Microsoft Creates its Own Competition
April 15, 2014
A lot of attention has been given to SharePoint’s competition in the file sharing market, namely Box and Dropbox. But it seems that with its latest move Microsoft has actually created its own competition. Read more in the IDM article, “Is OneDrive for Business the SharePoint Alternative?”
The author writes:
“OneDrive for Business is Microsoft’s file sync, share and collaboration service. Microsoft announced that OneDrive for Business will become available as a standalone subscription service on March 3. This is good news for those who want the simplicity of Dropbox, but the security and control of Office 365. While some might see this as competition for the usual suspects in the file sharing space — Dropbox, Box, Google Drive — I think it’s a possible alternative to another, namely, SharePoint.”
It is true that while Microsoft touts the many merits of SharePoint beyond simple file sharing, file sharing is what it is best known for. Stephen E. Arnold spends a lot of time covering SharePoint on his Web site, ArnoldIT.com. His coverage proves that while SharePoint is widely adopted, it is also widely contested. It attempts to be all things to all people, but its huge platform is cumbersome. Organizations simply interested in file sharing may in fact look to the simpler OneDrive for Business.
Emily Rae Aldridge, April 15, 2014
Printed Information: The Burden of Adding Value
April 14, 2014
Navigate to your local news vendor (well, there aren’t many here in Harrod’s Creek) and buy a copy of the printed edition of the New York Times. Turn to page B3 of the April 14, 2014 edition and read “Leaner and More Efficient, British Printers Push Forward in Digital Age.” You may be able to find it online at http://nyti.ms/1knDRGk but no guarantees from the goose’s free blog.
The article contained a fascinating statement. I quote attributed to Mr. Kingston of Wyndeham, a printing company (a surviving printing company) in England:
The same applies to books and magazines, Mr. Kingston said. “We can now make a bespoke edition of any magazine; we can bind it in a different way and use special colors. We can personalize it and send it. There is much higher added value there.”
This search for added value is, I assume, a lever with which to reverse these factoids in the write up:
- Printing has become a “peopleless business” which means that employment has cratered from 350 in one plant to 114
- In Britain printing employed “around 200,000” in 2001 to about 125,000 when the New York Times went to print a day or so ago
- Revenues? Ouch. “The industry’s revenue is projected to shrink to about 10 billion pounds, or approximately $17 billion, by 2017, down from more than £15 billion in the 1990s…”
- Cheaper labor puts the squeeze on UK printers: ““So for things that are time-sensitive like magazines and have to be done in the region, the best deal might be outside of the U.K. — and you can have your products here overnight.”
The write up mentions other factors as well.
My view is that personalizing a magazine about Godzilla will put a load on “adding value’s” shoulders. Perhaps a video would be more appropriate or a social media stream, two channels not highlighted in the New York Times’ article? Stop the presses. Well, spike that.
Stephen E Arnold, April 14, 2014
Big Data Buzzword Alert: Thick Data
April 14, 2014
I read “Your Big Data Is Worthless if You Don’t Bring It Into the Real World.” The article points out some often overlooked issues with Big Data. Now that the meaning of the phrase “Big Data” has morphed into a glory phrase, new wordsmithing is needed. This article uses the phrase “thick data.”
The article points out:
To really understand people, we must also understand the aspects of our experience — what anthropologists refer to as thick data. Thick data captures not just facts but the context of facts.
And then notes:
Rather than seeking to understand us simply based on what we do as in the case of big data, thick data seeks to understand us in terms of how we relate to the many different worlds we inhabit. Only by understanding our worlds can anyone really understand “the world” as a whole, which is precisely what companies like Google and Facebook say they want to do.
Will the phrase “thick data” add clarity to the explanations of the analytics frenzy evident in many vendors’ marketing materials? Will search vendor like IBM use the phrase to explain how Watson adds value to information processing?
Interesting semantic shift from “big” to “thick.”
Stephen E Arnold, April 14, 2014
Gauge Your Company’s Speed to Intelligence
April 14, 2014
ClearCI helps clients collect, analyze, manage, and share intelligence across the enterprise. They claim it is enterprise intelligence reimagined. The latest ClearCI white paper promises quite a lot. Read more in their press release, “How to Gauge and Test Your Company’s Speed to Intelligence.”
Note this wording:
“By downloading this white paper, you’ll be part of a growing movement that’s changing the way companies compete across the board. Now, more than ever, companies are adopting powerful competitive intelligence tools to view their competitive landscape in a way that’s automated, relevant, and measurable!”
No doubt that better training and greater knowledge improves a company’s competitiveness, but these exaggerations are a bit much.
Perhaps reading the white paper is a better, and simpler, first step.
Emily Rae Aldridge, April 14, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Applied Relevance Changes Course with Shift to Epinomy
April 14, 2014
Applied Relevance is doing business as Epinomy. Among the leadership is Peter Auditore, an advocate of SAP and a former professional at the National Marine Fisheries Service.
Read more on the Epinomy team page:
“Peter Auditore is an innovative and strong leader with more than 25 years of experience in enterprise software sales, marketing, product marketing and communications. His entrepreneurial skills and research background enabled him to earn the positions of cofounder, Zona Research, Vice President, Hummingbird and President Survey.com in three technology startups. At SAP Labs in Palo Alto, CA he formed the industry’s first Business Influencer Group and leveraged social media to create MyventurePad.com a social media group for small business.”
In addition to Epinomy’s tie up with MarkLogic, a 13 year old company “poised for growth”, Epinomy the company works with WAND, a controlled term vendor.
Epinomy as a name echoes the words “electronic”, “opinion,” and “economy.” Now I have to remember how to spell it.
Emily Rae Aldridge, April 14, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Top Reasons for SharePoint Failure
April 14, 2014
While SharePoint is one of the most widely adopted platforms in history, it is also one of the biggest risks. SharePoint implementations can fail, most often from lack of use. CMS Wire tackles the topic in their article, “4 Common Reasons SharePoint Projects Fail.”
The article begins:
“One of the first things I do is ask why employees aren’t using their current SharePoint implementation. You need to understand all the reasons why to take steps to mitigate that from happening again. I usually get a range of responses. This definitely isn’t an exhaustive list, but rather some of the most common explanations that I hear.”
The author then goes on to list the top four reasons: 1) lack of vision, 2) lack of time and resources, 3) lack of user buy-in, and 4) inadequate user training. And while there are many factors contributing to failure, the good news is that these are recoverable errors. Stephen E. Arnold gives a lot of attention to SharePoint on his Web service, ArnoldIT.com. He uses his longstanding expertise to share the latest SharePoint tips and tricks, including add-ons and third party solutions that can help organizations recover from some of the failures mentioned above.
Emily Rae Aldridge, April 14, 2014
Google Glass and Predictive Analytics
April 13, 2014
I read “I Was Assaulted for Wearing Google Glass.” This is a sad commentary on our times. Will I be assaulted in Harrod’s Creek for driving my Kia Soul and wearing a T shirt that says “ Seavey’s Dog Kennel”? After I read the item, I wondered, “Why can’t Google’s predictive analytics be used to display to a Glass wearer that the assault risk level?” A color coded scheme could be used based on previous Glass users’ encounters, GPS data, and other inputs available to the Google / Recorded Future systems.
I noted this passage:
Why were people laughing at my misfortune or implying I somehow deserved it?
Beats me.
Stephen E Arnold, April 13, 2014
Hawk Search Runs the Bases
April 13, 2014
We noted that HawkSearch, an open source search solution, from Thankx Media, has been licensed by Wrigleyville Sports. If you are not a baseball fan, you may not recognize the mythic stature of the Chicago Cubs’ baseball team and its relationship with all things Wrigley. According to the firm’s news release (written without too much of that old-style Endeca rhetoric), we learned:
Wrigleyville chose Hawk Search for the following features:
- User-friendly merchandising tools – a merchandising workbench that enables business users to generate dynamic landing pages, implement ranking and relevancy rules, and promote products.
- Easy to understand analytics – customizable dashboards can be used by merchandisers, buyers, and marketing managers to monitor activity on products and adjust strategies.
- Robust out-of-the-box functionality – Hawk Search includes faceted navigation, smart AutoComplete, dynamic landing pages, merchandising tools, and more without customization.
Thankx is an authorized Endeca integrator with some good, old fashioned Endeca professionals on the Illinois company’s team.
More information is available at www.thankx.com. Play ball or navigate to the Cubbies’ store and buy a Wrigley Field cap, no chewing gum included. If you want the computationally challenging Endeca on demand system system, Thankx can fix you up. Information about this late 1998 system is at http://www.thanxmedia.com/what-we-do/site-search/endeca/endeca-on-demand/.
Stephen E Arnold, April 13, 2014
Changing of the Guard at Attensity
April 13, 2014
Attensity provides social analytics and engagement applications for customer relationship management. Their former CEO, J. Kirsten Bay, has left to take the helm of ISC8, a provider of intelligent cyber solution technologies. Street Insider gives the details in their story, “ISC8 Announces CEO Succession.”
The article begins:
“Succeeding Mr. Joll as President and CEO is J. Kirsten Bay, who has joined ISC8 effective March 19, 2014. Kirsten was most recently President and CEO of Attensity Group, a Big Data analytics enterprise software and services company specializing in customer experience management and corporate intelligence, where she restructured the company improving both operating revenue and margin.”
Will this be a moment of growth or turmoil for Attensity? The newest Attensity CEO is Howard Lau, who has connections to SAP and some investment firms. As a venture capitalist, Mr. Lau brings a different emphasis and expertise to Attensity, which might signal a shift.
Emily Rae Aldridge, April 13, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Search and Big Data: Been There, Done That
April 12, 2014
Is the use of search to find information in large collections of content revolutionary? Er, no. What about using search to locate an Internet Protocol address in a repository of monitored email traffic? Er, no.
With the chatter on LinkedIn and the vacuous news releases from some floundering search companies, one would think that gathering up content and running a query was the equivalent of my ancestor stealing and ember and saying, “Look, I invented fire.”
Sorry.
Beyond the rather influential if specious IBM white paper published in 2010 (link is at http://bit.ly/1gckiPJ), a large number of companies continue to position some old as new again.
One interesting twist on the “search is better than SQL” is the useful solution brief from RainStor. In some circles, RainStor has a low profile. In others, the company has caught the attention of some recognized “names” in the Big Data world; for example, Cloudera and Dell. So think Hadoop friendly.
RainStor focuses on cost effective solutions for gathering, archiving, and querying content. Like the old CrossZ technology, RainStor queries the compressed files. There are benefits from this approach. Unlike CrossZ, no proprietary routines have to be run to extract a data cube. The person looking for information can use standard query syntax using SQL, MapReduce, or off the shelf business intelligence tools.
If you are confused by peas-in-a-pod desperate for a cannery with cash, you will want to check out RainStor. The company’s Web site is www.rainstor.com. I would have like RainStor to publish the numbers of their patents that were granted by the USPTO in 2013. The general description here reminded me of several other firms’ systems and methods.
Stephen E Arnold, April 12, 2014
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