Mapping the New Landscape of Enterprise Search
May 23, 2011
What has happened to enterprise search? In a down economy, confusion among potential licensees has increased, based on the information I gathered for my forthcoming The Landscape of Enterprise Search, to be published by Pandia in June 2011. The price for the 186 page report is $20 US and 15 euros. Pandia and I decided that the information in the report should be available to those wrestling with enterprise search. With some “experts’ charging $500 and more for brief, pay to play studies, our approach is to provide substantive information at a very competitive price point.
In this completely new report, my team and I compress a complex subject into a manageable 150 pages of text. There are 30 pages of supplementary material, which you use as needed. The core of the report is an eyes-wide-open analysis of six key vendors: Autonomy, Endeca, Exalead, Google, Microsoft, and Vivisimo.
You may recall that in the 2004 edition of the Enterprise Search Report, I covered about two dozen vendors. By the time I completed the third edition (the last one I wrote), the coverage had swelled to more than 28 vendors and to an unwieldy 600 plus pages of text.
In this new Landscape report, the publisher, my team, and I focused on the companies most often included in procurement reviews. With more than 200 vendors offering enterprise search solutions, there are 194 vendors who could argue that their system is better, faster, and cheaper than the vendors’ systems discussed in Landscape. That may be true, but to include a large number of vendors makes for another unwieldy report. I know from conversations with people who call me asking about another “encyclopedia of search” that most people want two or three profiles of search vendors. We maintain profiles for about 50 systems, and we track about 300 vendors in our in house Overflight system.
My team and I have tried to make clear the key points about the age and technical aspects of each vendor’s search solution. I am also focused on explaining what systems can and cannot do. If you want information that will strike you as new and different, you will want to get a copy of my new Landscape report.
Are you lost in the alchemist’s laboratory? This is a place where unscientific and fiddling take precedence over facts. Little wonder when “experts” explain enterprise search, there is no “lead into gold” moment. There is a mess. The New Landscape of Search helps you avoid the alchemists’ approach. Facts help reduce the risk in procuring an enterprise search solution.
Search Appliances for Archive Searching
May 23, 2011
“Index Engines Extends e-Discovery Appliance to Data Domain” reminded us that appliances, archives, search, and e-discovery are best friends forever. Archives are a hassle. Who knows what’s on a back up? Who knows which version is the “right” version? Who knows how to span paper, tape, near line, offline, online, and cloud repositories? The answer, which may irritate you, is, “No one.”
Companies like Index Engines and EMC are working to create a viable solution. The write up explains how Index Engines is integrating its data collection software with the Data Domain storage system from EMC. We learned:
The Collection Engine appliance sits in the Data Domain backup box and automatically indexes backup images, identifying the useful content, collecting what is relevant and writing it back to allocated disk space on the Data Domain storage, making it available for compliance and litigation purposes. The Index Engine also indexes the content of backup images so that they can be searched and analyzed for business relevance. The searches can be high-level metadata such as user mailboxes, or detailed queries based on file or email content, location and date ranges. Searches are saved as stored queries that run automatically once a new backup is executed.
Another advantage cited by the article is a reduction in archive requirements, because the software filters the data before backup. The product should be available on July 1, 2011. We think this niche will become increasingly hot due to the proliferation of digital information and the problem companies have paying expensive humans to sift through information looking for smoking guns or misplaced info nuggets.
Cynthia Murrell, May 23, 2011
Five Google Weaknesses Revealed
May 23, 2011
“Why Google’s Hiring Process Is Broken” has some juicy stuff for those who would be Googlers. There will be a lot of hires to fill up the giant building for which Google has giant plans. I was more interested, however, in the list of five problems Teambox’s story identified; to wit:
- Google Buzz. I agree, but one must keep in mind that Google was an early entrant in the social niche with its 2002 Orkut product. There was some interesting “buzz” about Orkut’s intellectual property and the application of its services certain interesting factions in Brazil and elsewhere. The “real” media did not pay much attention to these skreaks. I shall not blow on dying embers either. Just note that the first strike at the social ball was 2002, not May 2010 which is the date when I became aware of a growing “buzz”.
- Google Wave. Another good example of an interesting service. In my work, I saw antecedents for Wave in the work of other Googlers. In fact, Google acquired a company with some Wave-type functions. You may recall Transformics, even though most of the Google “experts” ignore the deal and its big thinker. Wave is not dead by a long shot because the technology molecules of the service are bonding happily and quickly with other Google services. I am not ready to accept this as a “struggle to reach consumers”, but I do think it is an example of what happens when teams exploit “controlled chaos” between volleyball games.
- Authentication of any type. The write up focused on third-party authentication. From the early days of the Google Search Appliance, there were some fascinating discussions about that gizmo’s methods of making sure who was searching what under what conditions. My recollection is that certain issues are not interesting, and, therefore, those issues do not merit much attention. So, good point but the umbra of authentication is large and somewhat irregular.
- Social reviews. Great example. I cannot recall a serious review service from Google in the last 12 years. What this triggered in my mind is the fact that the “inventor” of Epinions.com is a Googler and has the know how to roll out a killer review service. As the write up says, “Social review sites (like Yelp) focused on consumers are eating Google’s lunch in the business listing market.” Maybe Google Places will morph into a category winner?
- Integration issues. The write up focuses on the SEO experts’ fantasy sports line up of Analytics, Adwords, and Webmaster Tools. Wrong. The integration problem is evident in these services, but the real red flag for integration is the existence of different flavors of Android and Chrome. How is this stuff for mobile gizmos going to work together for consumers? Got me.
I think this is a good list of weaknesses, but it is not complete. The “history” of Google is of little interest to Generation Y and other alphabet cohorts. The past, both at Google and in analyses, seems to be forgotten. The good news is that upon repetition of activity, the past will be discovered and in near real time. Consumers, are you listening?
Stephen E Arnold, May 23, 2011
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Search and Deceive: A Fast Cycle Adventure
May 23, 2011
Here’s how I learn about rumors. Some asks me, “Did you know, Mr. Anonymous, the chief technology office of Big Dreamer Inc. resigned?” I have documented some of these follies in Mysteries of Online.
“Nope, I say.” I am not too curious because in the last couple of months, I have grown weary of the revolving door at search and content processing companies changing executives at a pace more sprightly than Max, the Wonder Boxer can chase squirrels in Harrod’s Creek. The “revolving door syndrome” does not interest me.
A search mistake. Source: www.funnyjunksite.com
The investors and the families win a chance to get tough in life’s lotto. Lives of well meaning, but often search challenged executives, are temporarily disrupted. It is easy to become an expert in search and get into the search consulting pool. Just whip up a LinkedIn page and start selling yourself as an expert in taxonomy, SharePoint, metatagging, business intelligence, big data, open source, visualization, or what ever strikes one’s fantasy. A faux consultant who knows a conference organizer can give a dozen or more talks in an effort to Hoover in as many engagements as possible. Isn’t the modern information economy special.
The whine of the revolving door presages yet another repositioning move by the new management team. You probably have picked up on the “search to business intelligence” or “search to sentiment” type of plays. I would mention search to customer support, but that sector has managed to make “customer support” synonymous with “we don’t want to have any interaction with customers.” So I pay modest attention to that segment’s thrashing like a catfish in the bottom of my neighbor’s bass boat.
So back to search and deceive.
Often, at a remove of a few days or weeks, I hear something along the lines: “Did you know that Big Dreamer Inc. is hiring the Super Competent Analysis Management (SCAM) firm to procure another search system?”
My response is usually, “What vendor was the incumbent?” and “Who handled the installation, integration, optimization, and roll out?”
Most Fortune 1000 firms go after big fish vendors. After a search system is in place or at a very advanced stage, the management panic and throw the floundering search vendor back into the water really fast. (Please, do not conflate this “fast” which means quickly with a very, very popular enterprise search, content management, collaboration, and business intelligence solution.)
The intersection of nuking a CTO on whose watch an enterprise search system was licensed is one tell. The other is the hiring of the SCAM firm to procure a solution to repair the broken information access problem. Unfortunately, the problem not as simple as dumping one search vendor and signing up with another.
This type of firing, hiring, and procuring cycle suggests to me:
- A failure within the management of the licensing customer
- A flawed requirements statement and then a lousy procurement process
- Inadequate resources such as time, know how, money, and infrastructure
- Over reliance on “friends”, in house technical staff, and one’s own confidence in one’s ability to solve any problem.
The most recent rumor concerns Microsoft’s search system, a certain commercial database vendor, and a manager with a new associate of arts degree from the School of Hard Knocks. Today is May 21, 2011. More information as it becomes available to me. Since we don’t do news, I will wait until an open source document becomes available.
Exciting, exciting. Anticipating, anticipating.
Stephen E Arnold, May 23, 2011
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Managing Chaos: No Problem Allegedly
May 23, 2011
Quote to note: I read “Intel CEO on Android Chaos, Apple Order.” In the midst of corporate chatter, a heck of a quote surfaced; namely,
“I think there is some growing pains that Android is going through…How do you create order out of chaos?”
Stumps me.
Stephen E Arnold, May 23, 2011
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Protected: Tips for Improving the SharePoint UX
May 23, 2011
America, We Have a Problem
May 22, 2011
Push aside the woes of publishers. After reading “Video Viewing on Netflix Accounts for Up to 30 Percent of Online Traffic,” I fear for America. I like to read. Recently I have shifted from non fiction to lighter fare, but I fall asleep in movie theaters and I just cannot pay attention to TV shows. Sports and a handful of other shows work like background noise for me. When the roar sounds, I look up and drink in the goal or the “moment”. Then, it is back to the book, iPad, or notebook computer. I am not sure watching videos delivers the type of hands on, kinaesthetic learning that my education offered. Couch potatoes can be bright, maybe Einstein class thinkers. I find this type of statement downright frightening:
People watching videos on Netflix take up more bandwidth on the Internet than users of any other Web site or service in North America, according to a report Tuesday by broadband analytics firm Sandvine. At peak Internet hours, as much as 30 percent of online traffic is generated by Netflix subscribers who are watching movies or TV shows over their laptops, game consoles and smartphones. The report highlights a rapid move by consumers toward the Web for their entertainment and news. Netflix accounted for 20 percent of Internet traffic just six months ago, according to Sandvine.
The new thinkers, yikes.
Stephen E Arnold, May 22, 2011
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New Evidence Libraries Are Important
May 22, 2011
When you say “search” to me, I think going to a real, living library. There are people who can assist me. There are online services which I may not have hooked into my home computer. There are honest-to-good reference books and shelves begging me to browse.
So I was disappointed to read the Physorg.com article “Link Found between Spending on Libraries and Student Learning.” Apparently, this is news to some. Why was a study or even the subsequent publication of what is to me a self-evident fact? The new Dark Ages of Online, perhaps?
See, it’s widely believed that spending more won’t improve learning in the schools. While that may be true in some areas, libraries are worth the investment. That’s the conclusion of the Pennsylvania School Librarians Association’s paper, “School Library Research Summarized.” This document pulls together research from across the United States and a bit from Canada:
“[Mansfield University professor, Debra E.] Kachel and a class of graduate students examined school library impact studies, most done in the last decade, by 22 states and one Canadian province (Ontario). Most examined student standardized test scores. A few used qualitative approaches. All found positive links between library support and learning.”
This is important stuff: how can you search if you are poorly educated? How can a person “research” or “reason” that a particular article or author is wrong, wacky, or practicing Facebook-type disinformation. Technology can only make up for so much. Please, read the article for details from the study. And if we want better futures for our children, let’s funnel funds to the school libraries. A little learning is a dangerous thing. But no learning? deadly.
Cynthia Murrell, May 22, 2011
Synthesio Releases New Social Media Monitoring Tool
May 22, 2011
More social media monitoring. “This New Dashboard Lets You Monitor Social Media Conversations About Your Brand Everywhere describes a dashboard called Unity. The solution is from Synthesio, and it could quickly become an essential marketing tool.
Unlike TweetDeck, Unity is not free. However, the cost may be worth it. The article points to two components that put this app far ahead:
- “It monitors much more than Facebook or Twitter, in particular it crawls user forums, which is trickier and in practice is often much more important for many brands;
- It works in over 30 languages. Synthesio has teams of translators around the world and around the clock that monitor conversations in many languages and make it all accessible to marketers in one dashboard.”
For your money, you get information about how to customize your dashboard. Regular analytic reports are available for an added cost. Such monitoring of the real time environment may soon be essential for companies to stay competitive, “or well”, bring the future home today..
Cynthia Murrell, May 22, 2011
AOL: On a PR Blitz?
May 21, 2011
“AOL’s Leader Undaunted in Overhaul Efforts,” reports the New York Times. The company that many may have written off is determined to make some new waves under new CEO, Tim Armstrong.
Mr. Armstrong has already made many changes since he joined the company two years ago. Some highlights: replacing the management team; retiring a number of products; and redesigning the way the home page displays advertising.
The most well-known change, though, is the purchase of the Huffington Post. Armstrong also placed its charismatic founder, Arianna Huffington, in charge of the company’s content business. We learned:
Indeed, Ms. Huffington, although a newcomer to AOL, is putting her imprint on its editorial coverage as leader of what is now known as the Huffington Post Media Group. Since the acquisition closed in March, she has hired experienced reporters for the Huffington Post, pushed ahead with plans for international expansion and augmented the coverage of [local news site] Patch’s paid journalists with unpaid local bloggers.
Of course, it would take reinvention for what is really a dial-up company to survive in the age of broadband. Some would call branching into the content provider market a risk, but the head honcho is confident that that’s where the future lies.
For more PR goodness about Mr. Armstrong, the former Googler with an economics and sociology degree, navigate to the Miami Herald and read “A Look at AOL CEO Tim Armstrong”. Not much content but someone is helping me see AOL and Tim Armstrong most of the places I look. I want to see top line revenue growth, bigger profits, and a soaring share price. Mr. Armstrong, though easy on the eyes, not quite as much.
Cynthia Murrell, May 21, 2011
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