Mondeca: How Smart Is Your Content?
January 25, 2012
Here in Harrod’s Creek, we and our content are not too smart. Mondeca believes it can change this hapless condition.
Founded in 1999 by Jean Delahousse and others, Mondeca asserts that it is the leading European provider of technology for the management of advanced knowledge structures: ontologies, thesauri, taxonomies, terminologies, metadata repositories, knowledge bases, and Linked Open Data.
Based in Paris, France, the company has been financed by its founders, as well as investment funds Trinova and Banque Populaire. Before starting Mondeca, Delahousse worked for Andersen Consulting, Paris Stock Exchange and Diagram, a publisher of financial software. With expertise in semantic web, ontologies, and content management, he has experience in the design and launch of large software applications, as well as in implementation of semantic technologies for large international clients.
Mondeca’s products help enterprises to integrate and interlink heterogeneous information by mapping it to explicit knowledge references and improve the way information is retrieved, analyzed, and reused by producing consistent, precise, and relevant metadata as well as supplying the relevant context. Mondeca’s technology is at the core of the Semantic Enterprise Information Architecture that allows to interconnect people and resources as well as to extract the most value from information.
Its products include Content Annotation Manager, a platform for building and managing customized workflows for semantic annotation of content that coordinates content analysis, data mapping, human validation, and knowledge enrichment components; and Intelligent Topic Manager, which supports the management of complex knowledge structures throughout their lifecycle, from authoring to delivery and can be either used independently to store and manage complex domain-specific knowledge structures, or as a service that enhances enterprise search, knowledge discovery, and text mining solutions.
Mondeca has also built its credibility in the Semantic Web space as a key contributor to widely-used international standards: OWL, RDF, SKOS, ISO 25964, and Topic Maps. Clients include Hachette Filipacchi, the World Tourism Organization, and Thomson Scientific. Competitors include Layer2 and Wordmap.
Stephen E Arnold, January 25, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Quote to Note: It Is about Google Revenue, Not Privacy
January 24, 2012
I am tired. The goose is ailing. I noted the write up “Larry Page to Googlers: If You Don’t Get SPYW, Work Somewhere Else” when checking news.
Here is a keeper for me:
Google built its empire on relevancy, and by giving us results that are doctored, that product is in jeopardy.
The privacy thing is not the issue for me. Anyone who assumed that free services would ignore what users do online is naive. Nope. The key point is that Facebook is not rolling over and submitting to Google. The other problem for Google is its softening revenues. As a reminder of the revenue power of Apple, just check out “Apple’s Q1 2012: $46.3B In Revenue, 37M iPhones And 15.4M iPads Sold”. And one must not overlook Jeff Bezos and his clever handling of Android on the Kindle Fire.
The Google has shifted from search to revenue protection, from innovation to emulation. The result: Jeopardy. Not even IBM’s Watson can win this game at this time.
Stephen E Arnold, January 25, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Proving the Value of Fast Search
January 24, 2012
A growing number of companies are specializing Fast services for large companies committed to rolling out SharePoint 2010.
Search Technologies, the largest and best established of these apparently have more than 50 trained/qualified Fast engineers. A number of these were no doubt picked up during 2011, when Microsoft let a lot of them go. That said, Search Technologies were “Fast Alliance Partner of the Year” back in 2006, a while before Microsoft took an interest in the Scandinavian technology company. Since then, they claim to have since delivered more than 40,000 consultant-days of implementation assistance. That’s a significant amount of hands-on experience.
I note that they are actively promoting a Fast for SharePoint proof of concept service.
For large organizations on the edge of a decision, this makes a lot of sense, particularly because the proof of concept aims to show how Fast works with the customer’s own data sets, in a live environment, enabling a cost-effective comparison to be made with the alternative of staying with a base SharePoint search.
Worth a look.
Stephen E Arnold, January 24, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
PolySpot Scales Ten Alps Publishing
January 24, 2012
The economic climate may be uncertain, but it is a great day for scaling Ten Alps. PolySpot announced that it closed a deal to implement its next generation, search enabled applications system for a major publisher. The PolySpot system will be deployed for the Link2Portal system.
Olivier Michel, one of PolySpot’s senior managers, told me:
Ten Alps publish more than 200 publications a year and have developed the unique Link2Portal site, to bring together the day’s news, analysis and exclusive opinions across UK and Global Trade, Logistics, construction and infrastructure, energy and sustainable development sectors. This information was previously isolated by each publication or subscriber list and as the volume of data was both growing rapidly, and becoming of increasing value to a widening readership, Ten Alps decided to invest in an information search and access solution to facilitate and enhance access to all of its information assets.
According to Mr. Michel, Ten Alps selected PolySpot because of its flexibility, performance, and implementation speed. The PolySpot system was up and running in three days, including integration of the PolySpot solution with other enterprise applications. PolySpot’s robust enterprise search application programming interface was a pivotal element in this implementation.
Stuart Brown, managing director of Ten Alps, said:
With its simple, open architecture, PolySpot was the only platform capable of providing us with a unique B2B search engine, which optimizes our content.
What makes this implementation significant is that PolySpot uses a range of content, including directory information from an Amazon cloud-hosted CouchDB database, the site’s editorial content (which is managed by Drupal), and the unstructured content of the thousands of publications available as PDF files and e books.
Consequently, PolySpot delivers the type of integrated search experience that some vendors have been describing but delivering only after weeks or months of effort. With PolySpot, a search on Link2Portal lets the user find news, a sector expert’s opinion, the e book for a publication, opened at the right page supported with industry solutions and suppliers information.
Gilles André, the chief executive officer of PolySpot, said:
The aim of Link2Portal is to facilitate information access for visitors to a major UK media group’s Web site. We achieved this objective in just a few days and we are proud to have Ten Alps as a customer.
Founded in 2001, PolySpot designs and sells search and information access solutions designed to improve business efficiency in an environment where data volumes are increasing at an exponential rate.
PolySpot’s solutions offer deep connectivity,so that licensees can access the data they need, regardless of their structure, format or origin. PolySpot’s solutions are based on an innovative infrastructure offering both versatility and high performance, enabling companies to make best use of their assets and rationalizing the strategic costs that today’s businesses and organizations face. PolySpot’s solutions have millions of users worldwide, across all business sectors, with customers including Allianz, BNP Paribas, Bureau Veritas, Crédit Agricole, OSEO, Schlumberger, Veolia, Trinity Mirror and Vinci.
A tip of the search enabled applications hat to the PolySpot team. Autonomy, Endeca, Exalead, and IBM have a frisky competitor on their hands I surmise.
Stephen E Arnold, January 24, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Protected: Simple SharePoint Differences Between Document Libraries and Lists
January 24, 2012
More Efficiency for SharePoint with Fabasoft Mindbreeze InSite
January 24, 2012
The Fabasoft Mindbreeze Winter 2012 Release gives lots of good reasons to consider their third-party solution for any organization’s enterprise needs. Founder and managing director, Daniel Fallmann, highlights some of the most innovative features of the newest release in, “Our 2012 Winter Release – More Efficiency for SharePoint.”
Fallmann provides some highlights:
The Microsoft SharePoint search is replaced by Fabasoft Mindbreeze, with the added value of information pairing, which extends the search to the entire connected company knowledge – all on one page. So-called search-driven dashboards can also be created. What does this mean? All information of a page is displayed by Web Parts made available by Mindbreeze. A simple configuration is all that’s needed. The displayed content is always up-to-date and to the point. And after the initial configuration, this takes place automatically and maintenance-free. Furthermore, our 2012 Winter Release is the link between the Cloud and Microsoft SharePoint. Data from the Cloud can thereby be integrated just as easily into Micrososft SharePoint.
The Mindbreeze functionality as an add-on, connecting an existing SharePoint infrastructure to the cloud, is a good solution for companies currently struggling with the decision of moving to the cloud. Another major feature worth highlighting is Fabasoft Mindbreeze Insite.
Fallmann continues his discussion:
A further example . . . is Fabasoft Mindbreeze InSite. The software achieves what would normally only be possible with intensive maintenance – to keep internet sites constantly up-to-date. Imagine you want to post a current blog article on your internet site. This is normally only possible via the use of personnel resources . . . What if search results could appear without anyone realizing that a search engine is working in the background. In other words: Always up-to-date, without anyone needing to take care of or dedicate working time for it. For example the updating of blogs, news or whatever else you want to post on your site.
The InSite feature seems to be an effective way to maintain a current web presence without devoting extensive work time to the project. So whether your organization is searching for an enterprise solution for the first time or is simply looking for a way to improve a current SharePoint installation, Fabasoft Mindbreeze has many features that definitely warrant a second look.
Emily Rae Aldridge, January 24, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
So Where Are You? Come Here! Hello, Hello
January 24, 2012
Maybe it is I, but fatigue washes over me each time I read about Lucene-based Watson. Quite a bit of PR chatter and very little online demo.
All Things D recently reported on IBM’s new super computer Watson in the article “Seven Questions With IBM’s Manoj Saxena About Watson and Cancer.”
According to the article, IBM is planning on using Watson as a reference tool to assist human physicians in the treatment of breast, lung and colon cancer.
The write up provides readers with the text from an interview between All Things D and Manoj Saxena, general manager of the Watson program at IBM, to talk about what Watson will — and won’t — be doing in helping doctors treat humans with cancer, and what that might mean for the future of medicine.
In response to the question, will Watson be directly involved in treatment? Saxena replied:
Watson doesn’t make the decisions. It’s a physician’s assistant. But before it becomes that, it has a lot to learn. Out of the box, Watson has the knowledge of a first-year medical resident. That is where it’s at today. With Cedars-Sinai and Wellpoint, we’re going to teach it all about cancer during the next six months.
A couple of observations:
- NLP on a medical corpus is a piece of cake compared to colloquial blog posts in Arabic
- Talk is not search; talk is baloney
- Wrapping layers of code around Lucene does not inspire confidence in high speed throughput on large content collections.
- Updates? And what about updates?
Watson still has a lot to learn to be able to be utilized to solve the problem of cancer. After utilizing the super computer in the medical field, IBM plans to apply Watson to financial services.
Jasmine Ashton, January 24, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Car Industry Relies on PLM
January 24, 2012
The 2012 North International American Auto Show in Detroit is showing off more than the latest and greatest in automobiles. It is also showing off Siemens Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) Software. The business unit of the Siemens Industry Automation Division announced that “Siemens PLM Software Technology Used by Nearly All Companies Unveiling New Vehicles at North America International Car Show.”
Siemens has expanded it market share of the global automotive market when two major OEMs replace “their computer-aided design (CAD) and PLM systems with technology from Siemens PLM Software.”
Siemens PLM Software’s world leading technology is used by 15 of the top 16 global automotive OEMs to plan, evaluate and coordinate the development and manufacturing engineering of their vehicles. Siemens PLM Software satisfies the mission critical needs of leading automotive OEMs for managed collaboration across complex engineering functions and throughout the extended supply chain.
The automotive industry has recently made a huge resurgence. It seems to us that PLM has played a huge part in that. There will certainly be more modernization with the help of technology that goes beyond PLM. Take for example Inforbix who is developing technology and tools to help busy engineers make the most of their time by simplifying how they find, re-use, and share product data. We think Inforbix software will help the car manufacturers in the future and zoom straight to the top.
Jennifer Wensink, January 24, 2012
Al Jazeera and Its US Reach
January 24, 2012
We were surprised, then resigned. Has the US slipped lower on yet another yardstick of achievement?
Al Jazeera English, an international 24 hour English-Language news and current affairs TV channel headquartered in Doha, Qatar, has now reached 250 million homes — 5 million of those being in the U.S.
The Los Angeles Times reported on this startling milestone in the article “Al Jazeera English Now Reaches 250 Million Households.”
We learned:
Five years after its launch, there are 130 countries that carry Al Jazeera English, but in the U.S., the channel has limited availability; it can be found on cable systems in Washington, D.C.; New York; Burlington, Vt.; Toledo, Ohio; and, recently, Chicago and in Los Angeles on KCET. And while the U.S. makes up a fraction of the quarter-billion households, it is a major source of AJE’s Web traffic, totaling 40 percent, according to the network.
The fact that Al Jazeera English has such a large web following in the United States despite its limited availability, leads me to think that a significant shift has taken place.
Jasmine Ashton, January 24, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
When Services and Software Collide: Oracle in Michigan
January 24, 2012
With Hewlett Packard wanting to be “just like” IBM and Oracle, services and software can collide with interesting consequences. If you have been caught in a failed enterprise search system deployment, you may find “Oracle Demands Judge Dismiss University’s Claims over ERP Failure” meaningful. My understanding is that the software did not work for the client. The client did what unhappy clients to; that is, call the lawyers. Then the story took a fascinating turn:
In December, the school filed an amended complaint that added new allegations, including that Oracle had conducted a “rigged” demonstration of the software package at issue. Oracle’s motion this week responds to that filing, asking that its allegations of fraudulent inducement, gross negligent misrepresentation, grossly negligent performance of contractual obligations and willful anticipatory repudiation of contract be dismissed.
Oh, oh. Consultants could not make the system work because the client alleges that Oracle showed a demo. How often has this happened? Cool demo. Failed reality.
I don’t know how this legal matter will turn out, but consultants who try to implement demos may be over their heads and billing for time to convert dreams into functional software can come back and bite, hard. Clueless licensees have teeth and can be a noisy bicycle card in a software consultant’s wheel.
Stephen E Arnold, January 24, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
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