Mindbreeze Demystifies Enterprise
November 16, 2011
SharePoint is supposed to be a broad-based solution to solve the enterprise needs of most users. However, there seems to be quite a bit of buzz regarding additional trainings, conferences, and webinars geared toward equipping installers and users on the ins-and-outs of the program. One such list of recommendations can be found here, at “Staffing is key to a successful SharePoint Server 2010 deployment.”
The author, Brien Posey, acknowledges that SharePoint 2010 deployment is happening at a rapid rate, but many are finding the process to be lengthier and more complicated than expected. Here is some of his advice:
“The key to assessing SharePoint staffing needs rests with determining the kind of expertise required for deployment and its long-term administration, and then mapping those requirements to staff roles. Some of those roles can likely be filled by existing members of the IT staff, but organizations might have to make additional hires.”
Posey goes on to provide a lengthy list of staff positions for consideration, architects and administrators galore. Couple this recommendation with the recent boom in SharePoint training opportunities and one has to wonder if SharePoint is not as effortless as advertised. It seems implementation and usage are both fairly complicated.
We like what we are hearing about Fabasoft Mindbreeze and its suite of solutions. Implementation is reportedly intuitive and seamless. However, if problems do arise, solutions can quickly be found via brief tutorials or online training opportunities. Don’t be trapped by SharePoint. Consult the Mindbreeze suite of solutions and see if they might be the right choice for your organization.
*Disclaimer – Mindbreeze is currently upgrading their website. Links will be checked and if problems arise they will be updated. Thanks for your patience.
Emily Rae Aldridge, November 16, 2011
Protected: CRM 2011 Offers Custom Document Management for SharePoint
November 15, 2011
Protected: SharePoint Has a Content Rating Feature
November 14, 2011
Is Enterprise Search Mission Impossible?
November 13, 2011
Our feeling about enterprise search is that it is difficult, complicated, and nearly impossible. Apparently we are sailing this ocean alone. Emily Rae Aldridge seems to think that the folks over at Polyspot are accomplishing the mission quite effectively. Here’s what we learned: Most people have low expectations for what is considered a usable search engine. Energy and attention in development are often devoted to the “bells and whistles” when that same energy should be put into improving the basics of search itself. Lynda Moulton expounds on the topic in her blog entry, “Why Isn’t Enterprise Search Mission Critical ?”
Why isn’t ‘search’ the logical end-point in any content and information management activity? If we don’t care about being able to find valued and valuable information, why bother with any of the myriad technologies employed to capture, organize, categorize, store, and analyze content. What on earth is the point of having our knowledge workers document the results of their business, science, engineering and marketing endeavors, if we never aspire to having it retrieved, leveraged or re-purposed by others?
Hot trends such as big data analysis and business analytics are just buzzwords if not underpinned by strong search basics. In terms of software, big data analysis and business analytics are enjoying the sharpest current growth. However, are these new approaches tangential? Do they save the user time or energy?
PolySpot thinks information management should turn isolated data into shared information. Through its open search solutions, PolySpot is keeping search mission critical. From their solutions page:
“According to IDC, information system users waste 25% of their time searching for information using multiple applications and spend several hours each week recreating content which, unbeknown to them, already exists.”
In the business world, 25% of any resource is a sizeable investment. Keep search central and invest in software solutions that improve the user’s experience and efficiency.
Information management is a topic near and dear to some of the ArnoldIT members, in particular Constance Ard. She reiterates that “software alone can’t accomplish enterprise search, it requires governance, accountability, processes, and technology.” Even she agreed that Polyspot seems committed to helping organizations accomplish the mission by concentrating on those same factors in their enterprise applications.
Jasmine Ashton, November 13, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Funnelback 11 Released With New and Improved Features
November 12, 2011
Funnelback , a website and enterprise search provider, launched version 11 of its product on October 1st of this year. Funnelback 11 is available on Windows and Linux and also as a cloud service and has an automated tuning engine and search-driven SEO assistant capabilities.
Funnelback 11 also has new features like updatable indexes, efficient crawling, 64-bit indexing and a new high performance search interface.
According to the Funnelback news release “Funnelback 11 Launched with Automated Tuning and SEO Assistant”; Managing Director Brett Matson said of the product:
“Funnelback 11 has the ability to continually and automatically optimise its ranking using a correct answer set determined by the customer. This enables customers to intuitively adjust the search engine ranking algorithm to ensure it continuously adapts and is optimised to the ever-changing characteristics of their own information environment. A related benefit is that it exposes how effectively the search engine is ranking,”
Regardless of the high praise that Funnelback is giving itself, our take on Funnelback 11, and this release in particular, is that its an annoying display content and that maybe they are trying a bit too hard to impress.
Jasmine Ashton, November 12, 2011
Recommind Named 193 in Deloitte Technology Fast 500
November 12, 2011
In case you missed it because this business was moving so darned fast it did not register, predictive information management software company Recommind was recently ranked 193 in the Deloitte 2011 Technology Fast 500.
The Fast 500 is a prestigious ranking of the 500 fastest-growing technology, media, telecommunications, life sciences and clean technology companies in North America. Rankings are based on percentage of fiscal year revenue growth during the period from 2006-2010, in which time Recommind’s revenue grew 416 percent.
In the November 1st new release “Recommind Again Named One of North America’s Fastest Growing Companies in Deloitte 2011 Technology Fast 500” Recommind CEO Robert Tennant said:
“One of the few constants in modern business is the exponential increase in corporate data.The struggle to find relevant information is draining the resources of the world’s largest organizations. It affects everyone from the CEO to the director of IT to the in-house counsel to the average employee just trying to find an email. Fortune 500 companies are desperate for a new approach to information management, which is exactly what we give them with products like Axcelerate eDiscovery, Decisiv Search and Decisiv Email.”
I think we’re all excited to see where this company is headed and to watch it stretch and grow.
Jasmine Ashton, November 12, 2011
Protected: Here’s a Reminder about SharePoint’s Power and Potential
November 11, 2011
ISYS Has 16,000 Customers. Did I Goof?
November 11, 2011
I covered six vendors of enterprise search systems in my June 2011 The New Landscape of Enterprise Search. An azure chip consulting firm borrowed a key word from my monograph’s title and put out a report covering twice as many vendors.
Today I read “16,000 Organizations Worldwide Now Boost Their Productivity with the ISYS 1-Click FileFinder.” In a write up about AtomicPR’s spam attack on me and the MarkLogic “reinvention of itself as more than a file markup and repository outfit,” I mentioned ISYS Search Software was licensing its connectors, essentially software widgets that allow one system to ingest the files from an incompatible system. So ISYS, ISYS, ISYS.
Years ago I met the founder of ISYS Search Software in Crow’s Nest in a suburb Sydney, Australia. I recall a very interesting lunch in a restaurant that was almost next to the ISYS headquarters. Very interesting those Australian engineers. At the time, I was doing something for some outfit sponsoring the international chief of police conference or some similar intelligence-type event. I was one of the speakers and a guest of the Australian government. In my spare time, I was either watching folks shoot red kangaroos or visiting search and information retrieval experts. After the visit, I did some work for Ian Davies, the founder. His role has changed, and I have lost track of him, his senior sales professional, and the senior engineer whom I met that day. Distance and time I suppose.
I have drifted away from ISYS because I learned that the company–despite a new president, new lines of business like licensing connectors, and introducing file finding utilities—was not hitting my radar with the sort of information I am now tracking. No problem, of course. Quite a few search vendors have changed their spots or at least their marketing pitch faster than a rap star who signs a movie deal. Examples range from Coveo becoming a customer support solution provider to Vivisimo’s puzzling “information optimization.” Other vendors have gone quiet like Dieselpoint, an XML centric search system vendor. Others have found themselves on the receiving end of a dump truck filled with cash. Think InQuira, Autonomy, Endeca, and RightNow to name four vendors who are now happily within giant corporate shells thinking about which island to buy.
My understanding is that ISYS generates about one third of its revenue from the US and the balance from elsewhere. Although the UK is a good market for ISYS, the company’s stronghold is Australia. This raises what I call “the Canadian question.” Ah, you ask, “What’s Canada got to do with Australia and ISYS?”
Here’s my point. When determining how much revenue one of my ventures can generate in Canada, I take the US revenue and then figure that Canada will product 10 percent of that amount. The reason has to do with population, appetite for the sort of products my team produces, and experience. The 10 percent can be five percent, or it could be 15 percent. However, 10 percent is a good rule of thumb.
Therefore, if a company in Australia generates $10 million a year in that country of 23 million people, then it follows that the US with its population of 308 million should produce revenue of about 12 to 13 times the Australian revenue. If we assume that ISYS is generating $10 million from the land down under, I would expect $120 million from the land up above.
I may be off base, but in our research for The New Landscape of Enterprise Search, I did not find data to support that ISYS was generating revenue in this range. Therefore, I decided to exclude the company from my monograph.
The azure chip consulting firm replete with home economics majors, a handful of former journalists, and a couple of failed webmasters sees the world differently. I think the reason is that the azure chip outfit uses its reports as sales collateral. I don’t have any first hand experience with the “real” consultants in enterprise search, but after reading some of these reports, I formed my own opinion. Yours may differ.
To answer the question, “Did I goof by not including ISYS along side Autonomy, Endeca, Exalead, Google, Microsoft, and Vivisimo?,” The answer is, “I don’t think so.”
Hoping a vendor is competing with the likes of Autonomy, Endeca, Exalead, etc. is one thing. Actually beating these firms in major accounts is a different one. Just my opinion, and I look forward to the push back from the “experts” who know more than I, aggrieved company executives who want me to revisit my conclusions about which companies are altering the landscape of search, and the “real” consultants who will swarm over my view point.
Have at it kids. Sales revenues matter. When someone plops down $1.2 billion as Microsoft did for the Fast Search & Technology system or the interesting $10 billion for Autonomy, I will make another pass over the “big six.” Until then, I need to hear first hand about how non US firms cope with my Canadian rule of thumb. I quite like the ISYS technology. But for Landscape, revenues play more of a role than technology.
Stephen E Arnold, November 11, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Mindbreeze Named Trendsetting Product
November 11, 2011
KM World lists Fabasoft Mindbreeze as one of its “Trend-Setting Products of 2011.” Microsoft SharePoint’s main claim is that it makes it easier for people to work together. However, we argue that a uniform platform does not guarantee ease, not unless the solution is customized to the organization and the situation. Fabasoft Mindbreeze boasts a highly customized enterprise solution allowing for not only efficient searching, but also “finding” across an organization’s entire system.
“Mindbreeze understands, relates and combines information from all sources and presents intelligent search results. Information can be grouped and is classified. Users can scan the different categories and spot a particular document without having to click through a list of links themselves. The information’s semantic relationship is recognized and depicted, navigation elements and facets are provided as well as a preview of any result in the browser. With Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise you get a 360 degree view of your business, customers, competitors and more.”
Any discuss of an entity’s entire platform would be incomplete without some attention to mobile devices. Fabasoft Mindbreeze not only supports search and retrieval from mobile devices, but also ensures that access rights are continually maintained and updated on these devices as well.
“Fabasoft Mindbreeze Mobile supports your enterprise to profit from new opportunities to e-mail, collaborate and work with documents from any location. With Fabasoft Mindbreeze Mobile you can deliver any information to your mobile device’s interface and enhance it with context and classification features. Again, approved security procedures ensure that users can only see information for which they have rights.”
Since search is often carried out under time constraints, an easy and intuitive interface is essential. Explore the features of Fabasoft Mindbreeze to learn how this trend-setting solution can work for you.
Emily Rae Aldridge, November 11, 2011
Protected: SharePoint Architecture Can Be Mapped
November 10, 2011
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