Googles Possible Italian Roots
June 12, 2014
The article on Bloomberg titled Meet the Italian Who Beat Google to Web Search—and Gave It Away discusses the possible Italian roots of Google. The article relates the story of a conference in California with a particular talk given. Massimo Marchiori unveiled his Internet search engine, with none other than Larry Page in the audience. The article states,
“Marchiori’s project was called Hyper Search, a system able to scan the Web with a level of accuracy never seen before. Hyper Search was based on an innovative algorithm many developers consider to be an inspiration for PageRank, Google’s magic formula that sorts Web pages by counting the number and quality of links to each from around the Internet… “When I finished my presentation, a gentle boy approached me saying he found it very interesting,” Marchiori says in a phone interview.”
Page promised to “develop” Marchiori’s ideas further, and was later granted $100,000 to pursue Google, while Marchiori’s project was passed over by another grant in Italy. Yet Marchiori claims he bears Page no ill will for his astronomical success, even crediting Page and Sergey with the ability to make a reality out of an idea. Marchiori is not a computer-science and mathematics professor at the University of Padua, Italy.
Chelsea Kerwin, June 12, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Huge Bets on Search: Spreadsheet Fever Rages
June 11, 2014
The news of the $70 million injected into Elasticsearch caused me to check out Crunchbase and some other sources of funding data. I looked at a handful of search and content processing vendors in the departures lounge. I am supposed to be retired, but Zurich beckons.
How large is the market for search and content processing software and services. As a former laborer in the vineyards of Halliburton Nuclear and Booz, Allen & Hamilton, the answer is, “You can charge as much as you want when the customer is in a corner.” The flipside of this adage is, “You can’t charge as much when there are many low cost options.”
In my view, search—regardless of the window dressing slapped on decades old systems and methods—is sort of yesterday. One of the goslings posted a list of Hewlett Packard’s verbal arabesques to explain IDOL search as everything EXCEPT search. The HP verbal arabesques make my point:
Search is not going to generate big money going forward.
Is search (regardless of the words used to describe it) a money pit like as the Tom Hanks’ motion picture made vivid?
For that reason, I am wondering what investors are thinking as they pump money into search and content processing companies. The largest revenue generator in the search sector is either Google or Autonomy. Google, as you may know, is in the online advertising business. Search is a Trojan horse. Search is free and the clicks trigger the GoTo/Overture mechanism that caused Google’s moment of inspiration. Before the Google IPO, Google ponied up some dough to Yahoo regarding alleged borrowing of pay to play methods.
Autonomy focused on the enterprise. Between 1996 and October 2011, Sir Michael Lynch grew the company to about $1 billion in revenues. HP’s prescient and always interesting management paid $10.3 billion for Autonomy and then wrote off $8 billion, aimed allegations at Autonomy at the company, and, in general, made it clear that HP was essentially a printer ink business with what seems to be great faith in IDOL, DRE, and assorted rich media tools.
More recently, IBM, the subject of an entertaining analysis The Decline and Fall of IBM by Robert X. Cringely suggested that Watson would grow to be a $10 billion in revenue business. Not a goal to ignore. The fact that Watson is a collection of home grown widgets and open source search technology. I think Watson’s last search contribution was creating a recipe for a tamarind flavored sauce. IBM is probably staffed with folks smarter than I. But a billion dollar bet with a goal of building a revenue stream 10 to 12 times greater than Autonomy’s in one third the time. Wowza.
Let’s do some simple addition in the elegant United lounge.
Let’s assume that IBM and HP actually generate the billions necessary to recover the cost of IDOL and hit the crazy IBM goal of $10 billion in four or five years. To make the math simple, skip interest, the cost of assuaging stakeholders, and the money needed to close deals that total $20 to $25 billion. HP pumps up Autonomy to $10 or $11 billion and IBM tallies another $10 to $12 billion.
So, HP and IBM need or want to build $10 billion or more in revenues from their respective search and content processing ventures. I estimated that the market for “search” was about $1.3 billion in 2006. I am not too sure that market has grown by a significant factor since the economic headwinds began blowing through carpetland.
Now consider the monies invested in some search and content processing companies.
Attensity (sentiment analysis), $90 million
BA Insight (Microsoft centric, search and business intelligence), $14.5 million
Content Analyst (text analysis, SAIC technology, $7.0 million
Coveo (originally all Microsoft all the time, now kitchen sink vendor), $34.7 million
Digital Reasoning (text analysis, no shipping product), $4.2 million
EasyAsk (natural language processing, several owners(, $20 million
Elasticsearch (open source search and consulting), $104 million
Hakia (semantic search), $23.5 million
MarkLogic (XML data management and kitchen sink apps), $73.6 million
Recorded Future (text analysis of Web content), $20.9 million
Recommind (similar to Autonomy method), $15 million
Sinequa (proprietary search and widgets), $5.3 million
X1 (search and new management), $12.2 million
ZyLab (search and licensed visualizations), $2.4 million
Autonomy and Search: A Surprise Regarding Search
June 9, 2014
I was flipping through the Overflight links for HP Autonomy. One item caught my attention. The tweet pointed me to the HP Autonomy Web site at this link http://bit.ly/1hJQXzx. IDOL is now at version 10.5. Keep in mind that the system was rolled out in 1996, so big leaps are not what I expect. HP defines Autonomy in terms of these functions or applications:
- Big Data Analytics
- Compliance Archiving
- Contact Center Management
- Database & Application Archiving
- Document and Email Management
- Enterprise Search
- Knowledge Management
- Legal Hold
- Litigation Readiness Archiving
- Media Intelligence
- Policy-driven Information Management
- Records Management
- Rich Media Management
- SFA Intelligence
- Storage Optimization Archiving
- Supervision & Policy Management
- Video Surveillance
- Voice of the Customer
- Web Experience Management
- Web Optimization
Quite a list of buzzwords. With Elasticsearch toting around $70 million, it might be difficult for HP to get IDOL to pay off the $11 billion purchase price, grow its top line revenues, and generate enough profit to keep stakeholders happy. One thing HP has going for it. HP is explaining IDOL search somewhat more clearly than IBM describes Watson. By the way, what is “SFA Intelligence.” I suppose I could ask Watson if there were a public demo.
Stephen E Arnold, June 9, 2014
New And Upcoming Search Engine
June 9, 2014
There is always something new and original in the search sector of the IT community, but there actually might be something in the article, “DigiBC Says These 25 Startups Are British Columbia’s Most Innovative Technology Companies” from BetaKit that could make its way to the more secular headlines soon. There are many “top” lists and awards the highlight past accomplishments and endeavors in fields. What makes DigiBC’s list noteworthy? DigiBC is the British Columbian industry Association for Digital Media and Wireless Companies. These awards are the first time the technology innovation has been recognized in the area.
“ ‘There are awards shows recognizing past, current and great technologies; but we want to identify who is paving innovation for the future in BC,’ said DigiBC president Howard Donaldson. “Our own backyard is a hot bed for innovation. Digital Media companies alone in BC account for over 900 companies, employing 14,000 people. With numbers like that you can only imagine the innovation we have in BC that you haven’t seen yet.’ ”
Here is the company that caught our eye at number nine:
“EchoSec is the next generation of the Search that connects you with trillions of pictures and posts made by billions of people, which never normally make it to common search engines.”
Not only does EchoSec search the hidden Web, but it can search through the terabytes of files that other search engines have trouble with too? EchoSec advertises itself as the next generation of search. It’s been claimed before. We ask EchoSec what they offer that other startups do not? We can only test EchoSec with their search app. Be the judge after using it.
Whitney Grace, June 09, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Elasticsearch: Bulldozing Content Processing
June 7, 2014
When I left the intelligence conference in Prague, there were a number of companies in my graphic about open source search. When I got off the airplane, I edited my slide. Looks to me as if Elasticsearch has just bulldozed the search and content sector, commercialized open source group. I would not want to be the CEO of LucidWorks, Ikanow, or any other open sourcey search and content processing company this weekend.
I read “Elasticsearch Scores $70 Million to Help Sites Crunch Tons of Data Fast.” Forget the fact that Elasticsearch is built on Lucene and some home grown code. Ignore the grammar in “data fast.” Skip over the sports analogy “scores.” Dismiss the somewhat narrow definition of what Elasticsearch ELK can really deliver.
What’s important is the $70 million committed to Elasticsearch. Added to the $30 or $40 million the outfit had obtained before, we are looking at a $100 million bet on an open source search based business. Compare this to the trifling $40 million the proprietary vendor Coveo had gathered or the $30 million put on LucidWorks to get into the derby.
I have been pointing out that Elasticsearch has demonstrated that it had several advantages over its open source competitors; namely, developers, developers, and developers.
Now I want to point out that it has another angle of attack: money, money, and money.
With the silliness of the search and content processing vendors’ marketing over the last two years, I think we have the emergence of a centralizing company.
No, it’s not HP’s new cloudy Autonomy. No, it’s not the wonky Watson game and recipe code from IBM. No, it’s not the Google Search Appliance, although I do love the little yellow boxes.
I will be telling those who attend my lectures to go with Elasticsearch. That’s where the developers and the money are.
Stephen E Arnold, June 7, 2014
Chinese Based Baidu Under Fire
June 4, 2014
Baidu has dominated the Chinese search space since its inception, but it appears there may be trouble in the water. Baidu is facing competition and is not handling it well. In “Shenma Search Engine Looks to Take on Baidu,” the article describes how a new mobile search engine is already taking a share of the Baidu market:
“The mobile search engine jointly launched by Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and UCWeb Inc will host 200 million users by the end of this year and will be a major challenge to Baidu Inc’s dominance in the online search market . . . Shenma currently has around 100 million users. On Monday, Yu accused Baidu of unfair competition. He said Baidu briefly put Shenma on a black list earlier this month and advised Chinese Web users not to download it.”
And the charges or allegations of unfair business practices continue. In “UCWeb Head Slams Baidu for Alleged Business Interference,” Shenma execs claim that Baidu went as far as to tamper with its product:
“Yu Yongfu, chief of Beijing-based UCWeb Inc, a major mobile browser provider backed by Alibaba Group Holding, directed his fire at the country’s dominant search engine Baidu on Monday, accusing Baidu of having maliciously tampered with its browser and search engine following UCWeb’s recent launch of a mobile search engine.”
In a country not exactly known for its embrace of fair and free market competition, the fight over China’s Web space is heating up. Keep an eye on the battle, as China’s ability to maintain free market Web search could be a harbinger for other areas of China’s market.
Emily Rae Aldridge, June 04, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Vurbs Contextual Search Engine
June 3, 2014
The Internet search model we are all accustomed to is simple: a keyword search retrieves a page full of links. More relevant links are supposedly toward the top of the list. But it seems that the paradigm may be shifting. Vurb is launching a new way to look at search, and it is discussed in the story, “Vurb’s Contextual Search Engine Blows Away Those Stupid Lists Of Links.”
The article sums it up:
“Search is outdated. Google steers you to right section of the library, but doesn’t answer your question or compile that answer with others to help you make a decision. Luckily, today Vurb is launching its reinvention of search results in the form of a web and mobile contextual search engine. Rather than forcing you to do multiple searches in different tabs, Vurb collects all the relevant info on one page and preserves your path in a saveable, sharable stream.”
Mobile and desktop, Vurb organizes search results across web apps and packages them in a pleasing visual manner. But the jury is still out on whether or not it can drill down far enough to find meaningful answers to questions. And while services like Vurb can push the envelope on what users demand out of traditional search, it is not yet time for the up-and-comers to unseat the giants.
Emily Rae Aldridge, June 03, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Free Trial of X1 Enterprise Client
June 3, 2014
X1 is offering a free fourteen-day trial of their desktop search engine, X1 Enterprise Client. Read more in the sneak preview:
“X1 Enterprise Client is a desktop search engine that automatically indexes files, email messages and contacts on your computer and returns instant results for your keyword searches. The results are organized in a tabbed interface, sorted by file type and provide a quick preview for most common file types including images, PDF files, Office files, ZIP files and many other formats. You can directly interact with the results by replying to emails, sending messages to contacts, opening files, playing music and also send any file as email attachment with the click of a button.”
This product could be a good investment for those who are not exactly careful as they label, name, and store files. Effective keyword search is the most useful tool in light of bad or nonexistent indexing. If you need a little more search in your workflow, and you do not want to be the one to impose the order, a solution like X1 Enterprise Client might be worth considering.
Emily Rae Aldridge, June 03, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Recent Innovations At KB Crawl
May 30, 2014
It is not an uncommon thought in the technology sector that search tools could become more important that business intelligence. Veille Mag reports that KB Crawl President Bruno Etinne does not agree with this idea. In the article, “KB Crawl Or How To Structure Unstructured Data” states that most Web sites are designed these days to make finding information easier than typing keywords into a search engine. Information is categorized so finely; it leads to more business intelligence solutions than to search.
Such thinking might have led KB Crawl’s “new look,” described as way for data to meet the needs of many departments:
“KB Crawl “new look” for example prepare data for Excel that contains a mapping tool as PowerView will connect to publishing systems or online booking. The last application is that of a client who has financed a portion of the development. The software meets the needs of marketing, documentation, ereputation, strategy and decision support that are fundamental to economic intelligence. It allows you to make the right decisions.”
KB Crawl has designed its software as a SaaS with a simple user interface and with a new version releasing soon.
While information might be easy to find, if it is not readily available users will turn to a search function. Is KB Crawl depending on people to have a certain amount of information literacy? Clearly, the have forgotten that search is a business intelligence tool.
Whitney Grace, May 30, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
SRCH2 Releases Java Software Development Kit
May 28, 2014
We see that SRCH2 is chugging along. App News reveals, “SRCH2 Technology Available to Android Developers and Consumers.” Our esteemed leader Stephen E Arnold interviewed the company’s founder and its CEO as part of his Search Wizards Speak series last summer. Now, SRCH2 is wisely facilitating the integration of their in-memory search platform into mobile apps with the release of a software development kit. The article reports:
“Using advanced software that even Google cannot provide – instant type forward, rapid geo search, error correction, custom rankings and real time updates, SRCH2 is expanding to reach mobile consumers and developers. They have released a new Java SDK for android developers, allowing third parties to integrate this search technology into mobile applications. The company expects their search technology to be most useful for new utility apps, particularly for enterprise and business mobility. A consumer-facing mobile app has also been released to Google Play showcasing what SRCH2 technology is capable of, offering users the ability to search and find any contact, message, calendar invite, music, app and more.”
The write-up notes that the company has healthy competition in the mobile-search realm, largely from Lucene and Endeca. SRCH2, however, asserts their tech is 400 times faster on mobile devices than that of those formidable outfits. Writer Allison Saffiotti notes that some clients, including CBS, Huawei, and HTC plan to integrate SRCH2’s search into their mobile projects within the year.
Developers interested in the SRCH2 Java SDK can sample the platform’s capabilities through the Google Play app mentioned above and can get more information here. Saffiotti points out that incorporating an alternative search engine is one way to stand out in the vast mobile market. Founded in 2010, SRCH2 is based in Irvine, California.
Cynthia Murrell, May 28, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
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