Bing Eyes China
February 8, 2014
News about China being the next economic giant has died down, but companies still want a part of the Chinese market. Media Post reports that one of companies seeking part of the Middle Kingdom is Microsoft; read the story in “Microsoft Wants A Piece Of China.”
Microsoft plans to use more resources in 2014 to grow Bing’s share in the search market. There are currently 1,000 Bing employees in China and Microsoft plans to add 1,000 more to work in research, customer support, and enterprise services. Bing has less than one percent of China’s search activity.
The article outlines the competition and Bing’s plan to succeed:
“Search market share only contributes a portion to the success or the failure of an engine in any specific country. Baidu, the majority stakeholder in China, won’t likely share the search market on desktop or mobile. Some reports suggest that China’s largest engine holds as much as a 75 percent market share.”
Google, of course, is the dominant search engine in Asia, but Baidu accounts for twenty percent of search on the continent. Baidu strengthened its hold in Asia by purchasing 91 Wireless Websoft and it is cited as one of the most valuable deals in mobile media and technology in 2013.
So does Bing stand a chance? Maybe, but if you look at how Bing has no progress in the US it does not look likely. Is the solution to head to a tough market? Another maybe.
Whitney Grace, February 08, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Unusual Article about Autonomy and its Founder
February 5, 2014
I was surprised to read “Who is Mike Lynch and What’s the Deal with Autonomy and Hewlett-Packard?” The write up appeared in IBTimes on February 4, 2014.
I continue to monitor Autonomy, but I focus on the technology and Autonomy’s impact on the search and content processing sector. The goose is frisky, but he has not used this shocking statement in his discussion of the company:
“He, together with some former Autonomy bosses, have started technology investment firm Invoke Capital, which has a $1bn fund to play with. Its first investment was in Darktrace, which calls itself “the world’s first Behavioural Cyber Defence platform” and sounds like a sci-fi euphemism for toilet bowl skidmarks.”
The write up is similar to those I have seen from azure chip (my phrase for low- and mid-tier) consulting firms.
I have released a free analysis of Autonomy’s technology in a Xenky white paper. You may download it at http://bit.ly/1nTtueY. The write up focuses on the technology, business approach, and products the company offered in the ten year period from 1996 to 2006. A longer version that includes an analysis of three core patent documents is available for those who are interested in Bayesian-Laplacian methods, Monte Carlo Markov Chains (MCMC), and Volterra recipes.
My view of the HP deal is that a large company bought a smaller company. The larger company then had buyer’s remorse. The larger company is trying to get its money back.
The international accounting rules, the post purchase audit, and the realization that search and content processing are not trivialities surprises some.
The dust up is fascinating, and I anticipate more to and fro. As my Xenky report shows, Autonomy disrupted the enterprise search sector consistently until it was acquired by HP. Does Mr. Lynch deserve credit for his ability to make competitors work overtime to match Autonomy’s market performance?
I am going to say, “Yes.” International Business Times would answer with another tasteless reference to “skidmarks.” Even in the hands of another firm, Autonomy evokes strong reactions. I prefer my Xenky report approach.
Stephen E Arnold, February 5, 2014
Budget Airline Ryanair Added to Google Flight Search
February 5, 2014
An article titled Google to Revamp its Flight Search Engine, Ryanair’s CEO Says on ComputerWorld reports on a interview of Michael O’Leary, CEO of budget airline Ryanair. Leary’s interview also included the following insights into the addition of Ryanair into Google’s Flight Search.
The article states:
“According to O’Leary, Google wants to provide route selections as well as cheapest prices of all the airlines. Whoever selects a trip will be able to click on the fares to be led to an airline’s website to purchase tickets, he said. Ryanair’s data will be added to Google’s database in March. The addition of Ryanair, once a fierce opponent of price comparison sites, to Flight Search will absolutely benefit Google, said Henry Harteveldt, a travel industry analyst at Hudson Crossing.”
Competitors such as Skyscanner and Kayak will not be overly hurt by Google’s gain, Hartveldt surmises, since they also offer travel services such as car rentals and hotel options. A spokesperson for Google dampened any of O’Leary’s grandiose language of a revamp, stating that Ryanair was simply being added to the service. Meanwhile Google’s Flight Search (which was launched in 2011 and came to the UK in 2013) has come under fire in Europe for having no travel agency links. Expedia and TripAdvisor filed an antitrust complaint in 2012 with the European Commission, claiming that Google’s search engine gives an unfair advantage to its own services.
Chelsea Kerwin, February 05, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Autonomy: 1996 to 2006 Free Report Available on Xenky
February 4, 2014
Update: The HP Autonomy deal is back in the news. See “HP Restates Autonomy’s 2010 Revenue Down 54%, Citing Errors.”
Autonomy was one of the first—some may argue the first—enterprise search vendor to embrace Bayesian-Laplace methods and power its way to almost $1 billion in revenues in 15 years. Hewlett Packard bought Autonomy in 2011, and Autonomy remains a high profile information processing brand.
But what gave Autonomy its revenue oomph? Other vendors tried to match Autonomy’s marketing, technology, and indirect sales. Google generated more revenue than Autonomy, but Google sold ads. In the enterprise sector, Google found itself watching Autonomy close deal after deal.
This report combines information from several Autonomy analyses written by Stephen E Arnold, and his research team. A similar report from an azure chip or mid tier consulting firm can cost as much as $3,500. (Four of Mr. Arnold’s reports are on offer at that rate by IDC, one of the perceived leaders in for fee research by independent experts.)
This free 25 page report provides some important historical information and a description of the Autonomy system.
To download a free copy, navigate to the Xenky.com Web site and select Autonomy from the list of 11 free enterprise search vendor profiles. The report is available at http://bit.ly/1boX86v.
Other reports in this free series of historical and analytical white papers are Convera, Dieselpoint, SchemaLogic, and Verity. Each analysis provides useful information about the wise and sometimes ill advised business and technical decisions companies have made.
If you are interested in a more in-depth discussion of select Autonomy patents and its Digital Reasoning Engine’s mathematical methods, write seaky2000 at yahoo dot com. Put Autonomy Report in the subject line. ArnoldIT will reply with details about this expanded Autonomy analysis.
Kenneth Toth, February 4, 2014
Tutorial for ElasticSearch Basic Setup
February 4, 2014
The article on DZone titled Getting Started With ElasticSearch offers a step-by-step guide to the search engine to fill the hole in tutorials. The author promises that by the end of reading the post the user will be armed with the tools to begin working with ElasticSearch in Windows 7. The instructions begin with the assumption that the user already has Java installed.
After downloading ElasticSearch, the tutorial explains:
“I am new to Curl and cygwin and i wanted to cut short the time frame to learn it (as most of the command references on ElasticSearch.org are for non-Windows platform). You can install Curl from http://curl.haxx.se/download.html and cygwin from http://cygwin.com/install.html. Now let’s test what we have done till now. In Windows7 Desktop Environment, start command line and cd C:\elasticsearch-0.90.3\bin. Now execute elasticsearch.bat. This will start one of the ElasticSearch nodes on the localhost.”
After a few more steps, the article concludes with the information that status 200 simply means everything is working. The tutorial continues with installing elasticsearch-head plugin into your environment and finally developing an application for employees within a department. The details are well worth looking over in order to get ElasticSearch jumpstarted and to get users working on their search projects.
Chelsea Kerwin, February 04, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
PageZepher Desktop Search Good for Publishing Formats
February 4, 2014
Here is a search and conversion tool that bridges a gap to make working with certain data much easier. Markzware has created PageZephyr, a desktop solution that can even index the proprietary publishing formats of QuarkXPress, Adobe InDesign, and MS Publisher. The product’s page includes a handy, three-minute video highlighting some of the solution’s functionality.
The list of features specifies:
- Index content easily within Apple Macintosh storage volumes.
- Desktop Search within Adobe InDesign, QuarkXPress and Microsoft Publisher files.
- Edit content from search results within a convenient Storyboard Window.
- Extract content from multiple documents simultaneously.
- Export content to rich text format RTF or a plain text TXT file.
- Publish and distribute content to the internet using output options to blog sites like WordPress, Google *Docs, Scribd, and Box.net.
- Supports Microsoft Publisher 2002 – 2010, QuarkXPress 4 – 9 and InDesign CS – CS6 file types.
- PageZephyr does not require Adobe InDesign, QuarkXPress or Microsoft Publisher.
As this list points out, users of PageZephyr don’t need to have those publishing applications installed in order to find, view, or modify documents. The ability to edit any content within, and export it from, the platform is a handy feature.
Founded in 1992, Markzware is also the maker of the successful FlightCheck pre-print quality control software. The company emphasizes ease of use and day-to-day labor reduction, and also works to minimize its environmental impact. Markzware USA is headquartered in Santa Ana, California, and the spun-off Markzware Europe makes its home in Pijnacker, Netherlands.
Cynthia Murrell, February 04, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Cluuz: Back Online
January 31, 2014
Overflight happily reported that www.cluuz.com came back online. Good news.
Stephen E Arnold, January 31, 2014
Yahoo Attempts to Regain the Search Crown
January 30, 2014
Yahoo has not been the top search engine for a long time and they have focused their energies on other promising projects. CEO Marissa Mayer kept search in the back of her mind when she purchased Aviate, creator of a contextual app search and organization for mobile phone users. Business Insider describes the acquisition in “Yahoo Just Acquired A New Search Product That Could Hurt Google.”
According to the article, contextual search is very important to technology companies and many already have projects concerning the new search trend in development.
What makes contextual or semantic search different? The article states:
“Basically, contextual search differs from the regular search you know on Google by trying to anticipate what you really mean or want based on cues in your past searches or in other stores of data the search tool has access to. It’s not just about matching keywords and ranking incoming links.”
Under Yahoo, Aviate’s product will organize phone apps on the home screen based on its best guess to what the user needs at the moment. Mayer is probably out to solve the app overload problem, where users download hundreds of apps and hardly use any of them. Aviate takes hide and seek out of finding apps. The search product will also locate items before users access other search applications.
Mayer has a good idea. Organize the tools that are supposed to make life easier. It also sounds like she is trying to set up the Yahoo equivalent of the Google’s Play Store and Apple’s App Store. What will she name it?
Whitney Grace, January 30, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Cluuz Offline
January 29, 2014
My Overflight system posted an alert a few days ago that www.cluuz.com was returning null sets. I tried to telephone and email the company, but no one has replied. According to Nick Waddell in February 2012, Sprylogics was founded about seven years ago. The co0founder was Avi Schachar, a former officer in Israeli intelligence. His idea for a relationship analysis system became the principal product of Sprylogics. The software gained some traction in Canada.
Sprylogics went public in 2007. When Mr. Waddell wrote his commentary “Investors Look for Cluuz to Sprylogics [sic] Resurgence”, the share price of Sprylogics dropped to one penny. On January 29, 2014, the share price is $0.49, ticker SPY on the Canadian exchange. An analyst report presents the company as a mobile solution.
In December 2013, a Sprylogics’ presentation to investors circulated. The document is “Sprylogics: Seeing beyond the Obvious Investor Presentation.” That document asserted that the company was focusing on “patented, location-based and cont4ext-sensitive search.” Sprylogics intends to monetize the intersection of mobile messaging and local search. The presentation highlights three differentiators for the company’s technology:
- More functionality within chat
- A method for preventing “users from leaving for third party services”
- Keeps users in context via a sharing function.
The company’s technology plus that of Poynt, a “strategic acquisition”, delivers Sprylogics 2.0. The company’s presentation suggests that it has a war chest of $6 million. The search technology appears to come from Nimbuzz.
The management of the company, according to the presentation, consists of:
- Marvin Igelman, CEO
- Alex Zivkovic, CTO. A 2008 with Mr. Zivkovic is available in the Search Wizards Speak series at http://bit.ly/1egcIlV
- David Berman, CFO
- Bhavuk Kaul, VP product marketing, who was the head of search at Research in Motion.
If you want to contact the company, I would suggest a snail mail letter to 64 Jardin Drive, 2A in Concord, Ontario L4K 3P3.
The ArnoldIT team was quite fond of the Cluuz.com service.
Stephen E Arnold, January 29, 2014
AddSearch Scores $650K in Seed Funding
January 28, 2014
Finland’s AddSearch has picked up a hefty investment. A press release over at PRWeb reports, “AddSearch, Instant Search Tool for Websites, Announces $650k Seed Investment and Imminent Launch.” Founded last April, the company has set out to fix what is broken in site search. The write-up tells us:
“AddSearch is a lightning fast hosted search tool for any website, offering instant and accurate search results after the first keypress. AddSearch works across all devices, gives website owners complete control over their search results and is very easy to install….
“‘Website search is broken’, commented Pasi Ilola, AddSearch co-founder and CEO. ‘Existing search solutions for websites offer a very poor and slow user experience, often failing to provide the most relevant search result. Building and maintaining your own search functionality is highly expensive and time-consuming. That is why we created AddSearch – it is easy to set up for the website owners and it just works.'”
We really look forward to site search that functions well and is a pleasure to use, because existing systems really are terrible. Does AddSearch hold the key? The company is based in Helsinki, and is now (I imagine) pleased to be financially backed by Vision+ and Tekes.
Cynthia Murrell, January 28, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
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