Protected: The Contested Fact: Sharepoint Has Social Media Potential
December 13, 2011
Information Volume Can Exceed Capacity to Cope
November 28, 2011
There has been much written about SharePoint 2010’s widespread and rapid adoption, but few people are shedding light on an organization’s ability to cope. Ed Kelty, CIO of Rio Salado College in Arizona, talks about his college’s journey with SharePoint in “SharePoint adopted faster than any other application I’ve ever seen!”
While Kelty highlights many of the benefits gleaned from their SharePoint installation, he admits there have been struggles and weaknesses in the implementation.
“It’s not so much a weakness, but one of the issues we had with SharePoint is that we didn’t realize the level of flexibility and the power it had to develop different things … and we didn’t initially have a process in place to help govern what went where. And so our SharePoint sites, especially on our Employee Portal went crazy . . . In the last few years, we’ve been more organized about things – navigation and database storage and that sort of thing, but in the beginning, we didn’t have a clue how to best configure the system.”
There are other solutions that work independent of SharePoint, or alongside SharePoint, that might prevent the sort of out-of-control information explosion. Fabasoft Mindbreeze is one third party solution that we like, especially for the kind of website customization that Kelty mentions above through its Fabasoft Mindbreeze InSite.
“Fabasoft Mindbreeze InSite recognizes correlations and links through semantic and dynamic search processes. This delivers pinpoint accurate and precise ‘finding experiences.’ And this with no installation, configuration or maintenance required. Fabasoft Mindbreeze InSite is the website search that your company needs.”
You can prevent not only the out-of-control growth that Kelty mentions, but also save valuable configuration time, simply by choosing an option that handles this customization for you. Explore solutions like Fabasoft Mindbreeze to ensure that your organization has an agile answer to its information needs.
Emily Rae Aldridge, November 28, 2011
Sponsored by: Pandia.com
Thanks Be For A Guide to SharePoint Server 2010 Search
November 24, 2011
To understand SharePoint’s FAST Search Server, it’s smart to work your way up by first understanding SharePoint Server 2010 Search. “Configuring Enterprise Search in SharePoint 2010” is a useful guide that covers search features and has lots of screen shots. A handy flow chart visualizes the following:
“SharePoint 2010 search architecture is made up of the Crawler, Indexing Engine, Query Engine and the User Interface and Query Object Model. We now have greater flexibility and expandability with our search design in 2010 and can setup not only multiple Query Servers but can now scale out our Index server and add multiple instances.”
Savvy businesses know the benefits of collaborative content management with integrated search – add access to the constantly growing information in the Cloud, and company knowledge gets a big boost. For those needing a deeper solution that has the ability to answer enterprise search needs in the cloud, you may want to explore Mindbreeze.
Their information pairing technology results in a complete overview of a company’s knowledge, merging enterprise information with Cloud information.
Sara Wood, November 24, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Plan for Content Management Growth: Tools and Considerations
November 23, 2011
With SharePoint 2010 and its widespread deployment, many are beginning to take stock of the lack of growth planning when it comes to content management systems. With the overwhelming growth of electronic content in just the last few years, preparations must be made for the future. No one can truly predict information volume in coming years, but some steps should be taken. Don Jones explores the theme in, “Set early plans to manage growth of your SharePoint 2010 deployment.”
The three main areas Jones focuses on are: security, managing SQL server, and keeping track of SharePoint.
“It’s key to think hard about how the group will manage SharePoint and what policies will be adopted to control — but not necessarily limit — its growth. With the right plan in place, organizations get a better return on their investments and ultimately prevent SharePoint from creeping out of control.”
We think that careful planning is important in any software implementation. Even still, maybe SharePoint isn’t the most flexible solution for long-term needs. A content management solution suite like Fabasoft Mindbreeze can meet all of your current needs with plenty of room for expansion and potential future surprises. Utilization of the Fabasoft Mindbreeze Appliance ensures that all of Jones’ main points above are heeded.
“The Fabasoft Mindbreeze Appliance is the optimal basis for highly efficient enterprise-wide search and easy configuration. To utilize the full potential of a software solution it is essential that hard- and software are fully aligned. Even more, the required time for deployment to the user is critical for gaining the highest ROI. The Fabasoft Mindbreeze Appliance components have been optimally synchronized in numerous tests.”
So while planning is essential, and should be regarded with any content management implementation, some solutions are more naturally suited to future growth. Mindbreeze and its agile solutions are worth consideration.
Emily Rae Aldridge, November 23, 2011
Sponsored by: Pandia.com
Mindbreeze Picks Up Where SharePoint Leaves Off
November 17, 2011
SharePoint 2010 is a widely implemented application, but not one that solves every solution. The issue is explored further in, “SharePoint 2010 collaboration ISVs focus on workflow, analytics.” The author, Jonathan Gourlay, reports that users are increasingly relying on a number of independent software vendors to plug the holes in the service that SharePoint provides.
Mark Gilbert, lead analyst for Gartner Research had this to say:
“’Just because SharePoint is a lot of stuff, it doesn’t mean it’s all good stuff, but a lot of it is,’ said Gilbert, who estimates he’s spoken to 3,000 companies about SharePoint. He compares the platform to a Swiss Army Knife that allows the user to add tools. ‘To make [SharePoint] a real enterprise-class tool, you typically have to pay a lot of attention to the care and feeding of it and you have to add a lot of third-party tools.’”
Here’s the main question: if SharePoint is being advertised as enterprise-class, why do so many users need ISVs to bring it up to that level? The article goes on to argue that the opportunity for vendors to build upon the SharePoint platform is huge.
We argue that one smart and agile solution could single-handedly solve an organization’s enterprise and SharePoint woes. Fabasoft Mindbreeze is getting good feedback regarding its suite of solutions.
“Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise understands you, or to be more precise, understands what the most important information is for you at any precise moment in time. It is the center of excellence for your knowledge and simultaneously your personal assistant for all questions. The information pairing technology brings enterprise and Cloud data together.”
So while experts in the field are saying that system administrators have to hunt and search for several ISVs to supplement their SharePoint implementation, Mindbreeze might save a lot of time and energy with its single easy-to-use solution. It’s definitely worth a second look.
*Disclaimer – Mindbreeze is currently upgrading their website. Links will be checked and if problems arise they will be updated. Thanks for your patience.
Emily Rae Aldridge, November 17, 2011
FAST Error Message – Makes No Sense
October 14, 2011
A blog devoted to SharePoint and related technologies is shedding light on SharePoint’s failure to handle error messaging. In, “FAST Post Setup Configuration Failed,” several weaknesses of the SharePoint error messaging system are discussed.
The author states,
In one of my recent FAST implementations to a large Government Organization in Western Australia, I faced numerous interesting issues and would like to share them with the SharePoint community [sic] in my next few articles. In my viewpoint, even though FAST is a very powerful and useful component when it comes to integration with SharePoint, it need some major improvements, fixes and specially better error handling.
FAST needs to take another look at their error messaging system. In the meantime, users struggling with less-than-helpful messages may find this article quite helpful.
Emily Rae Aldridge, October 14, 2011
Protected: Key Issues for SharePoint’s Future
October 11, 2011
New Spin for OmniFind: Content Analytics
May 2, 2011
IBM has dominated my thinking with its bold claims for Watson. In the blaze of game show publicity, I lost track of the Lucene-based search system OmniFind 9.x. My Overflight system alerted me to “Content Analytics Starter Pack.” According to the April 2011 announcement:
The Starter Pack offers an advanced content analytics platform with Content Analytics and industry-leading, knowledge-driven enterprise search with OmniFind Enterprise Edition in a combined package. IBM Content Analytics with Enterprise Search empowers organizations to search, assess, and analyze large volumes of content in order to explore and surface relevant insight quickly to gain the most value from their information repositories inside and outside the firewall.
The product allows IBM licensees to:
- Find relevant enterprise content more quickly
- Turn raw text into rapid insight from content sources internal and external to your enterprise
- Customize rapid insight to industry and customer specific needs
- Enable deeper insights through integration to other systems and solutions.
At first glance, I thought IBM Content Analytics V2.2 was one program. I noticed that the OmniFind Enterprise Edition 9.1 has one set of hardware requirements at http://goo.gl/Wie0X and another set of hardware requirements for the analytics component at http://goo.gl/5J1ox. In addition, there are specific software requirements for each product.
The “new” product includes “improved support for content assessment, Cognos® Business Intelligence, and Advanced Case Management.”
Is IBM’s bundling of analytics and search a signal that the era of traditional search and retrieval has officially ended? Base image source: www.awesomefunnyclever.com
When you navigate to http://goo.gl/he3NR, you can see the different configurations available for this combo product.
What’s the pricing? According to IBM, “The charges are unchanged by this announcement.” The pricing seems to be based on processor value units or PVUs. Without a link, I am a bit at sea with regards to pricing. IBM does point out:
For clarification, note that if for any reason you are dissatisfied with the program and you are the original licensee, you may obtain a refund of the amount you paid for it, if within 30 days of your invoice date you return the program and its PoE to the party from whom you obtained it. If you downloaded the program, you may contact the party from whom you acquired it for instructions on how to obtain the refund. For clarification, note that for programs acquired under the IBM International Passport Advantage Agreement, this term applies only to your first acquisition of the program.
Asia Technical Services
April 20, 2011
An Interview with Patrick and Jean Garez
In Hong Kong in late March 2011, I met with one of the senior officers of Asia Tech. The company’s official name is “Asia Technical Services Pte Ltd.” I learned about the company from Dassault Exalead. For eight years Asia Tech has been the partner for Exalead in Asia and has become the “go to” resource for the Dassault Systèmes team covering South Asia regarding Exalead after the acquisition. Based in Singapore, Asia Tech is hours away from Dassault clients in Thailand, China, and Viet-Nam, among other countries whose thirst for Dassault technology continues to increase. In my initial conversation with Jean Garez, the person who appears to be the heir apparent to the firm his father founded, I learned that Asia Tech is now responding to a surge of inquiries about Exalead’s search based applications.
Patrick (founder) and Jean Garez (senior manager), Asia Technology Services Pte Ltd.
Upon my return to the US, I followed up with Mr. Garez via Skype for a more lengthy discussion. On the call, Patrick Garez joined the interview. For convenience, I have merged the comments from both Garezs into one stream. The full text of that interview appears below:
What’s the history of Asia Tech?
Asia Technical Services Pte Ltd was first conceived in Hong Kong in 1974 by our founder, and my father, Patrick Garez. The original business was the marketing and after-sales support of products, engineering services and asset management solutions to the commercial aviation industry. My father was a pioneer because he was among the first to predict the growth potential of commercial aviation in the Asia Pacific region and to identify Singapore as the future hub for South East Asia and beyond.
Along the way ATS tackled some industry-specific software solutions supporting various maintenance data management, engineering processes and workflows, but it wasn’t until 2003 that ATS officially began distributing software solutions as a dedicated part of our business.
What triggered the shift?
Client demand. ATS has prided itself on responding to the needs of its clients across this region. Once we started doing work in a different area, word of mouth sent additional projects our way.
ATS focuses on finding leading edge innovative and cost effective ISV solutions from Europe and the US and offering them a platform to enter into the Asia Pacific market with a limited investment.
And your activity in search?
Same path.
In the mid-2000’s up until probably 2009, the search market in Singapore and the region was dominated by legacy platforms built with an 80’s approach key word indexing and information retrieval. There was some interest in the SPSS and SAS approach to structured data, of course.
However, in response to a client project, we came across a technologically-advanced company in Paris, France. The founder was a member of the original Digital Equipment AltaVista.com search team and making significant progress with technology that was scalable and very, very speedy. In addition, Exalead was deploying a lighter, automated semantic engine that did the thinking for the user by automatically categorizing and providing structure to unstructured data. We tapped them for our client project from then on, we knew we were going to see great things from them. We continued to follow and participate in the growth of this company from their incubation phase until its acquisition in 2010 by Dassault Systems. ATS remains its partner for the region.
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