Coveo Surges Forward
April 23, 2010
The Coveo team has surged forward in search, according the story “Coveo Announce Une Augmentation de 55% des Revenus de License au 1er Trimestre de 2010; Conclut 24 Nouvelle Transactions.” (There’s an English version of the news release at Intelligent Enterprise as well.) If you don’t read French, this translates as significant growth and two dozen new deals in 12 weeks. Beyond Search thinks that is pretty darned good in today’s economic climate. Other highlights from the story include:
- The release of Version 6.1 of the firm’s Enterprise Search Platform with a raft of new features such as an Outlook integrated sidebar, a floating desktop search bar, and complete desktop email indexing. (You can get the full details at www.coveo.com).
- Deals with Trading Technologies, Netezza, Hewitt, Royal Mail Group, and Allina Hospitals among others
- A 97 percent reduction in time taken to find expertise across a top engineering firm and a two week ROI for a Fortune 100 financial services company
I moderated for Fierce Content Management, the publishing company, a Webinar with Louis Tetu, one of the investors in Coveo, Bill Cavendish (GEICO), and Coveo’s Executive Vice President (Richard Tessier). The company’s approach to enterprise information struck me as focused on chopping the “wait” out of the installation and delivering information that helps employees do their jobs. The “search” function meshes with work processes, so employees can click on a link, fire a query from a mobile device, or use a customized interface. After the Fierce Webinar, I spoke briefly with the firm’s founder Laurent Simoneau. He pointed out that Coveo’s architecture and “smart” software make it possible to get real payoff from search, not big engineering and consulting bills. My recollection is that Laurent Simoneau said, “We focus on making search work the way users want in their specific situation. This seems to be working quite well for us.”
With 55 percent growth in 12 weeks. I am inclined to agree.
Stephen E Arnold, April 23, 2010
This post was not sponsored.
The Jahia Bundle
April 22, 2010
A happy quack to the reader who sent me a link to Jahia.com. The company bills itself as a vendor of “Web content integration software.” What interested me was Jahia’s inclusion of search in its enterprise Intranet suite. This system includes content and document management functions and the Jahia “united content hub”. The idea is that an organization gets a method for organization various types of content regardless of its source.
Content and document management are not of particular interest to me. The suite’s search function looks interesting. According to the company, the system delivers such features as:
- Advanced search
- Faceted search
- Dynamic navigation.
One additional feature is the firm’s use of Lucene/Solr open source technology. The Jahia approach makes extending the system possible. Results sets can be customized. A variety of filtering methods are available. The company said:
Supporting open standards always has always been one of the core mission statements for the Jahia software. So it made a lot of sense to implement the OpenSearch API. OpenSearch can be used either from a federated search or in order to facilitate access to the local search index. In the former case, Jahia can simultaneously request several distant and OpenSearch compliant indexes from the same user query and display a multi-source aggregated view of the results. In the latter scenario Jahia displays its own local search index through the OpenSearch API. End users can then, for example query their intranet directly from within the search form present in their browser, without first having to access this Web site.
System administrators can use the Jahia result sets in another third-party federated search hub.
The firm’s pricing ranges from about $7,500 per year for cloud-based service delivered via Amazon’s Web services to on premises license fees that are in the $27,000 per connector. (A connector allows the Jahia system to access content in another system.)
To sum up, Jahia is important for two reasons.
First, the system uses open source search technology. Second, the search function is embedded in a broader suite of products.
Stephen E Arnold, April 22, 2010
Unsponsored post.
Endeca Moves toward Video Search
April 22, 2010
I am putting the finishing touches on Google Beyond Text and came across a news release from Endeca with the catchy title “Endeca Extend Partner Program Adds Leading Video Search Software Vendors”. I was intrigued and partly because I could not figure out the “extend” and “video search” notions. The idea seems to be a good one. With interest in non text content drifting upwards, Endeca is taking steps to allow its McKinley search platform to process video objects. According to the release:
Inaugural Endeca Extend partners in the video search category include 3Play Media, Brightcove and Nexidia. The majority of video and audio files do not have highly attributed meta-data surrounding them. However, through the Endeca Extend program, Endeca and its partners allow customers to use extracted meta-data and high quality, time-synchronized transcripts to increase search recall for audio and video content, and provide new facets for Guided Navigation, cluster related topics, offer landing pages, and improve search relevancy. Endeca customers can easily run their data through an Endeca Extend partner solution, extract additional meta-data elements or transcripts from the most common audio and video file formats and append that information to the original content. Through the partner solutions, search and navigation results will also offer segment-specific playback capabilities for audio and video content. This lowers the integration costs and adds significant structure to the content to enhance the overall user experience. The pre-built integrations allow joint customers the ability to implement best-of-breed technologies without sacrificing ease of integration.
Will Endeca gain traction in the fiercely competitive video search sector? Many organizations put their videos on YouTube and link to them. The pointers and description of the video are text descriptions of the videos. The SEO crowd is chattering about the usefulness of videos and descriptions of them in a Google PageRank effort. We are not too sure about the SEO angle, but we know video is hot for the under 25 crowd.
In our experience, talking about integration of video content and implementing video search can be one of those management tasks where slips between cup and lip can occur. More information is available directly from Endeca at www.endeca.com.
Stephen E Arnold, April 22, 2010
Unsponsored post.
Translating a Business Intelligence Warning
April 21, 2010
An azure chip consultant, according to the prolific Intelligent Enterprise publication, has issued a business intelligence warning. The write up “Gartner’s BI Summit Warning: Buyer Beware” is one you will want to read to make sure I am translating the message correction. The idea is folded within a number of buzzwords and hot sounding terms; for example, megavendor, stack centricity, BI, and similar code words.
The idea is that an azure chip consulting firm has alerted its customers to avoid the big outfits in the business intelligence sector. I think of Business Objects (now part of the challenged SAP), IBM’s bevy of business intelligence companies, SAS, and, if I am broad minded, Oracle. The consulting firm suggests that big outfits sell companies too much so money is wasted. In short, buy what you need. Save money. Live long. Prosper.
Okay.
First, I think that the consulting firm may be revealing unintentionally that some big outfits are not ponying up significant consulting contracts. The consulting firm’s advice is preparing the ground for smaller vendors to take buy some of the consulting firm’s expertise.
Second, I think that business intelligence like military intelligence are often oxymoronic. In my opinion, companies need timely, operational information; that is, facts directly related to making a sale, solving a problem, or figuring out whether to zig or zag. This more prosaic view of information is too much steak and not enough sizzle, so we get glittering generalities. The need for some words that make sales is increasing. Rhetoric is in. Basics are out perhaps?
Third, notion that a fuzzy concept like business intelligence presented as a cure all is a very popular and facile marketing method. I know a West Coast consultant who overpromises and tries to over deliver. The clients are usually disappointed in my experience. The client remembers the hyperbole and forgets the difficulty of providing solid information in a fluid, unpredictable business environment.
My hunch is that the general advice of “buyer beware” is like one of those Chinese proverbs. Those proverbs sound so darned meaningful. How many situations exist where the buyer does not know enough to be aware? How many buying situations are rubber stamp deals where the old vendor gets the new job auto-magically?
In short, cautions in today financial climate are, in my opinion, not really needed. Example range from Enron to Lehman Bros. My take is that silver bullets whether shot from azure chip consultants’ laptops or vendors’ PowerPoints have one goal: generate cash.
Caveat emptor! Absolutely. And the advice applies to consultants, vendors, and information disseminators as well.
Stephen E Arnold, April 21, 2010
Unsponsored post
IBM and Its New Content Delivery Initiative
April 20, 2010
I listened to a talk by an IBM innovator today and I did not hear anything about IBM’s deal with Verizon to float cloud storage nor did I hear anything about IBM’s content delivery initiative. I was puzzled because before the lecture I read “IBM Helps Media and Entertainment Industry Meet the Challenges of Delivering Content in the Digital Age.” My hunch is that IBM executives don’t know too much about other units of IBM. The same problem exists at Google, Microsoft, and other multi billion dollar companies. Read this article. Do you see similarities between what Google has announced and Google’s suite of content delivery patent documents? These jumped right off the page and hit me between the eyes. I wonder if the similarity is a result of my having been immersed in Google patent documents and technical papers for the last nine months or if there was one of those happy coincidences that occur. Remember the calculus dust up?
IBM asserts that it offers media and entertainment companies a way to make their lives much easier. Among the features of the new system are:
- A media enterprise framework. Unlike the repackaging of open source Apache into WebSphere, this framework sounds like a home grown solution
- Personalized content delivery, quite similar to the Google personalization method for set top boxes and other devices
- Business process features; that is, everything hooks together presumably eliminating stand alone and siloized functioned
- Metadata management which makes search of content assets possible
- Security
IBM in this article suggested to the writer:
The IBM Media Enterprise Framework is the software technology backbone that makes a wide range of media and entertainment solutions possible by helping clients to build an integrated platform for all of their operations based on industry standards. This new framework utilizes elements of IBM’s entire software portfolio including WebSphere, Rational, Tivoli, Lotus and Information Management products while leveraging the full range of IBM server and storage products and the industry-specific offerings and consulting expertise of IBM Global Business Services. Additionally, it supports the broad set of independent Software Vendors that address specific application requirements.
Okay, frameworks and backbones. Is IBM, like Google, arriving late to the content delivery party? Akamai and lots of other companies are in this space. Margins seem to be under pressure as firms vie for available accounts. Apple, despite its walled garden approach, seems to be chugging alone. Google’s YouTube.com delivers lots of video. Is there a play for IBM?
We will know if IBM breaks out revenues for this new framework / backbone. My hunch is that IBM is scrambling for any new revenue opportunity it can get. The company has lots of competitors and Fortune 1000 long accustomed to paying IBM big bucks or euros may be counting pennies.
My view is that IBM is cobbling together pieces, partners, and promises in hopes of striking a gusher of cash. Maybe content delivery is another commodity and not exactly what it seems to IBM’s business analysts? And what about search? Maybe another open source play?
Stephen E Arnold, April 20, 2010
A freebie.
Thomson Reuters and Sentiment Analysis
April 20, 2010
Thomson Reuters has a public relations unit. Based on the comments in “Two Doses of Sentiment Analytics From Thomson Reuters”, the professional publishing, financial information, and news giant is breaking new ground in sentiment analysis. According to Greg Radner, head of PR services at Thomson Reuters:
what’s really required for this audience is moving from machine-readable to machine-learnable. “The next thing beyond sentiment analysis is understanding what the nature of those conversations are,” he says. “It’s only so helpful to be able to say something has a positive or negative tone, but that doesn’t itself give insight into the nature of the conversation, into what people are really saying.” Using Crimson Hexagon machine-learnable algorithms, ThomsonReuters’ Thomson ONE Public Relations workflow platform users can identify the conversations underway, aggregate them, and categorize them into different buckets. Users can train the engine with a little manual processing on the front end about how to categorize posts, and then have it happen automatically going forward.
I find the open source initiatives and its public relations services unit two interesting facets of Thomson Reuters. As margin pressures increase for publishing and information companies, Thomson Reuters is showing remarkable creativity. Software, not journalists or analysts, are helping the company provide information to its clients in financial services and pharmaceuticals.
Stephen E Arnold, April 20, 2010
A freebie.
Enterprise Search is Not Web Search
April 20, 2010
Google continues to dominate the search market as reported by ecommercenews.com, “Google Dominates Enterprise Level Search” Touting a number of 80% of the enterprise search market share would make one agree. However, it is important to note that not all searches are created equal. Google is making and maintaining gains in the enterprise search arena, but site search and web search results are a different game.
Per our own Stephen Arnold in The Enterprise Search Report: Requirements, Costs, Products, and Practices, web search is for finding web content, whether that be content on the Internet or on your own company’s intranet or website.
Enterprise search, on the other hand, is limited to specific information produced by a company. Instead of a spider or crawler adding content to the system, enterprise search can also receive a direct file transfer from other enterprise systems.
So, Google gets credit for the majority of enterprise market share. Can they gain and maintain market share of other search markets?
Melody K. Smith, April 20, 2010
Note: Post was not sponsored.
Lexalytics Reaches for the Cloud
April 20, 2010
Reaching out to a varied audience of users, Lexalytics Web Service can augment brand/reputation management by providing advanced text analytics from a variety of sources.
PRWeb reports in their article, “Lexalytics Unveils Lexascope Web Service for Social Media & Sentiment Analysis” that this new service works easily and inexpensively from the get go to integrate Lexalytics’ sentiment analysis, entity extraction, and thematic analysis directly into the user’s own business intelligence applications. According to Seth Redmore, vice president of products, “If it’s text, and it’s English, we can read it and add value to it.”
Targeting three different types of audiences, Lexalytics is looking at larger enterprises with specific, “point” text analytics problems they need to address; companies that are providing specific media and reputation management service; and companies who want to add value to the content that they are distributing. In short, this Web services provides an extremely quick analysis of thousands of documents; the work of many, many humans.
Melody K. Smith, April 20, 2010
Note: Post was not sponsored.
Zoogma Targets Buried Treasure
April 18, 2010
CMSwire recently reported that “Zoogma, An Automated Intelligence-Gathering and Analysis Platform” is attempting to track all the unstructured content lurking in the corners of every enterprise content management system. Much like a detective, it does this by detecting and deciphering clues to make the data findable. A number of companies are entering this “intelligence” sector, including Fetch Technologies and Kapow Tech. Using Natural Language Processing (NLP), Zoogma collects information from web scrapers, databases and other repositories, stores that information, analyzes it and delivers it through a web services interface. According to Alex Emmermann, general manager of Cormine Intelligent Data, “While keywords help you find what you know, Zoogma is specifically geared towards finding what you don’t know.” Zoogma reportedly can plug in to many enterprise content management systems, but specific names have not been released. Currently there is little feedback to indicate whether Zoogma works as claimed; only time will tell.
Melody K. Smith, April 18, 2010
Note: Post was not sponsored.
3M and NLP
April 18, 2010
Natural Language Processing (NLP) seems to be the hot topic of late. More and more technology companies are utilizing this in their software packages. 3M has released the next generation computer-assisted coding for both inpatient and outpatient coding. You can see 3M’s next generation NLP system for coding patient intake forms by downloading the demo from this link. With claims of improving productivity and decreasing costs, 3M shares a product study that produced immediate results. A small controlled study measured the improvement a hospital might see when they install 3M Codefinder Computer-Assisted Edition for inpatient coding. Within a single afternoon—and with only one hour of training—coders were able to reduce the time spent coding records by nearly 30 percent. The time savings became even greater as the complexity of the medical records increased. Impressive claims, check it out for yourself.
Melody K. Smith, April 18, 2010
Note: Post was not sponsored.
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