Free SpicyNodes
August 16, 2012
We have learned from the blog of Hayden Jared that we can get a free version of SpicyNodes in his “SpicyNodes Evaluation“. The nodemap application is billed as “a fresh, visual way to guide visitors on a journey through your Web site.” I think it is pretty nifty.
The free version does have limited capabilities, of course, but would be enough to get a feel for the software. Even a visit to SpicyNode’s home page serves as a good example of how the application can function for a Web site. Here’s Jared’s take:
“The layout does provide a very coherent and simple tool for categorizing and viewing information. One particularly underdeveloped aspect of the site is that there aren’t live links or videos embedded within the different bubbles of text within the SpicyNodes node-map. This makes the site more simple in that it is very self-contained. But it also limits the interactive possibilities that the site could have.”
Perhaps for GenY, the lack of embedded busyness is a point against SpicyNodes, but for me it is a plus. The design is clean, professional, and easy to navigate, all very important when trying to attract and retain traffic. The customization possibilities for the look and functionality are endless, and the site provides detailed advice for groups like museums, educators, communities, and businesses.
It is difficult to describe this interactive visual tool in words. I highly recommend you check out SpicyNodes for yourself.
Cynthia Murrell, August 16, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Algebraix Vaunts Speedy Results
August 16, 2012
It looks like Algebraix is calling out competitor Revelytix, who is specifically mentioned as having been trounced in Sys-Con Media’s “Algebraix Data Announces Record-Breaking Semantic Benchmark Performance.” Algebraix boasts that, for 80 percent of queries, their benchmark test outperformed Revelytix’s best published results twelvefold. Yep, a dozen times faster. That does seem pretty fast.
The benchmark test was performed on Algebraix’s SPARQL Server RDF database using an Amazon Cloud EC2 Large hardware configuration. This setup is identical, the write up states, to the one used in the multivendor SP2Bench performance comparisons that Revelytix had published. The press release crows:
“Furthermore, Algebraix Data’s SPARQL Server is the only database to have executed all of SP2Bench queries, including all six of the queries that were not successfully executed within the Revelytix guidelines by other Resource Description Framework (RDF) databases. . . .
“‘The outstanding SPARQL Server performance is a direct result of the algebraic techniques enabled by our patented Algebraix technology,’ said Chris Piedmonte, co-founder and CTO of Algebraix Data.”
Algebraix Data is headquartered in Austin, TX. In 2004, the company was founded on the vision of real-time access to data, structured and unstructured, in a distributed, collaborative, and dynamic environment. Their technology has garnered seven US patents.
Revelytix boasts that their community-based knoodl.com is currently the most widely used ontology editing tool. The company was formed in 2006, and is based in Sparks, MD.
Cynthia Murrell, August 16, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
The Pivot: Business Gold or Baloney
August 15, 2012
Let’s think about the belief that services will cure revenue problems. Straight away, services can be lucrative. Check out the revenues from McKinsey, BCG, or Bainie Mr. Romney.
The question is, “Can a company anchored in services become a hardware company?” And the flip side, “Can a hardware company become a services company?” These questions highlight the latest in business baloney: The pivot. The idea is that a company can go in a different direction, pay its debts, maintain its existing revenues, and generate large flows of new revenues. The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is a children’s book metaphor for this strategic vision.
Google is doing the pivot. First, there was the purchase price of $12 billion and change. Then there was the $200 million plus operating loss mentioned in the most recent Google quarterly report. Today (August 13, 2012) I read “Google to Cut 4,000 Motorola Mobility Jobs, Take $275 Million Charge.” The core of the news story is like the refrain of a sad Sinatra tune:
Motorola Mobility has lost money in fourteen of the last sixteen quarters and in its latest quarter reported an operating loss of $233 million on revenue of $1.25 billion. “These changes are designed to return Motorola’s mobile devices unit to profitability,” Google said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Google has “grand plans.” The task is to keep the ad revenues pumped up as the company invests in new revenue opportunities such as Motorola hardware, legal experts to deal with the copious supply of litigation, and tactical moves which seem to target Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, and other companies with possible monopolistic business models.
Will firing people and the possible sale of deadwood make the pivot work?
Given enough money and time, my view is that Google may succeed. The race
is on for Google. The three reasons I have identified include:
The click pattern difference between desktop Google searching and mobile device Google searching. To sum up what I understand is the “new wisdom”, mobile clicks are growing but deliver less bang for the advertisers’ buck. Desktop searches are not growing as they once did. Advertisers get less bang for their buck. My simple conclusion is that Google will have to find ways to work around these revenue producing online behaviors. But isn’t down down?
Second, like Amazon, Google has a cost control problem. Google is making cuts in services, buying companies to get a jump start or head start in certain application spaces, and investing in gee whiz technology in hopes of getting operational costs to flatten. My view? Good luck with that. Companies like Amazon and Google need increased revenue to keep pace with technology costs. In my experience, technology costs just keep on going up no matter what a manager does to contain them. The solution is to cap the budget and fall behind or keep spending until the business model collapses. (Example: Convera.)
Third, the bets on the future are predicated on the fact that the Internet is nothing more than a communications and information utility. The ubiquity opens the door to a cuteness and convenience thermonuclear war. Witness the efforts of Facebook and Google to co-opt the other company’s territory. The problem is that when cuteness and convenience become important, the tech companies may find themselves at the mercy of the experts in these disciplines. Google is making nice with the entertainment industry. Facebook cooperates with US government agencies. The problem for Facebook and Google is that the specialists in cuteness and convenience have more monetization options that the technology companies. One buys a mobile phone or runs a Web search. A child nags to go to the new Disney movie, get the coloring book, and have the Mickey Mouse T shirt. Facebook and Google give these cute items away. Disney and other experts in cuteness and convenience sell them, year in, year out, generation after generation.
Read more
Increase Company Productivity with Streamlined Project Management
August 15, 2012
Tim Cermak discusses project management for the upcoming SharePoint release in his CMSWire.com post, “Project Management Today: How SharePoint 2013 Can Help.” Cermak explains some of today’s challenges with workflow:
Companies today face the challenge of determining what is happening both within their organization and externally in their marketplace. Information such as who is working on what and the progress of directives is fundamental and yet it is often elusive. The only way for companies to improve their business is to know what is happening, who is doing the work and what the outcome really is. People need to easily be able to collaborate on jobs and with colleagues, communicate with many people, and easily report the facts.
The author shares tips for all departments in an organization to work as a team to become a more successful company. To help drive your employees to increased productivity and collaboration, consider adding a comprehensive third party solution. Mindbreeze offers a lean suite of products that can add rich value to your workflow processes. Look to gain each employee two weeks per year through focused finding of data (IDC Studies) with Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise. Read more at http://www.mindbreeze.com/.
Philip West, August 15, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Aras Offers New Innovations for Global Enterprises
August 15, 2012
One of the leaders in product lifecycle management innovation, Aras, recently announced its latest offering, the CATIO V5 connector PDM workbench. A recent Virtual Strategy Magazine article, “Aras Announces Latest Release of CATIA V5 Connector for Complex Global Design Environments”, explains how the CATIA V5 connector is intended to drive product development.
As the article explains,
“For global companies that have large, complex assemblies the CATIA V5 connector for Aras provides a highly scalable and secure PLM platform for digital product development. The CATIA V5 connector leverages the unified CAD data model in the Aras CAD Integration Platform which includes high performance multi-file check-out. Parallel asynchronous streaming technology moves sets of files across the WAN significantly faster than previously possible with other PLM systems.”
While Aras’s latest innovation is great news for ‘global companies’ there are still quite a few small and midsized enterprises (SME) just learning about PLM and how it can help their companies. For those not quite to the global level of doing business we recommend Inforbix, a PLM provider capable of handling global enterprises yet determined to make PLM accessible to all. As their Website states, “…Most small companies cannot invest in data management systems. This is where Inforbix can help. Inforbix provides an easy and efficient way to share product data and other related information. Inforbix is easy and intuitive to use; it deploys cloud technology that enables secure company wide data availability.”
Catherine Lamsfuss, August 15, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Ontopia 5 2 1 Released
August 15, 2012
Ontopia’s Blog has posted an extremely brief notice: “Ontopia 5.2.1 Released.” The post states that “This is a minor release which fixes the vizigator and vizlet in the distribution.” (Vizigator is a nifty graphical visualization too.) It then refers us to the release notes, which state:
“This release is a minor bug fix release, which includes the fixed vizigator and omnigator vizlet.”
The following bugs have been fixed:
- Issue 438: Vizigator is not starting on Mac!
- Issue 439: TopicNameComparator might throw NullPointerException
- Issue 440: bat file pointing to noneixisting jar file in 5.2.0“
Ontopia‘s suite of open source tools help developers build applications based on Topic Maps. This important open source technology is an international industry standard for information management and interchange. A couple of developers have been working on Ontopia for over a decade, and new participants have been pulled in from Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Norway.
Ontopia 1.0 was released in 2001, and the core engine is considered very stable. The software is released under the Apache License 2.0. Because the entire product is released as open source, there are no essential proprietary add-ons. Several options for commercial support are available.
Cynthia Murrell, August 15, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Ontoprise Allegedly Files for Bankruptcy
August 15, 2012
We thought ontologies and taxonomies were the hottest things going; apparently they are not hot enough to protect even leading firms specializing in them. SemanticWeb declares, “Ontoprise GmbH Files for Bankruptcy.” Writer Eric Franzon reports:
“The firm Schultze & Braun has told the district court in Karlsruhe that lawyer Holger Blümle has been appointed provisional liquidator. In an official release by Schultze & Braun, Blümle states, ‘With their innovative solutions, Ontoprise has developed a very good market position. Since the products are used both directly and indirectly in other programs, I am confident that the company can be rehabilitated…Initial discussions with potential investors are already actively being pursued.'”
I’m glad the company has not given up hope, and I wish them luck. I do wonder, though– if they are so well positioned, what went wrong?
Founded in 1999, Ontoprise emerged from the research environment at the University of Karlsruhe. The company states they are a “leading provider” of semantic products and services for a variety of fields. At the core of their product line are OntoBroker and OntoStudio. Ontoprise is headquartered in Karlsruhe, Germany.
Cynthia Murrell, August 15, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Tableau BI App Now Available for Android Tablets
August 15, 2012
Tableau version 7.0.6 includes Android functionality, according to “Tableau Software Expands Mobile Business Intelligence Capabilities with Support for Android” at the San Francisco Chronicle. The press release explains:
“The native Android application will provide Android users with touch-optimized controls for dashboards, including filters, pinch and zoom and dynamic scrolling. It will also allow users to browse the content on Tableau Server right from their Android tablet device.”
The BI consultants at I.T. firm InterWorks got to test drive the beta version, and were happy with the results. Their James Wright declares:
“Presenting business intelligence via a Tablet really breaks the mold and completely reframes expectations. The user expects, and receives, a fully interactive experience that transcends the traditional BI approach of ‘Sit and Stare.’ I never walk into a new client or training session without a Tablet.”
That’s a very good point. A version with touch-aware support for the iPad was released last year. No word yet on a version for the Surface. Hmm.
Last year Gartner and IDC rated Tableau Software as the world’s fastest-growing business intelligence company. The enterprise grew from a Department of Defense project, pursued at Stanford University, that sought to increase folks’ ability to analyze information. Founded in 2003, Tableau is headquartered in Seattle, WA, and has four other offices sprinkled through the US and Europe.
Cynthia Murrell, August 15, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
PredPol Algorithm Credited for Reduced Crime
August 15, 2012
It looks like an algorithm from startup PredPol is successfully reducing crime, we learn in “L.A. Cops Embrace Crime-Predicting Algorithm” at MIT’s Technology Review. The analysis software, previously tested in Santa Cruz, CA, was recently used in a Los Angeles precinct, and officials were pleased with the results.
The software, according to PredPol, was twice as good as human analysts at predicting where car break-ins and burglaries would occur. When patrol officers focused on the areas identified by the algorithm, those places say a 25 percent reduction in reported burglaries. Reporter David Talbot describes the process:
“The inputs are straightforward: previous crime reports, which include the time and location of a crime. The software is informed by sociological studies of criminal behavior, which include the insight that burglars often ply the same area.
“The system produces, for each patrol shift, printed maps speckled with red boxes, 500 feet on each side, suggesting where property crimes—specifically, burglaries and car break-ins and thefts—are statistically more likely to happen. Patterns detected over a period of several years—as well as recent clusters—figure in the algorithm, and the boxes are recalibrated for each patrol shift based on the timeliest data.”
It is difficult to definitively prove that the application is directly responsible for the reduced crime rate, though the team did all it could to make the case; the results of using the software’s reports compared favorably to those of human analysts’ recommendations and to randomly generated red boxes. At the very least, though, using the software reduces the time officers must spend planning their beats, so they can spend more time on the streets. That’s a good thing.
The fledgling company PredPol seeks to fill an important niche, helping police departments to be more successful even as they must cope with plunging budgets. The software sprang from computer science and anthropological research performed at Santa Clara University and the University of California, Los Angeles. The company is based in Santa Cruz.
Cynthia Murrell, August 15, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
The Long Wait for SharePoint 2013
August 14, 2012
Microsoft has hyped the release of SharePoint 2013, with many enterprise junkies highly anticipating the public availability of the revamped product. ClearBox Consulting takes on the question of whether or not the new SharePoint is worth the hype, and the long wait, in, “Is SharePoint 2013 worth waiting for?”
While the author has many positives to highlight, he does have this to say in reference to the negatives:
By SharePoint 2010 the main challenges for an intranet manager had become governance and user adoption. Governance has definitely been improved, but adoption has been less substantially addressed. For example, the user experience for content owners is still over-fiddly and at the moment the mobile experience is well below what will be needed over the next 2-3 years. Moreover, the new version has done little to reduce the complexity involved in producing and managing a SharePoint-based intranet for business owners of sites and content.
It is no mystery that regardless of the changes that are made to SharePoint, it is a huge product that requires a lot of time, attention, and customization. So for many smaller organizations, a smarter, more efficient third party solution may be a better choice. A product like Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise can work as a standalone enterprise search solution, or as an enhancement to an existing SharePoint infrastructure. Used either way, customers will marvel as the intuitive interface and increased productivity of Fabasoft Mindbreeze.
Emily Rae Aldridge, August 14, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.
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