Winter Blahs for Google
December 1, 2010
I am stuck in frosty London. Power failures in Hammersmith, big traffic jams, and the winter blahs for the Google. Now I think Google is caught in a double bind. The company can’t shake its own internal problems with staff and the outside world seems intent on finding fault with the company.
Two examples warrant my noting them. These will be touchstones in my vertical file in the Google folder.
First, there was the news that Google is the winner of another legal investigation prize. Navigate to “Our Thoughts on the European Commission Review.” The Google explains itself but I am not sure that the Math Club’s prose will do much to stop the European regulators for riding a high profile pony across the public relations landscape. And if a fine is levied, all the better. A distraction from the very real European financial challenges could produce a cash windfall. What I find interesting is that Google finds itself on the hot seat as Microsoft was for many years. Ironic? Yep.
Second, Microsoft did not miss an opportunity to point out that Google has some problems in its enterprise push. I noted the viewpoint in “Microsoft Exec Says Google Is ‘Failing’ in the Enterprise.” Bubbling beneath the surface is the implication that if Google cannot diversify its revenues, the company has tallied another failure, probably as notable as the Street View problem.
I don’t think it is my imagination. Google is getting more than its share of bashing since summer ended. I think that Google has more than a PR problem. The company seems to have a cornucopia of money and the ability to stumble, trip, and mishandle products and services. In the past, few noticed or cared.
Times change. Now Google has problems that algorithms cannot resolve. As the Microsoft executive said:
I would say that they’re failing, yes. I would say that the results have not shown that they’re successful in the space. We’ve had customers who’ve gone to Google and have come back to Microsoft.
Ouch. Google has more problems that a chilled and snowy Londontown.
Stephen E Arnold, December 1, 2010
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Oracle Step-by-Step and for Free
December 1, 2010
Pat that turnkey stuffed tummy. Flip open your trusty non-HP laptop and dig into “Complete Checklist for Manual Upgrades to 11gR2.” If you are not an Oracle fan, you need to know that the “11gR2” is short hand for the most recent version of Larry Ellison’s favorite data management money generating system.
This link will yield a useful, explicit set of instructions for upgrading to Oracle 11gR2. Looking through these steps, we found something curious. Out of 41 steps, step 39 is upgrading Oracle Text, i.e. the step that deals with search functions. This comes after updating Oracle-Supplied Account passwords at step 38. Search is either really important, like the whipped cream on a banana split or not too important, more like the napkin the soda jerk points to when you have paid.
We’re surprised that the search-related part of this upgrade comes so far down on the list. Is this indicative of the priority searching takes in Oracle’s universe? Alternatively, maybe search is so important that it is the finishing touch on an outstanding, scalable, XML savvy, high performance system? This installation information may carry you into tomorrow now.
Laura Amos, December 1, 2010
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Quote to Note: SAP on Its $1.3 Billion Gaffe
November 30, 2010
Quote to note. I thought this statement worthy of tucking in my speech ideas folder. Point your RockMelt browser at “SAP Statement on Jury Verdict in Oracle v. SAP”.
The mark of a leading company is the way it handles its mistakes.
I wonder if the mistake was admitting improper use of Oracle intellectual property before the trial, losing the argument for teenie weenie damages, or getting caught.
Fascinating. More from this triad in 2011 I think.
Stephen E Arnold, November 30, 2020
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PolySpot Enhances Shiseido
November 30, 2010
Even a cosmetic company needs a makeover once in awhile. IndiceRH.net discusses Shiseido International France’s newest search providers. The original IndiceRH write up has gone dark but you can read “Jalios et PolySpot formalisent et capitalisent les connaissances chez Shiseido International” on the PolySpot Web site.
Shiseido wants to beautify its information access with technology from PolySpot and Jalios (a vendor of content management solutions). The project’s main goals are to formalize the information gathering process, share knowledge with new employees, and facilitate the creation/use of good business practices. These goals are carried out with a search engine in the PolySpot Enterprise Search Tool and use the Jalios JCMS editor to sieve through the information. Jalios JCMS is akin to SharePoint with PolySpot augmenting the program with its searching capabilities and tweaked to reflect Shiseido International France’s needs. The write up asserts:
Today, this integration is completely transparent to users. They access the search engine PolySpot Enterprise Search directly from their work environment Jalios and recover their research results directly into their usual interface with full respect for rights of access.
Shiseido International France’s technology facelift was successful and they hope to continue improvements with regular injections of new content and retrieval methods.
Whitney Grace, November 30, 2010
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Radicati and Its eDiscovery Quadrant 2010
November 28, 2010
Rating systems are used to determine a product’s quality. When it comes to the eDiscovery market, Fresh News points to a new rating system. The Radicati Group, a technology market research firm based in the UK, recently released their latest publication “eDiscovery-Market Quadrant 2010.” This report focuses on eDiscovery vendors and rates them according to their own self-devised system. “Radicati Market Quadrants rank vendors based on a four quadrant system, which includes “Mature Players,” “Specialists,” “Trail Blazers,” and “Top Players” quadrants. Leading players in each market segment are ranked based on the features and functionality of their solution and their market share in that segment.”The names of the four quadrants leave a lot of room for interpretation. They do not offer any insight into the Radicati Group’s analytic method and what they will be measuring against. A ranking system called the Gartner Magic Quadrant has been in use by the US for several years now. Is it possible the Radicati Group was inspired to create a British counterpart or are they attempting to cash in on a new market? My opinion is that these quadrants are more marketing than meat.
Whitney Grace, November 28, 2010
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IBM OmniFind Vulnerabilities
November 22, 2010
In Washington, DC last week I learned that IBM OmniFind 8.x and 9.x had some hitherto unknown vulnerabilities. Built on Lucene, the news is likely to cause indigestion among some of the open source champions pounding the polished halls in the corridors of power.
A bit of poking around yielded a link to the Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Technology. A bit of a surprise was my failure to locate information on the IBM Federal Web site, but that’s probably my failings as an open source researcher, not IBM’s.
The information at http://security.fatihkilic.de/advisory/fkilic-sa-2010-ibm-omnifind.txt is likely to be of interest to anyone running OmniFind’s recent release. The problems include cross site scripting, a method for showing cookies, and a trick to add an administrator to the account.
Some of the problems have been known since 2009. My view is that the sluggish response to the alleged vulnerabilities and the lack of easy to find information about the alleged issue indicates that search is not really a priority at IBM.
I also think the open source community has to do some poking around as well. And what about the azurini? Busy thinking about their grade point average for Sociology or Photography.
Stephen E Arnold, November 23, 2010
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EasyAsk: Exclusive Interview with Craig Bassin
November 22, 2010
EasyAsk was one of the first search vendors who demonstrated access to structured and unstructured data from a single interface. The firm is now under new ownership, and I wanted to get an update about the company and its technology.
Last week, I was able to talk with Craig Bassin, a former partner in an investment firm. Mr. Bassin is now pushing EasyAsk forward and made his excitement about the company, its technology, and future palpable. The full text of my interview with Mr. Bassin is available in the Search Wizards Speak series at this link.
I want to highlight two points from the one hour interview because each provides useful insight into a company that can compete with such firms as Endeca as well as vendors of technology to organizations struggling with information retrieval.
First, Mr. Bassin calls attention to the EasyAsk natural language processing method. He said:
While EasyAsk also supports the navigational style of search we go much further in helping customers find what they want quickly. EasyAsk’s natural language approach allows buyers to enter an entire descriptive phrase of exactly what they want. The natural language and semantic processing engine understands the context of the search and returns accurate results on the first page, greatly increasing conversion rates. With EasyAsk, customers can chose how they want to find products, and they will find them faster… EasyAsk enables e-commerce websites to always return search results, reducing the number of lost visitors.
My take is that NLP technology is getting more attention now that the limitations of key word searching and laundry lists of results are more well known. (In fact, my column each month for KMWorld will address the use of NLP and semantic technology in the enterprise starting in January 2011.)
Second, I probed Mr. Bassin about EasyAsk’s enterprise solution. He told me:
As you well know, the typical enterprise search product is geared towards allowing users to search unstructured or semi-structured data using keywords to find documents they need. This is good when a user is looking for a specific document, like a contract or performance review. EasyAsk Business Edition addresses a completely different problem – giving casual users faster, easier access to corporate data. At our core, EasyAsk is all about Natural Language linguistic processing, that is, understanding the ‘intent’ of any given question, or query. We’ve extended our intuitive search capability into corporate data allowing users to search, analyze, report and share results. … We designed EasyAsk for casual business users who need immediate access to data so they can make informed decisions improving their ability to increase sales, service customers and execute operational processes. And, they can’t wait a few weeks for IT or a data analyst to get them a custom report.
To learn more about EasyAsk, navigate to www.easyask.com. You can read other interviews in the Search Wizards Speak series at this link.
Stephen E Arnold, November 22, 2010
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Socialtext Chases Salesforce Search
November 20, 2010
In “Socialtext 4.5 Searches Metadata & Connects Salesforce.com” CMS Wire reports that Socialtext has debuted its newest version which features a metadata search, called Socialtext Explore, and a Salesforce.com connector. The Salesforce connector brings together a shared activity stream and Socialtext uses metadata to make topics searchable. This shared work stream features not just documents and Web sites, but context around any shared work. Socialtext’s CEO Eugene Lee puts it this way: “”Right now, employees waste a day a week looking for people and information. By bridging information silos and making it simpler for people to share and discover work with colleagues, Socialtext 4.5 accelerates business performance and the speed with which employees can serve their customers.” This new version is debuting only six months after the 4.0 version, highlighting just how fast innovations in shared work across companies are appearing, and it sounds like Socialtext is staying ahead of the game with this one.
Alice Wasielewski, November 20, 2010
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Free Oracle Text Primer
November 19, 2010
From the blog Learn from Noah’s Ark, we have an excellent overview of Oracle Text. Oracle Text is built into the Standard and Enterprise versions of Oracle 11g, and “uses standard SQL to index, search, and analyze text stored in structured form inside Oracle database, or in unstructured form in either local file system, or on the Web.” Oracle Text supports multiple languages, offers many different ways of searching including keyword and Boolean, and allows users to receive search results in a variety of formats. The useful write-up of Oracle Text featured here includes information on the features of Oracle Text, an overview of the SQL API used in Oracle Text, a primer on creating indices in Oracle Text, and details on document services found within Oracle Text. A handy list of resources is useful for those who want or need more in-depth information on this product. No tips about improving performance on a shoestring, however.
Laura Amos, November 19, 2010
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IBM Search Woes? Some Help Available
November 18, 2010
IBM has just released some new tips to troubleshooting search issues for its Lotus Web Content Management (WCM).
After a brief description and illustration of the WCM search flow, the guide continues by presenting a method for running a trace on the search to identify where the problem lies. Apparently, the real problem is that the problem could be lurking anywhere within the process: with the initial seed list generation, the search crawler, the search component or the DCS conversion.
The next step after running the trace is to find where you fall in the documented “10 most common WCM search problems”:
1. Seed list is failing to fetch the content source URL
2. Crawler is aborting
3. URL has wrong host and port
4. Incorrect search results, or no results returned
5. WCM Links are not loading in the context of the portal for seed list 1.0
6. WCM search in a Virtual Portal is not working
7. Custom metadata is not displaying in the results
8. Problems when using Web Seal
9. Collection is missing or is empty
10. Server is running Out of Memory during search crawl
To state the obvious, this is quite a hefty list. Each of the ten problems are discussed in detail, some of which resulting from more than one potential cause. The recommended fixes are at a technical level that may not be conducive to the programming faint-at-heart, which is interesting for an application that touts tools designed for business professionals and content owners, not IT experts.
Scrolling through this tome of a troubleshooting manual a few times leaves one curious as to the efficiency of this program even on its better days, or the level of resources required to operate this beast. After perusing the entire guide it is clear that IBM’s WCM search function has some serious behind-the-scenes kinks to work out and perhaps even a patch to be issued if they truly want to circumvent those IT gurus.
Sara Rogers, November 18, 2010
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