Gartner and Another Magic Quadrant
November 10, 2011
We don’t believe in magic, but consultants do. We came across an interesting write up from a Megan Feil. We contacted her and she said she was working on a test of a new blog. Alas, no details.
Here’s what she wrote:
Bizzdesign, a company specializing in enterprise architecture, recently published a news release on their website claiming that they are “positioned as a leader in Gartner Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Architecture 2011.”
One of Gartner‘s research methodologies is the magic quadrant. This graphic released by the technology research giant shows competing players in various markets. With ability to execute on the y-axis and completeness of vision on the x-axis, this research can offer a comprehensive look at where companies are in the larger picture. Gartner’s analysts identify the challengers, leaders, niche-players, and visionaries.
Gartner appears to be pretty transparent regarding the details of their process for collecting and evaluating data. Further information can be found in the Frequently Asked Questions section. It is important to note that each of these roles has a place in the ecosystem. It would be interesting to discover how much monetary success factors into the overall equation, and by how much those numbers vary, for each of these categories.
Bizzdesign’s CEO Henry Franken said the following in regards to their placement in the leader quadrant:
Only three years ago we set our first steps into the international market. From a solid Dutch base, with a lot of knowledge and experience, we have since then grown very fast and have made remarkable progress. To be able to achieve an international top position in a relatively short amount of time is a milestone for both our organization and customers. We are proud of the confidence that the market has given us and we are aiming to expand this confidence along with our growth strategy.
Seeing a relatively young company labeled as a leader in the enterprise architecture market is surprising since it is such a specific market, and one that includes a few larger companies with more seniority. However, it is great to see a company with support for open standards like the TOGAF method and the ArchiMate modeling language in such a position. Additionally, this shows hope for other smaller, younger, and innovative companies to pop up.
Open source architecture provides clients with an enterprise architecture that allows them to customize solutions to solve their business problems instead of adding to them. As 2011 nears to a close we’ll be looking at more companies that just those mentioned on the quadrant for new leaders in the field.
We’re not so sure about magic. We have questions about azure chip consulting firms. We did find the information about Polyspot suggestive. Worth a look. No magic required.
Stephen E Arnold, November 10, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Search Silver Bullets, Elixirs, and Magic Potions: Thinking about Findability in 2012
November 10, 2011
I feel expansive today (November 9, 2011), generous even. My left eye seems to be working at 70 percent capacity. No babies are screaming in the airport waiting area. In fact, I am sitting in a not too sticky seat, enjoying the announcements about keeping pets in their cage and reporting suspicious packages to law enforcement by dialing 250.
I wonder if the mother who left a pink and white plastic bag with a small bunny and box of animal crackers is evil. Much in today’s society is crazy marketing hype and fear mongering.
Whilst thinking about pets in cages and animal crackers which may be laced with rat poison, and plump, fabric bunnies, my thoughts turned to the notion of instant fixes for horribly broken search and content processing systems.
I think it was the association of the failure of societal systems that determined passengers at the gate would allow a pet to run wild or that a stuffed bunny was a threat. My thoughts jumped to the world of search, its crazy marketing pitches, and the satraps who have promoted themselves to “expert in search.” I wanted to capture these ideas, conforming to the precepts of the About section of this free blog. Did I say, “Free.”
A happy quack to http://www.alchemywebsite.com/amcl_astronomical_material02.html for this image of the 21st century azure chip consultant, a self appointed expert in search with a degree in English and a minor in home economics with an emphasis on finger sandwiches.
The Silver Bullets, Garlic Balls, and Eyes of Newts
First, let me list the instant fixes, the silver bullets, the magic potions, the faerie dust, and the alchemy which makes “enterprise search” work today. Fasten your alchemist’s robe, lift your chin, and grab your paper cone. I may rain on your magic potion. Here are 14 magic fixes for a lousy search system. Oh, one more caveat. I am not picking on any one company or approach. The key to this essay is the collection of pixie dust, not a single firm’s blend of baloney, owl feathers, and goat horn.
- Analytics (The kind equations some of us wrangled and struggled with in Statistics 101 or the more complex predictive methods which, if you know how to make the numerical recipes work, will get you a job at Palantir, Recorded Future, SAS, or one of the other purveyors of wisdom based on big data number crunching)
- Cloud (Most companies in the magic elixir business invoke the cloud. Not even Macbeth’s witches do as good a job with the incantation of Hadoop the Loop as Cloudera,but there are many contenders in this pixie concoction. Amazon comes to mind but A9 gives me a headache when I use A9 to locate a book for my trusty e Reeder.)
- Clustering (Which I associate with Clustify and Vivisimo, but Vivisimo has morphed clustering in “information optimization” and gets a happy quack for this leap)
- Connectors (One can search unless one can acquire content. I like the Palantir approach which triggered some push back but I find the morphing of ISYS Search Software a useful touchstone in this potion category)
- Discovery systems (My associative thought process offers up Clearwell Systems and Recommind. I like Recommind, however, because it is so similar to Autonomy’s method and it has been the pivot for the company’s flip flow from law firms to enterprise search and back to eDiscovery in the last 12 or 18 months)
- Federation (I like the approach of Deep Web Technologies and for the record, the company does not position its method as a magical solution, but some federating vendors do so I will mention this concept. Yhink mash up and data fusion too)
- Natural language processing (My candidate for NLP wonder worker is Oracle which acquired InQuira. InQuira is a success story because it was formed from the components of two antecedent search companies, pitched NLP for customer support,and got acquired by Oracle. Happy stakeholders all.)
- Metatagging (Many candidates here. I nominate the Microsoft SharePoint technology as the silver bullet candidate. SharePoint search offers almost flawless implementation of finding a document by virtue of knowing who wrote it, when, and what file type it is. Amazing. A first of sorts because the method has spawned third party solutions from Austria to t he United States.)
- Open source (Hands down I think about IBM. From Content Analytics to the wild and crazy Watson, IBM has open source tattooed over large expanses of its corporate hide. Free? Did I mention free? Think again. IBM did not hit $100 billion in revenue by giving software away.)
- Relationship maps (I have to go with the Inxight Software solution. Not only was the live map an inspiration to every business intelligence and social network analysis vendor it was cool to drag objects around. Now Inxight is part of Business Objects which is part of SAP, which is an interesting company occupied with reinventing itself and ignored TREX, a search engine)
- Semantics (I have to mention Google as the poster child for making software know what content is about. I stand by my praise of Ramanathan Guha’s programmable search engine and the somewhat complementary work of Dr. Alon Halevy, both happy Googlers as far as I know. Did I mention that Google has oodles of semantic methods, but the focus is on selling ads and Pandas, which are somewhat related.)
- Sentiment analysis (the winner in the sentiment analysis sector is up for grabs. In terms of reinventing and repositioning, I want to acknowledge Attensity. But when it comes to making lemonade from lemons, check out Lexalytics (now a unit of Infonics). I like the Newssift case, but that is not included in my free blog posts and information about this modest multi-vehicle accident on the UK information highway is harder and harder to find. Alas.)
- Taxonomies (I am a traditionalist, so I quite like the pioneering work of Access Innovations. But firms run by individuals who are not experts in controlled vocabularies, machine assisted indexing, and ANSI compliance have captured the attention of the azure chip, home economics, and self appointed expert crowd. Access innovations knows its stuff. Some of the boot camp crowd, maybe somewhat less? I read a blog post recently that said librarians are not necessary when one creates an enterprise taxonomy. My how interesting. When we did the ABI/INFORM and Business Dateline controlled vocabularies we used “real” experts and quite a few librarians with experience conceptualizing, developing, refining, and ensuring logical consistency of our word lists. It worked because even the shadow of the original ABI/INFORM still uses some of our term 30 plus years later. There are so many taxonomy vendors, I will not attempt to highlight others. Even Microsoft signed on with Cognition Technologies to beef up its methods.)
- XML (there are Google and MarkLogic again. XML is now a genuine silver bullet. I thought it was a markup language. Well, not any more, pal.)
Getting Fierce about Search
November 9, 2011
Well, semi-fierce may be a better way to approach this write up, Search Is the Key to Everything. We agree that considerable effort has been applied to finding information. Maybe we could get an NSF grant to quantify how big search is. McKinsey & Co. came up with a big number, but a government funded study would be much more satisfying than free information from a blue chip consulting company whose executives wear orange jump suits on occasion.
According to Fierce Content Management editor, Ron Miller, the world’s problems lead back to search. Well, okay, maybe not every problem, but definitely quite a few. Mr. Miller likens the problem of search to his Internet TV. When he wants to find a movie he must negotiate several different programs’ (Hulu, Netflix, and Crackle) search functions instead of being able to search all the applications from one central search. Enterprise search is basically the same thing. According to Miller,
In the case of the enterprise, we may know that the content is out there somewhere across the vast stores of information, but finding that one document you need may be not be that easy. Sometimes this is a known document and sometimes it’s one that you are hoping is there.
While the article does admit individual search engines can be quite efficient, the lack of organization within enterprises is the chief gripe. We cannot disagree with the premise that search would be much easier if all the information were available in one simple search. But we do disagree that search is the key to everything.
At Fierce does the firm’s search engine search employee employment and compensation data, employee health information, contracts between Fierce and its suppliers and customers, the confidential notes made by a reporter, and similar juicy information?
We don’t think so. We think that search is a complicated beastie, a work in progress, and not understood particularly well by licensees, pundits, former webmasters, home economics majors, and unemployed oboe players. That is why it is so darned satisfying to redefine “search” as XML, facets, metatags, semantic analyses, and other buzz words like content management that make the uninformed person’s adrenaline gush like a Pennsylvania brine well in 1815.
Catherine Lamsfuss, November 3, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Business Process Management: Bit Player or Buzz Word?
November 7, 2011
I spoke with one of the goslings who produces content for our different information services. We were reviewing a draft of a write up, and I reacted negatively to the source document and to the wild and crazy notions that find their way into the discussions about “problems” and “challenges” in information technology.
In enterprise search and content management, flag waving is more important than solving customers’ problems. Economic pressure seems to exponentiate the marketing clutter. Are companies with resources “too big to flail””? Nope.
Here’s the draft, and I have put in bold face the parts that caught my attention and push back:
As the amount of data within a business or industry grows the question of what to do with it arises. The article, “Business Process Management and Mastering Data in the Enterprise“, on Capgemini’s Web site explains how Business Process Management (BPM) is not the ideal means for managing data.
According the article as more and more operations are used to store data the process of synchronizing the data becomes increasingly difficult.
As for using BPM to do the job, the article explains,
While BPM tools have the infrastructure to do hold a data model and integrate to multiple core systems, the process of mastering the data can become complex and, as the program expands across ever more systems, the challenges can become unmanageable. In my view, BPMS solutions with a few exceptions are not the right place to be managing core data[i]. At the enterprise level MDM solutions are for more elegant solutions designed specifically for this purpose.
The answer to this ever-growing problem was happened upon by combining knowledge from both a data perspective and a process perspective. The article suggests that a Target Operating Model (TOM) would act as a rudder for the projects aimed at synchronizing data. After that was in place a common information model be created with enterprise definitions of the data entities which then would be populated by general attributes fed by a single process project.
While this is just one man’s answer to the problem of data, it is a start. Regardless of how businesses approach the problem it remains constant–process management alone is not efficient enough to meet the demands of data management.
Here’s my concern. First, I think there are a number of concepts, shibboleths, and smoke screens flying, floating, and flapping. The conceptual clutter is crazy. The “real” journalists dutifully cover these “signals”. My hunch is that most of the folks who like videos gobble these pronouncements like Centrum multivitamins. The idea is that one doze with lots of “stuff” will prevent information technology problems from wrecking havoc on an organization.
Three observations:
First, I think that in the noise, quite interesting and very useful approaches to enterprise information management can get lost. Two good examples. Polyspot in France and Digital Reasoning in the U.S. Both companies have approaches which solve some tough problems. Polyspot offers and infrastructure, search, and apps approach. Digital Reasoning delivers next-generation numerical recipes, what the company calls entity based analytics. Baloney like Target Operating Models do not embrace these quite useful technologies.
Second, the sensitivity of indexes and blogs to public relations spam is increasing. The perception that indexing systems are “objective” is fascinating, just incorrect. What happens then is that a well heeled firm can output a sequence of spam news releases and then sit back and watch the “real” journalists pick up the arguments and ideas. I wrote about one example of this in “A Coming Dust Up between Oracle and MarkLogic?”
Third, I am considering a longer essai about the problem of confusing Barbara, Desdemona’s mother’s maid, with Othello. Examples include confusing technical methods or standards with magic potions; for instance, taxonomies as a “fix” for lousy findability and search, semantics as a work around for poorly written information, metatagging as a solution to context free messages, etc. What’s happening is that a supporting character, probably added by the compilers of Shakespeare’s First Folio edition is made into the protagonist. Since many recent college graduates don’t know much about Othello, talking about Barbara as the possible name of the man who played the role in the 17th century is a waste of time. The response I get when I mention “Barbara” when discussing the play is, “Who?” This problem is surfacing in discussions of technology. XML, for example, is not a rabbit from a hat. XML is a way to describe the rabbit-hat-magician content and slice and dice the rabbit-hat-magician without too many sliding panels and dim lights.
What is the relation of this management and method malarkey? Sales, gentle reader, sales. Hyperbole, spam, and jargon are Teflon to get a deal.
Stephen E Arnold, November 7, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Implementing with Intent
November 7, 2011
In a blog dedicated to document management news, the haphazard implementation of SharePoint is highlighted. Read the full commentary at, “SharePoint Surge Continues but Strategies Are Lacking.”
A recent survey by AIIM (Association for Information and Image Management) has found that less than 50% of SharePoint implementations were subject to a formal business case, and only half of those required a financial justification. As a result, most did not have a management plan as to which of SharePoint’s many features were to be used, and where. Meanwhile, SharePoint deployment is proceeding rapidly, with 22% of respondents reporting it to be in use by 100% of office staff. This adoption rate is set to double by this time next year.
SharePoint is the current enterprise fad, with the adoption rate growing exponentially. However, is the effort even effective or worthwhile if the implementation is done without planning? Customized installation is costly but without customization the platform is virtually useless. Furthermore, a highly customized system can create a steep learning curve for new users.
One solution we found in our research is Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise. We learned from Mindbreeze:
A corporate-wide information platform maintaining and continuously expanding a well-funded knowledge base needs the greatest possible flexibility. Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise links the most common data sources in corporations and organizations by special connectors, establishing the basis for further links to the creative utilization of internal corporate knowledge.
With Mindbreeze, the learning curve for new users is lessened and day-to-day work is more efficient for staff. Customization is automatic and relevant. To get the most out of your SharePoint installation, implement with intent and look into Fabasoft Mindbreeze.
Emily Rae Aldridge, November 7, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Spotlight: Mindbreeze for Easy Search and Access
November 4, 2011
CMS Wire weighs in on SharePoint 2010 and its viability as an internet site CMS. In, “Is SharePoint 2010 the Right Web CMS for Your Internet Site?” Michal Pisarek makes an argument for the integration of SharePoint 2010 as a broad web content management system.
Although the author argues that SharePoint 2010 has made improvements over the 2007 version, some issues remain.
Of course the breadth of SharePoint’s capabilities can also serve as its downfall. If your organization has specific needs that need deep vertical capabilities than you should be considering the cost of implementing this custom functionality on the SharePoint platform.
If this is the case then you might be better served with a niche solution, rather than the broader set of features that SharePoint offers. A product like Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise makes it easy to really handle adaptive and personalized website content. So your site acts like an information hub that adapts to users’ behavior on your site. Search-driven content as a building block of a next generation web content management functionality. Where SharePoint lags, Mindbreeze bridges the gap with your website, intranet, or mobile applications. Find more details at, “Search & Information Access as easy as 1-2-3.
“Showing search results in your Web site is hard? A new API to learn because your Web site uses a different programming language than available from your search engine vendor? Read on and learn how easy it can be to search-enable your content.”
An explanation of features follows, including personalized, search-driven and contextualized content. This Mindbreeze tutorial demonstrates how easy it is to add Fabasoft Mindbreeze functionality to a site, without much more than basic knowledge of HTML and JavaScript. We agree that SharePoint 2010 improves usability, but if ultimate efficiency and precision are desired, Mindbreeze is the best solution for search and information access.
Emily Rae Aldridge, November 4, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Spotlight: Mindbreeze and the SharePoint Vision
November 3, 2011
We read CMSWire’s “What is SharePoint 2010? Vision and Reality.” Overall we think that the article hits the highlights of Microsoft’s very popular content management system.
We found the “six pillars of SharePoint” in line with our understanding of the software system. In our work, we have implemented collaborative functions, portals, content management, business forms, search, and business intelligence. We noted this passage in particular:
In the 2010 release Microsoft greatly improved the functionality for creating and managing business documents. Organizations typically have two types of content: documents and information used to complete tasks and activities, and records. Records differ from the previous category in that they are documents and information that must be frozen and stored for compliance and/or regulatory purposes.
We agree and we think that this functionality can be greatly enhanced with third party components.
Of particular importance to us at Mindbreeze is search. We agree that Microsoft has made strides in its SharePoint search. However, there are important benefits that accrues to users of the Mindbreeze system. For example, Mindbreeze search includes the InApp functionality. The idea is that Mindbreeze seamlessly handles structured and unstructured information and data. Our focus is on third parties who need tools that streamline certain customized implementations for SharePoint.
Mindbreeze told us:
The new development of a highly scalable and likewise high-performance search costs a lot of time, resources and money. With Fabasoft Mindbreeze InApp software manufacturers, providers, integrators and developers can profit from the already proven Fabasoft Mindbreeze technology with very little effort.
Fabasoft Mindbreeze provides internationally awarded search technology which has been tried and tested by many users and can be simply integrated into any application. The download package includes the proven architecture, the optimized index component, the filter as well as the Fabasoft Mindbreeze – Web Client and the Fabasoft Mindbreeze – Embedded Client along with the SDK and the associated Eclipse project.
In short, Mindbreeze extends and enhances a developer’s ability to tailor SharePoint to the specific requirements of the client. The tools can be used to build complete, snap in applications for SharePoint as well as Linux systems.
Mindbreeze, a unit of the highly regarded Fabasoft organization, delivers a platform independent development platform. It provides high scalability and includes Fabasoft’s personal support.
To extend and customize SharePoint without some of the technical implementation hurdles, take a look at the Mindbreeze InApp development solution.
Stuart Schram, November 3, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Spotlight: Mindbreeze Information Pairing
November 2, 2011
We wanted to continue our spotlight on Mindbreeze, a unit of the highly regarded Fabasoft. You will want to bookmark the Mindbreeze blog at this link and take note of “Information Pairing. Knowledge Match Making for Your Company.”
With companies flopping like caught trout in the bottom of a fishing boat, the ability to locate the person in your organization with information germane to your work is essential.
The challenge, according to Mindbreeze, is to locate the individual with the experience, information, and insight to assist in answering a business question. Walking around no longer works because many companies have employees who are at client locations, working from a different facility, or responding to email from an airport waiting lounge.
The blog article asserts:
Fabasoft Mindbreeze has the answer: Information pairing. This involves the boundless networking of company relevant information within an enterprise or organization and placing it in the Cloud. In my opinion acting in this way in all business issues is reliable, dynamic and profitable – the basis for competitive advantage.
The method relies on the Mindbreeze core technology which delivers information with pinpoint accuracy. The write up continues:
Existing identities and access rights to company-internal and Cloud data remain preserved. The user only receives information displayed for which he/she has access rights for. This ensures that Fabasoft Mindbreeze fulfills the strictest compliance requirements. Furthermore, Mindbreeze is certified according to all relevant security standards.
The Mindbreeze technology for “information pairing” allows in a unique way to enrich documents and information in a secure and highly efficient way with enterprise and even content from the Cloud. Information gets dynamically annotated with “knowledge” extracted and harvested from cloud services (public and private ones), e.g. like Wikipedia or Fabasoft Folio Cloud. This is a very innovative and impressive way to combine information effectively and annotate existing and preprocessed entities on the fly.
So for instance: You need to know everything about a lead? Mindbreeze combines every information in your enterprise, like your CRM and connects the information with suitable content from sources like Wikipedia, LinkedIn, social media like Facebook and even on your web analytics account and comes up with a unified view of all the information that’s available for this lead.
Unlike some search and content processing vendors, Fabasoft has taken care to ensure that privacy and security work as the organization intends. Fabasoft and Mindbreeze hold SAS70 and ISO 27001 certifications for their cloud services. This is unique in the enterprise search space. According the write up, the focus has been on putting “values” about these important norms in the firm’s software and systems.
Take a look at www.mindbreeze.com.
Stephen E. Arnold, November 2, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Spotlight: Mindbreeze on the SharePoint Stage
November 1, 2011
A new feature, mentioned in the Beyond Search story “Software and Smart Content.” We will be taking a close look at some vendors. Some will be off the board; for example, systems which have been acquired and, for all practical purposes, their feature set frozen. I have enlisted Abe Lederman, one of the founders of Verity (now a unit of Autonomy and Hewlett Packard) and now the chief executive of Deep Web Technologies.
Our first company under the spotlight is Mindbreeze, which is a unit of Fabasoft, which is one of the leading, if not the leading, Microsoft partners in Austria. Based in Linz, Mindbreeze offers are remarkably robust search and content processing solution.
The company is a leader in adding functionality to basic search, finding, and indexing tasks in organizations worldwide. In August 2011, CMSWire’s “A Strategic Look at SharePoint: Economics, Information & People” made this point:
SharePoint continues to grow in organizations of all sizes, from document collaboration and intranet publishing, to an increasing focus on business process workflows, internet and extranets. Today, many organizations are now in flight with their 2010 upgrades, replacing other portals and ECM applications, and even embracing social computing all on SharePoint.
The Mindbreeze system, according to Daniel Fallmann, the individual who was the mastermind behind the Mindbreeze technology, “snaps in” to Microsoft SharePoint and addresses many of the challenges that a SharePoint administrator encounters when trying to respond to diverse user needs in search and retrieval. In as little as a few hours, maybe a day, a company struggling to locate information in a SharePoint installation can be finding documents using a friendly, graphical interface.
My recollection of Mindbreeze is that it was a “multi stage” service oriented architecture. For me, this means that system administrators can configure the system from a central administrative console and work through the graphical set up screens to handle content crawling (acquisition), indexing, and querying.
The system supports mobile search and can support “apps,” which are quickly becoming the preferred method of accessing certain types of reports. The idea is that a Mindbreeze user from sales can access the content needed prior to a sales call from a mobile device.
According to Andreas Fritschi, a government official at Canton Thurgau:
Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise makes our everyday work much easier. This is also an advantage for our citizens. They receive their information much faster. This software can be used by people in all sectors of public administration, from handling enquiries to people in management.
Why is the tight integration with Microsoft SharePoint important? There are three reasons that our work in search and content processing highlights.
First, there are more than 100 million SharePoint installations and most of the Fortune 1000 are using SharePoint to provide employees with content management, collaboration, and specialized search-centric functions such as locating a person with a particular area of knowledge in one’s organization. With Mindbreeze, these functions become easier to use and require no custom coding to implement within a SharePoint environment.
Second, users are demanding answers, not laundry lists. The Mindbreeze approach allows a licensee to set up the system to deliver exactly with a group of users or a single user requires. The tailoring occurs within the Fabasoft and Mindbreeze “composite content environment.” Fabasoft and Mindbreeze deliver easy-to-use configuration tools. Mash ups are a few clicks away.
Third, Mindbreeze makes use of the Fabasoft work flow technology. Information can be moved from Point A to Point B without requiring changing users’ work behaviors. As a result, user satisfaction rises.
You can learn more about Mindbreeze at www.mindbreeze.com. Information about Fabasoft and its technology are at www.fabasoft.com.
Stephen E Arnold, November 1, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
How Will Oracle Play the Endeca Card?
October 31, 2011
With all the speculation around the latest move in the big data arms race, much speculation is abound. Forrester, a blog for e-business and channel strategy professionals, tries their hand at shedding light on the subject with their article, “Oracle Buys Endeca: What It Means.”
One reason this article proposes for the Endeca purchase is that it fits into Oracle’s grand scheme to be on top of the “customer experience management” or CXM trend. Endeca is that piece of the puzzle that supplements ATG, Seibel, and Fatwire as an experience management solution to offer individualized solutions to clients.
One theme that runs through many of the articles published on this subject is Oracle’s comprehensive enterprise solutions marketing angle that becomes a selling point with Endeca on board.
The article points out that this move gives Endeca stability, but for Oracle this acquisition presents a sea of options. The article states the following:
For Oracle this signals commerce and [customer experience management] are strategic focus and that they are aiming to drive a differentiated offering. The devil is in the details though, and how Oracle executes to drive value through the sum of the parts will be a huge challenge and leaves room.
Oracle is in a position now where they need to invest in order to make its content technologies competitive. What this write up sparked for me was the realization that buzzwords like CXM really don’t mean too much. Oracle bought Endeca * after * Hewlett Packard acquired Autonomy and big a big deal about building an enterprise services business. My view is that Endeca and its aging technology are not likely to be changed too much going forward. Oracle now has duplicative systems for search, customer support, business intelligence, and online commerce. Oracle wants customers and a way to build its revenue for its core software and for services. Endeca, like InQuira, is less about technology and more about having companies to upsell. As for enterprise search, my view is that the market is of little interest to Oracle at this time.
Megan Feil, October 31, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Sponsored by Pandia.com
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