Recent Data Shows Bing Surging
May 20, 2012
Mashable recently reported on a new study by Experian Hitwise in the article “Watch Out, Google: Bing Nabs 30% of Search Market.”
According to the report, Microsoft’s search engine Bing, currently second most popular search engine in the US, accounted for 30% of April’s search queries. Also, in addition to a 5% increase in Bing powered searches, Bing recently revealed that it has plans for a complete website redesign with goals to compete with Google’s Search Plus Your World by making search more social.
The article states:
“Microsoft says the Bing update will introduce “a better way to search.” The update will incorporate personal search results into the search engine’s algorithm. The results will appear in a panel on the side of the page. This includes which “friends might know,” “people who know,” and related activity recently on Facebook. Microsoft announced updates would come slowly. “
As Bing’s search traffic rose last month, Google’s dropped by 3%. While 3% doesn’t seem very drastic, Bing’s new redesign may lead to more competition than we initially predicted.
Jasmine Ashton, May 20, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
Can Google Manage Motorola Mobility
May 19, 2012
Google’s on a roll. Oracle seems to be holding a cold cup of Java. The Facebook IPO fizzled. Now China has approved Google’s acquisition of Motorola Mobility. Navigate to “China Finally Approves Google’s Motorola Mobility Acquisitions, Deal Likely to Close Next Week.” I learned from the write up:
Google may have announced its $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility last August and gained approval from both EU and US authorities but it’s taken until today for the search giant to gain clearance in China…. Chinese law stipulates that any business which generates revenues in excess of $1.55 billion (10 billion yuan) per year, of which $62 million (400 million yuan) comes from China, must receive government approval before it can be acquired.
Messrs Brin and Page did not suggest China change its laws. The company waited until the Middle Kingdom did its bureaucratic boogie.
Now that the deal between a vendor with a ore competency in software and online advertising and an mobile phone outfit nearly done, the question becomes, “Can Google Manage Motorola Mobility?” My hunch is that Google will do Googley things. For example, Google will behave in an unpredictable way.
There are rumors that Google will create a preferential implementation of Android. There are rumors that Google will sell the Motorola Mobility manufacturing operation. There are rumors that Google will wheel and deal with the Motorola patents.
My view is that Google itself is not sure what it will do. Situational decisions, betas, and mixed signals are likely to be the summer picnic fare. I don’t pay too much attention to Google, but the company is a headline maker. The Motorola deal caught me by surprise. Google’s tie up with Samsung has been great for Samsung, but I think the Google management of Android has been interesting.
According to PCMag:
Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt raised eyebrows when he appeared at the Consumer Electronics Show in January and argued that Android is not fragmented but “differentiated.” Then there was the write up “The Many Faces of a Little Green Robot.” If that write up is correct, there are 681,900 Android devices running different flavors of Android.
Now that’s a form of management that is remarkable.
Stephen E Arnold, May 19, 2012
Sponsored by Polyspot
Talend Updates Open Studio Applications
May 19, 2012
Talend’s Open Studio platform offers more business intelligence and big data with an enhancement: master data management. The H Open describes the updates found in the most recent version in “Talend Updates Data Tools to 5.1.0.”
Based on open source Eclipse, the Open Studio environment hosts Talend’s Data Integration, Big Data, Data Quality, Master Data Management, and Enterprise Service Bus (ESB). A user-friendly GUI allows users to define processes. The write up specifies that the updates give Open Studio:
“. . .enhanced XML mapping and support for XML documents in its SOAP, JMS, File and Mom components. A new component has also been added to help manage Kerberos security. Open Studio for Data Quality has been enhanced with new ways to apply an analysis on multiple files, and the ability to drill down through business rules to see the invalid, as well as valid, records selected by the rules.
“ESB and Open Studio for ESB appear to be the most revised of the products, with the release notes documenting improvements to the REST and SOAP services, an improved route builder, and improvements to the runtime system . . . . Open Studio for Master Data Management has seen enhancements in the development environment, with searching and filtering available as ways to view an entity, and in the web user interface with improvements in visual cues, easier image storage and resizable sliding panels.”
Talend ESB and Big Data are under the Apache 2.0 License. Open Studio for ESB, Data Integration, Data Quality, and MDM are under the GPLv2.
Talend is a leading open source vendor, providing middleware for both data management and application integration. The company was already a leader in open source data management when its 2010 acquisition of Sopera boosted its standing in the open source middleware market. The company takes pride in providing powerful and flexible open solutions for all sorts of organizations, great and small.
Cynthia Murrell, May 19, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
SAP Floats Into Amazon Cloud
May 19, 2012
Amazon will soon host SAP’s All-in-One applications, GogaOm informs us in “Amazon and SAP Put All-in-One in the Cloud.” Writer Barb Darrow posits the move could boost the appeal of Amazon EC2, since SAP BusinessObjects analytics, Rapid Deployment solutions, and most of Oracle’s business applications already run on Amazon. The write up notes:
“The conventional wisdom is that big companies are wary of running ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) and other enterprise applications in a public cloud — because they tend to be quite customized and tied into other applications, which makes them difficult to forklift into the cloud. But Amazon is working to change that perception.”
I imagine so. Amazon Web Services director Terry Wise promised the next mission will launch SAP’s Business Suite ERP for larger customers into Amazon’s cloud, followed closely by SAP’s BusinessOne, the ERP for smaller companies.
Founded back in 1972 by five former IBM workers, SAP is headquartered in Walldorf Germany but has operations in over 50 countries. A longstanding leader in enterprise software, the company serves over 183,000 customers. It markets its solutions primarily through licensed local subsidiaries.
So, Amazon is edging into the enterprise. Google, are you watching?
Cynthia Murrell, May 19, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
MapReduce: A Summary
May 19, 2012
Want to know about MapReduce? Here you go:
Remember. Think batch processing.
Stephen E Arnold, May 19, 2012
Sponsored by IKANOW
GigaOM Discovers the Power of Beyond Search
May 18, 2012
Short honk. We’re thrilled. In addition to Microsoft, numerous azure chip consultants, and various SEO experts, the phrase “beyond search” has been discovered by a “real” news outfit. Navigate to “Beyond Search: Twitter Joins the Discovery Wave.” The point is that one cannot read Twitter. Great insight. We look forward to more semantic appropriations. Perhaps a “beyond search” column, a mysteries of GigaOM, or – our favorite – the calculating predator 2012.
Stephen E Arnold, May 18, 2012
Sponsored by HighGainBlog, where “real” journalists don’t both to seek inspiration.
Business Lessons from the Yahoo Stumbles
May 18, 2012
An amazing insider view of Yahoo’s path to self-destruction was recently published on InformationWeek’s site. The article, “Three Lessons from Yahoo’s Meltdown, From an Insider,” is a business school case study gold mine and offers insights on what caused the big company’s setbacks.
The article, written by a former Yahoo exec who was laid off, gives three important lessons in business: “Don’t deny your strengths—even when others do,” “Beware belonging to a club,” and “When it’s no longer time to persevere, don’t.” The article expands on the statements:
“You have to work hard to identify your competencies, especially those that differentiate you from others. You have to brutally honest about yourself, your team, and your organization: You can’t allow others to define you, especially if they work in a nearby segment or industry. Never get too insular, but look instead to other industries, companies, or regions outside your own neighborhood.
And when staying the course isn’t working after a decent interval, admit it.”
These simple lessons leave much for CEOs and board members to take away, as well as small tech startups. Beware of the path Yahoo has taken and do not forget the business school basics.
Andrea Hayden, May 18, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
Prepare in Advance for SharePoint 15
May 18, 2012
Much like the discussion that flowed before the release of SharePoint 2010, the same voices are now chattering about the impending release of SharePoint 15, likely launched in the first quarter of 2013. Many experts are already weighing in on how to best prepare your enterprise for the move. David Roe of CMS Wire talks with Chris McNulty of Quest Software in, “SharePoint 15: 8 Things to Help You Prepare.”
Everything, McNulty said, is about planning; you can’t just jump into SharePoint 15. But you couldn’t just jump into SharePoint 2010, or 2007 or 2003, for that matter. So just like the last time, Quest is advising companies to plan any future deployments, even if many companies appear to have had their head in the sand when that lesson was being given out the first time.
Chris McNulty goes on to suggest eight major categories of preparation: optimized environment, consolidate content, data externalization, governance plan, enterprise content management, be social, custom coding, and cloud strategy. While each of those categories comprises a good bit of advice, we think that they could extend to any number of enterprise offerings, and many organizations are looking beyond SharePoint.
Consider Fabasoft Mindbreeze. This smart third-party enterprise solution can stand alone or work alongside an existing SharePoint infrastructure. Furthermore, Fabasoft Mindbreeze offers Connectors that work to seamlessly integrate all electronic data.
As the optimum search and information access solution, Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise facilitates the comprehensive incorporation of all electronic data repositories. Data sources and storage systems are connected to Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise via Fabasoft Mindbreeze Connectors. The standard product scope includes Connectors for the most common data sources. Additional Connectors are available to purchase as required.
While many will still consider SharePoint as the flagship of the enterprise market, many organizations are eager for more agile, intuitive solutions that update more frequently than the typical three-year Microsoft cycle. These organizations would do well to consider Fabasoft Mindbreeze and their suite of solutions.
Emily Rae Aldridge, May 18, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
America’s Technology Highway
May 18, 2012
Dassault Systèmes, France’s largest software company; Parametric Technology Corp., which is based in Needham, Massachusetts; and Aras Corp., which relocated from New York to Andover, Massachusetts, are among the large number of firms creating product lifestyle management (PLM) solutions who have recently established a presence along Route 128, or the aptly named “PLM Highway,” in the technology-heavy Greater Boston area.
In an article entitled “Route 128 at Center of Manufacturing,” which was written by D. C. Denison and appeared on the Boston Globe’s website, on May 13, 2012, the significance of this corridor to the growing PLM industry is discussed:
“Today, just about every product that consumers touch—the cars they drive, the planes they fly in, the pots and pans they cook with—is likely to have been created with software developed in the area surrounding Route 128….Boston’s dominance in PLM is rooted in the state’s manufacturing history, and has been 50 years in the making. The technology grew from the invention of computer-aided design software, or CAD, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the early 1960s.”
Inforbix, which offers cloud-based solutions data management for companies seeking to find, reuse, and share their increasingly complex product information among their often globalized operations, has a growing presence in the PLM industry and is based near its epicenter.
Tonya Weikel, May 18, 2012
Flax Offers Alternative to dtSearch
May 18, 2012
An apparent alternative to dtSearch, with modifications for scale, positional information, and other factors, has been developed.
Flax, self-proclaimed Open Source Search Specialists, has developed an alternative to the closed source text retrieval software. According to a blog post on the company site, “An Open Source Replacement for the dtSearch Closed Source Search Engine,” the new search engine was built for a client who needed the query language to match the old system. The catch? The source code is not available for public download.
The article describes the development:
“First, we developed a new Lucene Analyzer that speaks the same syntax as dtSearch, allowing us to index text input. On the search side we have a Lucene QueryParser that shares this syntax. To make it easier to use we’ve wrapped the whole lot in a modified Solr server. As we needed some features of very recent Lucene code, our modifications are based on a patch to Lucene trunk (and so the source code isn’t for the faint hearted – if you need it let us know, but we’re not currently providing it for download).”
A downloadable WAR file is available from Flax’s downloads area.
Flax states that this project shows it is possible, and even faster and more economically sound, to move to an open source alternative, regardless of investment in current search. We agree and are interested to see further developments from Flax and others who are willing to tackle the project.
Andrea Hayden, May 18, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
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