KiteDesk Aggregates Cloud Services with Actionable Data
September 8, 2012
KiteDesk, a company focused on integrating multiple cloud services in one location, got a major redesign this week for the company’s official launch. According to the article released about the service on Tech Crunch, titled “KiteDesk Goes Where Greplin Failed: Aggregates Cloud Services for Search, Discovery & Interoperability,” the platform lets users connect email, contacts, calendar events, documents from social networking, and more in your KiteDesk account. From there, you can search all of these services at once and organize the data. KiteDesk is not the first company to try to aggregate the cloud, but most other startups have not fared well.
The article gives this insight:
“[…]KiteDesk co-founder and CEO Jack Kennedy says that he thinks companies that have attempted to compete in this space have been too narrowly focused to achieve the goals that are emerging for this class of software. ‘We see Personalized Information as a “Macro Trend” that’s buttressed by other trends like BYOD, consumerization of I.T., and a gradually diminishing line between personal and professional systems,’ he explains.”
KiteDesk may succeed where others have failed by focusing more on letting users move files between services and creating streams to customize data instead of simply searching and sharing. The company is currently taking sign-ups for the free service and we look forward to seeing more from this niche.
Andrea Hayden, September 08, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.
Mindbreeze InSite Wins KMWorld Trendsetting Product Award
September 4, 2012
KMWorld has just announced the 2012 winners of their highly coveted Trendsetting Product Award and Mindbreeze yet again makes the prestigious list. The September 3rd press release begins:
Mindbreeze receives the prestigious KMWorld Award for Mindbreeze InSite. The ‘Trend-Setting Products 2012’ were selected from more than 700 entries. KMWorld is the leading magazine for Knowledge Management Systems and Content and Document Management in the US. Mindbreeze scored highly yet again with the KMWorld jury, receiving the prestigious KMWorld Award for Mindbreeze InSite. The “Trend-Setting Products 2012” were selected from more than 700 entries. KMWorld is the leading magazine for Knowledge Management Systems and Content and Document Management in the US. It is the fifth time in succession that Mindbreeze has won this award.
Mindbreeze has been awarded a KMWorld Trendsetting Product Award five years in a row. While Mindbreeze is grounded on the strength of its enterprise search offering, Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise, InSite meets a new niche as organizations realize the importance of their public facing Web sites. Bring the same intuitive search to your public facing Web presence that organizations have used for years to control their internal enterprise search. In doing so your organization will join the ranks of other InSite users who can measure how often content is searched for, therefore maximizing content to increase sales and customer satisfaction.
Emily Rae Aldridge, September 4, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.
Semantics and Facets in Mindbreeze InSite
August 30, 2012
Fabasoft Mindbreeze will not only meet your internal enterprise search needs, but can also meet external needs in terms of your public facing Web site. Fabasoft Mindbreeze InSite can provide your users with intuitive search on your Web presence. The Fabsoft Mindbreeze blog entry, “Semantics and Facets: Mindbreeze InSite Makes Your News Cosmos ‘Sexy,’” pays attention to the topic.
The author begins:
The key term is semantic search, which means ‘understanding content.’ And I’m proud to be able to report that Mindbreeze InSite can do this perfectly. But how does it work? It’s not magic code, just statistical mathematics and sophisticated content analysis. Both aspects molded together in one program give Mindbreeze its power to ‘think.’ Through content analysis and statistics, Mindbreeze InSite really can be tailored to meet the individual needs of each website operator. Essentially the result is always the same: The perfect search results you need quickly. You can also search, for example, according to author, topic, tags and terms.
The semantic and faceted search can pay real dividends for your business. Users appreciate a hassle-free and intuitive experience when navigating a Web site. This can be especially useful in retail contexts. In addition, Fabasoft Mindbreeze backs all their products with outstanding customer support and frequent updates.
Emily Rae Aldridge, August 30, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.
Fabasoft Mindbreeze Even Better with Summer 2012 Release
August 29, 2012
One of the many positives to the Fabasoft Mindbreeze suite of solutions is the company’s dedication to quarterly updates. Fabasoft Mindbreeze ensures that customers keep up with current trends while never having to bother with disruptive overhauls. Unlike Microsoft, famous for its three-year cycle of software updates, Fabasoft Mindbreeze ensures that products are constantly improved instead of infrequently replaced. The summer 2012 release of Fabasoft Mindbreeze pays a lot of attention to social media needs.
The Fabasoft Mindbreeze blog says:
Nowadays almost every company uses social media tools such as Twitter and Facebook just as much as a document management system. So why not use these tools to collect our search results? The new Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise 2012 Summer Release offers exactly this possibility: Collect from all open interfaces. This helps a company’s employees to save time and energy for the most important tasks, thereby increasing customer satisfaction.
In addition to paying attention to Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise, Fabasoft Mindbreeze InSite also gets some attention. InSite gets a facelift with federating capabilities.
Individualism also applies to federated data sources with Fabasoft Mindbreeze InSite. Your website visitors can find what they’re looking for quickly and easily. Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise and Fabasoft Mindbreeze InSite make you ready for the future. Connect Enterprise and the Cloud. Conveniently and easily.
Regardless of your enterprise technology needs, Fabasoft Mindbreeze has a solution to help you meet it.
Emily Rae Aldridge, August 29, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.
Kona Data Search Bets on Salesforce as Salesforce Swims Against the Current
August 27, 2012
One-size-fits-all search has become a tough sale. Presumably clever enterprise search vendors have embraced wordsmithing in order to boost sales. Examples range from converting a deduplicating technology into big data, shifting an entity extraction program to business analytics, and presenting XML as a “new” content manipulation tool which slices, dices, and chops with ease.
I learned via a random LinkedIn message that a copy called Kona Data Search. I pinged the company, was promised information, and even followed up (a rare action for the addled goose). After some dithering, I checked out the company’s Web site (which created some choking and stumbling for my so-so Chrome browser) and learned:
Kona Search [for Salesforce] is a relevancy-based text search application for Salesforce, with a Search Results page and a pop-up sidebar, or “Search Gadget,” for persistent display. Relevancy is a way of sorting search results based on how well they match the terms in a user’s query. You may be familiar with relevancy from public web search applications like Google search. KonaSearch applies the same principals to Salesforce objects. Also like the web search applications, KonaSearch highlights the words that match in the results so you can see why an object was included. The current release can search text, dates, and numbers for the main Sales Cloud objects. Immediately following this release will be more Salesforce products, Chatter®, and Microsoft Outlook.
Searching for information on Salesforce is okay. There are problems when one has quite a few employees using Salesforce and a super user needs to pinpoint a specific email or contact interaction chain for something like eDiscovery or checking up on a sales professional who has just resigned.
Kona asserts that it delivers such functionality as:
- Auto suggestion
- Field specific search
- Date and number search
- Entity extraction
- Facets
- Nested Boolean
- Phrase detection
- Spelling correction
- Stemming
- Synonym expansion
- Term biasing (weighting)
- Wildcards
The service costs about $240 per user per year.
In short, Kona includes the basics of what might be called traditional enterprise search. Google’s original search appliance intentionally trimmed such functions from its user interface. The assumption was that enterprise users don’t know how to formulate complex queries and are more interested in slamming in a word or two and getting relevant results. We know that neither traditional enterprise search nor the Google approach has hit home runs over the last few years.
What makes Kona interesting is that it is approaching the market with what appears to be an initial focus on Salesforce. (Versions of Kona for other systems is promised, however.) Now Salesforce is an interesting company, but I heard a rumor that Google considered purchased Salesforce seven years ago. But Google passed. Now Salesforce has to fight the likes of Oracle and smaller companies’ iPad apps to stay in the game. Salesforce has the same cost control problem that is gobbling Amazon’s margins.
According to “Salesforce Losses Swell, Despite Rise in Sales,” high flying Salesforce may have sucked some errant geese into its jet engines. The Register said:
Software-as-a-Service pin-up Salesforce.com reported growing losses despite increased sales. The hosted CRM provider reported a loss of $9.82m on a 34 per cent increase in net sales to $73.6m for the three-month period to 31 July.
Then added, “The company’s costs are increasing as it adds more staff to sell to the enterprise, against rivals such as Oracle and SAP.”
Here in Harrod’s Creek, the river dogs say, “Rising water lifts them boats.” What happens when the water level falls? Will Kona be able to float the Salesforce boat or will Salesforce get stuck in the mud and drag down Kona? We are monitoring the revenue flow gauge.
Stephen E Arnold, August 27, 2012
Sponsored by Augmentext
IntelTrax Top Stories August 17 to August 23
August 27, 2012
This week the IntelTrax advanced intelligence blog published some innovative articles regarding the state of analytics solutions and the various industries that they are permeating.
“Analytics Providers on Roll with Online Marketing” discusses how data analytics is slowly but surely breaking into the online marketing industry through partnerships that offer customers online marketing analytics.
The article highlights a recent partnership between Emory Digital and National Analytics:
“The platform includes a daily website audit, competitive position and gap analysis, website analysis, keyword analysis, link analysis, conversion analysis, benchmark tracking and ROI tracking, and project management. The software tracks Key Performance Indicators that go far beyond search engine rankings. It measures brand engagement, pages bringing traffic, page view per visit, new visits, time on site, bounce rate, goal conversions, ecommerce transactions and revenue and lead generation.”
Another industry that is starting to rely as heavily on data mining as rock mining is the field of geology. “Big Data Teams with Geologists to Mine the Earth” discusses how there is a new tool that speeds up the process of data mining and exploration for geologists.
The article details:
“GDD’s Field Data Integrator combines best-of-breed technologies for collecting, managing and analyzing data more rapidly. The end-to-end solution enables geologists to collect samples in shorter time frames, and then quickly analyze large volumes sample data for complex scenarios such as such as project timings, cash flows and profitability with greater sensitivity levels….GDD’s Field Data Integrator automatically synchronizes sample data from various field instruments, GPS, and cameras onto a ‘tough’ tablet using Bluetooth. Geologists enter notes directly onto the tablet using on-screen or wireless keyboards, enabling all data on samples to be collected automatically into a single source. The tablet then automatically synchronizes with a master database running Vectorwise whenever in mobile range, saving geologists time in manual data entry.”
The Financial industry is also being highly impacted by data analytics, according to “Cloud Makes Financial Analysis Easier.” The post discusses a new cloud based data visualization system called Adaptive Discovery. Adaptive Planning, the creator of the new product, claims that it has an intuitive visual interface that will appeal to business managers, allowing them to more easily access, analyze, and explore key financial and operational data.
The article states:
“Adaptive Discovery, the visual discovery application within the Adaptive Planning suite of performance management solutions, allows companies of all sizes to quickly and easily understand and take action upon their companywide data. Business users can easily compile, display and explore data from multiple systems and lines of business with highly visual, interactive dashboards and scorecards. The application presents data in ways that managers can easily grasp, so they are able to make better day-to-day decisions. Adaptive Discovery delivers an exciting new level of capability and interactivity that is far superior to both static data in spreadsheets and the limited reporting options available in existing enterprise applications.”
While Adaptive Discovery is one solution that improves data mining, there are also other affordable data analytics solutions on the market. Digital Reasoning has a long standing reputation of bringing data analytics to a variety of industries, including the financial world.
Jasmine Ashton, August 27, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.
Boost a Public Facing Web Site with a Design to Find
August 27, 2012
When it comes to providing users with a powerful search and getting the most from your content, look to experts in the field. At Fabasoft Mindbreeze, they have developed a suite of solutions that combines the power of search with information pairing, the Cloud, and smartphone and tablet mobility.
It is clear that Cloud hosting is becoming a go to data solution for organizations around the globe. Fabasoft Mindbreeze understands the need for expanded information access the save users valuable time when it comes to search. The same principle holds true for your Web site. Here you can read about the Fabasoft Mindbreeze InSite solution:
An attractive website serves as an effective digital business card. Surprise your website visitors with an intuitive search.
Fabasoft Mindbreeze InSite…
* is intuitive and user friendly.
* is instantly ready for use as a Cloud service. It turns your website into a user-friendly knowledge portal for your customers.
* recognizes correlations and links through semantic and dynamic search processes. This delivers pinpoint accurate and precise “finding experiences”.
* is the perfect website search for your company.
No installation, configuration or maintenance required.
We also like Mindbreeze’s impressive portfolio of references and customers. Dr. Manfred Weiss of Computerwelt, Austria has this to say about the InSite solution:
We want stand out from the crowds with a top internet presence. Fabasoft Mindbreeze InSite is a part of this strategy. Our readers value the service of a perfect search. Regardless in which of our portals the information is available, Mindbreeze finds what you’re looking for. Since the search function is operated as a Cloud service, we save time and money.
Read more at www.Mindbreeze.com.
Philip West, August 27, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.
DataStax Taps Gazzang for Encryption Needs
August 27, 2012
Protecting data in the cloud is the goal of this partnership: Sys-Con Media tells us, “Gazzang and DataStax Partner to Deliver Robust Data Security for Big Data.” Now Gazzang’s zNcrypt encryption and security software is an integrated part of DataStax’ Enterprise Edition. A mighty good idea. Writer David Tishgart reports:
“Within DataStax Enterprise, Gazzang zNcrypt works as a last line of defense for protecting data, by transparently encrypting and securing information as it gets written to disk, ensuring minimal performance lag in the encryption or decryption process. The solution also includes robust key management and process-based access controls that meet compliance regulations and allow users to store their cryptographic keys separate from the encrypted data.”
DataStax build products around three Apache open source components: Cassandra database, Hadoop analytics, and Solr enterprise search. Their enterprise level software ties the three together under one management solution. Prominent customers include Netflix, Disney, and Cisco, but the company also delves into the specialized verticals market.
Operating out of Austin, Texas, Gazzang works to make this whole cloud thing efficient and secure. Their products secure anything, big data or otherwise, that runs on Linux; they also offer monitoring, alerting, and analysis solutions for cloud environments.
Cynthia Murrell, August 27, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Measuring Emotion in the Enterprise
August 24, 2012
We thought SharePoint incorporated social functions. We also thought Fast Search offered sentiment analysis via Lexalytics‘ technology. More must be needed, since CIO now declares, “Yammer Lets Organizations Measure Emotions in Enterprise Social Networks.” The write up informs us:
“Yammer is adding functionality to its cloud-based enterprise social networking (ESN) software that lets organizations gauge the types of emotions expressed in employee posts.
“The new capability will be provided via an integration with Kanjoya, whose Crane software is designed to identify and analyze ‘sentiment’ in text, Yammer said on Thursday.
“Yammer customers who sign up for this feature will have a new Crane dashboard in their Yammer admin console that will describe the prevalent mood in reactions from employees in the ESN about specific topics.”
The example given—use the software to analyze emails and other communications to determine how employees feel about a recent benefits change.Crane tracks about 80 different emotions; it allows administrators to search by keywords, narrow reactions by office or department, and create graphical representations of their workers’ feelings.
I know such a tool can be more efficient than simply asking employees for their opinions, especially in large organizations. Still, I just can’t ignore the Orwellian aftertaste left by such innovations. Maybe it’s just me.
Cynthia Murrell, August 24, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Mindbreeze InSite Delivers Powerful Search for Computerwelt Austria
August 23, 2012
Collaboration and advanced social technology is inevitable as business gets social. To keep up in the game, boost your Web site with a search feature that connects users to the right information efficiently and effectively every time. To tap into the possibilities consider looking into a third party solution with references to back up their product to complete your search system.
We like Fabasoft Mindbreeze. The Mindbreeze solution:
smoothly integrates itself into your website so that the user doesn’t even realize that Cloud services are working in the background. Furthermore, InSite always knows what a user is interested in. Navigation behavior on the website serves as the basis for recognizing their interests. If the user finds themselves on one of your sub-pages on the topic mobility for example, even at this level Fabasoft Mindbreeze InSite still displays further information such as blogs, news, Wikipedia etc. on the relevant topic.
To learn more, check out Computerwelt, Austria’s case study. Here you can read about the task at hand for Computerwelt:A professional internet presence is a quality criterion for a leading IT publication. COMPUTERWELT is published on different websites, such as the company database www.top1001.at/ and the portals www.seitenclicke.at, www.itheads.at and www.it-termine.at. Each week brings more than 300 new articles. The existing search was database-based, static and incapable of displaying semantic connections. With Fabasoft Mindbreeze InSite…the user finds relevant information at split-second speed thanks to the program’s semantic capabilities. Moreover, the search is easy to use, intuitive and requires no maintenance effort on the client side.
Check out the full suite of solutions at Mindbreeze to see what works for you.
Philip West, August 23, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.
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