EMC Sees a Shift in the Oracle Landscape
April 25, 2009
The doings of the storage and database communities interest me. I pay some attention because search requires data management plumbing so the major players drift on and off my radar. I found the article “EMC’s Tucci: Oracle-Sun Combo Raises the Stakes” in CRN Australia here interesting. For me the key comment in the write up was:
Oracle wants to build a vertical stack of hardware and software, and in doing so will change the IT industry’s competitive landscape. EMC’s Joe Tucci said Oracle’s planned acquisition of Sun Microsystems will be a game-changer, and that it will force customers to choose between what he called the “vertical stack” and the “horizontal stack.”
I don’t like the word “stack”. I prefer vertical one stop shop or the River Rouge metaphor. The wordsmithing is secondary to the observation, however. As the economy continues to struggle, vendors have to lock in revenue. The cash that goes for hardware and storage, from Oracle and other similarly inclined companies, is rightly supposed to go to Oracle. Not surprisingly, the Oracle buy of Sun Microsystems adds a chunk to the Oracle River Rouge one stop shop.
I don’t think horizontal and vertical are the issue. The issue is capturing revenues that once flowed to ecosystem partners. In today’s world, partners are likely to find themselves on the outside looking in.
Stephen Arnold, April 24, 2009
Demographics and Their Search Implications: Breathing Room for Online Dinosaurs
April 25, 2009
ReadWriteWeb.com’s “The Technology Generation Gap at Work is Oh So Wide” pointed to a study that I had heard about but not seen. A happy quack to RW2 for the link the the LexisNexis results here. RW2 does a good job of summarizing the highlights of the research, conducted for this unit of Reed Elsevier, the Anglo Dutch giant that provides access to the US legal content in its for fee service. You can read Sarah Perez’s summary here.
I wanted to add three observations that diverge from the RW2 report and are indirectly referenced in the WorldOne Research 47 page distillation of the survey data and accompanying analysis. Keep in mind that the research is now about nine months old and aimed at a sample of those involved in the world’s most honorable profession, lawyering.
First, the demographics are bad news for the for fee vendors of online information. As each cohort makes it way from the Wii to the iPhone, the monetization methods, the expectations of the users, and the content forms themselves must be set up to morph without paying humans to fiddle.
Second, as I zoomed through the data, I came away convinced that lawyers’ perception of technology and mine are different. As a result, I think the level of sophistication in this sample is low compared to that of the goslings swimming in my pond filled with mine run off water. The notion that lawyers who are younger are more technologically adept may be little more than an awareness of the iPhone, not next generation text and content processing systems.
Third, the overall direction of the survey and the results themselves make it clear that it will be a while before the traditional legal information sources are replaced by a gussied up Google Uncle Sam, but it will happen.
My conclusion is that LexisNexis got the reassurance it wanted from these data. Is that confidence warranted as law firms furlough or rationalize staff, face clients who put caps on certain expenses, and look at the lower cost legal services available in the land of outsourcing, India.
Stephen Arnold, April 25, 2009
Microsoft Fast Arrow Electronics Parametric Search
April 24, 2009
In April 2008, BNet reported here that Arrow Electronics signed on with Fast Search & Transfer for the deployment of the Fast ESP (enterprise search platform). Today, an observant reader sent me a link to a story dated April 23, 2009, that appeared in 4G Wireless Evolution here. The title was “Arrow Electronics Launches New Features to Online Search Engine.” The newly enhanced system offers:
new online features providing greater access to product data and simplifying the search and ordering process within its expansive electronic components database. Building on the strength of FAST (Microsoft), Arrow’s new parts search engine, the enhancements represent the next step to provide greater tools and information via Arrow’s online resources.
The 4GWE story added:
In fall of 2008, Arrow launched FAST, offering enhanced site functionality, a greater range of user options and improved search speed and accuracy. Since the launch, search effectiveness on components.arrow.com has increased by 75 percent – giving customers faster, easier access to Arrow’s expansive parts database with readily available product and inventory data, enhanced filtering and cross-referencing capabilities.
Arrow appears to have indexed content about electrical products from about 800 suppliers and 120,000 original equipment manufacturers. There is scant information about the size of the content indexed. I navigated to the Arrow site here and ran some test queries. My initial reaction was that the system seemed snappy. As I clicked through the result pages, I saw output like that shown in the screenshot below for the query capacitors:
I clicked on the PDF logo for the first result, viewed that document, and tried to enter the following phrase “Monolithic Ceramic Capacitors”. I entered that phrase in the search box. What I discovered in that the search box only accommodated a portion of the phrase, 25 characters to be exact. This type of query constraint has been common to parametric search systems for decades, but I was surprised to encounter that hard stop.
SAP: Search on the Sidelines
April 24, 2009
Chron.com ran a suggestive article “SAP Expands Global Ecosystem with SAP Co Innovation Lab in Bangalore”. You can find the story here. The hook for the story was SAP’s setting up “a hands-on environment for SAP, independent software vendors (ISVs), system integrators (SIs) and technology partners to work together with customers on current and future technologies to showcase how companies can increase competitive advantage and improve efficiencies.” This is a fancy way of saying new products to generate new revenues. For me the telling item in the write up was the list of about a dozen partners. I did not spot a search or content processing partner in the bunch. SAP has the aging TREX system and its investment in Endeca. Has SAP triumphed in enterprise search so further innovation is no longer needed? Has SAP achieved its goals with he TREX and Endeca systems? Has SAP shifted away from search as a money maker for the company? For me the news story raised more questions than it answered.
Stephen Arnold, April 25, 2009
Digitizing Medical Records
April 24, 2009
Business Week’s “The Mad Dash to Digitize Medical Records” here by Chad Terhune, et al is interesting. The business publication points to the money that the Obama administration will attempt to make available for “health” gets pride of place in the article. The reporters then leave the money to summarize some of the challenges digitizing things medical face, what Business Week calls “red flags”. There’s a nod to “pharmacy errors”, issues with correcting problems, and product testing. In short, the article gathers up issues and provides quotes to make the point that digitizing medical records is going to be exciting.
Let’s step back. Digitizing any data is challenging and fraught with problems. The medical information wagon train is beginning to roll because:
- Information processes cost a great deal of money
- The giants of technology are on the trail of a big thing; for example, Google, Microsoft, Siemens, and others from insurance, hospital holding companies, and Tom the plumber who can program in perl
- There is Obama money.
What’s the future look like? I think medical information in general and patient records in particular will be in a state of confusion for quite a while. The fact that big companies are signing up partners and moving forward with individual agendas dictating the actions guarantees challenges.
At some point, the options begin to coalesce, not because of a single reason but that’s the way online information works. Many different activities and then a hybridization that leaves us with two or three ways to achieve an outcome. Microsoft has demonstrated this hybridization with its dominance of the desktop. Google has demonstrated its hybridization in Web search.
Medical information will be a bit different because people can die. So the stakes become quite a bit higher from the outset than those stakes were when MS DOS was rolled out or when Google indexed public Web sites and made the index available without charge to anyone with an Internet hook up.
The story of medical records, medical information, evidence based medicine, and related informatics issues makes this a big deal. Did I mention the government? Lots of regulations. Did I mention national self interest? Some nations are definitely into medical information. Did I mention the money? There’s a lot of money in health and medical plays. Business Week explains the problems, and I suppose the regulations, the interests of certain nations, and money are self evident truths. Game changing interaction on the horizon is my take on this subject.
Stephen Arnold, April 24, 2009
Say One Thing, Do Another with Google Online
April 24, 2009
The Guardian, a UK newspaper publisher and diversified information company, reported here that “Conservatives to Buy Google Keyword Ads in Live Rebuttal’ of Budget Speech.” The Guardian reported that some politicos are okay with criticism but shovel money into Google’s advertising programs. The newspapers write up underscores the utility of the GOOG. If the politicos get the desired results, my thought is that Google will have some UK officials who see the positives that result from using Google services.
Stephen Arnold, April 23, 2009
Google Local Push in Australia
April 24, 2009
I don’t care too much for print directories. The Google has a formidable directory initiative. I found the story in The Standard here interesting. Kathryn Edwards’ “Google to Boost Local Businesses with AdWords Offer” here wrote:
Google Australia Wednesday announced it will offer a free A$75 (US$53) search marketing campaign to help more than one million Australian small and medium businesses. According to the search engine giant, more Australians than ever before are researching products and services online, before venturing into a shop, with Monash University research showing that this trend makes up 50 per cent of Australian shoppers.
Google is offering a helping hand to get businesses to shift into a higher gear for online marketing. Will this type of booster program find its way elsewhere. If the Australian program takes off, the Google may become the de facto online information source for small and mid sized businesses. Bad news for print directory businesses.
Stephen Arnold, April 23, 2009
Asking a Question to Which the Answer Is Obvious
April 24, 2009
The Guardian took time out from Google whacking to ask a question that I found embarrassing. The Guardian’s article title is the question; namely, “Why Did Google Create News Timeline and Not Newspapers?” I interpreted the query as ambiguous. The Guardian gives Google a pat on its predator’s scales for its ability to innovate. The question of why seems to mean, “Why can’t the dead tree crowd do Googley things?” The Guardian said:
What’s holding back news organisations from creating these types of features on their own? Mathew said that “antiquated and inflexible content-management systems” are partly to blame, but he also said that newsroom culture also is part of the problem. News organisations will have to become more innovative in creating new features that showcase their content and build services that they can sell to end their over-reliance on advertising as a source of revenue. What do you think it will take for news organisations to become more innovative.
I think the Guardian knows that time has passed by the newspaper industry. The reality now dawning on those in the news business is scary. Without the mental programming to react effectively under attack, the newspaper industry falls back on a combination of grudging admiration for Google and direct assaults on the company because it is adapting to an evolving environment. Think Darwin. Think extinction. The answer to the3 Guardian’s question is in my opinion, “Newspapers don’t know what game changing actions to take.” The result? Marginalization and likely disappearance in a stream of zeros and ones.
Stephen Arnold, April 24, 2009
Google’s Growing Interest in Content Management
April 24, 2009
Content management is, like enterprise search, quite a pain point. Organizations tackled the Web as brochureware. Now the Web is more than a brochure. The Web makes the difference between success and failure for many organizations. Content shifts from a sideline to the quarterback’s job. Google is following Autonomy’s path through the woods but not following Autonomy’s footsteps. Autonomy spent $700 million on an aging CMS. Google, according to Mike Johnson at CMS Headlines here is piping money into Drupal, an open source CMS that has the attention of some working on IT for the Obama White House Web presences. Google will fund 18 Drupal “stipends” in Google’s Summer of Code. Why the sudden love affairs in CMS. Organizations have to have training wheels to create and manage content. Autonomy bought a commercial product and customers. Google is going the open source route and appears to be patie3nt. Autonomy needs traction more qui9ckly. My bet is on this open source play, particularly if Google permits the summer coders to play with Google’s data management systems. Data management is a Google competency. Data management is a challenge for most CMS vendors. Consider SharePoint. Now imagine seamless support for Drupal with the Google services a click away. Change may be coming to an already floundering CMS market. What about ad supported or Google monetization for Drupal information objects? The hefty CMS price tags become garlic to the IT folks who push CMS that are an ongoing money pit.
Stephen Arnold, April 24, 2009
Sun Google Security Support
April 24, 2009
Now that Sun Microsystems has been rescued by Oracle, the news about Sun’s tailoring some of its security services to support Google Apps slipped into the media stream. Sun has tweaked its identity services so that it plays more nicely with MySQL. You can read more detail here in “Sun Ties Identity Software to Google Apps Premier, Amazon Cloud Platform” in Network World here. Sun’s support for Amazon’s cloud services hedges Sun’s bets. My view is that tension will rise between Oracle, Sun Microsystems’ and Google once the honeymoon ends. My research suggests that Google will be pulled deeper into0 enterprise data management. I don’t think the Googlers will be able to pass up an opportunity for more enterprise revenue.
Stephen Arnold, April 24, 2009
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