could not hold a briefing without PowerPoint.
Let’s not forget Amazon. That is the platform used by most government workers, their families, and possibly their friends if that Amazon account slips into the wild. Who could exist in Tyson’s Corner or Gaithersburg without Amazon delivering essential foods such as probiotic supplements for the dog.
Microsoft is probably thrilled that the JEDI procurement continues to be a work in progress. Amazon, on the other hand, is likely to be concerned that its slam dunk for a government cloud game home run has been halted due to procedural thunderstorms.
Thus, part of Seattle is really happy. Another part of Seattle is not so happy.
Since I don’t’ have a dog in this fight, my hunch is that little in Washington, DC changes from administrative change to administrative change.
But this Seattle dust up will be interesting to watch. I think it will have a significant impact on Amazon and Microsoft. IBM Federal Systems and Oracle will be largely unscathed.
Exciting procurement activity is underway. Defense Department CIO Deasy Deasy’s promise of a “full top down, bottom up review” sounds like the words to a song I have heard many times.
With $10 billion in play, how long will that review take? My hunch is that it will introduce the new CIO to a new concept, “government time.”
Stephen E Arnold, July 12, 2018
Old School Searcher Struggles with Organizing Information
September 7, 2017
I read a write up called “Semantic, Adaptive Search – Now that’s a Mouthful.” I cannot decide if the essay is intended to be humorous, plaintive, or factual. The main idea in the headline is that there is a type of search called “semantic” and “adaptive.” I think I know about the semantic notion. We just completed a six month analysis of syntactic and semantic technology for one of my few remaining clients. (I am semi retired as you may know, but tilting at the semantic and syntactic windmills is great fun.)
The semantic notion has inspired such experts as David Amerland, an enthusiastic proponent of the power of positive thinking and tireless self promotion, to heights of fame. The syntax idea gives experts in linguistics hope for lucrative employment opportunities. But most implementations of these hallowed “techniques” deliver massive computational overhead and outputs which require legions of expensive subject matter experts to keep on track.
The headline is one thing, but the write up is about another topic in my opinion. Here’s the passage I noted:
The basic problem with AI is no vendor is there yet.
Okay, maybe I did not correctly interpret “Semantic, Adaptive Search—Now That’s a Mouthful.” I just wasn’t expecting artificial intelligence, a very SEO type term.
But I was off base. The real subject of the write up seems to be captured in this passage:
I used to be organized, but somehow I lost that admirable trait. I blame it on information overload. Anyway, I now spend quite a bit of time searching for my blogs, white papers, and research, as I have no clue where I filed them. I have resorted to using multiple search criteria. Something I do, which is ridiculous, is repeat the same erroneous search request, because I know it’s there somewhere and the system must have misunderstood, right? So does the system learn from my mistakes, or learn the mistakes? Does anyone know?
Okay, disorganized. I would never have guessed without a title that references semantic and adaptive search, the lead paragraph about artificial intelligence, and this just cited bit of exposition which makes clear that the searcher cannot make the search systems divulge the needed information.
One factoid in the write up is that a searcher will use 2.73 terms per query. I think that number applies to desktop boat anchor searches from the Dark Ages of old school querying. Today, more than 55 percent of queries are from mobile devices. About 20 percent of those are voice based. Other queries just happen because a greater power like Google or Microsoft determines what you “really” wanted is just the ticket. To me, the shift from desktop to mobile makes the number of search terms in a query a tough number to calculate. How does one convert data automatically delivered to a Google Map when one is looking for a route with an old school query with 2.73 terms? Answer: You maybe just use whatever number pops out from a quick Bing or Google search from a laptop and go with the datum in a hit on an ad choked result list.
The confused state of search and content processing vendors is evident in their marketing, their reliance on jargon and mumbo jumbo, and fuzzy thinking about obtaining information to meet a specific information need.
I suppose there is hope. One can embrace a taxonomy and life will be good. On the other hand, disorganization does not bode well for a taxonomy created by a person who cannot locate information.
Well, one can use smart software to generate those terms, the Use Fors and the See Alsos. One can rely on massive amounts of Big Data to save the day. One can allow a busy user of SharePoint to assign terms to his or her content. Many good solutions which make information access a thrilling discipline.
Now where did I put that research for my latest book, “The Dark Web Notebook”? Ah, I know. In a folder called “DWNB Research” on my back up devices with hard copies in a banker’s box labeled “DWNB 2016-2017.”
Call me old fashioned but the semantic, syntactic, artificially intelligent razzmatazz underscores the triumph of jargon over systems and methods which deliver on point results in response to a query from a person who knows that for which he or she seeks.
Plus, I have some capable research librarians to keep me on track. Yep, real humans with MLS degrees, online research expertise, and honest-to-god reference desk experience.
Smart software and jargon requires more than disorganization and arm waving accompanied by toots from the jargon tuba.
Stephen E Arnold, September 7, 2017
Lucidworks: The Future of Search Which Has Already Arrived
August 24, 2017
I am pushing 74, but I am interested in the future of search. The reason is that with each passing day I find it more and more difficult to locate the information I need as my routine research for my books and other work. I was anticipating a juicy read when I requested a copy of “Enterprise Search in 2025.” The “book” is a nine page PDF. After two years of effort and much research, my team and I were able to squeeze the basics of Dark Web investigative techniques into about 200 pages. I assumed that a nine-page book would deliver a high-impact payload comparable to one of the chapters in one of my books like CyberOSINT or Dark Web Notebook.
I was surprised that a nine-page document was described as a “book.” I was quite surprised by the Lucidworks’ description of the future. For me, Lucidworks is describing information access already available to me and most companies from established vendors.
The book’s main idea in my opinion is as understandable as this unlabeled, data-free graphic which introduces the text content assembled by Lucidworks.
However, the pamphlet’s text does not make this diagram understandable to me. I noted these points as I worked through the basic argument that client server search is on the downturn. Okay. I think I understand, but the assertion “Solr killed the client-server stars” was interesting. I read this statement and highlighted it:
Other solutions developed, but the Solr ecosystem became the unmatched winner of the search market. Search 1.0 was over and Solr won.
In the world of open source search, Lucene and Solr have gained adherents. Based on the information my team gathered when we were working on an IDC open source search project, the dominant open source search system was Lucene. If our data were accurate when we did the research, Elastic’s Elasticsearch had emerged as the go-to open source search system. The alternatives like Solr and Flaxsearch have their users and supporters, but Elastic, founded by Shay Branon, was a definite step up from his earlier search service called Compass.
In the span of two and a half years, Elastic had garnered more than a $100 million in funding by 2014and expanded into a number adjacent information access market sectors. Reports I have received from those attending Elastic meetings was that Elastic was putting considerable pressure on proprietary search systems and a bit of a squeeze on Lucidworks. Google’s withdrawing its odd duck Google Search Appliance may have been, in small part, due to the rise of Elasticsearch and the changes made by organizations trying to figure out how to make sense of the digital information to which their staff had access.
But enough about the Lucene-Solr and open source versus proprietary search yin and yang tension.
You Do Not Search. You Insight.
April 12, 2017
I am delighted, thrilled. I read “Coveo, Microsoft, Sinequa Lead Insight Engine Market.” What a transformation is captured in what looks to me like a content marketing write up. Key word search morphs into “insight.” For folks who do not follow the history of enterprise search with the fanaticism of those involved in baseball statistics, the use of the word “insight” to describe locating a document is irrelevant. Do you search or insight?
For me, hunkered down in rural Kentucky, with my monitors flickering in the intellectual darkness of Kentucky, the use of the word “insight” is a linguistic singularity. Maybe not on the scale of an earthquake in Italy or a banker leaping from his apartment to the Manhattan asphalt, but a historical moment nevertheless.
Let me recap some of my perceptions of the three companies mentioned in the headline to this tsunami of jargon in the Datanami story:
- Coveo is a company which developed a search and retrieval system focused on Windows. With some marketing magic, the company explained keyword search as customer support, then Big data, and now this new thing, “insight”. For those who track vendor history, the roots of Coveo reach back to a consumer interface which was designed to make search easy. Remember Copernic. Yep, Coveo has been around a long while.
- Sinequa also was a search vendor. Like Exalead and Polyspot and other French search vendors, the company wanted manage data, provide federation, and enable workflows. After a president change and some executive shuffling, Sinequa emerged as a Big Data outfit with a core competency in analytics. Quite a change. How similar is Sinequa to enterprise search? Pretty similar.
- Microsoft. I enjoyed the “saved by the bell” deal in 2008 which delivered the “work in progress” Fast Search & Transfer enterprise search system to Redmond. Fast Search was one of the first search vendors to combine fast-flying jargon with a bit of sales magic. Despite the financial meltdown and an investigation of the Fast Search financials, Microsoft ponied up $1.2 billion and reinvented SharePoint search. Well, not exactly reinvented, but SharePoint is a giant hairball of content management, collaboration, business “intelligence” and, of course, search. Here’s a user friendly chart to help you grasp SharePoint search.
Flash forward to this Datanami article and what do I learn? Here’s a paragraph I noted with a smiley face and an exclamation point:
Among the areas where natural language processing is making inroads is so-called “insight engines” that are projected to account for half of analytic queries by 2019. Indeed, enterprise search is being supplanted by voice and automated voice commands, according to Gartner Inc. The market analyst released it latest “Magic Quadrant” rankings in late March that include a trio of “market leaders” along with a growing list of challengers that includes established vendors moving into the nascent market along with a batch of dedicated startups.
There you go. A trio like ZZTop with number one hits? Hardly. A consulting firm’s “magic” plucks these three companies from a chicken farm and gives each a blue ribbon. Even though we have chickens in our backyard, I cannot tell one from another. Subjectivity, not objectivity, applies to picking good chickens, and it seems to be what New York consulting firms do too.
Are the “scores” for the objective evaluations based on company revenue? No.
Return on investment? No.
Patents? No.
IRR? No. No. No.
Number of flagship customers like Amazon, Apple, and Google type companies? No.
The ranking is based on “vision.” And another key factor is “the ability to execute its “strategy.” There you go. A vision is what I want to help me make my way through Kabul. I need a strategy beyond stay alive.
What would I do if I have to index content in an enterprise? My answer may surprise you. I would take out my check book and license these systems.
- Palantir Technologies or Centrifuge Systems
- Bitext’s Deep Linguistic Analysis platform
- Recorded Future.
With these three systems I would have:
- The ability to locate an entity, concept, event, or document
- The capability to process content in more than 40 languages, perform subject verb object parsing and entity extraction in near real time
- Point-and-click predictive analytics
- Point-and-click visualization for financial, business, and military warfighting actions
- Numerous programming hooks for integrating other nifty things that I need to achieve an objective such as IBM’s Cybertap capability.
Why is there a logical and factual disconnect between what I would do to deliver real world, high value outputs to my employees and what the New York-Datanami folks recommend?
Well, “disconnect” may not be the right word. Have some search vendors and third party experts embraced the concept of “fake news” or embraced the know how explained in Propaganda, Father Ellul’s important book? Is the idea something along the lines of “we just say anything and people will believe our software will work this way”?
Many vendors stick reasonably close to the factual performance of their software and systems. Let me highlight three examples.
First, Darktrace, a company crafted by Dr. Michael Lynch, is a stickler for explaining what the smart software does. In a recent exchange with Darktrace, I learned that Darktrace’s senior staff bristle when a descriptive write up strays from the actual, verified technical functions of the software system. Anyone who has worked with Dr. Lynch and his senior managers knows that these people can be very persuasive. But when it comes to Darktrace, it is “facts R us”, thank you.
Second, Recorded Future takes a similar hard stand when explaining what the Recorded Future system can and cannot do. Anyone who suggests that Recorded Future predictive analytics can identify the winner of the Kentucky Derby a day before the race will be disabused of that notion by Recorded Future’s engineers. Accuracy is the name of the game at Recorded Future, but accuracy relates to the use of numerical recipes to identify likely events and assign a probability to some events. Even though the company deals with statistical probabilities, adding marketing spice to the predictive system’s capabilities is a no-go zone.
Third, Bitext, the company that offers a Deep Linguistics Analysis platform to improve the performance of a range of artificial intelligence functions, is anchored in facts. On a recent trip to Spain, we interviewed a number of the senior developers at this company and learned that Bitext software works. Furthermore, the professionals are enthusiastic about working for this linguistics-centric outfit because it avoid marketing hyperbole. “Our system works,” said one computational linguist. This person added, “We do magic with computational linguistics and deep linguistic analysis.” I like that—magic. Oh, Bitext does sales too with the likes of Porsche, Volkswagen, and the world’s leading vendor of mobile systems and services, among others. And from Madrid, Spain, no less. And without marketing hyperbole.
Why then are companies based on keyword indexing with a sprinkle of semantics and basic math repositioning themselves by chasing each new spun sugar-encrusted trend?
I have given a tiny bit of thought to this question.
In my monograph “The New Landscape of Search” I made the point that search had become devalued, a free download in open source repositories, and a utility like cat or dir. Most enterprise search systems have failed to deliver results painted in Technicolor in sales presentations and marketing collateral.
Today, if I want search and retrieval, I just use Lucene. In fact, Lucene is more than good enough; it is comparable to most proprietary enterprise search systems. If I need support, I can ring up Elastic or one of many vendors eager to gild the open source lily.
The extreme value and reliability of open source search and retrieval software has, in my opinion, gutted the market for proprietary search and retrieval software. The financial follies of Fast Search & Transfer reminded some investors of the costly failures of Convera, Delphes, Entopia, among others I documented on my Xenky.com site at this link.
Recently most of the news I see on my coal fired computer in Harrod’s Creek about enterprise search has been about repositioning, not innovation. What’s up?
The answer seems to be that the myth cherished by was that enterprise search was the one, true way make sense of digital information. What many organizations learned was that good enough search does the basic blocking and tackling of finding a document but precious little else without massive infusions of time, effort, and resources.
But do enterprise search systems–no matter how many sparkly buzzwords–work? Not too many, no matter what publicly traded consulting firms tell me to believe.
Snake oil? I don’t know. I just know my own experience, and after 45 years of trying to make digital information findable, I avoid fast talkers with covered wagons adorned with slogans.
What happens when an enterprise search system is fed videos, podcasts, telephone intercepts, flows of GPS data, and a couple of proprietary file formats?
Answer: Not much.
The search system has to be equipped with extra cost connectors, assorted oddments, and shimware to deal with a recorded webinar and a companion deck of PowerPoint slides used by the corporate speaker.
What happens when the content stream includes email and documents in six, 12, or 24 different languages?
Answer: Mad scrambling until the proud licensee of an enterprise search system can locate a vendor able to support multiple language inputs. The real life needs of an enterprise are often different from what the proprietary enterprise search system can deal with.
That’s why I find the repositioning of enterprise search technology a bit like a clown with a sad face. The clown is no longer funny. The unconvincing efforts to become something else clash with the sad face, the red nose, and worn shoes still popular in Harrod’s Creek, Kentucky.
When it comes to enterprise search, my litmus test is simple: If a system is keyword centric, it isn’t going to work for some of the real world applications I have encountered.
Oh, and don’t believe me, please.
Find a US special operations professional who relies on Palantir Gotham or IBM Analyst’s Notebook to determine a route through a hostile area. Ask whether a keyword search system or Palantir is more useful. Listen carefully to the answer.
No matter what keyword enthusiasts and quasi-slick New York consultants assert, enterprise search systems are not well suited for a great many real world applications. Heck, enterprise search often has trouble displaying documents which match the user’s query.
And why? Sluggish index updating, lousy indexing, wonky metadata, flawed set up, updates that kill a system, or interfaces that baffle users.
Personally I love to browse results lists. I like old fashioned high school type research too. I like to open documents and Easter egg hunt my way to a document that answers my question. But I am in the minority. Most users expect their finding systems to work without the query-read-click-scan-read-scan-read-scan Sisyphus-emulating slog.
Ah, you are thinking I have offered no court admissible evidence to support my argument, right? Well, just license a proprietary enterprise search system and let me know how your career is progressing. Remember when you look for a new job. You won’t search; you will insight.
Stephen E Arnold, April 12, 2017
Five Years in Enterprise Search: 2011 to 2016
October 4, 2016
Before I shifted from worker bee to Kentucky dirt farmer, I attended a presentation in which a wizard from Findwise explained enterprise search in 2011. In my notes, I jotted down the companies the maven mentioned (love that alliteration) in his remarks:
- Attivio
- Autonomy
- Coveo
- Endeca
- Exalead
- Fabasoft
- IBM
- ISYS Search
- Microsoft
- Sinequa
- Vivisimo.
There were nodding heads as the guru listed the key functions of enterprise search systems in 2011. My notes contained these items:
- Federation model
- Indexing and connectivity
- Interface flexibility
- Management and analysis
- Mobile support
- Platform readiness
- Relevance model
- Security
- Semantics and text analytics
- Social and collaborative features
I recall that I was confused about the source of the information in the analysis. Then the murky family tree seemed important. Five years later, I am less interested in who sired what child than the interesting historical nuggets in this simple list and collection of pretty fuzzy and downright crazy characteristics of search. I am not too sure what “analysis” and “analytics” mean. The notion that an index is required is okay, but the blending of indexing and “connectivity” seems a wonky way of referencing file filters or a network connection. With the Harvard Business Review pointing out that collaboration is a bit of a problem, it is an interesting footnote to acknowledge that a buzzword can grow into a time sink.
There are some notable omissions; for example, open source search options do not appear in the list. That’s interesting because Attivio was at that time I heard poking its toe into open source search. IBM was a fan of Lucene five years ago. Today the IBM marketing machine beats the Watson drum, but inside the Big Blue system resides that free and open source Lucene. I assume that the gurus and the mavens working on this list ignored open source because what consulting revenue results from free stuff? What happened to Oracle? In 2011, Oracle still believed in Secure Enterprise Search only to recant with purchases of Endeca, InQuira, and Rightnow. There are other glitches in the list, but let’s move on.
DocPoint and Concept Searching: The ONLY Choice. Huh?
March 24, 2016
DocPoint is a consulting and services firm focusing on the US government’s needs. The company won’t ignore commercial firms’ inquiries, but the line up of services seems to be shaped for the world of GSAAdvantage users.
I noted that DocPoint has signed on to resell the Concept Searching indexing system. In theory, the SharePoint search service performs a range of indexing functions. In actual practice, like my grandmother’s cookies, many of the products are not cooked long enough. I tossed those horrible cookies in the trash. The licensees of SharePoint don’t have the choice I did when eight years old.
DocPoint is a specialist firm which provides what Microsoft cannot or no longer chooses to offer its licensees. Microsoft is busy trying to dominate the mobile phone market and doing bug fixes on the Surface product line.
The scoop about the DocPoint and Concept Searching deal appears in “DocPoint Solutions Adds Concept Searching To GSA Schedule 70.” The Schedule 70 reference means, according to WhatIs.com:
a long-term contract issued by the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) to a commercial technology vendor. Award of a Schedule contract signifies that the GSA has determined that the vendor’s pricing is fair and reasonable and the vendor is in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations. Purchasing from pre- approved vendors allows agencies to cut through red tape and receive goods and services faster. A vendor doesn’t need to win a GSA Schedule contract in order to do business with U.S. government agencies, but having a Schedule contract can cut down on administrative costs, both for the vendor and for the agency. Federal agencies typically submit requests to three vendors on a Schedule and choose the vendor that offers the best value.
To me, the deal is a way for Concept Searching to generate revenue via a third party services firm.
In the write up about the tie up, I highlighted this paragraph which is a single paragraph with an amazing assertion:
A DocPoint partner since 2012, Concept Searching is the only [emphasis added] company whose solutions deliver automatic semantic metadata generation, auto-classification, and powerful taxonomy tools running natively in all versions of SharePoint and SharePoint Online. By blending these technologies with DocPoint’s end-to-end enterprise content management (ECM) offerings, government organizations can maximize their SharePoint investment and obtain a fully integrated solution for sharing, securing and searching for mission-critical information.
Note the statement “only company whose solutions deliver…” “Only” means, according to the Google define function:
No one or nothing more besides; solely or exclusively.
Unfortunately the DocPoint assertion about Concept Searching as the only firm appears to be wide of the mark. Concept Search is one of many companies offering the functions set forth in the content marketing “news” story. In my files, I have the names of dozens of commercial firms offering semantic metadata generation, auto-classification, and taxonomy tools. I wonder if Layer2 or Smartlogic have an opinion about “only”?
Stephen E Arnold, March 24, 2016
Bing Rings the Cash Register
February 2, 2016
I read a fascinating story about Bing, Microsoft’s search system which does not include the Fast Search & Transfer goodies in SharePoint Search. Yeah, I know it is confusing.
The write up “Microsoft Corporation Makes Big Bucks with Bing: Cloud Is the Future.” Web search has been, as far as I know, a cloud service for more than a decade. Set that aside.
The important point is:
Microsoft Bing search engine grew by 21% in 2QFY16, emerges as a potent threat to Google.
Poor Google. First, it was the presence of Qwant (what? you don’t remember Qwant?) now it is Bing. Doom looms it seems.
The write up reports in “real” journalistic rhetoric:
Microsoft’s search engine advertising revenues excluding traffic acquisitions cost increased by 21% in the second quarter of fiscal year 2016 (2QFY16). … The software giant is expected to continue its growth in the coming quarters, although what is more important is that Bing will continue to remain profitable and gain shares in the foreseeable future.
I like that “is expected.” Is this a Bing prediction?
I noted this passage:
The software giant is making recognizable efforts to evolve from a Windows-dependent organization to a “cloud-first, mobile-first” company. Microsoft seems to be doing well with its cloud business and making a profit from its Office 365, as well. Users of Windows 10 are also on the rise. Interestingly enough, for these users, Bing-driven Cortana is a very important feature which helps the service generate significant revenue growth to bolster the slipping Windows revenues.
But the kicker for me was the statement:
… Popular speculation suggests that Bing is just a minor detail once you take into account Microsoft’s prospects regarding its position in the upcoming cloud business which it has invested heavily in; and rightly so as the cloud services segment has added indefinite value to the company’s stock.
But isn’t Bing a cloud service? I am confused but the Bing/Fast Search set up is a baffler as well.
Yep, the new Microsoft. And Windows phone? Hmmm.
Stephen E Arnold, February 2, 2016
Microsoft and Business Intelligence That Sells
November 19, 2015
I read “Microsoft’s Graph Wants to Turn User Data into Business Intelligence It Can Sell.” The write up is interesting because Microsoft has been laboring in the information access vineyards for decades. The products produced are somewhat different from the products of other data vintners in my opinion. The other point is that Microsoft, if the article is accurate, wants to sell information, not software and cloud services, subscriptions to Office, and mobile phones. Wait. Maybe not mobile phones. What will Microsoft be selling?
I learned:
What it [Microsoft] would like to do is to take your user information and use it in much the same way that Google reads your email to understand when your flight is going to leave, or Microsoft’s Cortana tracks packages. What Google doesn’t have access to, though, is all that information you’ve tucked away into Office: not just email, but documents, OneNote notes, and the like. As the original Office Graph names suggests, Microsoft sees the Graph first as a business tool. Entire companies have already been built around the sort of business intelligence that Microsoft hopes to provide, whether it be customer-relationship management, logistics, or sales analysis tools. Microsoft hopes to take its Office contextual data and provide it as a service to third parties. Eventually it could take data from a company like Salesforce, integrate it with the Office data, and provide a richer mix of data back to its customers. Currently, its partners include Do.com, SkyHigh Networks, Smartsheet, and OfficeAtWork.
Microsoft has some interesting ideas. Does the future of Microsoft include search and SharePoint. Sketching plans for the future are interesting and often enjoyable. Delivering is a different exercise. The monitoring functions of Windows 10 hint at some of the questions Microsoft will have to address. Reality and the future are often difficult to reconcile with Alphabet-Google’s and other firms’ efforts.
Stephen E Arnold, November 19, 2015
Another Categorical Affirmative: Nobody Wants to Invest in Search
October 8, 2015
Gentle readers, I read “Autonomy Poisoned the Well for Businesses Seeking VC Cash.” Keep in mind that I am capturing information which appeared in a UK publication. I find this type of essay interesting and entertaining. Will you? Beats me. One thing is certain. This topic will not be fodder for the LinkedIn discussion groups, the marketers hawking search and retrieval at conferences to several dozen fellow travelers, or in consultant reports promoting the almost unknown laborers in the information access vineyards.
Why not?
The problem with search reaches back a few years, but I will add a bit of historical commentary after I highlight what strikes me as the main point of the write up:
Nobody wants to invest in enterprise search, says startup head. Patrick White, Synata
Many enterprise search systems are a bit like the USS United States, once the slickest ocean liner in the world. The ship looks like a ship, but the effort involved in making it seaworthy is going to be project with a hefty price tag. Implementing enterprise search solutions are similar to this type of ocean-going effort.
There you go. “Nobody.” A categorical in the “category” of logic like “All men are mortal.” Remarkable because outfits like Attivio, Coveo, and Digital Reasoning, among others have received hefty injections of venture capital in recent memory.
The write up makes this interesting point:
“I think Autonomy really messed up [the space]”, and when investors hear ‘enterprise search for the cloud’ it “scares the crap out of them”, he added. “Autonomy has poisoned the well for search companies.” However, White added that Autonomy was just the most high profile example of cases that have scared off investors. “It is unfair just to blame Autonomy. Most VCs have at least one enterprise search in their portfolio. So VCs tend to be skittish about it,” he [added.
I am not sure I agree. Before there was Autonomy, there was Fulcrum Technologies. The company’s marketing literature is a fresh today as it was in the 1990s. The company was up, down, bought, and merged. The story of Fulcrum, at least up to 2009 or so is available at this link.
The hot and cold nature of search and content processing may be traced through the adventures of Convera (formerly Excalibur Technologies) and its relationships with Intel and the NBA, Delphes (a Canadian flame out), Entopia (a we can do it all), and, of course, Fast Search & Transfer.
Now Fast Search, like most old school search technology, is very much with us. For a dose of excitement one can have Search Technologies (founded by some Convera wizards) implement Fast Search (now owned by Microsoft).
Where Are the Former Big Six in Enterprise Search Vendors: 2004 and 2015
Autonomy, now owned by HP and mired in litigation over allegations of financial fraud
Convera, after struggles with Intel and NBA engagements, portions of the company were sold off. Essentially out of business. Alums are consultants.
Endeca, owned by Oracle and sold as an eCommerce and business intelligence service. Oracle gives away its own enterprise search system.
Exalead, owned by Dassault Systèmes and now marketed as a product component system. No visibility in the US.
Fast Search, owned by Microsoft and still available as a utility for SharePoint. The technology dates from the late 1990s. Brand is essentially low profiled at this time.
Verity, Autonomy purchased Verity and used its customer list for upsales and used the K2 technology as part of the sprawling IDOL suite.
Fast Search reported revenues which after an investigation and court procedure were found to be a bit enthusiastic. The founder of Fast Search was the subject of the Norwegian authorities’ attention. You can check out the news reports about the prohibition on work and the sentence handed down for the issues the authorities concluded warranted a slap on the wrist and a tap on the head.
The story of enterprise search has been efforts—sometimes Herculean—to sell information access companies. When a company sells like Vivisimo for about one year’s revenues or an estimated $20 million, there is a sense of getting that mythic task accomplished. IBM, like most of the other acquirers of search technology, try valiantly to convert a utility into something with revenue lift. As I watch the evolution of the lucky exits, my overall impression is that the purchasers realize that search is a utility function. Search can generate consulting and engineering fees, but the customers want more.
That realization leads to the wild and crazy hyper marketing for products like Hewlett Packard’s cloud version of Autonomy’s IDOL and DRE technology or IBM’s embrace of open source search and the wisdom of wrapping that core with functions.
Enterprise search, therefore, is alive and well within applications or solutions that are more directly related to something that speaks to senior managers; namely, making sales and reducing costs.
What’s the cost of making sure the controls for an enterprise search system are working and doing the job the licensee wants done?
The problem is the credit card debt load which Googlers explained quite clearly. Technology outfits, particularly information access players, need more money than it is possible for most firms to generate. This contributes to the crazy flips from search to police analysis, from looking up an entry in a data base to an assertion that customer support is enabled, hunting for an article in this blog is now real time, active business intelligence, or indexing by proper noun like White House morphs into natural language understanding of unstructured text.
Investments are flowing to firms which could be easily positioned as old school search and retrieval operations. Consider Lexmark, a former unit of IBM, and an employer of note not far from my pond filled with mine run off in Kentucky. The company, like Hewlett Packard, wants to find a way to replace its traditional business which was not working as planned as a unit of IBM. Lexmark bought Brainware, a company with patents on trigram methods and a good business for processing content related to legal matters. Lexmark is doing its best to make that into a Trump scale back office content processing business. Lexmark then bought a technology dating from the 1980s (ISYS Search Software once officed in Crow’s Nest I believe) and has made search a cornerstone of the Lexmark next generation health care money spinning machine. Oracle has a number of search properties. Most of these are unknown to Oracle DBAs; for example, Artificial Linguistics, TripleHop, InQuira’s shotgun NLP technology, etc. The point is that the “brands” have not had enough magnetism to pull revenues on a stand alone basis.
Successes measured in investment dollars is not revenue. Palantir is, in effect, a search and retrieval outfit packaged as a super stealthy smart intelligence system. Recorded Future, funded by Google and In-Q-Tel, is doing a bang up job with specialized content processing. There are, remember, search and retrieval companies.
The money in search appears to be made in these plays:
- The Fast Search model. Short cuts until an investigator puts a stop to the activities.
- Creating a company and then selling it to a larger firm with a firm conviction that it can turn search into a big time money machine
- Buying a search vendor to get its customers and opportunities to sell other enterprise software to those customers
- Creating a super technology play and going after venture funding until a convenient time arrives to cash out
- Pursue a dream for intelligent software and survive on research grants.
This list does not exhaust what is possible. There are me-too plays. There are mobile niche plays. There are apps which are thinly disguised selective dissemination of information services.
The point is that Autonomy is a member of the search and retrieval club. The company’s revenues came from two principal sources:
- Autonomy bought companies like Verity and video indexing and management vendor Virage and then sold other products to these firm’s clients and incorporated some of the acquired technology into products and services which allowed Autonomy to enter a new market. Remember Autonomy and enhanced video ads?
- Autonomy managed well. If one takes the time to speak with former Autonomy sales professionals, the message is that life was demanding. Sales professionals including partners had to produce revenue or some face time with the delightful Dr. Michael Lynch or other senior Autonomy executives was arranged.
That’s it. Upselling and intense management for revenues. Hewlett Packard was surprised at the simplicity of the Autonomy model and apparently uncomfortable with the management policies and procedures that Autonomy had been using in highly visible activities for more than a decade as a publicly traded company.
Perhaps some sources of funding will disagree with my view of Autonomy. That is definitely okay. I am retired. My house is paid for. I have no charming children in a private school or university.
The focus should be on what the method for generating revenue is. The technology is of secondary importance. When IBM uses “good enough” open source search, there is a message there, gentle reader. Why reinvent the wheel?
The trick is to ask the right questions. If one does not ask the right questions, the person doing the querying is likely to draw incorrect conclusions and make mistakes. Where does the responsibility rest? When one makes a bad decision?
The other point of interest should be making sales. Stated in different terms, the key question for a search vendor, regardless of camouflage, what problem are you solving? Then ask, “Will people pay money for this solution?”
If the search vendor cannot or will not answer these questions and provide data to be verified, the questioner runs the risk of taking the USS United States for a cruise as soon as you have refurbed the ship, made it seaworthy, and hired a crew.
The enterprise search sector is guilty of making a utility function appear to be a solution to business uncertainty. Why? To make sales. Caveat emptor.
Stephen E Arnold, October 8, 2015
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