Blue Washing of IBMs Recent Acquisitions Might Affect Licensing Deals
August 23, 2012
Lately, IBM seems to be on an analytics-buying spree having successfully completed three acquisitions spaced only a month apart. Its latest purchase is Tealeaf Technology, which is a company that focuses on customer behavior analysis and digital customer experience management. Prior that, it was Varicent, which specializes on sales performance and compensation. And before that was Vivisimo, a discovery and data-capture software provider.
But pre-acquisition customers may have a problem with this later on. “IBM’s “Blue Washing” Affects Customers Worldwide – Scott & Scott, LLP Alerts Customers of Potential Licensing Surprises” discusses why:
“…IBM’s recent acquisition of Tealeaf, Vivisimo, and Varicent will likely change existing license agreements with the newly acquired publishers.
There are a number of legal strategies that can be employed when IBM ‘blue washes’ its code and its license agreements. Blue washing is IBM’s term used when IBM releases updated code and changes its licensing metrics for products acquired from other publishers. Once customers upgrade to IBM’s product, it is often too late to negotiate and avoid hefty licensing charges associated with changed licensing metrics…”
Blue washing isn’t an ideal situation for companies who have been using business-critical software under terms that are advantageous to them. But what can they do against IBM? What negotiating power do small companies have versus the blue giant?
Changes in licensing deals by IBM wouldn’t surprise us here at Beyond Search. The only thing left for the affected companies to do is to absorb one of two costs: IBM’s more costly licensing metrics or shifting to other software.
Lauren Llamanzares, August 23, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
EasyAsk Taps BrainSell for SugarCRM Embedment
August 22, 2012
Natural language tech firm EasyAsk has turned to BrainSell to help with pre-packaged business intelligence solutions for SugarCRM, the open-platform, web-based customer relationship management software. The press release,”EasyAsk and BrainSell Ink Exclusive Agreement to Deliver EasyAsk Business Edition for SugarCRM Sales,” informs us the new solutions are to be deployed across North America. The write up explains:
“EasyAsk for SugarCRM Sales provides an easy way for entire sales organizations to track, analyze and manage sales operations within SugarCRM. Users simply ask questions about relevant sales topics in English and get fast results from their SugarCRM data. Utilizing a pioneering natural language architecture, similar to that used by IBM in creating Watson and defeating the Jeopardy grand champions, EasyAsk understands both the intent and the content of every sales question an approach that is more intuitive and returns better answers than standard search and analysis products. This is specifically designed for business users, who don’t need to know anything about SugarCRM, to get the information they need, when they need it.”
Invoking the popular Watson—well played. Running directly inside SugarCRM, EasyAsk and BrainSell’s contribution facilitates drilling down into CRM records for the latest results. Display options are customizable, and collaboration tools are designed to be fast and easy to use.
Based in Burlington, MA, EasyAsk was founded in 1994 by a professor of computational linguistics who also happened to be expert in database systems and computerized natural language. As the name implies, the company emphasizes ease-of-use in its products.
BrainSell is headquartered in Topsfield, MA, but has offices across the US. The company stresses its relationships with prominent business software developers, but says its strength lies in its extensive experience integrating and administering business systems.
Cynthia Murrell, August 22, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Social Research: Marketing Fluff as Facebook Cools
August 21, 2012
I read “Social Research Key Findings”. The write up summarizes research which has consumed “most of the year.” Read the original article. Judge for yourself. Is social media applied to sentiment, prediction, customer support, and the other buzzwords associated with the phrase “social media” ready for prime time. My view is that as “the end of search” approaches, vendors are scrambling to find marketing Velcro which will lead to new customers and repeat business.
The write up points out that the research was sponsored by some social media luminaries who, it appears, wanted to know what makes customers’ hearts go pitter patter. There is an interesting but almost illegible graph which runs down the survey respondents’ perception of “hindrances” to social analytics and its assorted children.
The graphed data are based on respondents’ selection of True or False. The scale is wonky, running from 0 to 250, and I am not sure if these data represent individual choices, a subset, or a normalized output. I whipped out my trusty magnifying glass and learned the following from the graph:
The respondents were roughly evenly split on True and False votes for this statement: “Not sure which business can leverage.” The respondents were in the same kettle of fish with regard to “Legal Issues, Security issues, the benefits, and fear of negative impacts.
It sure looked to me as if the majority of respondents agreed that their information technology departments were not a hindrance to social media. Company culture also seems not to be a particular barrier.
The article explains the key findings with nine observations. Let me highlight four findings which I found interesting. You will need to consult the original article to get the full payload from the research.
Allegedly the research supports the statement: “It’s still an early market.” My view is that the dismal performance of Facebook’s initial public offering indicates that social fatigue has set in. Social research is not silver bullet. Customers still want to talk to an informed human. Predictive analytics still cannot pick winners in horse races. Sentiment analysis does little more than flag email with inflammatory language. The ClearForest warranty process works, but it is expensive and depended on rules. Rules were expensive to maintain. In large systems with dynamic content, the fancy math helps but it does not deliver results commensurate with the marketers’ promises. Big surprise? Nope.
A second finding is encapsulated in the statement: “It should not be surprising that video and picture sharing are among the top social media.” The only problem is that understanding the content of videos and pictures is a tough computational problem. Pump through a day of YouTube content and you have a system which is expensive to build, maintain, and scale. In short, words are a very difficult problem. Words have not yet been cracked. The social audio and video is an even more difficult problem. Opportunities? Yes. Solutions for a cash strapped enterprise? Not yet, gentle reader.
A third finding is summarized in this way: “Marketing and service have more uses for social media than does sales, so far.” My interpretation: Pumping out big bucks to analyze social media does not generate revenue. My view is that social research boils down to tracking what individuals do. Even with large amounts of data, the social researchers are not able to hook the data, their analyses, and their services to generating revenue for the licensees. Law enforcement and intelligence agencies, in my opinion, remain juicy prospects. The tire company or the waste disposal business may not buy or even sit through a webinar.
The final finding which caught my attention was “Content is king.” I don’t know what this means. The article explains:
Ranking the three major social media for usefulness, Twitter is first followed by Facebook and then LinkedIn. Interestingly, corporate blogs and product/service blogs are rated higher than the top three services indicating that people want specific content and they are not put off by content size or the time it might take to read or view it. So the three popular social tools might help get the conversation started but successful companies will quickly discover that they need more content for follow up. Our CRM Idol experience this year confirms this point: we are seeing a larger-than-normal number of vendors focused on content creation, tracking, and management.
If this makes sense to you, then get out your purchase order form. The sponsors are ready to rumble.
Stephen E Arnold, August 21, 2012
Sponsored by Augmentext
Not All Subscribe to Big Data Hype
August 21, 2012
Anyone who’s been paying attention knows that big data is everyone’s next big thing, right? Not so fast. Computerworld enlightens us, declaring that “Most Firms Have No Big Data Plans, Survey Finds. ” Writer Lucas Mearian points to the latest iteration of an annual survey from market-research outfit TheInfoPro. Each year, its Technology Heat Index Survey polls hundreds of IT pros about their plans. This year’s results show that 56% of the 255 respondents see no big data analytics in their futures. The write up reports:
“Survey respondents with no plans to roll out Hadoop or other big data analytics software said doing so requires a specific business case, and in most instances they didn’t see a need for it, according to Marco Coulter, managing director of TheInfoPro’s Cloud Computing Practice. . . .
“Coulter said those companies rolling out big data analytics tend to be in the financial services and healthcare arena, where great amounts of data can be boiled down to reveal trends and best practices.”
You mean people are actually examining their needs before jumping on a bandwagon? Imagine that.
The article shares several more survey findings; check it out for full details. One example—server virtualization was found (again) to be considered the leading driver of capacity growth; 67% of those surveyed revealed that 80% -100% of their production servers connect to a Fibre Channel storage area network (SAN). The survey also found a leap in organizations planning to deploy solid state drive (SSD) technology, from just 7% last year to 37% this time around.
Not surprisingly, many respondents are having to make due with tightening budgets. Some things are nigh universal, I suppose.
Cynthia Murrell, August 21, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
IntelTrax Top Stories August 10 to August 16
August 20, 2012
This week the IntelTrax blog published some excellent articles on data analytics and search technologies.
One of the most notable analytics developers for Web sites is the search giant Google. “eGoogle Analytics Is No Longer the Only Game in Town” discusses some other options for those companies that are not satisfied with what Google is offering.
The article explains:
“If you operate your own website, analytic software can be crucial in order to track exactly how well your site is doing. Without this software, you can do whatever you want with your site, but you will never know if it is getting more visitors, aside from the amount of comments. When you look at the possible options you have for analytic software, the most popular choice is Google Analytics. However, if you’re not a fan of Google or its Analytics package, there’s no need to fear. There are still a handful of options for you to try out.”
Another article of note discusses the recent dramatic increase of unstructured data in almost every industry. “Growth of Text Analytics in Response to Unstructured Data” discusses the fact that there has also been an explosion of data analytics solution to make sense of all this new data.
When discussing some great solutions available, the article states:
“The Text Analytics market is rapidly consolidating with numerous mergers and acquisitions over the past year. Oracle purchased Endeca for its technology to mash up unstructured data from many different data sources. HP acquired similar technology from Autonomy. IBM picked up Vivisimo and Lexmark for their rich search features. Popularity of Big Data is driving huge interest in the area of text analytics, and that interest is causing the technology to evolve quickly. Text analytics techniques, for example, are becoming increasingly richer and more sophisticated in the information and insight which they can provide.”
While there are a lot of amazing data analytics solutions on the market, many companies are also feeling the effects of a downtrodden economy, so choosing an affordable solution is a very important part of their decision making process. “CFOs Demand a Reduction in Costs and Increase in Competitive Edge” argues that companies are utilizing data analytics solutions as a way to cut costs and create new growth opportunities.
Here are some qualities that companies in New Zealand and Australia are looking for in their products:
“As a discrete process, like CRM, corporate performance management is particularly well suited to a cloud delivery model. It provides organizations greater flexibility, lower capital costs and fast implementations that take weeks rather than six plus months. The end result is customers fast-track uncovering business opportunity. We’re excited about partnering with Host Analytics as it provides our clients a unique value proposition at a time when CFOs and CIOs are telling us that their number one priority is to reduce costs and gain competitive advantage with business analytics.”
The three articles that I have highlighted drive the point home that companies, regardless of their industry, are looking for text analytics solutions that will efficiently make the most of their limited resources and time. Digital Reasoning is a relatively young provider that understand the unique needs of small and midsized companies and offer their Synthesys platform as a solution that provides all the necessary data crunching tools and apps needed for most industries.
Jasmine Ashton, August 20, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
New Visualization Service from BT
August 16, 2012
BT (British Telecommunications) has launched a new product called Assure Analytics, MarketWire informs us in “BT Simplifies Big Data and Security Challenges with New Visualization Service.” The security data analysis service focuses on big data, naturally, and aims to facilitate fast and effective decision making. The press release reveals:
“The service, which instantly fuses together structured and unstructured data from any number of sources – such as emails, reporting systems, databases and internet news feeds – brings the information to life for businesses through insightful imagery and mapping which highlights potential patterns, threats, interdependencies and outcomes across their organization.”
Interestingly, the company is practicing what it promotes. The write up notes:
“BT is already using Assure Analytics in its battle to protect the UK telecoms network from copper theft. The service is helping the company analyze crime statistics, fault reporting and geographical information – highlighting patterns and theft hotspots to inform its prevention and response policies.”
The world’s oldest surviving communications company, BT began as The Electric Telegraph Company in 1846. The company provides a range of communications solutions to customers in over 170 countries. Not surprisingly, it is the official Communications Services partner for the London 2012 Olympic Games.
Cynthia Murrell, August 16, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
PredPol Algorithm Credited for Reduced Crime
August 15, 2012
It looks like an algorithm from startup PredPol is successfully reducing crime, we learn in “L.A. Cops Embrace Crime-Predicting Algorithm” at MIT’s Technology Review. The analysis software, previously tested in Santa Cruz, CA, was recently used in a Los Angeles precinct, and officials were pleased with the results.
The software, according to PredPol, was twice as good as human analysts at predicting where car break-ins and burglaries would occur. When patrol officers focused on the areas identified by the algorithm, those places say a 25 percent reduction in reported burglaries. Reporter David Talbot describes the process:
“The inputs are straightforward: previous crime reports, which include the time and location of a crime. The software is informed by sociological studies of criminal behavior, which include the insight that burglars often ply the same area.
“The system produces, for each patrol shift, printed maps speckled with red boxes, 500 feet on each side, suggesting where property crimes—specifically, burglaries and car break-ins and thefts—are statistically more likely to happen. Patterns detected over a period of several years—as well as recent clusters—figure in the algorithm, and the boxes are recalibrated for each patrol shift based on the timeliest data.”
It is difficult to definitively prove that the application is directly responsible for the reduced crime rate, though the team did all it could to make the case; the results of using the software’s reports compared favorably to those of human analysts’ recommendations and to randomly generated red boxes. At the very least, though, using the software reduces the time officers must spend planning their beats, so they can spend more time on the streets. That’s a good thing.
The fledgling company PredPol seeks to fill an important niche, helping police departments to be more successful even as they must cope with plunging budgets. The software sprang from computer science and anthropological research performed at Santa Clara University and the University of California, Los Angeles. The company is based in Santa Cruz.
Cynthia Murrell, August 15, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
IntelTrax Top Stories: August 3 to August 9
August 13, 2012
This week, the IntelTrax blog delivered some informative posts that discuss the issues surrounding big data analytics technology in today’s workforce.
While many articles discuss the prevalence of analytics technology in various industries, “Troubling News for the Analytics Needy” looks at those that are not using it.
A recent survey found:
“Fifty-six percent of respondents indicated they will not be deploying big data analytics applications even beyond 2013, the survey of 255 IT professionals found. Half of those surveyed were data storage professionals at the analyst level; the other half comprised IT managers, vice presidents and CIOs…Survey respondents with no plans to roll out Hadoop or other big data analytics software said doing so requires a specific business case, and in most instances they didn’t see a need for it, according to Marco Coulter, managing director of TheInfoPro’s Cloud Computing Practice.”
Another interesting piece is “Big Data Law Might Be Changing.” It discusses the fear that many have of data analytics technology falling into the wrong hands. One suggestion has been to grant the legal right to accessing personal information of third parties as a way to incentivize transparency.
Writer Patrick Roland concludes:
“This is promising news for a population concerned with the potentially invasive nature of data mining and analytics. After last year’s surprising Supreme Court ruling that basically let Vermont sales reps mine doctors’ patient lists, we are pleased to see reasonable thought return to the table. We can only hope they further find ways that help us utilize this strong technology, while still keeping wrongdoers away.”
One industry that is already seeing lucrative returns on its investment in data analytics technology is Wall Street Investors. “Big Data Promises Big Returns for Stock Investors”
references an article that discusses why savvy stock traders should pay attention to the latest analytics technology.
The article states:
“At the heart of the feed from ORATS is the use of “implied dividends” – the dividend levels implied by prices within the options markets. In the case of equities that have both dividends and exchange-traded options on their stock, the dividend price is a major component in the calculation that traders use to compute a fair price for those options. ORATS runs that calculation backwards to compute “implied dividends”, a measure that reveals the broad consensus of all players in the options market about how much a company will pay as a dividend along the entire option expiration calendar”.
All three of these stories provide different avenues to get to the same conclusion. Investing in data analytics technology is an integral way for companies to make the most out of the unstructured data that is being put out on a daily basis. It is important that you find a reputable company with affordable solutions like Digital Reasoning.
Jasmine Ashton, August 13, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.
Open Source Solutions Continue to Gain Popularity
August 13, 2012
The H Open recently reported on some new developments for the open source search, discovery and analytics company Lucid Imagination in the article, “Lucid Imagination Becomes LucidWorks.”
According to the article, after continuously having customers confuse the name of the company with its flagship product, Lucid Imagination decided to go along with the customers perceptions and change its name to LucidWorks as means of avoiding further complicating branding efforts.
In addition its two product lines: LucidWorks Search and LucidWorks Big Data, both of which draw from open source products, the company has some additional plans on the horizon:
“LucidWorks has also announced that, in September, it will be setting up a community site called SearchHub.org, which will be oriented at developers. It is planned that this will include a blog from Lucene/Solr committers; of the 35 committers on the project, nine work for LucidWorks. Other planned features include video tutorials, podcasts, a community forum, up-to-date information on Lucene/Solr, and a calendar of enterprise search related hackathons and meetups.”
LucidWorks is an example of a company that has created an enterprise-grade embedded search development solution built on the power of the Apache Lucene/Solr open source search project. As technology continues to advance, companies that utilize open source technology are going to have an edge over their competition.
Jasmine Ashton, August 13, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Pentaho Semaphonic and Infobright Partner to Tackle Big Data
August 13, 2012
A partnership between three Web analytics organizations is another to keep your eye on. The press release, “Pentaho, Semaphonic and Infobright Deliver Big Data Web Analytics,” uncovers the meaningful union intended to help organizations maximize the value of their Websites as lead generation and revenue engines.
Pentaho, specializing in business analytics, is teaming up with Web analytics consultancy Semphonic and high-performance database Infobright to tackle big data concerns. The partnership is intended to bring together everything organizations need to understand their online channels better and what to do wit that knowledge.
Susan Davis, Vice President of Marketing at Infobright, comments on the partnership in the news release:
“This partnership makes it easy for organizations to use their detailed Web analytics data to drive business improvement. With their expertise in Web analytics and measurement, Semphonic helps organizations understand what data is important and how to use it to their advantage. Using Infobright technology simplifies the process of storing and analyzing the growing volumes of Web data at a fraction of the cost of traditional approaches, while letting companies gain a deep level of data analysis delivered in interactive user-driven visualization and dashboards from Pentaho.”
An interactive demo is available at http://webanalytics.infobright.com/ and will show users how to gain insight from detailed Web data. The trio is sure to help organizations find a way to meaningfully and easily understand digital behavior at the customer level.
Andrea Hayden, August 13, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
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