Autonomy: Mixed Signals from HP in December 2013
January 7, 2014
Before I headed south for a couple of weeks where the sun shines, I read “HP Software Chief: Big Data Role Gives Autonomy a Boost.” After I read the story, I thought, “Maybe HP is going to hunker down and make Autonomy sales.” The story, which I assume is spot on, stated:
HP Software executive vice-president George Kadifa, who is also a member of the company’s executive council, says big-data analytics firm Autonomy is bouncing back from the controversy that followed the $11bn (£7bn) takeover by HP in August 2011.
There was a quote, which I assume is accurate:
“We’re doing great with Autonomy. Clearly, a year ago it was quite problematic — between disclosures about accounting issues and stuff like that,” Kadifa, [HP executive vice president] said.
I assume that HP knows that Longsand Limited, an Autonomy property that is now HP’s had a fellow named Sergio Erik Letelier, a lawyer, on the Longsand board of directors. See http://bit.ly/1eiFW1b. With this link, is it possible that HP has a way to get some useful insight into Autonomy?
Upon my return from sunny climes, I was catching up with my Overflight summaries and noted, “HP Axes Autonomy Cambridge Jobs.” According to the story in Business Weekly:
HP has categorically denied that it is making staff at Autonomy Cambridge redundant and considering closing its operations in the UK technology cluster. It says it is actively hiring more staff and upgrading the Cambridge Business Park premises. Autonomy and Aurasma staff began quitting the businesses after Mike Lynch departed. According to informed sources, the exodus reflected general disgruntlement at the bureaucratic way the US giant was trying to run the companies following its mega-billion takeover. The demise of one of Cambridge’s great technology success stories is particularly sad as Lynch had built it into the second biggest tech business in the cluster’s history behind ARM.
I find the flow of information about HP and Autonomy fascinating. With Silicon Valley struggling to capture super bright technology wizards, my thought is that HP might want to leverage Mr. Kadifa’s apparent upbeat view of Autonomy in Cambridge. There are some bright folks in the part of the world. A few of them have the math skills to exploit the Bayes, Shannon, Moore-Penrose, and the Volterra method. A happy Cambridge business community may help cultivate a productive source of new hires for HP in my view.
My question, “Which is it? Autonomy a success or a disappointment? Which is it: staff additions or staff reductions in the shadow of Cambridge University?
Autonomy remains a focal point for search and content processing. Interesting stuff.
Stephen E Arnold, January 7, 2014
iPhrase Profile Now Available
January 7, 2014
The Xenky.com Vendor Profiles page hosts free reports about important search and content processing vendors. A profile of iPhrase, acquired by IBM in 2006, is now available. iPhrase is important for a number of reasons. You can access the free iPhrase profile at http://bit.ly/1a1H9Y1.
iPhrase embraced ROI or return on investment as a key value proposition for the complex system. The company departed from Autonomy’s “reduce duplicate work” and tried to create “hard numbers” for licensees’ “value” from the iPhrase system. IBM bought the company, so the ROI for the entrepreneurs was probably okay. The ROI for licensees might be more difficult to determine.
The company was, like Fulcrum Technologies and Autonomy, in the repository business. The indexes pointed to content in the repositories, used the data to enhance search results, and provided “discovery services.” For fans of XML and computationally interesting approaches to search, iPhrase is a system of note. The period from 1996 to 1999 spawned a number of enterprise search vendors. The similarity of most is fascinating. The research computing efforts paid off as entrepreneurs migrated lab demos into the commercial market.
Third, the company lives on today. Just as OpenText uses aging search technology, so does iPhrase’s owner. If you have OmniFind Discovery in your organization, you have some of the 1999 technology goodness available to you. The Xenky profiles make clear that most of the search methods have been recycled multiple times. What’s different is the marketers’ lack of familiarity with pioneering efforts from days of yore.
In a recent LinkedIn discussion, one eager person wanted information about how to establish the “ROI” of search. Anyone looking for how some quite intelligent folks approached “value” for complex information retrieval infrastructure, the iPhrase profile may be useful.
Is it surprising that today’s vendors insist that their firms’ software is revolutionary? The Xenky profiles make one thing clear—there’s not much new happening in search. In fact, marketers are reinventing the wheel. The LinkedIn discussions speak to the assertion, “You don’t know what you don’t know.”
The Xenky profiles put the challenge of enterprise search and content processing in a historical context.
Next up is a free Autonomy report covering the period from 1996 with a look back to Cambridge Neurodynamics up to December 2007. Is a profile of a company now owned by Hewlett Packard of value?
You may be surprised because Autonomy is one search vendor marching to a different drummer.
Stephen E Arnold, January 7, 2014
Freelance Journalist Denounces ABC
January 7, 2014
If this tale is true, it gives us a new angle on real journalists. Blogger Nate Thayer charges, “How Ted Koppel and ABC TV Tried to Steal my Life Work.” The freelance journalist’s post begins with a bold move: Thayer declares that though he is legally prohibited from describing what happened, he is doing it anyway. Thayer all but dares his nemeses to try to reclaim their settlement money, which he says went to lawyers and taxes anyway.
As most legal sagas do, this one begins years ago. We are told:
“On July 25, 1997, I was the first outsider to meet Pol Pot since he killed 1.8 million people 20 years before. It was, for a couple of days, the biggest story in the world. I, as a freelance journalist, had the only photographs and video and eyewitness account that existed since Pol Pot did what he did. It was a tumultuous few days of dealing with the very worst of what the big media companies represented.”
See the story for the details (and see here to brush up on Pol Pot), but basically Thayer says ABC agreed to certain terms regarding Thayer’s valuable footage, then brazenly broke them, callously scooping Thayer of 15 years of work.
He writes:
“My picture, credited to ABC TV, was published on the front pages of hundreds of newspapers around the world, my footage was distributed around the globe, and my story was written in virtually every major news organ on earth, credited to ABC TV, before I actually had written my own story…. ABC distributed transcripts of the trial of Pol Pot I had made and allowed other news organizations to view the video tape with strict instructions to credit ABC for the images and story, and then refused to pay me anything unless I signed a release that they did nothing wrong and I promised not to take legal action against them. I refused.”
After spending seven years in court over this betrayal, and winning, why publish these charges now? It looks like Thayer is more interested in exposing ABC as a nest of journalistic-integrity-challenged cads than in recompense. Naturally, there are multiple sides to every story; we don’t know what Koppel and company would have to say about the matter. Though ABC may not wish to dignify the angry article with a response, apparently Thayer has gotten a lot of positive feedback on his post.
Cynthia Murrell, January 07, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Free Data Mining Book
January 7, 2014
We enjoy telling you about free resources, and here’s another one: Mining of Massive Datasets from Cambridge University Press. You can download the book without charge at the above link, or you can purchase a discounted hardcopy here, if you prefer. The book was developed by Anand Rajaraman and Jeff Ullman for their Stanford course unsurprisingly titled “Web Mining.” The material focuses on working with very large data sets and emphasizes an algorithmic approach.
The description reminds us:
“By agreement with the publisher, you can still download it free from this page. Cambridge Press does, however, retain copyright on the work, and we expect that you will obtain their permission and acknowledge our authorship if you republish parts or all of it. We are sorry to have to mention this point, but we have evidence that other items we have published on the Web have been appropriated and republished under other names. It is easy to detect such misuse, by the way, as you will learn in Chapter 3.”
Nice plug there at the end. If you’re looking for more info on working with monster datasets, check out this resource—the price is right.
Cynthia Murrell, January 07, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
The Slipping Standards in Academic Publishing
January 7, 2014
There is a troubling article over at Priceonomics titled, “Fraud in the Ivory Tower.” The post begins with the tale of former Tilburg University professor Diederik Stapel, who was found in 2012 to have fabricated or manipulated data in at least 30 papers that had been published in peer-reviewed journals. This case is a dramatic example of a growing problem; Fang Labs reports that instances of fraud or suspected fraud tripled between the 2002-2006 period and 2007-2011. Why the uptick?
We’re reminded that the famed “publish or perish” academic culture grows ever more demanding. At the same time, policies at scientific journals often mean that research integrity takes a back seat to provocative assertions.
We learn:
“According to experimental psychologist Chris Chambers, high-impact journals (particularly in the field of psychology) look for results that are ‘exciting, eye-opening, even implausible.’ Novelty pieces. As psychologist Joseph Simmons told the science journal Nature: ‘When we review papers, we’re often making authors prove that their findings are novel or interesting. We’re not often making them prove that their findings are true.'”
Lovely. The write-up goes on to reveal that retractions are on the rise; the PubMed database contained only three publication retractions in 2000, but 180 in 2009. What’s more, these retractions are occurring most often at journals with high prestige (as measured by how often its papers are cited in other works).
The article states:
“Again, it is possible that this increase is caused by a stronger online watchdog culture. But regardless of whether the fraud is new or newly discovered, the case of Diederik Stapel reveals the ugly underbelly of scientific research. The pressure to publish frequently in prestigious journals has made it more likely for researchers to cut corners and manipulate data.”
The piece naturally concludes with a call for improvement. In doing so, the writer supplies this link to an article advocating open access to academic papers. Interesting.
Cynthia Murrell, January 07, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Lasting Truths about Enterprise Solutions
January 7, 2014
Since their inception, there have been many changes in the world of enterprise software. Yet, there are consistent truths that can guide users in the selection of enterprise solutions, depending on the individual context. Tony Byrne attempts a list of these truths in his article for Information Week, “6 More Enduring Truths About Selecting Enterprise Software.”
After discussions involving open source as well as large versus small vendors, Byrne turns his attention to the biggest option on the market, SharePoint:
“Long-suffering platforms like Lotus have continued to endure because of the strong community around them. For the same reason, SharePoint will probably endure long past the time people think fondly of it. In other words, your technology can become undead but remain viable due to external support and enhancements. Surely, that’s better than having a vendor or technology kick the bucket on you before you’re ready to migrate.”
Stephen E. Arnold of ArnoldIT.com is a longtime leader in search, including enterprise. He has found this same truth in his SharePoint coverage – SharePoint is staying on top of the market, but often because it is enhanced and propped up by a great variety of externals supports and enhancements.
Emily Rae Aldridge, January 7, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Information Black Holes: Autonomy and Its Value Proposition
January 6, 2014
I follow two or three LinkedIn groups. Believe me. The process is painful. On the plus side, LinkedIn’s discussions of “enterprise search” reveal the broken ribs in the body of information retrieval. On the surface, enterprise search and content processing appear to be fit and trim. The LinkedIn discussion X-ray reveals some painful and potentially life-threatening injuries. Whether it is marketing professionals at search vendors or individuals with zero background in information retrieval, the discussions often give me a piercing headache.
The eruption of digital information posed a challenge to UK firms in Autonomy’s “Information Black Holes” report. © Autonomy, 1999
One of the “gaps” in the enterprise search sector is a lack of historical perspective. Moderators and participants see only the “now” of their search work. When looking down the information highway, the LinkedIn search group participants strain to see bright white lines. Anyone who has driven on the roads in Kentucky knows that lines are neither bright nor white. Most are faded, mere suggestions of where the traffic should flow.
In 1999, I picked up a printed document called “Information Black Holes.” The subtitle was this question, “Will the Evolution of EIPs Save British Business £17 Billion per Year?” The author of the report was an azure chip consulting firm doing business as “Continental Research.” The company sponsoring the research was Autonomy. Autonomy as a concept relates to “automatic”, “automation,” and “autonomous.” This connotation is a powerful one. Think “automation” and the mind accepts an initial investment followed by significant cost reductions. Autonomy had a name and brand advantage from its inception. Who remembers Cambridge Neurodynamics? Not many of the 20 something flogging search and content processing systems in 2014 I would wager.
As you may know, Hewlett Packard purchased Autonomy in 2011. I doubt that HP has a copy of this document, and I know that most of the LinkedIn enterprise search group members have not read the report. I understand because 15 year old marketing collateral (unlike Kentucky bourbon) does not often improve with age. But “Information Black Holes” is an important document. Unwittingly today’s enterprise search vendors are addressing many of the topics set forth in the 1999 Autonomy publication.
Creativity is Key for Data Scientists
January 6, 2014
Hmm, does this defy the easy-big-data narrative? VentureBeat warns us, “The Data Is Not Enough: Creative Data Scientists Make the Difference.” Not only is there a shortage of data scientists in general, we are now told firms would do well to find data scientists graced with creativity. How pesky.
Writer Jordan Novet refers to a recent panel given at VentureBeat’s 2013 DataBeat/Data Science Summit headed by LinkedIn‘s former lead data scientist, Peter Skomoroch.
The article relates:
“Skomoroch envisions a world not too far in the future where balance sheets will track companies’ data assets. But he and other panelists don’t just want more data to analyze. They discussed the importance of creativity as a key trait to look for in people who work with the data. That means relying on proven algorithms might not always cut it.”
Novet shares with us the perspectives of a few panel members. For example, former Kaggle president Jeremy Howard, apparently the creative type himself, described his process:
“Howard likes to just dive into data and start getting hunches about it, without knowing about the industry the data comes from and other context that others would find valuable. ‘That way, there’s no blinkers,’ he said. It might come across as a contrarian view, but Howard thinks his approach is one reason he did well in Kaggle competitions.”
Other panelists quoted in the article include Jawbone‘s VP of data, Monica Rogati and Pete Warden, CEO of Jetpac. See the story for their thoughts.
Cynthia Murrell, January 06, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Critic Says Google is Poised to Destroy Itself
January 6, 2014
Oh, dear. Folks over at TechNewsWorld suspect we are seeing the beginning of the end for Google, as Rob Enderle reveals in “Google’s Death Wish.” Essentially, it looks like the company may be getting too full of itself for its own good. He opens with this:
“One of the recurring themes in the technology industry is that very successful companies become arrogant and start taking unnecessary risks or abusing customers — the two aren’t mutually exclusive. That behavior can accomplish what competitors have failed to do: It can kill them.”
The article places certain Googley actions in historical context, reviewing overreaches by companies from the 19th century’s Standard Oil to Microsoft. Enderle then turns to the hubris of Google, which he traces back to Eric Schmidt’s blacklisting of CNET in 2005 for demonstrating holes in Google’s privacy measures by publishing the personal information on Schmidt that they got through, yes, a Google search. The piece also cites the Street View program, including its WiFi snooping component; the company’s operation of self-driving cars on public roads without permission; and the seriously ungrateful alleged theft of the iPhone and iPad designs from Apple.
The latest affront, according to the write-up, involves Google’s foray into job-stealing robots. Enderle wonders:
“Why would a company that largely makes its money from selling information about workers who spend money want to destroy the income source for a huge number of them? …Having seen what can happen if you are responsible for putting a lot of folks out of work, I truly wonder if Google’s top brass should be institutionalized before someone blows up the company. I get that robots are likely the next big thing, but you could focus initially on robots to help disabled people or function as home servants or reinforce security — all viable markets where the risks of massive labor revolts are far less likely.”
He has a point—I for one would like to see robotic tech applied to enabling the disabled before we ramp it up in factories. However, the truth in today’s world is that innovation follows the money. Will Google’s choice really drive enough workers to Bing or Yandex to impact its bottom line? Somehow, I doubt it.
Cynthia Murrell, January 06, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Information Architects Offer Knowledge Management Solutions
January 6, 2014
The Knowledge Management Depot blogged about a scenario anyone in IT, information management, or BI would recognize. The post entitled, “The Role Of The Information Architect” describes how when a knowledge management application is deployed and left to users to discover and implement, it is never used or poorly received. The end result leaves the project in a negative light and as a time and money waster. Often times this scenario can be avoided if the organization employs an information architect to take charge.
An information architect can be the bridge between the users and the knowledge management system. He or she can help the users adopt the new program and understand the value, rather than letting it rot. The post relates that a professional information architect takes responsibility for these tasks:
- “Gather Requirements pertaining to the content and structure of the KM solution (SME’s and Users are heavily involved here)
- Construct the Information Model (SME’s and Users are heavily involved here to further define and validate Content)
- Instantiate Business Rules (depicted as relationships) onto the model (SME’s and Users are heavily involved here to further define and validate Content Relationships)
- Develop the Taxonomy (categorizations of content (information & knowledge) for the KM Solution
- SME’s and Users are heavily involved here
- Card Sort exercise is often used to solidify the Content Categories and Taxonomy
- Develops the Metadata Schema (specific information about the content)
- Develops Standards for Content Assembly
- Contributes to the development of the Style Guide for Content Delivery
- Contributes to creating an authoring Environment that would leverage the Standards and Style Guide for Content”
The question may pop up is an information architect really necessary? Yes. Leaving users to adopt a new plan on their own without any guidance is a recipe for disaster. An information architect takes control and ensures success.
Whitney Grace, January 06, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
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