Will XML Save Your Job?
October 29, 2011
If you work on enterprise search, enterprise content repurposing, or high end business intelligence systems, you may want to consider this question.
Is the Extensible Markup Language the ticket to first class retirement at a giant multi national firm?
At least one gosling asked me this morning, “What’s with the interest in XML?” I told him:
XML is complicated and can be explained in such a way that a CFO will write a check to save money due to the benefits of “intelligent content.”
If you believe that, then you are going to answer the question, “Will XML save your job?” yourself and probably before the end of 2011.
You will want to take a look at data2type’s AntillesXML tool. The product will definitely help lock in your expertise, making you indispensible to your employer. The story “A Unique Combination of XML Tools” asserts:
AntillesXML a perfectly equipped toolbox for dealing with XML documents. Thanks to the new graphical user interface which is easy and intuitively to handle, the numerous features are suitable for developers and users alike,” explains Manuel Montero, managing director of data2type GmbH.
If that does not bolster your confidence, you can follow the new White House Chief Information Officer, Steven VanRoekel. He is on board with XML. Navigate to “Federal CIO Unveils Initiatives to Push XML, Virtualization, Agile IT”. Imagine all government documents in XML.
Will this happen?
Well, US government initiatives seem to come and go. When was the last time you used USA.gov or Data.gov? Hmm.
Stephen E Arnold, October 29, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
PolySpot Wins over OSEO with Enterprise Search
October 28, 2011
Paris-based PolySpot’s reliability in conjunction with their innovative technologies paid off. In the news release, “OSEO Opts for a new Search Engine with PolySpot” we got to hear about many of the specifics that made PolySpot stand out amongst the competition.
First, lets look at the issues that prompted OSEO to make the switch. OSEO had a Java-based directory in addition to a search engine supplied with its open source content management system.
OSEO’s former service was characterized by the following:
Indexing of data was restricted to the intranet and the search engine picked up too much ‘noise’. The users, unable to locate required information quickly, were no longer satisfied with the existing search engine which offered basic functionality.
Frédéric Vincent, Information System and Quality Assurance Manager champions their decision to use PolySpot Enterprise Search.
The functionalities that comprise an intuitive user interface make PolySpot’s Search stand out: users can now customize their internal search tool, see added-value tags related to their queries in tag cloud, and access search without quitting any other applications.
We think it may be a prudent step to check out PolySpot’s solutions at www.polyspot.com.
Megan Feil, October 28, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Enterprise Search: The Floundering Fish!
October 27, 2011
I am thinking about another monograph on the topic of “enterprise search.” The subject seems to be a bit like the motion picture protagonist Jason. Every film ends with Jason apparently out of action. Then, six or nine months later, he’s back. Knives, chains, you name it.
The Landscape
The landscape of enterprise search is pretty much unchanged. I know that the folks who pulled off the billion dollar deals are different. These guys and gals have new Bimmers and maybe a private island or some other sign of wealth. But the technology of yesterday’s giants of enterprise search is pretty much unchanged. Whenever I say this, I get email from the chief technology officers at various “big name” vendors who tell me, “Our technology is constantly enhanced, refreshed, updated, revolutionized, reinvented, whatever.”
Source: http://www.goneclear.com/photos_2003.htm
The reality is that the original Big Five had and still have technology rooted in the mid to late 1990s. I provide some details in my various writings about enterprise search in the Enterprise Search Report, Beyond Search for the “old” Gilbane, Successful Enterprise Search Management, and my June 2011 The New Landscape of Search.
Former Stand Alone Champions of Search
For those of you who have forgotten, here’s a précis:
- Autonomy IDOL, Bayesian, mid 1990s via the 18th century
- Convera, shotgun marriage of “old” Excalibur and “less old” Conquest (which was a product of a former colleague of mine at Booz, Allen & Hamilton, back when it was a top tier consulting firm
- Endeca, hybrid of Yahoo directory and Inktomi with some jazzy marketing, late 1990
- Exalead. Early 2000 technology and arguably the best of this elite group of information retrieval technology firms. Exalead is now part of Dassault, the French engineering wizardry firm.
- Fast Search & Transfer, Norwegian university, late 1990s. Now part of Microsoft Corp.
- Fulcrum, now part of OpenText. Dates from the early 1990s and maybe retired. I have lost track.
- Google Search Appliance. Late 1990s technology in an appliance form. The product looks a bit like an orphan to me as Google chases the enterprise cloud. GSA was reworked because “voting” doesn’t help a person in a company find a document, but it seems to be a dead end of sorts.
- IBM Stairs III, recoded in Germany and then kept alive via the Search Manager product and the third-party BRS system, which is now part of the OpenText stable of search solutions. Dates from the mid 1970s. IBM now “loves” open source Lucene. Sort of.
- Oracle Text. Late 1980s via acquisition of Artificial Linguistics.
There are some other interesting and important systems, but these are of interest to dinosaurs like me, not the Gen X and Gen Y azure chip crowd or the “we don’t have any time” procurement teams. These systems are Inquire (supported forward and rearward truncation), Island Search (a useful on-the-fly summarizer from decades ago), and the much loved RECON and SDC Orbit engines. Ah, memories.
What’s important is that the big deals in the last couple of months have been for customers and opportunities to sell consulting and engineering services. The deals are not about search, information retrieval, findability, or information access. The purchasers will talk about the importance of these buzzwords, but in my opinion, the focus is on getting customers and selling them stuff.
Three points:
SharePoint 2010 Is Easy to Adopt for a Reason
October 26, 2011
Amidst the news of Forrester Research’s results of a SharePoint 2010 Adoption and Migration Trends, I thought it would beneficial to take another look at Search Technologies article, “Leading with Search: A SharePoint 2010 Implementation Strategy.”
First, a little bit about the survey: 510 IT decision makers involved with evaluating, specifying, or administering SharePoint 2010 were consulted about their experiences. The article reported:
On the IT side, 79 percent of respondents said that SharePoint is meeting their expectations, with 21 percent giving a negative reply. When asked if SharePoint had met business management expectations, 73 percent said “Yes,” while 27 percent said “No.”
According to Search Technologies article, it’s no wonder that SharePoint has such positive feedback. They are all about engaging their users. It is both transparent data migration and easy enterprise searching and browsing that lead to user’s motivation to adopt to this platform.
Research shows that it takes 21 days to form a habit. With all the perks of SharePoint, I wonder if it takes even that long for users to feel at ease with the adoption. We know that if a SharePoint licensee relies on Search Technologies for engineering support, the speed of adoption accelerates as does user satisfaction. For more information about Search Technologies, navigate to www.searchtechnologies.com.
Iain Fletcher, October 26, 2011
Search Technologies
Protected: More Cheerleading for SharePoint Social Functions
October 26, 2011
Protected: Preserving Policy Settings in SharePoint
October 25, 2011
Protected: Watch Your SharePoint Practices
October 24, 2011
Enterprise Search Silliness
October 23, 2011
I am back in Kentucky and working through quite a stack of articles which have been sent to me to review. I don’t want to get phone calls from Gen X and Gen Y CEOs, chipper attorneys, and annoyed vulture capitalists, so I won’t do the gory details thing.
I do want to present my view of the enterprise search market. I finished the manuscript for “The New Landscape of Search”, published in June 2011, before the notable acquisitions which have taken place in the discombobulated enterprise search market. Readers of this blog know that I am not too fond of the words “information,” “search”, “enterprise”, “governance”, and a dozen or so buzzwords that Art History majors from Smith have invented in the sales job.
In this write up I want to comment on three topics:
- What’s the reason for the buy outs?
- The chase for the silver bullet which will allow a vendor to close a deal, shooting the competitors dead
- The vapidity of the analyses of the search market.
Same rules apply. Put your comments in the comments section of the blog. Please, do not call and want to “convince” me that a particular firm has the “one, true way”. Also, do not send me email with a friendly salutation like “Hi, Steve.” I am not in a “hi, Steve” mood due to my lousy vision and 67 year old stamina. What little I have is not going to be applied to emails from people who want to give me a demo, a briefing, or some other Talmudic type of input. Not much magic in search.
What’s the Reason for the Buy Outs?
The reasons will vary by acquirer, but here’s my take on the deals we have been tracking and commenting upon to our paying clients. I had a former client want to talk with me about one of these deals. Surprise. I talk for money. Chalk that up to my age and the experience of the “something for nothing” mentality of search marketers.
The HP Autonomy deal was designed to snag a company with an alleged 20,000 licensees and close to $1.0 billion in revenue, and not PriceWaterhouseCooper or Deloitte type of consulting revenue stream. HP wants to become more of a services company, and Autonomy’s packagers presented a picture that whipped HP’s Board and management into a frenzy. With the deal, HP gets a shot at services revenue, but there will be a learning curve. I think Meg Whitman of eBay Skype fame will have her hands full with Autonomy’s senior management. My hunch is that Mike Lynch and Andrew Kantor could run HP better than Ms. Whitman, but that’s my opinion.
HP gets a shot at selling higher margin engineering and consulting services. A bonus is the upsell opportunity to Autonomy’s customer base. Is their overlap? Will HP muff the bunny? Will HP’s broader challenges kill this reasonably good opportunity? Those answers appear in my HP Autonomy briefing which, gentle reader, costs money. And Oracle bought Endeca as a “me too” play.
Protected: Avoid SharePoint Burnout With Efficient Planning
October 21, 2011
More Apple i Pain
October 20, 2011
Users Report Syncing Issues When Using Apple’s iCloudAfter much anticipation, Apple’s iCloud http://www.apple.com/icloud/, a wireless storage unit for your music, photos, and other documents, is now available to users of the company’s products and services.
Don Reislinger from Channel Insider http://www.channelinsider.com/ has come out with an informative slide show, revealing the “Ten Things You Need to Know About iCloud”.
In addition to having many other nifty qualities, Reislinger said of the iCloud:
Syncing reigns supreme. Whether it’s music, applications, iBooks, or documents, users will find that iCloud automatically syncs their content across their devices. It might seem like a simple addition, but considering how difficult (and annoying) it has been to add content to multiple devices, the service’s syncing feature is a welcome addition.
Unfortunately, according to Apple Insider, the documents and data syncing feature has proven problematic for some users, who said that their files were unexpectedly deleted.
Documents created on one device, be it in Pages or Keynote, are there for awhile, and then when you go back, you can literally see iCloud delete them in front of you.
For those who are frustrated with the iCloud’s teething issues, take a look at Polyspot’s or Blossom Software’s approach. Both firms “do” the cloud in interesting ways and avoid what appear to be Apple pits on the forest floor.
There are stable cloud platforms. We find it interesting that coincident with Apple’s earning downturn, other problems are cropping up. Will Apple’s woes drive customers to Amazon, despite the company’s flawed search system? Worth watching.
Jasmine Ashton, October 20, 2011
Freebie…Yes, believe it.
Sponsored by Pandia.com
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
