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
Protected: SharePoint Teams Ignore the Information Professional’s Role
November 25, 2011
Content Management Best Practices
November 25, 2011
With the raging demand for content management systems, not all organizations know how to correctly implement such systems, such as the ubiquitous SharePoint. Specifically with SharePoint, an organization can’t just open the box and expect their content to be organized and retrievable. Patrick Sledz lays out some best practices when working with content in SharePoint in his blog entry, “5 Best Practices for Working with Documents and SharePoint.” In addition to advice about file naming, Sledz also addresses using SharePoint as a platform and not just a filing system.
“Use SharePoint as a Document Management Platform. And I mean Platform, not just a secondary file storage location. The file stored here is the ‘one version of the truth.’ This is your starting and ending point. DO NOT send this document to people, but send links to the document. This way you’ll keep just 1 version of the truth.”
Adding to the theme of organization and storage, Sledz recommends adding metadata. While the advice is good for SharePoint users, we have found third party solutions that offer intuitive applications incorporating these principles. Fabasoft Mindbreeze offers a suite of solutions that when combined provide for every aspect of an organization’s information storage and retrieval needs. Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise offers its own enterprise solution, or Fabasoft Mindbreeze Connector syncs up with an organization’s current SharePoint applications, increasing usability and retrieval.
“The Microsoft SharePoint Connector connects the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server to Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise and enables the search for documents stored in that application.”
Metadata is innate and intuitive with a solution like Mindbreeze. So while the above best practices are a good reminder for any organization using enterprise solutions, a smart enterprise solution will provide more answers and leave your organization with less questions. Check out Fabasoft Mindbreeze to see if their products can save you time and trouble.
Emily Rae Aldridge, November 25, 2011
Sponsored by: Pandia.com
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