Enterprise Software Pre-Buy Checklist
February 15, 2009
Enterprise software is a sector showing signs of stress. Some enterprise systems don’t work very well regardless of which vendor’s system is in a data center. Other vendors are gobbling up companies, disregarding the energy depletion that occurs when acquisitions occur. The talk is about synergy, not performance enhancing supplements required to make the deal work. Some buyers are following the “Fire, Ready, Aim” approach to decision making. Other idiosyncrasies exist. I found the Inside ERP “Midmarket ERP Solutions Checklist”, a two page write up interesting. You can download the paper here, but you will have to register to get the document. I don’t want to reproduce the full checklist. I do want to highlight three items and offer a comment about each. Most of the items in the checklist apply to enterprise search and content processing.
- Who is the owner of the project? Good question. In my experience, most organizations rotate “owners”, creating an ownerless situation that helps increase the likelihood of cost overruns.
- What is the specific business problem the system must solve? This basic question is usually answered in clumps of problems. The problem with clumps is that like a shotgun blast no single pellet will kill Bambie. A blast can wound Bambie, not get the job done in a clean, efficient, humane manner. Most enterprise search systems would the information problem and then create havoc as the procurement team tries to chase the wounded problem to ground.
- Will the enterprise system adapt to change? In my experience, enterprise software expects the licensee to change. The result is an SAP type experience which grinds down the customer. Once the system is installed, who has the energy to repeat the process?
As I read this checklist, I said to myself, “That cloud computing approach looks mighty appealing.” Snag the white paper and look at the other items. Soul searching time arrived as I worked through the list.
Stephen Arnold, February 15, 2009
Cloud Computing’s Challenges
February 14, 2009
If you have 15 minutes this weekend, you will want to download and read “Above the Clouds: A Berkeley View of Cloud Computing”. You can get a copy here. Some of the challenges are blasts from the past which continue to kick the tail of 20 somethings with more confidence than knowledge of system architecture. One example is the difficulty of scaling quickly. The discussion of the challenges is interesting. For me the most interesting section was “Elasticity: Shifting the Risk”, which begins on page 12. The list of 10 challenges struck me as a useful checklist for evaluating the current Microsoft data center initiative. I then looked at the 10 challenges as a yardstick for Google. I found the comparison a helpful tool in figuring out what each company must do to remain contenders in the cloud scape that is forming.
Stephen Arnold, February 14, 2009
Google Blood Hound: The Movie
February 13, 2009
Privacy mavens will want to read Gizmodo’s “My Tracks for Android Logs Your Day via GPS, Uploads to Google Maps” here. I don’t want to spoil your fun or your paranoia. For me the most interesting comment in the write up by John Mahoney was:
Along with the mapping, the app displays statistics in real time like elevation, distance traveled, speed, etc. My Tracks can also use Google Docs’ little-known but very cool ability to receive the output of web forms in a spreadsheet, so you can track your routes and see your average speed over time.
And, yes, Mr. Mahoney includes a link to a video to make the potential of the My Tracks application quite clear to good guys, to bad guys, and all the guys in between. To crank your fear knob, read this article.
Stephen Arnold, February 13, 2009
IBM: Covering Its Bases
February 12, 2009
The love affair between IBM and Microsoft cooled years ago. After the divorce, Microsoft took the bank account and the personal computer industry. IBM entered counseling and emerged a consulting firm with some fascination for its former vocation as world’s leading computer and software company.
Jump to the present day. IBM has batted its eyes at Googzilla. IBM and Google have teamed to stimulate the flow of programmers from universities. You can refresh your memory here. In 2008, I received a copy of a letter to an intermediary that said, in part, we understand Googzilla quite well. The outfit interested in this answer was not the addled goose. The interested party was a certain government agency. That outfit was not confident IBM understood Googzilla fully. I wrote about this in a Web log story last year. You can find the article here.
IBM issued a news release here that has been picked up by various information services. The headline makes clear that IBM is not going steady with the GOOG: “IBM to Deliver Software via Cloud Computing With Amazon Web Services”. You can read the full article here. In a nutshell, IBM wants to
make available new Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) at no charge for development and test purposes, enabling software developers to quickly build pre-production applications based on IBM software within Amazon EC2. The new portfolio will over time extend to include Service Management capabilities from IBM Tivoli software for Amazon EC2 to help clients better control and automate their dynamic infrastructures in the cloud.
The idea is a good one. But the significance of this deal is that IBM is making clear to the GOOG that a certain someone is no longer numero uno. IBM is playing the field. Amazon has outpaced Google in some cloud services and by spending a fraction of the billions Google has invested. What’s IBM know that I don’t?
Stephen Arnold, February 12, 2009
Google Threatened by Twitter
February 9, 2009
I read Lew Moorman’s “Google’s First Real Threat? Twitter” after walking by the field reworked by the Great Ice Storm. Branches and trees left the line of woods gat toothed. Forces of nature reword a familiar landscape with little effort. You will want to read Mr. Moorman’s comment here. He wrote:
So Twitter has value as a niche search engine today. Who cares? No one really. But, there is more. Twitter is building a human powered search indexing engine. It is an engine that will build better results than any rules based index and has gotten millions of people super motivated to contribute for free every day (even though they don’t know it).
If he is correct, Twitter could affect Googzilla’s paws like a gym-transferred fungus. Under certain conditions, an annoyance can become life threatening. Mr. Moorman asserts the Twitter may be a digital fungus that could under certain circumstances overwhelm the GOOG.
A metaphor of Twitter users: “Sort of organized” like a flock of my best friends. Source: http://i.pbase.com/u41/muskrat/upload/26712589.QET1245MoonandGeese.jpg
As I proofed read this post, the chimes on my newsreader delivered a clump of responses to Mr. Moorman’s article. You will want to read John Borthwick’s “Google Next Victim of Creative Destruction?” here. He adds a useful comment about Twitter’s representing a move to “real time search”. Mr. Borthwick includes a useful link to a post by Gerry Campbell here. I liked the echo of that prose master Joseph A. Schumpter, although I think Clayton Christensen may be more familiar to the Twitter crowd.
In my opinion, Twitter is in a race of sorts. The system has demonstrated some fragility as users have become interested in microblogging, breaking information down into crunchy chunks. Listening to certain podcasts originating in California, it is clear that the Twitter users have found the system useful and a convenient way to exchange information in bite-sized nibbles. Stars or Hollywood luminaries’ publicists have discovered Twitter as well.
I picked up Mr. Moorman’s idea and did some preliminary thinking, which is subject to goosely revision:
| Microblogging base with millions of users | Stub services available within Android; low profile |
| Applications are possible, driven by informed users | Google’s social publishing Knol not successful; maybe a core problem |
| High visibility among the social media adopters | Google may have greater brand impact; social functions growing visibility |
| Subject to technical glitches | Google infrastructure seems more stable |
| Content is user generated with minimal machine generation of outputs or results | Machine-centric; social operations lag |
| Monetization model somewhat uncertain; subscription like SMS may be one avenue | Google has options for its business models, billing systems in place |
| Infrastructure costs to scale unknown | Google infrastructure in place |
| Cash position dependent on investors | Strong cash position; options to get more capital if needed are available |
Mr. Moorman is correct when he identifies “tweets” as a useful content form. He is correct when he asserts that a question posed to a community of followers can produce useful information, maybe not exactly like a search system that indexes about one trillion documents, but good and different.
My thoughts are:
- Maybe Google will take a long-term view to this type of information system just as it has done in the enterprise? Google’s hanging back creates an IBM-like FUD factor. When Google moves, the action is disruptive even if it does not generate significant revenue in the short term
- Could Google embed a Twitter function in its “stubs” that connect users to the Google infrastructure? Chrome extensions, Android applications, and telco partners might offer some purchase in this space?
- Why not buy Twitter? Google has the cash and investors respond to the sight, smell, and touch of cash? The economy is not too healthy, and if a Googler makes a compelling pitch, Twitter could follow in the footsteps of Keyhole or Blogger.com; that is, become an enabler in a much larger ecosystem.
The social search and social software space is evolving rapidly. From my vantage point in the hills of Kentucky, I remain on the fence. Security, message integrity, spoofing, “ownership” of customers and content, and provenance give me some stale crusts on which to chew with my beak. These issues do not worry the young users nor the tech savvy early adopters who know the ropes of online. For more seasoned geese, Twitter is interesting. Twitter may kill Google, but I think it will like the foot fungus take some time to overwhelm Googzilla.
Stephen Arnold, February 9, 2009
Ballmer on Google’s Enterprise Pricing
February 9, 2009
Not long ago, I did some poking around to get a sense for Google’s pricing of the Google Search Appliance. What I discovered was that it was among the most expensive search solutions. I also learned that organizations that wanted the GSA did not seem particularly price sensitive. Google is to some synonymous with search, and the organizations that want a Google solution simply don’t think too much about the two year licensing deal, the cost of hot spares, and the fees slapped on to switch a machine from back up mode to production mode. Makes zero difference to me. Most organizations are clueless about search, and after a few months with the new search system, users are grousing again.
I was surprised with a short news story in Truemores here, however. Steve Ballmer is reported to have expressed the opinion that Google’s enterprise products and services are over priced. I wonder if he had poked into pricing for the Google Search Appliance or he was confining his remarks to the $50 per user for Google Apps. The story contained a couple of memorable comments in my opinion.
First, Mr. Ballmer is alleged to have said: “We’re not talking about some screwball consumer thing now. We’re talking about the enterprise.” I wonder if the screwball thing is the Zune or Vista?
Second, Mr. Ballmer is alleged to have suggested: “The $50 per user per year price tag on Google’s product [is] overpriced.” Maybe but I saw some hefty price tags at Office Depot on Microsoft Office today. To be fair, Microsoft deals with CALs, an acronym for wheeling and dealing for software.
If the price insensitivity I discovered transfers to Google Apps, Mr. Ballmer may have the satisfaction of knowing that he was right. Being “right”, however, does not mean that the GOOG won’t trample through Microsoft’s most best revenue vineyard.
Stephen Arnold, February 8, 2009
Google Latitude: Search without Entering Keywords
February 8, 2009
I have been fascinated by the media and public reaction to Google’s Lattitude service. For a representative example, check out the Scientific American’s story here. The idea is that a Google user can activate a tracking feature for friends. The Lattitude service is positioned as a option for users. The GOOG’s intent is to allow friends and maybe people like parents to see where a person is on a Google Map. Wow, I received several telephone calls and agree to participate in two live radio talk show interviews. The two hosts were concerned that their location could be tracked by anyone at any time. Well, that’s sort of correct but Google Lattitude is not the outfit doing that type of tracking as far as I know.
A couple of points I noted that caught the attention of the media personalities who spoke with me:
- There was zero awareness that triangulation is a well-known method. GPS equipped devices that transmit happily even when the owner thinks a device is “off” is a standard in certain law enforcement sectors. One anecdote that made the rounds in 2001 was that a certain person of interest loaned his personal mobile phone to a courier who was fetching videos from a city in a far off land. The homing device in the nose of the missile destroyed the courier’s four wheel drive vehicle. The person of interest switched to a pay as you go phone, having learned an important lesson.
- The details of the Google Lattitude service, which is flakey and crashes even in Chrome, did not sink into the media personalities’ knowledgebase. Google makes clear what the service is and does. The words don’t resonate. Fear does. Little wonder that there is a thriving business is discussing this immature Google service which works only with certain software on the user’s mobile device. Gory details are here.
- The chipper Googler who does the video about he service sounds to me as if the speaker was a cheerleader at a private school where each student had a horse and a chauffeur. There was what I think one wacky college professor called “cognitive dissonance”. Tracking my husband is, like, well, so coool. Maybe it is my age, but this eager beaver approach to friend tracking troubled me more than the unstable, crash prone service. The video is here.
Next week you will be able to navigate to a Web page and run a query across Google’s USPTO documents and have one click access to a PDF of the patent document. The service is up now and one vendor’s search system is available at this time, but I hope to add additional search systems so you can explore the disclosure corpus yourself. These “innovations” are several years old if you have been reading Google’s technical papers and its patent documents. The baloney that a patent document does not become a product does not hold for Googzilla. If you have been reading my analyses of these documents in The Google Legacy (2005) and Google Version 2.0 (2007) you already know that what is now making its way to alpha and beta testing is three, maybe four years old.
My take on this is that Google watchers are getting blindsided and overly excited too late in the game. When the GOOG rolls out a service or allows a Google wizard to appear in public, the deal is done. Concern about tracking is like fretting over the barn fire three years after the fact. Silly waste of time. The GOOG does a lousy job of hiding its technical direction but few take the time to dig out the information.
Radio hosts should start reading Google technical papers. Would that raise the level of discourse? The tracking service has significant implications for medical device vendors, shipping companies, and law enforcement. So far few pundits are tackling these applications in a substantive way. I touch upon these issues in my forthcoming Google: The Digital Gutenberg here.
Stephen Arnold, February 8, 2009
Google’s Medical Probe
February 5, 2009
Yikes, a medical probe. Quite an image for me. In New York City at one of Alan Brody’s events in early 2007, I described Google’s “I’m feeling doubly lucky” invention. The idea was search without search. One example I used to illustrate search without search was a mobile device that could monitor a user’s health. The “doubly lucky” metaphor appears in a Google open source document and suggests that a mobile device can react to information about a user. In one use case, I suggested, Google could identify a person with a heart problem and summon assistance. No search required. The New York crowd sat silent. One person from a medical company asked, “How can a Web search and advertising company play a role in health care?” I just said, “You might want to keep your radar active?” In short, my talk was a bust. No one had a clue that Google could do mobile, let alone mobile medical devices. Those folks probably don’t remember my talk. I live in rural Kentucky and clearly am a bumpkin. But I think when some of the health care crowd read “Letting Google Take Your Pulse” in the oh-so-sophisticated Forbes Magazine, on February 5, 2009, those folks will have a new pal at trade shows. Googzilla is in the remote medical device monitoring arena. You can read the story here–just a couple of years after Google disclosed the technology in a patent application. No sense in rushing toward understanding the GOOG when you are a New Yorker, is there? For me, the most interesting comment in the Forbes’s write up was:
For IBM, the new Google Health functions are also a dress rehearsal for “smart” health care nationwide. The computing giant has been coaxing the health care industry for years to create a digitized and centrally stored database of patients’ records. That idea may finally be coming to fruition, as President Obama’s infrastructure stimulus package works its way through Congress, with $20 billion of the $819 billion fiscal injection aimed at building a new digitized health record system.
Well, better to understand too late than never. Next week I will release a service to complement Oversight to allow the suave Manhattanites an easy way to monitor Google’s patent documents. The wrong information at the wrong time can be hazardous to a health care portfolio in my opinion.
Stephen Arnold, February 5, 2009
Mysteries of Online 4: The Bits Are Bits Fallacy
February 5, 2009
In a meeting last week, a young wizard said, “Bits are bits.” The context for this statement was a meeting to move an organization’s databased information and unstructured text online. The idea was that the task was trivial.
In fact, the task was a mixture of trivial and non-trivial sub tasks. So, bits are not the same because a zero and one may not behave like grains of salt. The ones and zeros may look the same, but one of the mysteries of online is that many factors bedevil the would be online entrepreneur. Google, for example, wants out of its AOL deal. Obviously the bit wizards at Google know that AOL bits are not Google bits here. But the GOOG dumped some serious coinage into the online company direct mail spam made famous.
Â
Bits are bits just like penguins.
Here’s my list of factors, which is not complete and represents my thoughts to myself:
- Digital objects have stages. The source may be transformed, indexed, tokenized, and manipulated by two or more sub sub systems. Get these processes wrong, and weird behaviors become apparent. What’s wrong? Who knows. A person or persons have to figure it out, find a fix, and implement it. As this process goes forward, it becomes apparent that the bits are a tad mischievous
- A fancy search system cannot locate a document or other object. Indexing systems may skip malformed documents, indexes may not update, and other issues annoy users. What went wrong? Who knows. A person or persons have to figure it out, find a fix, and implement it.
- A document returns a 404 or file not found error. The document used to exist because it is in the index. Now the document has gone walkabout. What’s wrong? Who knows. A person or persons have to figure it out, find a fix, and implement it.
Causes
I wish I had a fool proof way to prevent errors caused by this “bits are bits” fallacy. Much of he frustration generated by search, content management, and business intelligence systems have their roots wrapped tightly around the facile assumption that electronic information is no big deal. Electronic information is a big deal and for many organizations electronic information may be their undoing. The reason? Many assume that once a file is in electronic form, the rest is easy.
Google Versus Big ISPs: A Battle Brewing
January 29, 2009
“Google Begins Effort to Find Internet Blockers”, a Reuters story here, caught my attention. The GOOG is making servers available so researchers can find chokepoints where “net neutrality” is violated. As a former Bell Labs’s contractor, a Bellcore contractor, and a USWest contractor, I’m not going to jump into this stew. I think that is news item, if accurate, marks a turning point in Googzilla’s trajectory. I am going to stick close to my nest in Harrod’s Creek, Kentucky, on this skirmish. The “new” AT&T versus the remnants of the “old” AT&T. Should be interesting.
Stephen Arnold, January 29, 2009
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
