Yippy, Inc.

An Interview with Michael Cizmar

Yippy is a lean, mean, relentlessly innovative information access company. Yippy’s core technology includes the Velocity search engine, which is now known as IBM Watson Explorer. This technology applies a logical “clustering” technology to enable organizations to efficiently search unstructured data.

In February 2016, Google announced that it is sunsetting the Google Search Appliance, which means that thousands of enterprise customers around the world must find a new enterprise search solution in the next two years. Yippy is positioning itself as the leading replacement of the Google Search Appliance. In May 2016, Yippy announced its acquisition of MC+A, one of the largest integration and services firms supporting the Google Search Appliance. MC+A’s president, Michael Cizmar, has joined Yippy’s management team as head of its Enterprise Search division.

Intrigued by a company making bold moves when other vendors are either selling out or slashing staff, I tracked down Michael Cizmar and interviewed him in July 2016. Cizmar is a graduate of Bradley University. Cizmar has had a distinguished career in technology, and now he is applying his considerable talents to Yippy’s products and services.

The full text of that interview appears below:

Thanks for taking time to speak with me. I understand you graduated from Bradley University. My wife and I also received our degrees from that school. How did you move from engineering to search and retrieval?

I found that search and retrieval leveraged many of the engineering skills I had acquired at Bradley. Through a series of startup adventures, I finally founded MC+A, which focused on the Google Search Appliance. I enjoyed the work and the clients. When Yippy and I began to talk about Google’s abandoning the GSA, I realized that by teaming up with Yippy, we could fill the void left by Google, and in fact, we could surpass Google’s capabilities.

Tell me a bit about Yippy.

Yippy was founded in 2009, and has been essentially in stealth mode for a number of years, developing an impressive array of proprietary technologies. Obviously, Yippy’s license to use Watson Explorer (with its sophisticated cloud clustering technology, as well as categorization, de-duplication, and relevance methods that provide an excellent search experience) is a key part of Yippy. In addition, Yippy has independently developed a very impressive technology known as the Yippy Mac Daddy Browser, which enables users of satellite communications technology to browse the internet at speeds that were previously unimaginable.

Are you competing with IBM Watson?

IBM Watson Explorer’s beauty is its vast array of use cases. IBM has done some spectacular things with this search and clustering technology, and so have we. IBM is one of Yippy’s largest shareholders and we have a close working relationship.

In addition to your ability to fill the void left by the exit of the Google Search Appliance, what’s your secret sauce?

Yippy’s secret sauce is great technology and great engineers. However, one capability that might be overlooked is Yippy’s robust connector framework, which we have recently integrated with MC+A’s connector capabilities. Together, we have the ability to ingest the common enterprise file types, including structured database content and XML documents. Yippy has a connector advantage because we are not handcuffed with the aging Oracle Outside In technology or Salesforce-owned EntropySoft filters.

Speaking of advantages Yippy has in the search sector, can you identify the key strengths of your system?

We have an enterprise-proven search core. The Vivisimo engineers leapfrogged the technology dating from the 1990s which forms much of Autonomy IDOL, Endeca, and even Google’s search.

We have the connector libraries I already mentioned.

We have used the security experience gained via the Google Search Appliance deployments and integration projects to give Yippy what we call “field level security.”

What’s that mean?

It means users see only the part of content they are authorized to view.

Also, we have methodologies and processes to allow quick, hassle-free deployments in commercial enterprises to permit public access, private access, and hybrid or mixed system access situations.

In addition to the Vivisimo/Watson search capability, you seem to have some practical, common sense aspects to your Yippy approach. Are you competitors offering similar capabilities?

That’s an interesting question. I think the customers are looking for vendors who can meet their needs, particularly with security and smooth deployment. In a couple of years, most search vendors will be using an approach similar to ours. Right now, however, I think we have an advantage because we can perform the work directly.

The competitors in the search markets are struggling with the connector problem. Coding a connector is expensive. Licensing connector libraries from third parties can be a very expensive proposition.

There are good alternatives in open source code repositories. But the open source search systems do not have Yippy-like content intake or content ingestion frameworks. Importing text or an Oracle table is easy. Acquiring large volumes of diverse content continues to be an issue for many search and content processing systems.

We learned installing, tuning, and integrating the Google Search Appliances, particularly multi-server G100 and G500 systems is a work in progress. We have invested considerable effort to help ensure that Yippy is easier to deploy.

I think that most competitors are beginning to offer cloud solutions. We have cloud options for our services. A customer picks an approach, and we have the mechanism in place to deploy in a matter of a day or two.

Let’s circle back. When did you become interested in indexing?

A search system is only as good at the content it can index and your ability to index that in an effective manner for the type of user using the system. The challenge that caught my attention was the effort it took to “trick” the Google technology to find relevant content. As the Google system has aged, it seemed as if the Google system was making it harder and harder to deliver on point, precise results to users trying to find specific information. We could do it, but the work was difficult. Making search useful and less painful for the technology folks struck me as a huge opportunity.

Can you give me a specific example?

Yippy auto classifies the search results into clusters. This makes Yippy extremely useful for discovery, presenting a logical classification and a useful faceted navigation experience. Google’s limitations in terms of search results posed major problems in using GSA for discovery. Yippy does not have the same limitations, which is a great advantage.

What are your development engineers working on now?

At this moment, I am authorized to say that we are enhancing our connector framework. ;-) Stay tuned.

I understand the Vivisimo/Watson advantage. I understand the connector advantage. Are there any other upsides to working with Yippy?

The big advantage is our technology and our team.

What do you mean?

Well, I’ve already talked about the technology, which is first class. As for our team, we have a veteran delivery team that delivers lower total cost of ownership with greater capabilities than Google Search Appliance. We deploy our system rapidly and with less hassle and fewer surprises than most vendors in this market.

Yes but every search vendor with whom I speak praises their technology and their employees. Why are you confident about Yippy’s advantage?

Nobody else has Watson Explorer powering the search, and nobody else has the Google Innovation Partner of the Year deploying the search. Everybody tries to do it. We are actually doing it.

Do you have an application programming interface?

Yes. The Yippy platform includes REST web service APIs for both query and feeding. Customized pipelining is also possible. The API is rich enough to allow for complete administrative control, to drive alerts and other scheduled actions, to automate reports, and to support data ingestion on the fly.

How does your technology mesh with a repository approach to content management in SharePoint environments?

We can index SharePoint directory or federate searches to SharePoint and integrate the result set. Visualization has been a great addition to briefings.

On the other hand, visualization and other graphic eye candy can be a problem to those in stressful operational situations? What's your firm's approach to presenting "outputs" for end user reuse or for mobile access?

The primary focus on presenting user interfaces to end users must be on the usefulness of the interface to a workflow. Visualizations must contain relevant information, not just eye candy. We support many of the standard frameworks for developing responsive interfaces and mobile first approaches. Our data and our service is meant to plug into a standard developer’s toolkit.

The world of search, if I understand Google’s position, is mobile. How does your firm see the computing world over the next 12 to 18 months?

Yippy’s mission is to provide secure access to data anywhere. In fact, last year we partnered with Globalstar, which is about to offer to the public its second generation low earth orbit satellite technology, which, when paired with the Yippy Browser technology, enables our customers to securely access their data all over the world.

I have heard that some third parties are making an attempt to discredit your company? What's up?

Yippy’s a public company. It goes with the territory. We focus on exceeding our customers’ expectations. The rest will take care of itself.

Put on your wizard hat. What’s ahead?

It would blow your mind, but to give you a teaser, Yippy is indexing the entire internet.

What about the cloud?

The cloud has revolutionary potential. However, enterprises with sensitive data are reluctant to put their data in someone else’s hands. In the near term, many firms are demanding an on-premises solution. Longer term, Yippy has a clear blueprint for becoming a leader in cloud computing technology.

Where does a reader get more information about your firm?

I would suggest that your readers navigate to www.yippyinc.com. We also host a monthly webinar at www.mcplusa.com.

ArnoldIT Comment

Yippy is a next-generation search and content processing company. The firm’s core technology is more modern than that provided by system created on 1990s or earlier technology. The firm’s approach to business is focused on meeting the needs of customers, many of whom have been orphaned with Google’s termination of the GSA search appliance product line. Unlike other vendors, Yippy has taken steps to gain control over the content filters and content acquisition tools required to handle a diverse range of file types. Equally important is the firm’s willingness to provide a one-stop shop for deploying, customizing, and maintaining the search system. The Vivisimo clustering technology, refined by Dr. Jerome Pesenti who is now at IBM Watson, is excellent. However, Vivisimo has industry-leading deduplicating methods as well as a proven way to merge queries from different search systems with those results clustered in near real time. My son worked for Vivisimo prior to its sale to IBM. That said, Yippy is poised to have an impact in the search and content processing market.

Stephen E Arnold, ArnoldIT.com and Beyond Search
August 9, 2016