A Wit Emulates Chip Foose with a Magic Gartner Touch Up
August 18, 2015
I am out of the loop when it comes to mid tier consulting firms and analyzing their outputs on a regular basis. Much of the content is thinly disguised word play designed to generate sales leads. Think data lake and customer care.
I am out of the loop on almost everything. When my squirrel powered Internet connection works, I am lucky if I can see 10 percent of a Yahoo.com page before my connection fags out.
I was able to read a story I found subjective and (okay, I admit it) amusing. If Jack Benny were alive, his writers might have incorporated the information into a Buck Benny episode with Andy Devine explaining the Gartnerian motion.
The write up was “Yellow and Blue Circles, Red Arrows Add to Gartner’s Magic Quadrant.” To me, I thought immediately of Chip Foose and his ability to take a ho hum vehicle, add some Foose-tian touches, and thrill the owner. I see these make overs as a Foose-tian deal with the devil, however. I like the autos as they are.
The write up pivots on a person taking two Gartner magic thingamajigs and tried to figure out what changed between two reports about something called “integrated systems.” I don’t know what that means, but as previously stated, I am in rural Kentucky.
Nothing catches the eye like an annual matrix analysis touch up. These are expensive and, in the end, subjective. Congruence? Similarity?
The point of the write up struck me as:
Incidentally, Valdis Filks, Gartner’s lead on the Magic Quadrant reports, tells us how to position and interpret MQS in Gartner’s set of reports about supplier ranking and positioning: “The MQ is focused on the ability of vendors to succeed in a specific market, rather than about products. There is lots in it about understanding customer needs, direction, service, marketing, support, innovation and many other criteria.”
I think I understand. Subjective decisions. No problemo.
The plotting of two magic whatevers (MWs) revealed:
There’s been a lot of movement and five new entries. Two previous entries have disappeared as well; Bull and Unisys.
Wasn’t Bull the Amesys owner? Doesn’t Unisys maintain Burroughs’ computers? I thought IBM did Linux mainframes and Watson? And Huawei? Okay.
My take pivots on this question, “What the heck is an integrated system?” Everything, including the choice of arrow color seems somewhat arbitrary. General Eisenhower’s box, as I recall, relied sometimes on actual data.
What did that guy know? Probably not much about integrated systems.
Stephen E Arnold, August 18, 2015
Software AG Revenue Drifts Downward Even with JackBe Technology
August 18, 2015
JackBe was an interesting intelligence system. In 2013, Software AG purchased JackBe, and the cyber OSINT brand dropped off my radar. In the 2013 news release, the company explained its positioning in this way:
Software AG (FRA: SOW) helps organizations achieve their business objectives faster. The company’s big data, integration and business process technologies enable customers to drive operational efficiency, modernize their systems and optimize processes for smarter decisions and better service. Building on over 40 years of customer-centric innovation, the company is ranked as a leader in 15 market categories, fueled by core product families Adabas and Natural, ARIS, Terracotta, webMethods and also Alfabet and Apama. Software AG has ca. 5,300 employees in 70 countries and had revenues of €1.05 billion in 2012
With a flurry of management changes, Software AG describes itself this way 24 months after the JackBe deal:
Software AG (Frankfurt TecDAX: SOW) helps organizations achieve their business objectives faster. The company’s big data, integration and business process technologies enable customers to drive operational efficiency, modernize their systems and optimize processes for smarter decisions and better service. Building on over 40 years of customer-centric innovation, the company is ranked as a leader in 14 market categories, fueled by core product families Adabas-Natural, ARIS, Alfabet, Apama, Terracotta and webMethods. Software AG has more than 4,400 employees in 70 countries and had revenues of €858 million in 2014.
Notice that the company is smaller in revenues and staff. There was also a stock market shift. The JackBe technology does not appear to have provided the type of lift I anticipated.
Stephen E Arnold, August 18, 2015
SharePoint May be Last Remaining on Premises Hold Out
August 18, 2015
In conversations surrounding enterprise software, the on-site vs. cloud debate is not a new one. However, it is one that is heating up. Microsoft’s announcements relating to SharePoint Server 2016 and its continued support for on-premises infrastructure definitely stoke the fires of that conversation. CIO takes on the debate in their article, “Why SharePoint is the Last Great On-Premises Application.”
The article begins:
“While it seems like almost every piece of IT is moving to cloud these days, there are still plenty of reasons to keep SharePoint in your server room – where it belongs . . . SharePoint Server is such a sticky product with tentacles everywhere in the enterprise that it may well be the last great on-premises application. Let’s explore why.”
The article goes on to delineate many reasons why on-site is still favored among IT professionals. Only time will tell if the cloud really is able to completely take over, or if the market will demand continued access to on-site solutions. Until the verdict is clear, stay on top of the latest updates on both sides of the aisle with ArnoldIT.com. Stephen E. Arnold is a lifelong leader in search, and his dedicated SharePoint feed is of particular value for SharePoint professionals.
Emily Rae Aldridge, August 18, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Chinese Opinion Monitoring Software by Knowlesys
August 18, 2015
Ever wonder what tools the Chinese government uses to keep track of those pesky opinions voiced by its citizens? If so, take a look at “IPOMS : Chinese Internet Public Opinion Monitoring System” at Revolution News. The brief write-up tells us about a software company, Knowlesys, reportedly supplying such software to China (among other clients). Reporter and Revolution News founder Jennifer Baker tells us:
“Knowlesys’ system can collect web pages with some certain key words from Internet news, topics on forum and BBS, and then cluster these web pages according to different ‘event’ groups. Furthermore, this system provides the function of automatically tracking the progress of one event. With this system, supervisors can know what is exactly happening and what has happened from different views, which can improve their work efficiency a lot. Most of time, the supervisor is the government, the evil government. sometimes a company uses the system to collect information for its products. IPOMS is composed of web crawler, html parser and topic detection and tracking tool.”
The piece includes a diagram that lays out the software’s process, from extraction to analysis to presentation (though the specifics are pretty standard to anyone familiar with data analysis in general). Data monitoring and mining firm Knowlesys was founded in 2003. The company has offices in Hong Kong and a development center in Schenzhen, China.
Cynthia Murrell, August 18, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Facebook Number One Security Compromiser
August 18, 2015
While Facebook is a good way for a company to engage with clients and even “humanize” the business, according to Zerofox’s article, “Cisco: Facebook Scams Are Attackers’ #1 Choice For Breaches” Facebook is the number way for a criminal to learn about organization and hack into its system. Cisco conducted a 2015 Midyear Security Report that researches how cyber criminals are exploiting social media to their own advantage.
The article describes potential targets as easy and click-happy:
“Facebook’s 1.49 billion monthly active users make it the world’s largest nation-state, used by 70% of American each day. It is, for better or worse, a nation without borders. Adversaries exploit the social media giant for its sheer size and trusted nature, making it the medium of choice for both inexperienced and sophisticated network hackers alike. For the adversary, the barriers to entry have never been lower, and the targets have never been more trusting and click-happy.”
Other security organizations confirm the findings and some of it comes from people simply being too trusting such as accepting friend requests from unfamiliar people. McAfee discovered that employees became cybercrime victims on social media over other business applications.
While Facebook might be the number one platform to attract criminals. Twitter is used to attack government organizations and other popular platforms are also dealing with loads of fake profiles. It does not come as a surprise, considering Facebook is now the “Walt-Mart” of social media information. What types of scams are people falling victim too? Is it just stolen passwords and information or are they giving their personal information away?
Whitney Grace, August 18, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
List of Data Visualization Players
August 17, 2015
I read “CI Radar Delivers New Competitive Intelligence Coverage of the Data Visualization Market.” In the story which explains a tracking and monitoring tool from a competitive intelligence firm was a little chunk of information. The story contains a list of the players which the competitive intelligence firm considers important in the Hollywoodization of analytic system outputs. Who loves a great chart? Certainly generals, mid tier consultants, and MBA students.
Here’s the list of data visualization players:
- Adobe (ah, the magic of the creative cloud)
- APCON
- Advizor Solutions
- Afs Technologies
- BeyondCore
- Birst
- Centrifuge Systems
- Chartio
- ClearStory Data
- DataHero
- Datameer
- Datawatch
- Dell (visualization and not laptops?)
- Domo
- Dundas
- GoodData
- Halo
- iDashboards (maybe free for academics?)
- Inetsoft Technology
- Infor (I think of this outfit as a CRM vendor)
- Informatica (now owned by Permira)
- Information Builders
- International Business Machines (IBM) (which unit of IBM?)
- Jinfonet Software
- Logi Analytics
- Looker
- Manthan
- Microsoft (my goodness)
- Microstrategy
- OpenText (is this the Actuate or the Talend acquisition?)
- Panorama Software
- Pentaho (don’t forget this is Hitachi)
- Phocas Software
- ProfitBase
- Prognoz
- Pyramid Analytics
- Qlik
- RapidMiner
- Roambi
- Salesforce (a surprise to me)
- SAP (interesting?)
- SAS (also interesting?)
- Sisense
- Splunk (a bit of a surprise)
- Synerscope
- Tableau Software
- Teradata (Is this Rainstor, ThinkBig or another chunk of acquired technology?)
- ThoughtSpot
- TIBCO (is this Spotfire?)
- Viur.
I would point out that some of the key players in the law enforcement and intelligence community are not included. Why would a consulting firm want to highlight the companies which are pioneering next generation, dynamic, interactive, and real time visualization tools. Although incomplete from my vantage point, how long will it be before Forrester, Gartner, and other mid tier firms roll out a magic wave rhomboid explaining what these companies are doing to be “players”?
Stephen E Arnold, August 17, 2015
Wikipedia: The PR Revolution
August 17, 2015
i read “The Covert World of People Trying to Edit Wikipedia—for Pay.” I am an old fashioned backwoodsperson. I look up stuff. I try to figure out which source is semi reliable. I read and do some (not much, of course) thinking.
Other folks just whack 2.7 words into the Alphabet—oops, I mean, the Google—click on the first link which is often a pointer to Wikipedia and take the “information” displayed. Easy. Quick. Just right for those who have no time, like social media, and use handheld devices.
The write up points out what seems to me to be an obvious “evolutionary” leap:
How can a site run by volunteers inoculate itself against well-funded PR efforts? And how can those volunteers distinguish between information that’s trustworthy and information that’s suspect?
The write up explores one example of public relations folks cranking out objective articles for Wikipedia.
Why worry? Getting accurate information involves more than relying on Alphabet – oh, there I go again, I mean the Google – and its all time fave number one Wikipedia.
Dialog Information Services pioneered this default top hit. When I logged on, the default database was Education Index or something like that. The clueless would run their query for diamond deposition in that database, thus having an upside for Dialog. Too bad about the system user.
The burden, gentle reader, falls not on Wikipedia, which is fighting a losing battle against the forces of Lucifer – I am sorry, I mean public relations.
The burden falls on the person doing the search to figure out what information is correct. Bummer. That’s real work. Who has time for that anyway?
Stephen E Arnold, August 17, 2016
Partridge Search for Scientific Papers and Recommendation
August 17, 2015
If you read academic papers, you may want to take a flight through Partridge. Additional details are at this link. According to the Web site: Partridge
is a web based tool used for information retrieval and filtering that makes use of Machine Learning techniques. Partridge indexes lots of academic papers and classifies them based on their content. It also indexes their content by scientific concept, providing the ability to search for phrases within specific key areas of the paper (for example, you could search for a specific outcome in the ‘conclusion’ or find out how the experiment was conducted in the ‘methodology’ section.)
The About section of the Web site explains:
Partridge is a collection of tools and web-based scripts that use artificial intelligence to run semantic analysis on large bodies of text in order to provide reader recommendations to those who query the tool. The project is named after Errol Partridge, a character from the cult Science Fiction film ‘Equilibrium’ who imparts knowledge of a cache of fictional books (banned contraband in the film) upon the protagonist, John Preston, eventually leading to his defiance of the state and the de-criminalization of literature. Partridge is my dissertation project at Aberystwyth University, United Kingdom.
Check out the system at http://paprol.org.uk.
Stephen E Arnold, August 17, 2015
How to Use Watson
August 17, 2015
While there are many possibilities for cognitive computing, what makes an idea a reality is its feasibility and real life application. The Platform explores “The Real Trouble With Cognitive Computing” and the troubles IBM had (has) trying to figure out what they are going to do with the supercomputer they made. The article explains that before Watson became a Jeopardy celebrity, the IBM folks came up 8,000 potential experiments for Watson to do, but only 20 percent of them.
The range is small due to many factors, including bug testing, gauging progress with fuzzy outputs, playing around with algorithmic interactions, testing in isolation, and more. This leads to the “messy” way to develop the experiments. Ideally, developers would have a big knowledge model and be able to query it, but that option does not exist. The messy way involves keeping data sources intact, natural language processing, machine learning, and knowledge representation, and then distributed on an infrastructure.
Here is another key point that makes clear sense:
“The big issue with the Watson development cycle too is that teams are not just solving problems for one particular area. Rather, they have to create generalizable applications, which means what might be good for healthcare, for instance, might not be a good fit—and in fact even be damaging to—an area like financial services. The push and pull and tradeoff of the development cycle is therefore always hindered by this—and is the key barrier for companies any smaller than an IBM, Google, Microsoft, and other giants.”
This is exactly correct! Engineering is not the same as healthcare and it not all computer algorithms transfer over to different industries. One thing to keep in mind is that you can apply different methods from other industries and come up with new methods or solutions.
Whitney Grace, August 18, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Open Source Tools for IBM i2
August 17, 2015
IBM has made available two open source repositories for the IBM i2 intelligence platform: the Data-Acquisition-Accelerators and Intelligence-Analysis-Platform can both be found on the IBM-i2 page at GitHub. The IBM i2 suite of products includes many parts that work together to give law enforcement, intelligence organizations, and the military powerful data analysis capabilities. For an glimpse of what these products can do, we recommend checking out the videos at the IBM i2 Analyst’s Notebook page. (You may have to refresh the page before the videos will play.)
The Analyst’s Notebook is but one piece, of course. For the suite’s full description, I turned to the product page, IBM i2 Intelligence Analysis Platform V3.0.11. The Highlights summary describes:
“The IBM i2 Intelligence Analysis product portfolio comprises a suite of products specifically designed to bring clarity through the analysis of the mass of information available to complex investigations and scenarios to help enable analysts, investigators, and the wider operational team to identify, investigate, and uncover connections, patterns, and relationships hidden within high-volume, multi-source data to create and disseminate intelligence products in real time. The offerings target law enforcement, defense, government agencies, and private sector businesses to help them maximize the value of the mass of information that they collect to discover and disseminate actionable intelligence to help them in their pursuit of predicting, disrupting, and preventing criminal, terrorist, and fraudulent activities.”
The description goes on to summarize each piece, from the Intelligence Analysis Platform to the Information Exchange Visualizer. I recommend readers check out this page, and, especially, the videos mentioned above for better understanding of this software’s capabilities. It is an eye-opening experience.
Cynthia Murrell, August 18, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
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