InQuira Publishes Application Sheets
January 30, 2011
Search vendors are trying to figure out how to cope with free search (Lucene/Solr), bundling of okay systems with other enterprise software (Microsoft, Oracle), and lower cost search systems (dtSearch, Fabasoft). InQuira’s approach has been to craft specific info sheets and make them available on at least one Web site we track, ITVerdict. Here’s a run down of the info sheets for the InQuira NLP content processing system:
- InQuira for Contact Centers at http://www.itverdict.com/inquira-for-contact-centers/
- InQuira for Knowledge Applications at http://www.itverdict.com/inquira-for-knowledge-applications/
- InQuira for Sales Intelligence at http://www.itverdict.com/inquira-for-sales-intelligence%E2%80%94building-a-smarter-sales-force/
- InQuira for Social Communities at http://www.itverdict.com/inquira-for-online-social-communities/
These are verticalizing write ups. Most search and content processing systems position themselves as a platform or a framework. The idea is that once the system is in place solving one problem such as customer support, then that search system can be used for other problems. Well, sometimes the client does not feel comfortable using a smaller firm’s technology as the foundation for big applications. For the “big” jobs, the licensee falls into the gravitational pull of the IBMs, the Microsofts, or the Oracles of the world. Is this a good choice? Who knows? People want to keep their jobs and working on a system that requires certification is a baby step to becoming indispensible for some folks.
An increasingly popular approach is to just go after ready-to-run vertical solutions. I understand the sales intelligence angle. That’s a bit like business intelligence narrowed to know which sales person is likely to track backlog, close business, or cost in commissions. I am on the fence about the social stuff, mostly because it is expensive to do well and darned fuzzy. With regard to knowledge applications, I want to use the system.
If you are tracking the way search vendors are positioning themselves in 2011, the InQuira approach is interesting. More information about InQuira is at www.inquira.com.
Stephen E Arnold, January 30, 2011
Freebie
Exorbyte Explains Its Strengths
January 4, 2011
“What Makes Exorbyte Commerce So Good (The Nature of Ecommerce Search)” lays out the reasons why a good search tool is essential for any commercial website, saying, “Because of the ubiquity of Google with the Web, more and more people are actually using the search bar as their sole tool to navigate a website and find the product they’re looking for.”
I couldn’t agree more as I myself am not one to browse around, or heaven forbid, watch “animation or short movies” to find what I want to purchase. The post goes on to say that “It is imperative, in order to capture a sale, and in order to engender brand loyalty, for the search box to be error tolerant, extremely quick, and extremely user friendly.”
Obviously, Amazon figured this out a long time ago, but as the post points out, this type of super-sharp search “often runs into the five and six figures.” Not exactly within reach of even a medium-size site, but Exorbyte Commerce promises to provide this service without the exorbitant cost. An interesting approach, and one that sounds like it will provide the stickiness of the big-time to even a modest player online.
Alice Wasielewski, January 4, 2011
Freebie
Search Wizards Speak: 2010 Wrap Up
December 21, 2010
In 2010, we published 10 exclusive interviews with “Search Wizards”. In the event you missed one of the 2010 interviews, the table below provides one-click access to the interviews. Each interview covers a vendor’s technical approach, key functions their system includes, and insights into future search trends. We have talked with a handful of search wizards twice. Each interview contains different information about search. We try to choose vendors with interesting approaches to content processing and finding information.
The series now contains 50 interviews since January 2008. The information in the full text interviews may prove useful when trying to figure out what different systems deliver. The content collection represents one of the most comprehensive sets of first-person information about search and retrieval available.
The information is available with charge, and you are welcome to use it for library and academic purposes without contacting me. If you are a consulting firm (blue, azure, or colorless), you need to obtain permission in writing prior to your using the information for commercial purposes. I learned in June 2010 that one of the money grubbing mid tier outfits was asking newly hired consultants to “read the information on the ArnoldIT.com Web site” as part of their acculturation process. Imagine how excited I was to have one of the firm’s real live, mid tier professionals tell me about this use of my information. And guess what? The person told me this at a reception for a vendor’s user group meeting. What makes the mid-tier consultants so darned special? Great situational judgment.
| Company | Wizard | Focus |
| Alta Plana | Seth Grimes | Smart content |
| Aster Data | Quentin Gallivan | Big data |
| Autonomy | Fernando Lucini | Health and meaning based computing |
| Digital Reasoning | Tim Estes | Synthesys Version 3 |
| Digital Reasoning | Time Estes | Data fusion and analytics |
| Easy Ask | Craig Bassin | NLP |
| Hot Neuron | Bill Dimm | Clustering |
| Inforbix | Oleg Shilovitsky | Manufacturing & components search |
| Lucid Imagination | Brian Pinkerton | Enterprise open source search |
| Sematext | Otis Gospodnetic | Open source search |
The other companies participating in the interview series are listed on the ArnoldIT.com subsite index page. If you are looking for in-depth information about these vendors and the 250 other search and content processing companies I follow, write me at seaky2000 at yahoo dot com. There are mid tier and lower level consulting firms offering information about search vendors. Where does some of that information originate? If you said, ArnoldIT.com, you might be more correct than you believe.
Oh, I don’t cover firms that are on the edge of the knife. Some of these companies are exiting enterprise information retrieval and others lack the oomph to warrant inclusion in my Overflight service.
Stephen E Arnold, December 21, 2010
Freebie
Arnold Comments about Exalead
December 20, 2010
A couple of times a year, I make a swing through Europe. I visit vendors, get demos, and talk with engineers about the future of search. In Paris on November 30, 2010, I answered questions about my views of Exalead. As you know, Exalead is a unit of Dassault Systems, one of the most sophisticated engineering firms in the world. You can get my view of Exalead by navigating to this link. Here’s an example of the observations I made:
“Exalead delivers applications that fit seamlessly and smoothly into customer workflows,” said Arnold. “When I spoke with Exalead customers I heard only: ‘This system works,’ ‘It’s easy to use,’ ‘It’s stable,’ and ‘I don’t have to chase around.”
In the interview, I point out that Exalead’s engineering makes it possible to embed search and information access in applications. Instead of using key words to unlock the information in a traditional search and retrieval system, Exalead makes the needed information available within existing work flows and applications. Access extends across a full range of content types and devices, including smart phones.
I have tracked Exalead for a number of years, and it continues to distinguish itself in information access by going “Beyond Search.” Here at Beyond Search we use the Exalead platform for our Overflight service.
Stephen E Arnold, December 20, 2010
The Exalead engineering team bought me lunch, a plus in Paris. Too bad about the snow and ice, though.
Restaurant Engines
December 7, 2010
I am not a big user of restaurant search engines. Here in Harrod’s Creek we have River Creek Inn and a McDonald’s. No need to search, grip a Groupon coupon, or consult a mobile mapping service.
Restaurant Engines is a new full service search engine that offers restaurants a three tiered approach to advertising. Not only will they build you a full service, fully interactive, website; they will also create an iPhone and Android application that allows users to easily find directions, set up reservations, and order from the menus.
In theory this is a wonderful idea that has the potential to create mass revenue by utilizing inexpensive internet access. However, in reality, I don’t see it being that effective. I can already order a pizza and set up a reservation from my phone. This new service would be a convenience but not by much, it seems to be a replica of what is already available and unless they have a truly remarkable advertising scheme, traffic may be hard to come by.
Stephen E Arnold, December 7, 2010
Freebie
Tific Putting Search in Back Seat
November 21, 2010
Tific is taking the wheel and relegating search to the back seat in the customer support market. A press release, “Tific Releases version 8 of its Award Winning Support Automation Platform”, on the company’s website announced the availability of the latest version of its Support Automation Platform.
The new platform “is used to automatically detect and remediate tech problems at the end-point,” making search the back-up method. Other aspects of the new version include extensive performance improvements, a communication redesign that enables remote development of self-healing solutions, extended reporting and improved statistics, faster development of solutions, and an extended library of content with support for digital home and security. Because it is “self-healing,” Tific can dramatically reduce service-support costs and increase customer satisfaction.
Search vendors are going to need to shift into high gear if they want to compete with Tific’s platform.
Christine Sheley, November 21, 2010
Freebie
Autonomy Outflanks Rivals with Push into Healthcare
November 15, 2010
A Beyond Search Exclusive: Interview with Fernando Lucini
The news in Harrods Creek arrives a day late and a dollar short. We heard that Autonomy, the search and content processing outfit with nearly $1 billion in annual revenues and more than 20,000 customers, has rolled out a new service.
Auminence delivers a vertical solution for the global healthcare industry. Like other Autonomy’s products and services, the solution’s heart is IDOL or what Autonomy calls an “integrated data operating layer.” I think of IDOL as a platform upon which solutions are constructed. Search is one use case for IDOL, which relies on smart numerical recipes. Autonomy IDOL now dispatches problems in video search, fraud detection, big data analytics, and business intelligence.
The firm’s Auminence offering is a vertical play, and it comes at a time when the US healthcare industry is being forced to look for new methods, new systems, and new ways of handling health, medical, wellness, and administrative challenges. Timing is one of Autonomy’s core competencies. The firm’s new healthcare service is as prescient as Autonomy’s move into eDiscovery and collaborative services.
Not surprisingly, Auminence delivers actionable information. The chief architect of the system is Fernando Lucini, an engineer with deep experience in delivering systems that crack tough “big data” problems. He told me:
Think of Autonomy Auminence as a powerful point-of-care analysis dashboard, designed to help the provider make better quality, data-driven, evidence-based, diagnosis decisions. Auminence allows a healthcare professional to combine his or her personal knowledge with the wealth of knowledge that exists on the patient and their symptoms, clinical features, and related diseases – contained in the vast volumes of “human-friendly” information that make up healthcare data.
The user does not require training to use the system. Instead of a laundry list Google-style, Autonomy presents the information in a dashboard and report format. Mr. Lucini said, “We want to reduce the time and cost of tapping into the needed information. We want to help a person rushing to solve a medical problem to maybe save a life. Who wants to work through a list of links. That’s more work. We want to provide answers. Fast.”
Another innovation is Autonomy’s implementation of the service in the cloud. Since the firm acquired Zantaz, Autonomy been advancing its cloud-based services and features at a steady pace. However, what struck me as particularly important was Mr. Lucini’s statement that the service, which is available now (November 15, 2010) supports mobile devices like the Apple iPad and Android phones and tablets.
You can read the full text of the exclusive interview with Mr. Lucini in the ArnoldIT.com Search Wizards Speak collection at this link. One thing is certain: other vendors will have to react and quickly to Autonomy’s well-timed move in the health vertical. For more information about this service, navigate to www.autonomyhealth.com.
Stephen E Arnold, November 15, 2010
Freebie, but Autonomy promised me a cup of tea when I visit the international online show in December 2010.
Clearwell Goes All in One
October 13, 2010
“Clearwell Unveils All-in-One eDiscovery Platform” alerted me that another vendor has shifted from a solution to a platform. Clearwell flashed on my radar with its Rocket Docket system. The company won some kudos because a law firm or corporate legal office could ring Clearwell on the phone, and the company would deliver a ready-to-run box. The system could be plugged in and pointed at the content to be processed. The company has added nifty features that lawyers find quite useful. One lawyer told me a couple of years ago, “I can save my discovery trail and rerun it or show it to a colleague.”
According to the write up in Computer Business Review:
The platform can pull data from over 50 sources, including cloud-based applications, and offers a single dashboard for report generation. Other features of the new platform include an interactive data map, which enables users to navigate through data sources with what Clearwell calls an iTunes-like filter; collection templates, which save commonly-used collection settings, including specific directories, filters and preservation stores; and collection analytics, which provide a portfolio of analytical charts and tables that display the types of data collected.
For more information about this platform, navigate to www.clearwellsystems.com.
My views, before I forget them, include:
- How many platforms does an organization need? In some situations, cloud solutions make more sense. My recollection is that Brainware offered a spin on hosted a few years ago. One could call Brainware and the firm would pick up hard copy and digital data obtained via discovery, process it, and then provide secure access to an authorized user.
- Has the law firm market shifted? My sources tell me that buyers of these eDiscovery systems are corporate legal departments. The hook for these sales is that a CEO wants to know right away if there is an “issue” in the discovered materials.
- Has the number of vendors chasing the legal market forced down prices for basic services? The “platform” sounds like a higher value sale, particularly when connectors are provided to make it easy to ingest popular file types. The platform play, if successful, could draw the attention of a larger, more established platform provider. What happens when platforms collide? Unlikely because lawyers are not diffused widely in most organizations. Maybe the play will lead to a buy out.
Just some questions to which I don’t have answers.
Stephen E Arnold, October 13, 2010
Freebie
A Google Goal? Capture Indian SME Market
October 6, 2010
Matching its size and reputation, Google now has a suiting target. The Financial Express article “Google has 35m Indian SMEs on its radar,” reveals that India presently has only 200,000 SMEs having online presence, which is even less than 1 percent of its entire SME sector. As per the article, Google wants to convert the entire Indian SME sector into a potential customer base, and is on a “large-scale mission to educate smaller businessmen about the viability of the Internet for finding a market for their products.”
Even though the article reports about Google’s doubling of Indian SME customer base in a year, aggressive campaign for online advertising and plans for doubling its call center support, we reckon it will still be tough for Google to change the mindsets of most Indian businesspersons. Having said that, we note that the Internet usage is on a rise in India, which increases the chances of these business persons being lured to Google’s plan. I am not writing from the goose pond in Harrod’s Creek. I am writing from India. Different perspective perhaps?
Harleena Singh, October 6. 2010
Fujitsu and Libraries: A Bit of a Surprise
September 20, 2010
Fujitsu has taken the charge on the cloud. It recently started its software-as-a-service (SaaS)-based solution for library administration for Japan’s municipal public libraries, as part of its global cloud strategy. The JapanToday’s article, “Fujitsu to Start Services for Libraries Using Cloud Computing,” further states that, “the services will enable libraries to manage information on lending books to users without their own computer systems.”
Fujitsu estimates that deploying the ICT system environment for the libraries, with the help of Fujitsu’s datacenters can save the libraries about 30 percent on their ICT costs over a period of five years. The article says that since the library employees are relieved from “the responsibilities for maintaining and operating the ICT system, the library can operate more efficiently.” As Fujitsu plans to create regional library centers, and its rival NEC Corp too plans to begin similar services, it appears to us as a different and potentially predatory move against the beleaguered library vendors.
Harleena Singh, September 20, 2010
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