HP Shares Some of Its 2013 Autonomy Positioning
April 17, 2013
Readers of this information service, which I use to keep track of information I find useful for my columns and speeches, know that I have held Autonomy’s marketing in high regard. There are some azure chip consultants and failed webmasters who pointed out that the phrase “meaning based computing” was not particularly useful. I disagreed. Autonomy—the pre acquisition version of the company—was a darned good marketing and sales organization.
What is easily forgotten in today’s “did I get more traffic on my Facebook page” world is that Autonomy excelled in three areas:
- The company was able to enter new markets such as video indexing and fraud detection when other search vendors were running around pitching, “We can index all an organization’s information in one interface.” Autonomy picked a sector and figured out how to paint a compelling story around the IDOL black box, the notion of autonomous operation to reduce some costs, and “meaning based computing.” Competitors responded with a flood of buzz words, which made sense at an off site strategy meeting, but did not translate to simple propositions like “automatic,” reduce costs, and process content in more than 400 different formats.” As a sales pitch, Autonomy did a good job and managed to stay at the top of the search vendor stack in terms of closing deals.
- The company used a combination of buying firms which would permit upsells of IDOL related products and very capable management methods to help make the deals pay off. Examples range from the Zantaz buy and the subsequent leveraging of that firm’s technology into cloud service. Autonomy bought Interwoven and pulled together its marketing services into a reasonably compelling bundle of analytics with IDOL sauce.
- Autonomy developed what I thought were clever products and services which caught the eye of certain customers and helped the firm enter new markets. Examples range from the now mostly forgotten Kenjin (a smart desktop service) to Aurasma, a virtual reality service for print advertisers.
HP’s management and advisors paid a lot of money to own Autonomy. Like most search and content processing acquisitions, the realties of running a company in this very tough sector became apparent after a few months. I am not interested in the financial and legal battles underway. What’s important is that HP purchased a company, and HP now has to make it work.
A very interesting pair of articles or semi-marketing type articles appeared in eWeek on April 16, 2013. The first is “HP’s Autonomy: 10 Ways It’s Contributing to HP’s Hardware Story.” These slideshows are ways to get page views. Please, flip through the images in the slideshow. Here’s what I noted:
First, HP seems to acknowledge that turnover and management of the HP version of Autonomy has been a problem. The slideshow calls this a “rebirth”. But the big news from a marketing historian’s point of view is that “meaning based computing” is gone and replaced by “the OS for human information.” I find this fascinating. On one hand, competitors can now carp at the scope of the IDOL technology. On the other, in this social buzzword era, “human information” is actually quite a nice turn of phrase. I won’t make a big deal of the fact that when IDOL’s fraud detection algorithms are working on content, the data does not have to be “human” at all. It can be based on a person’s credit transaction, but algorithms for fraud work on machine and human generated information. No big deal because such distinctions are not of interest in today’s here and now environment.
Second, I did not notice much emphasis on search and retrieval. For someone familiar with Autonomy IDOL, I suppose that search is self evident. Autonomy, however, is mostly an information access system. The add ons were, as I noted above, were extensions or wrappers of the IDOL core, based on Bayesian methods and enhanced in many ways since the mid 1990s. Yep, Autonomy’s technology may seem magical to HP management, but it has been around a while and does not perform some of the functions which Google backed Recorded Future performs or which a skilled SAP programmer can crank out. To me, this is a big deal because it underscores the futility of HP’s trying to make big money deals based on plain old search. Companies chasing search deals are not landing huge deals like those HP needs to make its top line grow.
Third, the “10 ways” are focused almost exclusively on Autonomy capabilities which have been available for a long time. I think that the notion of putting Autonomy functions in a printer interesting, but that idea has been floating around for years. I heard presentations from Intel and Xerox which talked about putting content processing in hardware. Interesting stuff, but the “10 ways” are useful because each makes clear to competitors where HP’s marketing and sales will be going. Examples include using Autonomy for customer support, content management.
Great stuff.
The second write up is “HP’s Autonomy Focused on Big Data, Cloud, Mobile, Security: GM”.
This write up contains a number of quite useful insights into HP Autonomy. The “voice” of the article is Robert Youngjohns, the HP manager for the Autonomy unit. I found a number of passages which warrant quoting. I want to highlight three snippets from the three page article. You can get the complete picture in the original article which is worth reading carefully.
First, the story contains the reference to “magical”. Autonomy is math, not magic. The use of the word “magical” is fascinating. It suggests that Autonomy goes well beyond what “normal” content processing can deliver.
Second, the interview lays out the markets which Autonomy will focus upon. These are, as I understand the lingo, big data, information governance, and digital marketing. I am not sure what these phrases encompass, but it is clear that “search” is not playing a front and center role.
Third, there is acknowledgment that the content archiving market is important. The pairing of Autonomy and various HP products is significant. Autonomy will be, to some degree, baked into other HP products and services. This is, in my opinion, an extension of the formula which made Autonomy a revenue producer prior to its sale to HP.
Net net: The Autonomy for 2013 will be fascinating to monitor.
Stephen E Arnold, April 17, 2013
Sinequa Lands Eurocopter
April 11, 2013
Sinequa announced that is was selected by Eurocopter, an EADS subsidiary, to improve access to enterprise data and thus increase performance and satisfaction of its employees.
Sinequa is one of the leaders in enterprise search and unified information access, including the emerging big data market. The firm, based in Paris, provides large enterprises and administrations with the means to tame the complexity of their structured and unstructured data and to extract value from large volumes of very heterogeneous data.
Eurocopter was looking for a solution that could meet all its different professional needs in the context of accessing relevant information, rather than creating a specific solution for each profession.
After a proof of concept, Sinequa won the contract competing against a number of big players in the search market. The Sinequa replaced Eurocopter’s existing solution provided by a vendor recently acquired by a large conglomerate.
Eurocopter embraced Sinequa’s “grid architecture” because the approach provides effective scaling. Eurocopter has implemented a five-node Sinequa Grid distributed across the sites at Marignane (Grance), Donauwörth (Germany), and La Courneuve (France). This architecture can easily be extended to subsidiaries in America and Asia.
At this time, two business solutions are in operation. The first is access to technical data for a group of about 800 technical experts. The second provides access to the information on the Eurocopter Intranet. The system supports approximately 15.000 employees of the group working from locations throughout the world.
The Eurocopter professionals working in technical support require relevant information not only in technical data and documentation contained in such systems as Filenet and in operating systems’ file systems and emails. The unified information access offered by the Sinequa platform these Eurocopter professionals assemble the relevant information pertaining to a client case in one structured space. The content in the Sinequa “space” is easily navigated and accessed. In addition, the system provides access to the image bank of helicopters covers four languages: French, German, Spanish, and English. The unified access to data on the Intranet is simpler and offers a new navigation based on search.
Sinequa’s linguistic capabilities help analyze users’ requests as well as the contents of documents. Sinequa’s linguistic methods optimize the relevance of information delivered and, thus, reduce search time to a minimum. Filters and a taxonomy specific to Eurocopter’s activity are used to facilitate the extraction of technical terms from content processed by the Sinequa system.
Due to a high performance generalized search, each and every employee can now find, in real time, the specific information they need for their work images, rules and regulations, agreements, procedures, reports, and forms).
In coming months, Eurocopter plans to extending the usage of Sinequa’s unified information access to other business applications, including
the indexation of further applications, such as product lifecycle management and customer relationship management.
Stephen E Arnold, April 11, 2013
Sponsored by HighGain
BA Insight: More Funding in a Tough Market
April 3, 2013
Some of the search and content processing companies are feeling the economic squeeze. BA Insight, based in New York, does not have this problem. I learned this morning that BA Insight closed a $4.5 million round of funding. The news release sent to me by Big Swing said:
BA Insight’s advanced search technology redefines how people access siloed information and collaborate. Organizations are increasingly dealing with rapidly growing volumes of structured and unstructured data, the inability to integrate information from legacy systems, and the move of many organizational systems to the cloud. As a result they often lack insight into critical business information. BA Insight enables enterprises to bring this information together for users, giving them actionable insights into customers, products, projects, expertise and more.
The key point that jumped out at me was this statement:
“Enterprise search is broken,” said Philip Eliot, Principal at Paladin Capital Group, “and BA Insight is unique in its ability to deliver useful information to the enterprise regardless of where, when and how they need it. Their solutions revolutionize information access.” “Our continued investment in BA Insight reflects our confidence in the ability of BA Insight’s platform to transform search into a powerful weapon for the enterprise,” said Todd Pietri, co-founder and General Partner of Milestone Venture Partners. “BA Insight delivers tools that enable organizations to leverage their investments in existing solutions and expose data in an actionable, relevant way.”
Wroth monitoring.
Stephen E Arnold, April 3, 2013
Sponsored by Augmentext
IBM Content Analytics and Search V2.2 Exam
March 26, 2013
I am not sure how, but two links found their way to me today. The subject of the exam is IBM’s Content Analytics and Search V2.2.
Information about the IBM test is at http://www-03.ibm.com/certify/certs/27003701.shtml. Information about the April 2011 version of the system which is the current one is at this IBM link. The current version is going on three years old, which does not suggest continuous, aggressive updating to me.
The first link points to Blog Pass 4 Test. The site presents some sample questions for the examination, which is part of the IBM certification process.
You can pass the IBM 000-583 (IBM Content Analytics and Search V2.2 with an “examination guide.”
The examination is available from Blog.pass4test.net. Here are three sample questions to whet your appetite:
Which documents from the collection are used to create the clustering proposal?
A. All of the documents in the index are used.
B. A random sample of the number that you specify
C. The first 1000 documents that were added to the index.
D. A round-robin alphabetically ordered sampling from each different crawler
Answer: BWhich languages listed are supported for text analytics collections?
A. French, Arabic, Hindi, Malay
B. German, English, Polish, Greek
C. Hebrew, Italian, English, Russian
D. English, Spanish, Arabic, German
Answer: DWhich is NOT a supported operating system.?
A. AIX 5.3 (32-bit)
B. AIX 6.1 (64-bit)
C. Red Hat Enterprise Linux Advanced Server (32-bit)
D. Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise (32-bit)
Answer: A
Pretty thin gruel for the cold winter mornings required to get complex proprietary and open source systems to work in an optimal manner.
The second link is to Exam 2 Home. The idea is that for $49, a person can buy a PDF with questions and answers. You can find this exam guide at http://www.exam2home.com/000-583.htm. The site asserts:
Many IBM Content Analytics and Search V2.2 test questions or brain dump providers in the market focus solely on passing the exam while skipping the real-world exam preparation. This approach only gives short-term solution while giving the candidates real setbacks in the job market. The main focus of Exam2Home’s IBM 000-583 questions is to teach you the techniques to prepare your exam in the right sense covering all aspects of the exam. We have truly a 1-2 knockout solution for your IBM 000-583 exam.
Two observations. I must be on a list of folks trying to master IBM Content Analytics and Search V2.2. Interesting idea, just not accurate. Second, these two pitches seem quite similar. Is this another of the learn quick, get a raise training schemes. I ran across a similar program for Quicken. Interesting but suspicious to me.
Stephen E Arnold, March 26, 2013
LucidWorks Sees Multiple Solutions for Enterprise Search Future
March 12, 2013
Mark Bennett of LucidWorks recently granted an exclusive interview to Steven E. Arnold, of the influential Beyond Search blog. The focus is on meeting the coming challenges in the trajectory of search in 2013. LucidWorks has always been a major player, and the informative interview is summarized in the Virtual Strategy article, “LucidWorks Addresses Multiple Solutions for the Future of Enterprise Search.”
After discussing the content of the interview, Arnold makes a strong recommendation for LucidWorks amidst its open source competitors:
“Stephen E. Arnold, Managing Director of Arnold Information Technology and publisher of the influential search industry blog Beyond Search, said, ‘In my analysis of open source search, I rated LucidWorks as one of the leading vendors in enterprise search. Other firms with open source components have not yet achieved the technical critical mass of LucidWorks. Proprietary search vendors are integrating open source search technology into their systems in an effort to reduce their technology costs. At this time, LucidWorks is one of the leading vendors of enterprise and Web-centric search.’”
For someone with such experience in the search field, an endorsement from Arnold is a strong one. LucidWorks continues to receive positive press for its cutting edge technology and professional team. For organizations in the market for a value-added open source solution, LucidWorks should get the first look.
Emily Rae Aldridge, March 12, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Leadership Changes at LucidWorks
March 11, 2013
A big announcement in enterprise search hit the news ticker today. LucidWorks, a longtime leader in open source enterprise, is expanding its leadership to meet demand. PR Newswire picks up the headline in its press release, “LucidWorks Promotes Grant Ingersoll to CTO; Appoints Stephen Tsuchiyama as SVP of Worldwide Sales and Services.”
The announcement begins:
“LucidWorks, the company transforming the way people access information, today announced the promotion of search and machine learning expert Grant Ingersoll from Chief Scientist to Chief Technology Officer (CTO), and the appointment of Stephen Tsuchiyama as senior vice president of worldwide sales and services. These changes follow a series of management team additions over the past year that reinforce the company’s commitment to deliver the most advanced platform for developing search-enabled applications.”
Stephen Tsuchiyama comes from Niyte Software as VP and General Manager. His sales experience will provide a powerful compliment to Paul Doscher’s continuing leadership as CEO and Ingersoll’s defining creativity. It is exciting to see a leading company get a boost in manpower, but enterprise search followers should also note the expansion as an indication of the rapid growth of the open source enterprise search market.
Emily Rae Aldridge, March 11, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Twittering High Praise For Funnelback
March 3, 2013
We have discussed Funnelback, the Australian enterprise and Web search software, before and noted it as a company making great strides in search. It looks like we are not the only ones noticing Funnelback’s quality products, because Ramsay Healthcare recently implemented it. If you visit @funnelback you will find this tweet:
“Check out @ramsayhealth new #search #engine. Type in “knees” in the search box to see #funnelback‘s awesome search. http://bit.ly/prNn0c “
Ramsay Health Care is a well known medical system in the UK and Australia. They added Funnelback to power its Web site search. Simply visiting the Web site and typing in ”knees” rich search results. Not only are you given search suggestions, but you are also offered Web pages and articles. Think of it as a Google search before it went paid link crazy or the less Wikipedia filled DuckDuckGo.
With the advent of EMRs, healthcare professionals are trying to make all types of information readily available for their clients. A Web site that acts a resource tool as well as an organization information source doubles its usefulness. Search becomes all the more important, because in order to be useful one needs to find information. Other Web sites in any field could benefit from a powerful search tool.
Whitney Grace, March 03, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Elasticsearch Secures More Funding
February 27, 2013
Elasticsearch is an enterprise search option that wants a slice of the Big Data pie. It has been making headlines for its seeming fast growth. The latest news is relayed by Enterprise Apps Today in their story, “Open Source Elasticsearch Firm Raises $24M.”
The article explains Elasticsearch’s latest announcement:
“Amsterdam-based Big Data search startup Elasticsearch announced it just closed on a Series B round of funding valued at $24 million. Index Ventures headed the round, which was backed by Benchmark Capital, an existing investor, and newcomer SV Angel. The funds, which follow a $10 million capital injection in November, will be used to help transform the company from a software provider to a full-fledged services and support organization. Elasticsearch also revealed that its open source real-time search and analytics software just crossed the 2 million download mark.”
The seeming explosive growth mentioned above may be cause for alarm. There is no way to know if the growth is sustainable, especially since the only committer on the project is the founder. The two million downloads number is also cause for suspicion. Elasticsearch requires and registers a new complete download for every upgrade release. So the count is not new registrations or even the total number of users. Elasticsearch may be making some headlines, but many users will choose to stay with a stable and trustworthy solution like LucidWorks.
Emily Rae Aldridge, February 27, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
A New Enterprise Search For Social eCommerce
February 5, 2013
Enterprise search is one of the key forces behind any enterprise deployment plan. Why? The reason is, if you cannot find your content, how can you do your job? PR Newswire reports that “Hakia Enterprise Semantic Search (HESS) To Drive The Social eCommerce Provider, Flow.” Flow, Inc. is a Canadian corporation that recently licensed hakia Enterprise Semantic Search (HESS). The HESS is a modular, extensible, and adaptable toolset for enterprise, government, education and research applications that enables developers to use the meaning of language for various search applications in addition to simple text string matching.
Flow has already added the alpha version of Hess to its mobile commerce platform. The company hopes to gather data relating to user intent and contextual meaning of terms as they are searched on Flow’s dataspace.
The higher-ups of each company had this to say:
“William Cockburn , Executive Director of Flow said ‘We believe that semantic search will facilitate the next evolution in data delivery, namely, a powerful engine to deliver relevance, context, interpretive cultural lexicon and imagery targeted by a user’s request.” Cockburn further stated that “we believe this is a fundamental practical requirement for people to find answers in a global marketplace… the who, what, where, why and when from their search.’
Dr. Riza C. Berkan , CEO of hakia, said ‘We are excited that Flow has chosen to integrate HESS into its social commerce platform. We expect many other technology innovators to move in this direction.” Dr. Berkan added that,” HESS provides the technological and ontological resources that enable a new dimension to search and content analysis applications in the current marketplace’.”
The mobile market is where many companies are focusing their new business plans. It is still relatively untapped and ready for innovation.
Whitney Grace, February 05, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Expert System Partners with Solr
January 31, 2013
Expert System is a semantic software company that has recently announced integrating Apache Solr into their Cognito Semantic platform. Their goal is to increase both precision and recall over traditional systems. The full press release can be read via MarketWire in their write-up, “Expert System Announces Integration With Apache Solr for Enterprise Search.”
The article begins:
“Expert System, the semantic software company, today announced the full integration of its Cogito® semantic platform with the Apache Solr™ open source enterprise search platform. Through the integration with Cogito, organizations using Solr will be able to enhance their technology investment by delivering faster, more precise access to big data and enterprise content. Cogito exceeds the limits of traditional search and provides a deep understanding of words by fully understanding their meaning in context.”
Expert System may have a good product, but it is new. There are other more seasoned options when it comes to Solr integration. For instance, check out LucidWorks Search. A trusted enterprise solution, LucidWorks (formerly Lucid Imagination) has been a go-to in the industry for years. Their newest offering, LucidWorks Big Data, tackles the newest challenge in content management and search, Big Data.
Emily Rae Aldridge, January 31, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
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