Inforbix: Semantic Technology for Manufacturing Information
May 21, 2012
Inforbix, a company whose focus is product data challenges in manufacturing, will be presenting at the 2012 Semantic Technology & Business Conference in San Francisco this June 3rd through 7th. CEO Oleg Shilovitsky’s presentation will share ways his company uses semantic technology to tackle the growing data complexity plaguing the manufacturing sector. Inforbix will also take part in the Start-Up Competition on the 5th with the pitch, “Solving the Problem of Engineering Data Complexity.”
Regarding the data challenges unique to their corner of the industry, Inforbix’s press release explains:
“Manufacturing companies generate vast amounts of data. These organizations are asking how they will survive tomorrow with such data complexity. Inforbix helps companies solve the problem of data complexity in a new and different way.
1. Inforbix uses smart components (product data crawlers) that scan on-premise data and give users access to data, no matter where it’s located or how it’s sourced. There is no data extraction involved, no data import, and no data conversion. The process is automatic and requires little to no effort to deploy and maintain.
2. Inforbix uses intelligent semantic modeling that infers relationships between disparate sources of data. It combines, links, and connects these data pieces, then exposes that data using product data applications.
3. Inforbix uses the power of the cloud to allow broad and cost-effective data access.”
Founded in 2010, Inforbix is based in Boston, MA. They help their manufacturing clients access mounds of data through a single tool; ease of use, speed, and efficiency are their hallmarks.Inforbix develops intelligent apps– simple tools that address specific product data tasks like searching and accessing product data, organizing and presenting product data, and visualizing product data trends and patterns.
Inforbix’s semantic technology underpins its groundbreaking apps. It automatically finds and infers relationships between disparate sources of structured and unstructured product data. By linking and connecting related product data, Inforbix provides users with the ability to locate and access product data quickly and thoroughly.
While Product Data Management (PDM) systems offer search, their success depends on properly structured and consistent data formats, and those systems can only search within their own infrastructure. Inforbix is product data agnostic: it can access structured and unstructured data located anywhere in a manufacturing company. That’s a huge savings in time and trouble. Though smaller companies may be able to use Inforbix instead of a PDM, the solutions are intended to work with those systems.
Inforbix apps are cloud-based and fast to deploy, require no data migration or maintenance. They also provide data security by preserving the on-premises data without touching it or moving it into the cloud; that is wise.
The company introduced a mobile platform for the iPad for its apps this past January, and no training or prior experience is necessary to make the most of these apps. The software is priced affordably for any size manufacturing company to deploy companywide; a demo is available here. We highly recommend you check Inforbix out.
Cynthia Murrell, May 21, 2012
Sponsored by HighGainBlog
Inteltrax: Top Stories, May 14 to May 18
May 21, 2012
Inteltrax, the data fusion and business intelligence information service, captured three key stories germane to search this week, specifically, how unstructured data is shaping the way vendors operate.
In “A Mountain of Unstructured Data” the problem of collecting tweets, posts, pictures, videos and more and making analytic sense is laid out.
“Unstructured Data Investment on the Horizon” shows how many companies are investing in solving their own unstructured data crises.
Finally, “Another Analytics Partnership is Born” showed companies joining forces to tackle this massive problem.
We’ve talked about unstructured data before, but we keep returning to the well because it’s such a massive concern for companies. Thankfully, those problems are being solved and we’re monitoring it every step of the way.
Follow the Inteltrax news stream by visiting www.inteltrax.com
Patrick Roland, Editor, Inteltrax.
May 21, 2012
TIBCO News: Hadoop Support added to Spotfire Analytics
May 21, 2012
Organizations around the globe are experiencing challenges with managing the explosion of big data and meeting the demands of digital consumers. Tech entities are eagerly stepping up and collaborating to develop solutions for these big data challenges, including innovative alternatives to industry standards, like SharePoint.
TIBCO Software Inc. is a provider of infrastructure software for companies to use on-premise or as part of cloud computing environments. Chris Kanaracus recently discussed some TIBCO news in the ComputerWorld.com post, “Tibco adds Hadoop Support to Spotfire Analytics Tool.” The new release is explained:
Spotfire 4.5 will become generally available this month and features a data service connector to Hadoop, which is known for its ability to handle unstructured data such as weblogs, sensor information and text. The connector will allow users to combine and analyze information from Hadoop clusters along with structured data from business applications such as an SAP or Oracle ERP (enterprise resource planning) system.
But some analysts, such as Boris Evelson of Forrester Research, are less than giddy. Evelson adds, “However, other aspects of the release, such as the management tooling and iPad support, are less than earth-shattering.” According to Evelson, mobility has become a basic requirement of any BI platform.
TIBCO’s new partnerships are another indication that enterprise search is the hot new market for competition and development. While acquisition and development news is exciting, you may want to turn to an established search solution that already understands the value of federated search and mobility. We like the feedback we’ve seen about Fabasoft Mindbreeze. Here you can read about the mobility solutions from Mindbreeze,
Fabasoft Mindbreeze Mobile makes company knowledge available on all mobile devices. You can act freely, independently and yet always securely. Irrespective of what format the data is in. Full functionality: Search results are displayed homogenously to the web client with regards to clear design and intuitive navigation.
And with information pairing of your cloud and on-premise data, users can easily access important business information on the go from their smartphones and tablets. The well-established and cost-effective solution is worth a second look at http://www.mindbreeze.com/.
Philip West, May 21, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
A Search Solution for Truvo
May 21, 2012
Truvo, a provider of search and digital advertising solutions in Belgium and Portugal, recently announced that it will implement products created by Amdocs to support its sales, billing, and product lifecycle management (PLM) needs as it continues to ramp up its system capabilities to address the growing demand for multi-media advertising. Truvo had deployed software by Amdocs in 2011 to improve the relevancy of its search results to consumers.
In a press release entitled “European Provider Truvo Selects Amdocs to Improve Sales, Ordering and Billing for Digital Advertising Products” that recently appeared on Market Watch, Rebecca Prudhomme, the vice president of product and solutions marketing at Amdocs, comments on the need for data management solutions that enhance the productivity of clients like Truvo:
“Local search and advertising providers today require more sophisticated systems that can support complex, multi-media products, while driving operational efficiencies. The deployment of Amdocs’ products will not only allow Truvo to remain at the forefront of digital advertising innovation, but also simplify Truvo’s operational processes and reduce the associated costs.”
Inforbix, with its cloud-based, scalable, and affordable products, can also offer its clients a PLM solution that enhances their search capabilities so that they can find, reuse, and share their product data with ease.
Tonya Weikel, May 21, 2012
Lucid Imagination Conference Full of Insights
May 21, 2012
The powerful advantages of open source search solutions are still new to many who would embrace them. That’s one of the conclusions to be drawn from O’Reilly Radar’s “Lucene Conference Touches Many Areas of Growth in Search.” Presenters at Lucid Imagination’s recent conference, Lucene Revolution, detailed those advantages as well as new developments in the field.
Sign-up stats indicate that many of the attendees were new to Lucene and Solr, with about a third having experienced them for less than one year. It sounds like there’s a lot of room for the technologies to grow.
There is more information in the article than I can go into here, so you might want to check it out for yourself. Writer and conference attendee Andy Oram shares some of the highlights regarding big data:
“Mark Davis did a fast-pace presentation on the use of Solr along with Hadoop, and systems hosting GPUs at the information processing firm Kitenga. A RESTful API from LucidWorks Enterprise gives Solr access to Hadoop to run jobs. Glenn Engstrand described how Zoosk, The “Romantic Social Network,” keeps slow operations on the update side of the operation so that searches can be simple and fast. As in many applications, Solr at Zoosk pulls information from MySQL. Other tools they use include the High-speed ObjectWeb Logger (HOWL) to log transactions and RabbitMQ for auto-acknowledge messages. HOWL is also useful for warming Solr’s cache with recent searches, because certain operations flush the cache. “
We welcome another big data development revealed at the conference: LucidWorks Big Data platform, now in Beta, will allow users to manage Solr schemas without having to configure and certify the local tools. Now, there’s a time saver. Lucid vows that the platform can handle any “volume, variety, and velocity” of content.
Auto-completion warranted its own presentation, wherein Sudarshan Gaikaiwari focused on geospatially informed results. Geohashes are used to retrieve geospatial info. They represent the world’s grid as arbitrary strings, where shorter strings represent larger regions and adding characters narrows the search to smaller area. Using these, applications can suggest auto-completed terms local to the user, like a nearby museum or restaurant.
Oram notes that Apache‘s Lucene is probably the most popular independent search engine. Written in Java, it can be used for nearly any full-text search application, particularly cross-platform. The engine boasts low memory requirements, fast incremental indexing, and an array of query types.
Conference sponsor Lucid Imagination is the commercial company for Lucene and its search server Solr. The company crafts robust scalable search solutions that make the most of the open source technology. Lucid prides itself on making open source search accessible and easy to learn. These search gurus recently moved to new digs in Redwood City, CA.
Cynthia Murrell, May 21, 2012
Sponsored by HighGainBlog
Semantic Search Demystified
May 21, 2012
Confused about Semantic Search? ExtremeTech seeks to explain the burgeoning technology in “Demystifying Semantic Search.” Writer Ed Oswald begins by defining the term and explaining why folks have high hopes for it. He then discusses who uses the technology, and how it will change search as we know it. He concludes by assessing some limits.
Oswald traces the yearning for semantic search back to Ask Jeeves, which launched in 1996 and famously prompted users to query with complete English sentences. The service was keyword based, but shaped the way we interact with search engines. Almost a decade later, Google’s Q&A tried to discern what users really meant. Then Bing in 2009 incorporated semantics, followed (and bested) by Wolfram Alpha.
Going forward, Oswald predicts serious problems for the keyword-reliant search engine optimization field, a prediction with which I agree wholeheartedly. In addition, he notes that users will interact with search differently—the search engine itself becomes a destination rather than a map, simplifying the search process.
The write up summarizes:
“Semantic search shows a lot of promise to change the way we search. For the webmaster, it changes the game of getting your site high up in search results. For the user, it will hopefully make our searches more relevant as it will attempt to guess our intent rather than a literal interpretation of every search term we type in. Will it also change the search giants’ stance against pay-for-play when it comes to search results? That remains to be seen, but the groundwork has certainly been laid.”
See this thorough article for more information if you’re still mystified (or just curious).
Cynthia Murrell, May 21, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
Brainware Distiller Lands Icelandair Group
May 21, 2012
PR Newswire recently reported on a new partnership in the news release “Icelandair Group Selects Brainware Distiller for Invoice Processing Efficiency in Shared Services.”
According to the article, after evaluating several potential solutions for accounts payable automation, Icelandair Group, Reykjavik-based enterprise including airline, freight, hotel, tour and ground services operations, found that Brainware’s intelligent data capturing software was the most capable of supporting their long term goals for process improvement.
Carl E. Mergele, Executive Vice President and General Manager at Brainware said:
“In addition to demonstrating extremely high rates of field data extraction, Distiller’s template-free approach translates to low cost of ownership, as new document formats and increased volumes can be handled effortlessly. Intelligent data capture technology builds upon the efficiency of a shared services model to enable faster, more accurate processing, as well as greater insight into the overall process, from receipt to post. Brainware is proud to serve Icelandair Group’s data capture needs.”
By partnering with Brainware, Icelandair group is bound to improve its reporting processes which will help overall day-to-day operations. Sounds like a win to me.
Jasmine Ashton, May 21, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
Google Embraces Traditional Business Model for Rich Media
May 21, 2012
Online Media Daily recently reported on YouTube’s desire to attract more content deals with large media companies in the article “Report: YouTube Mulls Content Subscription Service.”
According to the article, the Google company currently has a global audience of over 800 million unique users. While YouTube has no plans to begin charging for its current content offerings, it might add premium offerings that are not already on the video-sharing site. Since it already does movie rentals and sports subscriptions, this would not be all that different.
The article states:
“In adding a new subscription service, the idea is to entice owners of high-demand programming in categories such as live sports, music and entertainment to put their content on YouTube. Much of this content is owned by big media companies, which receive the bulk of their revenues from TV advertising and subscription TV carriage fees. Many of these companies have been unwilling to put their content on YouTube, because of its predominantly advertising-only business model.”
This may not be a new idea, but it will certainly cause some changes in the way YouTube does business and may impact the way that others see the company. Will this solve the big hat, no cattle problem of YouTube?
Jasmine Ashton, May 21, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
Will Watson Make Billions for IBM?
May 20, 2012
Unlike other companies who spend their money snapping up smaller competitors or waging the patent wars, IBM focuses on good old R&D. That’s why InfoWorld’s Bill Snyder admires the company, he explains in “Beyond ‘Jeopardy’: How IBM Will Make Billions from Watson.”
Snyder praises the company for its focus on innovation over acquisition or legislation. He predicts the Watson technology will soon pay off big for IBM, though he admits the company is mum on how much cash went into the project. There are three big Watson-related deals in the works: Health benefits company WellPoint plans to use it to speed research and diagnosis. Cancer research institute Sloan-Kettering will use the technology to advance its essential explorations. Finally, Citigroup hopes to improve customer service with Watson. (But can it help with the image problems?)
Snyder acknowledges some may believe his claims about Watson’s future to be over the top:
“Did I drink a glass of Big Blue Kool-Aid during my meeting with Gold at San Francisco’s Palace Hotel this week? I don’t think so. If you look at the first real-world applications of Watson, you’ll notice they’re aimed at solving significant problems. Indeed, Watson may wind up saving lives — and, oh yes, make money for IBM and its shareholders.”
We’re all for the saving lives part, though we’re not too sure about the billions. Snyder isn’t the only one who sees Watson generating a fortune, though. He offers:
“In a research note late last year, CLSA analyst Ed Maguire estimated that Watson may generate $2.7 billion in revenue in 2015, adding 52 cents of earnings per share.”
So, are Snyder and Maguire right, is Watson a billion dollar baby? I wonder what answer it would give.
Cynthia Murrell, May 20, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
Grave Dancing: Implications for Search
May 20, 2012
I read “The Golden Age of Silicon Valley Is Over, and We’re Dancing on Its Grave.” I like the metaphor of grave dancing. A trifle medieval, but I think the sentiment matches the post Facebook IPO. I am surprised that no MBAs did high dives from Wall Street sky scrapers on Friday, April 18, 2012, but perhaps I misunderstood the CNBC headline about Facebook’s underwhelming share price performance. There were not too many financial mavens dancing to Rufus Thomas’ Walking the Dog on Friday evening.
There were several passages in the article which I snipped for my quotation collection. Let me highlight several.
I liked this statement by Steve Blank, “a professor at Berkeley and Stanford and serial entrepreneur from Silicon Valley.” He allegedly said:
Companies like Facebook for the first time can get total markets approaching the entire population.
I think 900 million members is a good population, just not an “entire population.” Why quibble? The point is that consumerization makes simplicity job one. Complexity has to be hidden and kept away from the users.
Second, here’s an opinion which some may find out of step with the happy squirrel approach taken by most Silicon Valley cheerleaders. He, according to the write up, opined:
Silicon Valley is screwed as we know it.
Well, the Better Business Bureau needs to get on its pony and ride, baby, ride.
Third, I liked the positive view of US government funded research:
Thank God we have small business research grants from the federal government, otherwise the Chinese would just grab them.
My take is that grave dancing is not likely to be the next Hokey Pokey, mashed potatoes, or schottische. The economy, not the social stampede and smart phones, may be calling the tune.
Perhaps that is why the “new” search from Bing and Google look a lot like the mid 1990s Excite with better typography.
Stephen E Arnold, May 20, 2012
Sponsored by Polyspot
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