Another Blow to Search and Retrieval
April 25, 2013
New releases hit the market everyday and Kana Software’s next generation enterprise customer service application for agent-based desktop and self-service has arrived. Ecommerce Times takes an in depth focus on the new release in the article, “Kana Adds Context, Subtracts Search.” Kana had worked on Kana Enterprise for over a year and they added a new contextual layer for users. What is most prevalent about the new software is the consistency between applications and the user interface. Other enterprise systems lack the same consistency, even though they use the same source code.
The enterprise system is supposed to make the entire user experience fluid:
“The process is similar for customers who access self-service via a Web page. ‘We will proactively push them the right knowledge so they don’t have to search,’ said [James Norwood CMO.] ‘They get what they need and are less likely to abandon that process or call the contact center’.”
The new user experience takes out the search and retrieval function. Even with a simple user interface and ease between applications, users still need to search for specific items if they are lost in the mad software jumble. Is this yet another indication of the diminution of search and retrieval?
Whitney Grace, April 25, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Five Noteworthy Big Data Analytics Apps
April 22, 2013
As the relationship between Big Data and analytics continues to grow so does the number of enterprise analytics applications. There are now a variety of applications designed to help enterprises get the most from their Big Data. The Enterprise Apps Today article “5 More Buzz-worthy Big Data Analytics Apps” gives an overview of the analytic tools Concurrent, Birst, SAS, Clearstory Data and Terracotta. Concurrent Lingual is a free open source project that was designed to work with Apache Hadoop. It uses Cascading application framework which allows SQL users to use their existing skills to run application on Hadoop without needing additional training. Birst Big Data is notable because experts say it helps to eliminate a vast majority of the upfront investment that is generally required to leverage Big Data. SAS Visual Analytics uses an in-memory engine to help speed up the analytics as well as the visualization process. Mark Torr, director of the SAS Global Center of Excellence stated
“SAS Visual Analytics enables creation and dissemination of dashboards, reports and the results of investigative exploration either through the Web or to native mobile applications running on an iPad or Android tablet. We believe that we are the only vendor that has analytics in-built rather than tagged-on through call outs to other services.”
“Terracotta In-Genius sits on top of Terracotta’s BigMemory 4.0 in-memory data platform. It comes with event stream processing and messaging, is said to process one million event transactions per second, identify patterns and create action items based on predicted behavior. It is also certified to operate with Oracle, SAP Hana and Hadoop.”
ClearStory Data gives users the ability to discover, analyze as well as consume data from data sources including Hadoop and Web and social application interfaces. For me these apps were new but regardless they definitely seem to bring a little something extra to the table when it comes to Big Data and analytics.
April Holmes, April 22, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Messaging Apps Encroach on Facebook Turf
April 11, 2013
Shifting communication habits strike again. Yahoo News declares, “Youth Flock to Mobile Messaging Apps, May Be Threat to Facebook.” There are now a number of apps (like Kik and Whatsapp) that facilitate messaging and sharing faster and easier than by going through Facebook on a smartphone. Not surprisingly, these have become popular with the youth demographic. How does one search in a meaningful way these types of content objects? Answer: With a great deal of effort.
Writers Gerry Shih and Alexei Oreskovic concede that most users of these apps aren’t going to close out their Facebook accounts anytime soon, and that the social giant is well-positioned to weather threats. Still, these challengers could see noteworthy success, especially as they encroach on the networking-platform territory. The article tells us:
“While established social networks move to incorporate messaging features, the new-wave messaging apps are looking to grow into social networking platforms that support a variety of features and enable innovations from outside developers.
“‘The tried and true approach for a social network is first you build a network, then you build apps on your own, then you open it up to third party developers,’ said Charles Hudson, a partner at early stage venture capital firm SoftTech VC.
“The moves mirror Facebook’s younger days, when its user growth and revenues were boosted by game publishers like Zynga Inc, which made popular games like FarmVille for the Facebook platform.”
Ah, but when Zuckerberg began, he was building something completely new. Can these contenders serve up something as unique before the giant can pivot?
See the article for more analysis of the issue. The writers conclude with their prediction: that Facebook and the other “established” players (Google+? LinkedIn?) will solve the problem by simply gobbling up the young app companies. That would indeed solve the problem.
Cynthia Murrell, April 11, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
A Cause for Celebration
April 1, 2013
The best way to celebrate the successful completion of a project is with a celebration and no celebration is complete without a cake. Synaptica definitely knows how to throw a celebration party. According to the Synaptica Central piece “Elsevier Celebrates New Installation” Synaptica and Elsevier recently celebrated the successful completion of their software development project with a tasty cake.
“It is a pleasure when one of our customers has a specially decorated cake made to celebrate the successful deployment of their customized Synaptica taxonomy management software. The project, completed this month, was a collaboration between Synaptica and the content management team at Elsevier, Netherlands.”
Elsevier got its start with journal and book publishing but is also known for providing scientific, technical and medical information as well as various other products. Synaptica was started in 1995 and is owned by Trish Yancey and Dave Clarke. They are an industry leader in the taxonomy management and ontology software. Their software give users several key benefits such as increased relevance thanks to a synonym-rich indexing vocabulary and the ability to visualize taxonomies in a variety of both textual and graphical formats. Synaptica software can work in the enterprise world and has been integrated with several different third-party applications. In addition Synaptica is user friendly and can be set up in only a matter of minutes. Synaptica taxonomy software is used by a variety of organizations when it comes to their metadata management and information access applications. The company even received the “100 Companies that Matter” award. Looks like they definitely have a reason to celebrate.
April Holmes, April 01, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
The Pros of the Oracle Update from Fatwire Content Server
March 28, 2013
The details on the Oracle update are discussed in this article from Element Solutions,
Why Upgrade From Fatwire Content Server to Oracle WebCenter Site 11g. Beginning with the faults of the Fatwire server including difficulties inherent in finding and deleting assets, as well as the lack of multi asset editing are cited, along with the confusing UI and system of creating and placing pages. The benefits to the upgrade without template code modification include,
“Separation of Administration UI and Content Contributor UI…Multi asset editing via Multi tabs…Drag and drop assets in Form Mode…Search for assets across multiple assets types…Moves MetaData Fields out of the way…Save and Continue work: the ability to save and continue work is now available with a simple click….
The key to a successful upgrade is proper planning, testing and training of your content contributors.”
There are also benefits available by making template code changes. The ability to drag and drop content as they are being viewed in Preview Mode as well as the ability to add content directly to page assets, instead of using the page assets only for construction of other assets.
Chelsea Kerwin, March 28, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Black Duck Developers Weigh in on Open Source
March 25, 2013
Black Duck has made a name for itself helping organizations build better software faster by choosing the correct open source components. Two of their leading developers, Dave Gruber and Peter Vescuso, give their opinions on the rapid growth of the open source market in the Linux Insider article, “Black Duck’s Dave Gruber and Peter Vescuso: Open Source Is Maturing.”
After a series of questions and answers, the duo responds to a question about how the rise of open source is impacting the market at large:
“By that I mean large organizations and large businesses are looking at what is happening in the open source industry around them. They are seeing all the innovation around cloud and mobile and the speed at which new projects are being created. They are looking at all of the innovation going on with these rookie projects and are saying that activity is compelling. They are wishing to bring those methods to their own companies internally.”
So, if organizations are exploring ways to integrate open source innovation into their own methods and processes, what is the most effective way to do so? For many companies it will mean adopting an open source value-added software solution, like LucidWorks. LucidWorks builds upon Apache Lucene and Solr, enabling organizations to benefit from the agility and efficiency of open source without having to build their own customized solution. Out-of-the-box, LucidWorks responds to the open source needs of the current market.
Emily Rae Aldridge, March 25, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Datameer Helps App Developers Build and Get Paid
March 23, 2013
A recent article from Datameer shared an interesting idea with developers: build an app and actually get paid for it. The article, “Strata 2013: Get Paid For Building Big Data Apps!,” discusses the concept behind Datameer Analytics App Market, the first real marketplace to buy and sell pre-built big data analytic applications.
The app market allows developers to get paid for apps they have built, while providing the tools needed to build and sell the apps. The article shares the capabilities:
“*Get any data in yourself (really, we have 50+ built-in connections to Twitter, Salesforce, Oracle, DB2, Google… etc.)
*Build your analysis with simple point-and-clicks (we’ve included more than 240 pre-built analytic functions, and you see the results instantly in our spreadsheet UI before running it against your full dataset)
*Create custom data visualizations (no more box-after-box dashboards, our Business Infographic designer lets you drag-and-drop different charts and graphs onto a blank canvas, so you can annotate and design as you see fit)
*Package your final product into an analytic app with a single click. It’s just a right-click ‘save as’.”
We think this is an interesting angle for recruiting and marketing. Giving business users the tools and the market they need to thrive is sure to breed some great insights and developments.
Andrea Hayden, March 23, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Roadmap to the Future
March 22, 2013
The Oracle E-Business Suite has seen a lot of changes since its emergence in 2004 and the new 12.1 version promises to give users more of what they need. The YouTube video “Oracle E-Business Suite: Strategy and Roadmap” narrated by Cliff Godwin the Senior Vice President of Applications and Development for Oracle talks about the new features of the Oracle E-Business Suite. According to the You Tube website
“Oracle E-Business Suite is the most comprehensive suite of integrated, global business applications that enable organizations to make better decisions, reduce costs, and increase performance.”
With the new version the Oracle brand promises to continue improving the E-business suite and enhance and build new applications. In the video Godwin pointed out the list of applications that are currently available. The E-business Suite provides an extensive list of applications and 12.1 users will have access to all of these applications. The new 12.1 version also promises better service support and information driven navigation.
The updated technology also includes new features for the Oracle Endeca platform. Oracle Endeca allows companies to make sure their clients get a personalized and consistent customer buying experience across a variety of channels including online, mobile and in-store. Oracle E-business Suite extensions for Oracle Endeca is a solution that gives users the ability to quickly find all of the information they need to be able to respond to real-time opportunities. Though this video is probably designed to be a marketing technique to get older users to update to the new 12.1 version Godwin definitely highlights the attractive features that the new version has to offer and they are quite impressive. Seems like 12.1 might be the roadmap to the future for Oracle E-Business Suite users.
April Holmes, March 22, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Oracle and Forrester Trading Jabs
March 11, 2013
The Autonomy and HP feud can step aside for the rift that is growing between Oracle and Forrester. Forrester claimed that Oracle has taken a step in strategic development with the release of its Fusion Applications. Readwrite reports on the argument in “Who’s Right In The Oracle-Forrester Slugfest?” Many of Oracle’s clients do not want to switch to the new applications. In response, Oracle issues a three-page report that stated Forrester did not talk to all of its clients, only a random smattering. Forrester said it contacted 180 clients and the back and forth continues. Forrester found that 65% of Oracle’s clients would remain with the older applications and it makes sense that clients would remain with applications they are familiar.
“Forrester also said that customers staying with the older applications were missing out on innovation. Again Oracle cried foul, saying that at Oracle OpenWorld last year, the company discussed future releases for E-Business Suite and PeopleSoft, as well as roadmaps for all its applications. Examples of innovation include iPad certification in PeopleSoft and new mobile capabilities in Siebel, Oracle said.”
Forrester is sticking to its guns and stands by its opinions. It sounds more like a squabble between children than professional businesses. The consultants are picking fights in the sandbox and mixing up the rules of the playground.
Whitney Grace, March 11, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Oracle Unhappy With Forrester Research
March 9, 2013
Forrester Research made a suggestion that Oracle’s customers will not be interested in upgrading to the new Fusion Applications after the long, expensive development process. Computer World hashes out the debate in, “Oracle Blasts Forrester Report On Fusion Applications Adoption.” Forrester claims that Oracle faces a strategic dilemma, because it makes a lot of money from its older product lines and not many clients have adopted Fusion. Oracle defended itself by saying its clients do not have to choose between Oracle Applications Unlimited and Fusion Applications. Oracle has taken a co-existence approach, where the old can be used alongside the new.
Still, why fix what’s not broke?
“’In a sense, Oracle’s Applications Unlimited policy has been too successful,’ said analyst Frank Scavo, president of IT consulting firm Strativa. ‘The majority of Oracle’s existing customers are so satisfied with their current systems that they do not see a driving need to upgrade to Fusion.’”
Another problem is trying to get people to change their enterprise applications. People do not want to upgrade even if the vendor stops providing support. Oracle created too good of a product. A showdown is going to come down between the old and the new, brother fighting brother…er…software fighting software.
Whitney Grace, March 09, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
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