Gartner and Business Intelligence Magic Thing
February 14, 2016
I love consultants, especially mid tier consultants. The idea is that folks who are reasonably pleasant can become experts in various market sectors is a signal that optimism is alive and thriving in a sketchy economic swamp.
The mid tier consultants are a fave. These outfits provide more tradition than the webmaster or Visual Basic programmer who is out of a job. The ease with which one can become a consultant lends a certain squishiness to Lone Rangers offering expertise for hire.
The blue chip outfit are just too expensive for many folks who know they need help. Think of the difference between someone who jets to Lyon for lunch and the person who grabs a slice in Midtown.
Thus, blue chip outfits (the top drawer firms), the azure chip firms (companies either on their way up or down in the expertise Great Chain of Being), and the gray chip folks. The gray chip folks are the disaffected middle school teacher who decides to become a self appointed expert in sponsored content for search engine optimization.
The write up “Critiquing the Gartner BI and Analytics MQ” will not elicit much of a response from the mid tier outfit responsible for the “analysis.” Legal eagles slap when the actual quadrant thing is reproduced.
But the write up hits some nerves in the sagging neck of the azure chip services firm; for example:
- Companies excluded for no apparent reason. (Maybe these outfits rejected the azure chip firm’s blandishments to buy services and be better understood?)
- A “kitchen sink” approach. (Maybe this means dumping stuff into a container and binge watching Happy Days on Hulu? Stuff breaks when hasty hands place dirty dishes in a sink.)
- Products are mixed up. The example is Design Studio. (Aren’t these software components pretty much the same? Sure they are, gentle mid tier consultant getting smart by searching Google for info. Sure they are.)
- Inconsistency. (The write up displays actual, high value, super secret, for some eyes only magic thingies. I looked at each graph and was confused in terms of what was presented and how the classifications changed in the span of one fiscal year. Aren’t I the dunce?)
The write up is not about hell fire and brimstone. Here’s the peace offering after the carpet bombing:
To be fair on Gartner, they have made a solid effort at explaining their rationale and, given there are some 500 vendors globally, vying for attention, narrowing down to this selection is a valiant effort. The care with which Gartner has made its understanding known is also commendable, even if some of those explanations are questionable. Another problem with the report is that it is static. It is a snapshot at a point in time that is biased in favor of one constituency and which does not, in my view, adequately recognize the necessary and sometimes difficult tensions that exist between IT and lines of business when it comes to rationalizing or consolidating BI tools in an enterprise setting. I think Gartner has done the industry a major favor by decoupling the reporting element and focusing upon the modern approach to BI. But that’s not enough.
Maybe another azure chip outfit will leap into this opportunity. A mere 500 vendors. The number seems low to me. I eagerly await the next intellectual semi-truck load of insights from the azure chip sector. Yes, eager am I.
Stephen E Arnold, February 14, 2016
Short Honk: Time Inc Allegedly Buys MySpace in an AOL Moment
February 13, 2016
I read “Time Inc Acquires Viant, Owner Of Myspace And A Vast Ad Tech Network.” According to the write up, the plan is:
to combine Viant’s business with its own, creating a big data, ad targeting powerhouse. Specifically, Time says it will “merge its premium content, subscriber data, and advertising inventory with Viant’s first party data and programmatic capabilities to bring substantial value to customers of both platforms.”
Ah, synergy. Just like year 2000?
Stephen E Arnold, February 13, 2016
Byline: Crowd Funded Journalism
February 13, 2016
I encountered Byline.com, a crowd-funded journalism site. I have noticed that the “news” is not what I remembered when I was a sprout. The idea is that readers will provide money, and the site operators will do “news.” You should check it out. The title of the Byline.com news page is Haystack, which may be a response to some legal eagle flapping.
I noticed that the site has raised about 6 percent of the money the site wants to raise. That works out to about US$15 million. Real journalism outputting real news is expensive. One can become a Byline journalist at this link. If Byline requires office space in the US, the former Pearson Education space is available in Upper Saddle River, New Jersey. My hunch is that the real estate folks handling the space will wheel and deal.
Worth a look.
Stephen E Arnold, February 13, 2016
Venture Backed Search Vendors Face Exciting 2016
February 12, 2016
I read “The State of Venture Capital.” I thought, “Oh, ho, here comes the tightening of the thumbscrews. The idea is simple. Insert fingers and turn the crank. My hunch is that the device will focus the attention of person whose fingers are in the business end of the gizmo.
In the write up, I learned that in the next two years, folks should expect:
- Increased loss ratios
- Most flat rounds
- More down rounds
- More structured rounds
- Relatively harder to raise capital
- VCs marking-to-market showing some movements south
I like the reference to the movement south.
How does this relate to the search and content processing outfits which have sucked in tens of millions in venture funding? Three items for which I will be watching:
- More market repositioning. Think predictive analytics, data lakes, cloud solutions, and artificial intelligence. Talk is cheap. If talk generates a license deal, that’s the upside.
- Downsizing. I know that growth is all the rage, but I think that some vendors will have no choice except cutting back on expenses. Full time hires become contract workers. Trade show participation becomes a webinar which is archived and the promoted as a resource.
- Dance card shuffling. In an effort to generate leads and from the leads some real license deals, companies will join up. Others will departner and find another entity with which to dance.
Which search vendors will survive? The last big shake out winnowed the likes of Convera, Delphes, Entopia, and Siderean. The acquisition boomlet moved Autonomy, Exalead, ISYS Search, and Vivisimo into the safe havens of larger organization. Who will buy today’s market leaders? Other vendors will have no choice but go quiet. The last time I checked Dieselpoint it was still in business. Sophia Search? Intrafind? X1?
Which company is the next Autonomy? Elastic, Recommind, IBM Watson?
My view is that 2016 will be exciting for some folks.
Stephen E Arnold, February 12, 2016
Facebook Faces French Frippery
February 12, 2016
Facebook and its privacy and information policies are under scrutiny in France. Unlike the US and other countries, French regulators can be a frisky bunch. I recall an incident involving a certain Russian who operated in an interesting manner. If recollection serves, the French authorities kept pecking and pecking and finally chewed the feet off the alleged wrong doer. Persistence and institutional coordination are different in the land of more than 200 types of cheese.
“French Data Privacy Regulator Cracks down on Facebook” reports that the social media outfit has 90 days to “stop tracking non users’ Web activity without their consent.”
This begs the question, “Then what?”
Two things. France will cheerlead for actions against Facebook from its EC colleagues.
Plus the French bureaucracy, the outfit which “invented red tape,” will swing into action. This is often not a good thing. I recall a French born French citizen who had to display her great grandfather’s medal of honor to clear up a citizenship inquiry. The nifty part of this anecdote is that a letter from the president of France to her grandfather was not enough. The picture verified that the grandfather and the French president were shaking hands at the award ceremony. That’s bureaucratic attentiveness in action.
Facebook faces French friskiness in the institutional playground. At least, lunches are usually pretty good. That’s a benefit for the legal eagles who will flock to answer the “then what?” question.
Stephen E Arnold, February 12, 2016
Xoogler to Xoogler: AOL Yahoo Strange Force
February 12, 2016
I read “Verizon Said to Enlist AOL CEO Armstrong to Explore Yahoo Deal.” The write up told me:
Verizon is looking to make its go90 streaming video service a source of new sales and profit. Yahoo, with more than 1 billion people using its e-mail, finance, sports and video sites, represents a prized asset to combine with AOL’s 2 million users and Verizon’s more than 112 million wireless subscribers. That kind of Web traffic, along with exclusive content, is just what Verizon needs to secure a foothold in video advertising against YouTube and Facebook serving a mobile phone-addicted generation.
Assume that this Xoogler to Xoogler force exists. My view is that Yahoo, like AOL, is an example of a once viable business. But now Yahoo can only exist as a tail fin or new set of rims for a larger vehicle.
Assume that Yahoo, like AOL, is an add on to a company with some Bell headism in its DNA. What companies will step forward to acquire more after market parts for their revenue vehicle?
As the economic squeeze persists, there will be more doodads and fandangles in the parts depot than buyers. A buyers’ market is under construction.
Stephen E Arnold, February 12, 2016
Dark Web Crime Has Its Limits
February 12, 2016
The Dark Web is an intriguing and mysterious phenomenon, but rumors about what can be found there are exaggerated. Infomania examines what is and what is not readily available in that murky realm in, “Murder-for-Hire on the Dark Web? It Can’t Be True!”
Anonymity is the key factor in whether certain types of criminals hang out their shingles on the TOR network. Crimes that can be more easily committed without risking identification include drug trafficking, fraud, and information leaks. On the other hand, contract assassins, torture-as-entertainment, and human trafficking are not actually to be found, despite reports to the contrary. See the article for details on each of these, and more. The article cites independent researcher Chris Monteiro as it summarizes:
The dark web is rife with cyber crime. But it’s more rampant with sensationalized myths about assassination and torture schemes — which, as Chris can attest, simply aren’t true. “What’s interesting is so much of the coverage of these scam sites is taken at face value. Like, ‘There is a website. Therefore its contents must be true.’ Even when mainstream media picks it up, very few pick it up skeptically,” he says.
Take the Assassination Market, for example. When news outlets got wind of its alleged existence in 2013, they ran with the idea of “Murder-for-hire!!” on the Internet underground. Although Chris has finally demonstrated that these sites are not real, their legend lives on in Internet folklore. “Talking about the facts — this is how cybercrime works, this is how Tor and Bitcoin work — is a lot less sexy than saying, ‘If you click on the wrong link, you’ll be kidnapped, and you’ll end up in a room where you’ll be livestreamed, murdered, and you’re all over the internet!’” Chris says. “All I can do is point out what’s proven and what isn’t.”
So, next time someone spins a scary tale about killers-for-hire who are easily found online, you can point them to this article. Yes, drug trafficking, stolen data, and other infractions are big problems associated with the Dark Web, but let us not jump at shadows.
Cynthia Murrell, February 12, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Barry Zane and SPARQL City Acquired by Cambridge Semantics for Graph Technology
February 12, 2016
The article titled Cambridge Semantics Acquires SPARQL City’s IP, Expanding Offering of Graph-Cased Analytics at Big Data Scale on Business Wire discusses the benefits of merging Cambridge’s Semantics’ Anzo Smart Data Platform with SPARQL City’s graph analysis capacities. The article specifically mentions the pharmaceutical industry, financial services, and homeland security as major business areas that this partnership will directly engage due to the enhanced data analysis and graph technologies now possible.
“We believe this IP acquisition is a game-changer for big data analytics and smart data discovery,” said Chuck Pieper, CEO of Cambridge Semantics. “When coupled with our Anzo Smart Data Platform, no one else in the market can provide a similar end-to-end, semantic- and graph-based solution providing for data integration, data management and advanced analytics at the scale, context and speed that meets the needs of enterprises. The SPARQL City in-memory graph query engine allows users to conduct exploratory analytics at big data scale interactively.”
Barry Zane, a leader in database analytics with 40 years experience and CEO and founder of SPARQL City, will become the VP of Engineering at Cambridge Semantics. He mentions in the article that this acquisition has been a long time coming, with the two companies working together over the last two years.
Chelsea Kerwin, February 12, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
A Data Lake: Batch Job Dipping Only
February 11, 2016
I love the Hadoop data lake concept. I live in a mostly real time world. The “batch” approach reminds me of my first exposure to computing in 1962. Real time? Give me a break. Hadoop reminded me of those early days. Fun. Standing on line. Waiting and waiting.
I read “Data Lake: Save Me More Money vs. Make Me More Money.” The article strikes me as a conference presentation illustrated with a deck of PowerPoint goodies.
One of the visuals was a modern big data analytics environment. I have seen a number of representations of today’s big data yadda yadda set ups. Here’s the EMC take on the modernity:
Straight away, I note the “all” word. Yep, just put the categorical affirmative into a Hadoop data lake. Don’t forget the video, the wonky stuff in the graphics department, the engineering drawings, and the most recent version of the merger documents requested by a team of government investigators, attorneys, and a pesky solicitor from some small European Community committee. “All” means all, right?
Then there are two “environments”. Okay, a data lake can have ecosystems, so the word environment is okay for flora and fauna. I think the notion is to build two separate analytic subsystems. Interesting approach, but there are platforms which offer applications to handle most of the data slap about work. Why not license one of those; for example, Palantir, Recorded Future?
And that’s it?
Well, no. The write up states that the approach will “save me more money.” In fact, one does not need much more:
The savings from these “Save me more money” activities can be nice with a Return on Investment (ROI) typically in the 10% to 20% range. But if organizations stop there, then they are leaving the 5x to 10x ROI projects on the table. Do I have your attention now?
My answer, “No, no, you do not.”
Stephen E Arnold, February
Dark Web Size
February 11, 2016
I read “Researchers Index Dark Web, Find Most of It Contains Illegal Material.” The data come from researcher at a UK university. Here’s the Dark Web page count data:
5,205 live websites were indexed; a total of 2,723 pages were classified by content. Pages with fewer than 50 words and those with no content were dropped in the “none” category. According to the analysis, 57% of the sites hosted illicit content like drugs … The Tor project estimates there are about 35,000 total hidden services active, so this is far from a full survey, but enough to be a representative sample.
Interesting, but the headline suggests a far more comprehensive index.
Stephen E Arnold, February 11, 2016
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