United Nations and Its Tech Challenges
December 20, 2011
From the “Why Am I Not Surprised” Department. News Flash.
UN Computer System Failure
A flub at the United Nations— an estimated nearly $400 million flub– has been made public as UN officials are scrambling to get the botched project back on track. Perhaps “flub” is too strong? Maybe in UN speak, the error was an administrative concern. Yes, that’s it. Administrative concern.
The United Nations’ project, known as Umoja, is a computer and software system that promised to reform the organization but has been at a standstill since June. Umoja, which was intended to be an administrative system to cut down on waste and fraud, was led by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. Fox News’ article, “UN’s Botched Computer-System Overhaul: A Major ‘Failure’ of Ban Ki-Moon’s Management” tells us more:
Ban’s officials are scrambling to get the jinxed project known as Umoja (Swahili for unity) back on track after a key UN budget committee heard from Ban’s office last week that the sweeping information technology overhaul, already a year behind schedule, won’t be finished until 2015, three years beyond the original target date. The committee also said it was “deeply disturbed and dismayed” by the UN’s “apparent lack of awareness and foreknowledge” about the sputtering status of the project.”
This is entropy from top to bottom. Is this the UN’s approach to information management? It appears that guessing about technology may not work and the organization should probably make more solidified plans before pushing such a large and costly project forward. From peacekeeping to computing, the UN is rowing against the current of competence in my opinion.
Andrea Hayden, December 20, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Isys: Eliminating Search Speed Bumps
December 15, 2011
I thought speed bumps were sleeping policemen. ISYS Search tackles them. Thump. Squish. Navigate to “Isys Tackles Enterprise Search Speed Bumps.” The idea is that Isys can make a problematic findability problem a non issue. According to the write up:
The new version features ISYS 1-Click File Finder indexing, analytics and search technology, as well there are seven major new application features. ISYS Research Accelerator is a customizable interface that lets business users search and refine the results the way they want – and make the information easily available and actionable for others. ISYS Information Map offers an advanced visual navigation tool that lets business users see and explore the links between pieces of information. The new Timeline Refinement Bar makes large results sets easy to navigate and ensures users know they’re getting to the most accurate and recent versions of documents. ISYS Enterprise 10.0 introduces Multi-core Indexing, which promises to significantly improve indexing speed and robustness, with multiple ‘worker tasks’ able to handle unlimited filename lengths and unlimited document container depths. Users can now view common document formats (like MS Office, Adobe PDF) the way they were intended, with full layout, fonts, images and hit-highlighting. ISYS Enterprise 10.0 can search by document type extension across 400+ document, file and email types. Also, there are native 32-bit and 64-bit Server Versions to allow organizations to make use of their existing hardware.
The write up did not include information about license fees, visualization, extensibility, application programming interfaces, and customer support options. You may want to contact the company for these details. I did not include Isys in my “The New Landscape of Enterprise Search.” The company hit my radar with its connector licensing strategy, which struck me as an interesting idea. This new release reminds me that Isys is in the enterprise search market. That sector is in flux with other vendors repositioning themselves, throwing around buzzwords, and reinventing themselves as big data analytics companies. Isys is using the the lingo of a more traditional, pre mobile app approach to enterprise search. You can get more information at the Isys Information Center. One question: Will I get a ticket for speeding down the enterprise information highway with the goddess of he goddess of motherhood, magic and fertility? Kentucky is a pretty conservative place.
Stephen E Arnold, December 15, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Exclusive Interview: Gilles Andre, PolySpot
December 13, 2011
Last week I was able to interview Gilles Andre, the chief executive officer, of PolySpot late in November and then last week. Mr. Andre joined PolySpot in June 2010. Prior to this, Gilles was co-founder and CEO of Augure, a company engaged in e-reputation management and services. Mr. Andre was also the founder of Leonard’s Logic suite in 1997 (software editor of Genio ETL). Acquired by Hummingbird in 1999. Mr. Andre is board member at Talend, recognized market leader in open source middleware solutions.
PolySpot is a provider of open search solutions. The company offers a robust and innovative architecture which supports search-centric applications accessible from any device connected to a client’s network.
I was interested in Mr. Andre’s view of PolySpot. The search and content processing sector is in transition, and the role of open source solutions continues to gain traction. He told me:
PolySpot’s agile framework, its use of open source technology like Lucene, and a focus on putting information in the business work flow. Olivier Lefassy, David Fischer – our CTO – and I had designed some interesting ideas, and I was eager to fine tune these elements into a business model that would propel PolySpot over the hurdles which cause many enterprise information solutions to fail.
With open source making in roads at IBM and other major technology providers, I asked about Mr. Andre’s involvement in the “communities” which play an important role in the sector. He told me:
When I was board member at Talend, a very successful French initiative in the ETL [extract, transform, load] segment from inception in 2006 to December 2010, I came to understand the potential of open source software. PolySpot gives me a chance to leverage my knowledge about fast growth, high potential companies, open source software, and the “big data” opportunity around us. I think you can say that data management and information are woven throughout my business fabric.
The PolySpot approach boasts a robust framework. I asked what PolySpot has constructed around Lucene, the open source search system:
We build the connectors I mentioned before and a connector software development kit. We engineered out proprietary transformation and enrichment platform (that’s the Sense Builder components) which adds intelligence to raw information. We also developed a very innovative end to end administration console enabling to design and maintain search applications with no particular technical skill, this eases Lucene and Solr configuration but also amplifies the search functionalities provided by Solr. Last, we have added display modules, information views, and graphical user interfaces. These can easily be customized. To make it brief, PolySpot delivers the first end-to-end packaged search infrastructure over Lucene and SOLR core technologies.
After seeing several demonstrations of client deployments, I was impressed with the PolySpot technology. To learn more about PolySpot’s solutions and technical approach, navigate to www.polyspot.com. The full text of the interview with Mr. Andre is located in the ArnoldIT’s series Search Wizards Speak at this link.
Stephen E Arnold, December 13, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com, publishers of The New Landscape of Enterprise Search
Search Technology Evolves to Encompass Sound
December 6, 2011
Lockergnome reported on the evolution of search technology this week in the article “In Search Of Sound With MediaMined.”
As a way to continue to evolve search technology beyond searching for text and images, audio engineers at Imagine Research in San Francisco have been working on what they call “the world’s first sound object recognition Web service.”
The service is called MediaMined, and is driven by artificial intelligence that is able to “listen” to sound files — whether they’re properly labeled, mislabeled, or not labeled at all — and analyze what they actually are.
Writer Robert Glen Fogarty states:
“Musicians, podcasters, radio broadcasters, and audio engineers would obviously benefit from this kind of technology, but some other unexpected applications could make use of it, as well. Mobile devices could use a MediaMined type of system to detect their surroundings and present new ways to interact with their users based on this incoming data (think augmented reality cranked up to 11). Medical professionals might be able to use this technology in order to gather data based on sounds made by patients — such as sneezing, snoring, coughing, and wheezing — to help with more keenly diagnosing their condition.”
Here at beyond search we believe that this new search technology is definitely a step in the right direction. The experts at Search Technologies can provide organizations with search
solutions–text or talk.
Iain Fletcher, December 6, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
AppRapids: A New Information Service about Enterprise Apps
December 6, 2011
We pride ourselves on the wide variety of information covered “beyond search”. But the field of search technology increasingly morphs into a larger and larger beast. We have decided to focus on apps in a new information service.
That’s why we have created AppRapids. We want to cover the appification of enterprise software solutions. Like SharePointSemantics and Inteltrax, the service is supported by a commercial venture. We are delighted to announce that PolySpot will sponsor AppRapids.
The AppRapids service will cover news, developer information, and business strategies for the exploding world of enterprise applications for search, content processing, and business processes.
This service is run by members of the Beyond Search team. AppRapids’ editor Megan Feil and ArnoldIT editorial coordinator Constance Ard, MLS, utilize the Overflight intelligence system to track important news related to enterprise architecture, search solutions, and apps.
Features of the new service include:
- Open comments section
- Social components such as LinkedIn and Facebook presences
- User-submitted content
- Open source approach so you can locate a source document and reuse the AppRapids’ content with a link back to the micro-site.
As the PRWeb News Release states, Chief Marketing Officer and PolySpot Founder Olivier Lefassy said:
We believe that the type of information generated by ArnoldIT makes it easy to track important innovations and the companies which are helping create the next-generation enterprise frameworks, architectures, and solutions, including open source. PolySpot is active in this arena, and we want to ensure that a continuous flow of information is available to document developments in open source and proprietary solutions.
PolySpot was founded in 2001. The company designs and sells search and information access solutions designed to improve business efficiency in an environment where data volumes are increasing at an exponential rate. PolySpot’s solutions offer universal connectivity, covering all business needs and ensuring that companies can access the data they need, regardless of their structure, format or origin.
For more information about PolySpot’s enterprise solutions, navigate to www.polyspot.com.
PolySpot’s solutions are based on an innovative infrastructure offering both versatility and high performance, enabling companies to make best use of their assets and rationalizing the strategic costs that today’s businesses and organizations face. PolySpot’s solutions have millions of users worldwide, across all business sectors, with customers including Allianz, BNP Paribas, Bureau Veritas, Crédit Agricole, OSEO, Schlumberger, Veolia, Trinity Mirror and Vinci. For more information about PolySpot, point your browser to www.polyspot.com.
The most notable feature of AppRapids is similar to what we do at Beyond Search: stories include analysis of topics that are usually intentionally muddled by the language of marketing experts. The editors welcome comments for stories and any ideas may be submitted to gumdrop1@mail.com. Point your browser to the About Us page for more information on the editorial policy.
The AppRapids’ team will be attending key events, and we will process news releases sent to us at the email in the news service, gumdrop1@mail.com. We are contemplating a meet up in the near future. Watch AppRapids for details.
Megan Feil, December 6, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Vivismo Steps Out of Search and Into Politics
December 4, 2011
Vivisimo was founded in 2000 as a search engine company. However, over the last decade, it has evolved into a leader in enterprise search by creating products that businesses and governments can use to manage their internal information.
Vivisimo has made its mark on the enterprise search industry by clustering search results, allowing users to intuitively narrow their search results to a particular category or browse through related fields of information.
According to the Vivisimo website, the company has released it’s latest version of Velocity, called Velocity 8.1-2, an enterprise search platform that unifies access to secure business repositories. Velocity’s social search features help foster collaboration by allowing users to contribute to organizational content by tagging, voting, annotating and sharing search results.
Vivisimo CEO John Kealy recently shared his thoughts on the current economic climate and the role of IT companies, in the WashingtonExec article: Vivisimo CEO John Kealy 2012 Outlook: “U.S Does Not Control All Variables”
Kealy said:
“The US does not control all the variables that will influence government spending.The continued unrest in the Middle East, troubled economic condition in Europe and our need to stay competitive with the emerging markets, especially China, will drive a need to spend even with our fiscal problems. As a supplier to the US government our strategy is stay cautious, be prepared to address unforeseen opportunities to help and make certain our value proposition not only helps achieve the mission, but does it in the most cost effective manner.”
Can a service provider nation control “all” variables? By definition, a service provider responds to what others want; therefore, the service provider is not in control of “all” of anything. Vivisimo hedges and Beyond Search wonders why.
Jasmine Ashton, December 04, 2011
Protected: Are Enterprise CMS Suites Going Extinct?
December 2, 2011
Protected: Improve SPServices on SharePoint
November 29, 2011
Access Control and Enterprise Search Capabilities
November 29, 2011
Nuances of enterprise search and the challenges some searchers face are discussed in “Why is Enterprise Search more complex than web or desktop search?”
“Access control to the data is a big difference between Enterprise search and the other 2 search types. On the Web, everybody is allowed to see the data. On your desktop you are allowed to see all data, because you are the owner. Web and desktop search can index all the data without to take access control into account.”
In an enterprise, access control is very important. But we prefer to spend more time finding than searching. To get the results you want, you need the right solution and the right search structure and support.
Access control is not an obstacle for Mindbreeze. Their search technology maintains user rights while searching all company-relevant information within the enterprise and in the cloud.
Sara Wood, November 29, 2011
Protected: SharePoint Is a Sellout
November 28, 2011
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