Android: Beyond Amazon and Samsung
January 10, 2012
I bought a phone from an outfit in China. I have been in some interesting cities in that vast, time immune nation state. The phone cost about $40 US. It runs a version of Android, supports two SIMMS, and worked with over the counter SIMMs from Europe and the US. I am not sure the phone is available in the US, but when I head to the damp, hot flood plains of Cambodia, I will tote my trust no name mobile gizmo. The BlackBerry is a technical clunker compared to this $40, two-SIMM device.
I thought about my gizmo when I read Samsung vs Google by the respected manager and investor Jean-Louis Gassée. I agree with most of his points, but I have worked with French wizards long enough to know that life is easier if one looks at the French as having outstanding technical capabilities, not just a nice country in which to purchase cheese. So no push back from me about the main point of the write up:
But even if we “de-propagandize” the numbers, Samsung is clearly the number one Android handset maker, and, just as clearly, it’s taking large chunks of market share from the other two leading players: Motorola and HTC both announced lower than expected Q4CY11 numbers. HTC’s unit volume was 10 million units, down from 13.2 million in Q3; Motorola got 10.5 million units in Q4, down from 11.6 million in Q3. This leaves us with the potential for an interesting face-off. Not Samsung vs Motorola/HTC, but…Samsung vs. Google. As Erik Sherman observes in his CBS MoneyWatch post, since Samsung ships close to 55% of all Android phones, the company could be in a position to twist Google’s arm. If last quarter’s trend continues — if Motorola and HTC lose even more ground — Samsung’s bargaining position will become even stronger. But what is Samsung’s ‘‘bargaining position’’? What could they want? Perhaps more search referral money (the $$ flowing when Google’s search engine is used on a smartphone), earlier access to Android releases, a share of advertising revenue… Will Google let Samsung gain the upper hand? Not likely, or at least not for long.There’s Motorola, about to become a fully-owned but “independent” Google subsidiary. A Googorola vertically-integrated smartphone line could counterbalance Samsung’s influence.
What caught my attention is the interesting role of Amazon in the Android avalanche. Amazon has used Android in its apparently successful Kindle Fire. The Amazon approach reminded me of the Chinese dual SIMM mobile phone. Android was like the lift a dude ranch rider gets from the trail ride boss. Android gets the dudes on the horses. Once on the horses, both dudes and animals can behave in unpredictable ways.
What is not in the write up is the possibility that the Amazons, Chinese mobile makers, and Samsung may use that open source Android in idiosyncratic ways. Even a dude ranch guest can make a horse behave, and in some cases turn the “head to the barn” mindset into a wild gallop. Can Google manage one or more run away horses? Will the clueless dude ranch rider develop some new affinity with the horse and make it do new tricks? Will the horse come back to the barn?
Google’s risk lies beyond Amazon and Samsung. Android in the hands of the clever engineers who developed my two SIMM phone may not behave as desired. Once out of the barn, life can be even more interesting. Is Google prepared for that type of “interesting”? I think that Google has to demonstrate that the freedom which created the Android herd can keep the nags under control. Does Jeff Bezos don a saddle and bridle each morning? Does the maker of my mobile with two SIMMs respond to Google’s trail boss and his whistle? Will Samsung trot back to the barn in a docile, predictable way? I think not.
Stephen E Arnold, January 10, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Data Harmony: Sweet Tune for Knowledge Management Experts
January 10, 2012
Short honk: Here in Harrod’s Creek, we find meet ups, hoe downs, and webinars plentiful and out of tune with our needs. We want to put on your calendar an event that seems to offer a sweet tune about knowledge management.
The Eighth Annual Data Harmony Users Group (DHUG) meeting, scheduled February 7 to 9, 2012, in Albuquerque, New Mexico will focus on helping users get the most from their investment in the knowledge management software suite, which helps users organize information resources based on a well-built and systematically applied taxonomy or thesaurus.
We learned:
This meeting is an exciting opportunity to learn how to fully utilize the power of Data Harmony software to maximize the effectiveness and profitability of your organization for your members, customers and staff,” said Marjorie M.K. Hlava, president of Access Innovations.
You can get complete details from Access Innovations. The widely read Web log Taxodiary is encouraging anyone who wishes to share their story at the meeting to contact Data Harmony at this link. Registrations are also now being accepted. For more information about the Eighth Annual Data Harmony Users Group meeting, click here or call (505)998-0800 or 1-800-926-8328. We hope that Access Innovations captures their knowledge in a monograph. Too many amateur taxonomists and knowledge mavens pumping out inaccurate or incomplete information. In our experience, the go-to experts gravitate to the performances by the Mozarts of mark up.
Sounds excellent to us.
Stephen E Arnold, January 10, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
What’s Hot: Sharepoint Semantics Dec 30 – Jan 6
January 10, 2012
This week, SharePoint Semantics provided followers with several informative articles to help end users navigate through the mine field that is often associated with the SharePoint experience.
According to the post, “New Book Explains the Benefits of Silverlight for Microsoft SharePoint 2010,” a recently released book gives an extensive overview of how to package an application created with Silverlight, a browser plug in technology similar to Adobe Flash, so that it works well in SharePoint.
Writer Ken Toth states:
“The authors have also included new ideas that were not documented anywhere, such as an easier way of packaging Silverlight applications for deployment on SharePoint. The book’s audience is developers familiar with the .NET framework and has tutorials on the basics of both Silverlight and SharePoint development.”
Another post worth noting from this past week, shares seven recent webinars for free consumption. According to “Free Webinar Recordings of Notes Migrator SharePoint Partner Training Series” there are links to the audio and slides from Walch’s seven-week Partner Training webcasts on migrating Lotus Notes to SharePoint.
Toth aptly notes:
“Large migration projects can be tricky, and finding content once you have migrated to SharePoint can be even trickier. To solve both these issues, look to the Semaphore Content Intelligence Platform from Smartlogic as your migration tool to speed up SharePoint commissioning and add comprehensive taxonomy support.”
Recently, discussions regarding SharePoint governance have come into play as well as a certain graphic. The post “Pie Graphic from Microsoft – Should it be Used to Explain SharePoint?” shares one unique perspective on this issue.
Toth says:
“A survey follows the article polling users if they are using the SharePoint 2010 pie in presentations. Right now, most use the graphic judiciously depending on the audience. A graphic is a good approach to explaining the breadth and depth of the SharePoint platform, but as the author points out, there really isn’t another comparable compelling graphic out there besides the pie.”
In order to fully discuss and understand SharePoint effectively, it is important that end users utilize a variety of different resources. For those who don’t want to take the time and energy to follow these diverse points of view, and would rather easily boost the search and find experience, turn to Smartlogic and the Semaphore Content Intelligence Platform.
Jasmine Ashton, January 10, 2012
The Urgency of the Cloud for Enterprise
January 10, 2012
It seems that moving IT infrastructure to the cloud is no longer an innovative alternative, but is rather becoming the standard, the norm. IT teams need to embrace the change and shift their thinking away from the football team sized IT staffs of the future. This is not just a general trend, but one that specifically applies to large organizations’ enterprise solutions as well. Rob Lamear focuses on the need to move SharePoint to the cloud in, “Why You NEED SharePoint in the Cloud Now.”
Lamear is referring here to the budget crunch pushing the urgency of the Cloud:
C-levels in every country are no longer telling me that the Cloud is something ‘we are looking at,’ but rather have turned the conversation to ‘We need the Cloud!’ They know they need to slash IT budget dollars and use them in other areas of the business. At best, they use the extra money to innovate and differentiate in the global marketplace. At worst, they need to save to survive.
The question we have to ask is how complicated and costly is the initial move to the cloud. Is there a simpler solution that combines efficient enterprise search with functional, affordable cloud services? We think Fabasoft Mindbreeze might be just that solution.
Read a little more about their cloud services:
The Cloud makes your business mobile; Mindbreeze finds its way in the Cloud. This intelligent search is available as a Cloud service. This means that, if you so desire, Fabasoft Mindbreeze can run without any installation whatsoever – we operate the search engine for you. All the data that you manage in the Cloud is made searchable by Fabasoft Mindbreeze. This makes Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise the center of excellence for your knowledge in the Cloud too.
Implementing Fabasoft Mindbreeze in the cloud alongside your existing SharePoint installation is a switch that improves the efficiency of your search as well as your infrastructure. There’s no configuration and no maintenance. If your organization spent less time and money maintaining your enterprise system, in what other areas could you invest those resources? It is definitely worth consideration, and Fabasoft Mindbreeze is worth a second look.
Emily Rae Aldridge, January 10, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Maturity Model May Aid Product Data Accessibility
January 10, 2012
Finding product data is not always efficient, but it is essential to manufacturers. Productivity and innovation are stunted when data is lost or not easily found. Jim Brown from Tech-Clarity tackles the issue by offering his “Maturity Model for Product Data Accessibility.”
He classifies product data accessibility into five levels – The Wild, Wild West, Basic Search, Advanced Search, Access and Aggregate and Search Based Applications. Each level describes a specific way to search for product information. Brown says his model:
Needs some work in order to really be robust. And no maturity model should really include a level called ‘the Wild, Wild West.’ But I hope it serves as a way to get people thinking about the different ways companies can access, aggregate and use their product data to drive more business value.
Brown’s Access and Aggregate level may be the most important for manufacturing growth. This level pulls disparate data together to get a more full view of the product. He mentions that Inforbix uses semantics to intelligently discover relationships between data. A company like Inforbix who finds, re-uses and shares product data could certainly boost innovation and productivity. Though Brown’s maturity model has several strong points, his view on disparate data is vital to manufacturing future.
Jennifer Wensink, January 10, 2012
Connotate Embraces Big Data
January 10, 2012
The Internet is an environment where unregulated data is being created at rapid rates. It has become far too much for company staff to keep track of. Therefore, software that collects and organizes Big Data is becoming a hot commodity for enterprises all over the world.
According to the recent news release “Staffing and the Volume of Information are the Primary Big Data Challenges” Connotate, Inc., a provider of solutions that help organizations monitor and collect data and content from the Web, announced the results of its Big Data Attitudes and Perceptions Survey.
Connotate CEO Tom Meyer said:
Our research shows that Big Data goes beyond technology and is an HR challenge for corporate America. While it is important that organizations devote resources to Big Data, employees must be freed from the information fire hose so they can concentrate only on the information that is relevant to their tasks. Connotate’s Agent Community data extraction and monitoring tools are a proven force multiplier, enabling companies to drastically reduce the amount of personnel needed to run and achieve significant ROI from Big Data projects.
The Connotate survey suggests that companies are finding it too time consuming and impractical for their staff to sort through Big Data. Companies focused on data fusion are responding to the explosion in social content. Clients demand; vendors respond.
Jasmine Ashton, January 10, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
PowerShell Packs a Mighty Punch for SharePoint
January 10, 2012
This is the first in a new series of posts that puts the spotlight on Windows PowerShell scripts for SharePoint 2010 Products that are stored in the TechNet Gallery. In each post, we will describe a script’s functionality and use and look under the hood at specific Windows PowerShell programming techniques that you can learn for your own scripts.
Migration Solutions for SharePoint and Office 365 Users
January 10, 2012
The New Year always brings about an avalanche of resolutions, some reasonable and some completely unattainable, as people strive to become a better, slimmer, more productive, smarter, funnier, happier, and/or healthier selves.
Maybe your New Year’s goals are to cut back on coffee, quit smoking, save more money, lose weight, or be better organized? Or maybe your resolution is to figure out a solution for converting those pesky Google Docs to your fancy new enterprise system. If the latter is the case, then Google-users have one more reason to celebrate in 2012, as MetaVis Technologies recently announced in “MetaVis Now Offers Google to SharePoint Migration” that they have created a solution that allows Microsoft SharePoint or Office 365 users to migrate their Google Apps and Google Docs.
According to the MetaVis announcement:
“MetaVis Migrator for Google Apps [http://www.metavistech.com/product/metavis-migrator-google-apps] allows customers to migrate Google content to either a hosted or on-premise-based SharePoint solution while preserving valuable metadata required for compliance and governance policies….With the MetaVis Migrator product line up, customers can migrate content from multiple sources including SharePoint 2010, 2007, 2003, file shares, Exchange Public Folders, Outlook Folders and now Google.”
We know that SharePoint has become the magnet for third-party enhancements. With more than 100 million SharePoint licenses deployed, the demand for SharePoint functionality is rising sharply. Growth in SharePoint was robust in 2011, and 2012 may be another banner year for Microsoft’s most popular enterprise solution.
At Search Technologies, we put the customer first. If a solution requires a third-party component such as MataVis’ or original programming, our engineers have the deep technical know how and engineering expertise to make next-generation information access a reality. To learn more about Search Technologies, point your browser at http://www.searchtechnologies.com.
Iain Fletcher, January 12, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Google TV Love: Buy Affection
January 9, 2012
I am documenting this story, but I do not have confidence that it is 100 percent accurate. The posting appeared in Slashgear and “Google Reportedly Paying Smart TV Vendors to Use Android.” The point of the write up is financial. On Google’s side, if the story is true, distributing some of Google’s cash hoard to consumer product manufacturers is as American as allowing members of the House and Senate to play squash with lobbyists or engage in some stock trading not permitted others.
If this statement is accurate, then we are racing toward lowest possible cost:
Exactly how much Google is paying manufacturers to use Android rather than their own smart TV OS is unknown, though the decision to switch to ARM-based chipsets likely means the actual hardware costs are minimal.
Three observations:
First, buying love works, and it is less messy that “real” love. “Real” love is like “real” consulting provided by failed home economics majors.
Second, in a race for least cost, the winner is the person who finds away around certain hurdles. These may be technical, procedural, financial, or legal. Excitement ahead may trigger memories of Cisco Systems’ adventures with router manufacturing in a far off land.
Third, what if US consumers don’t want lots of applications on a TV. I, for instance, am happy if I can find a current episode of Lizard Lick Towing, a fine example of modern reality television. It reminds me of the spate of predictions from Gartner, Forrester, Ovum, and others about technology. Excellence makes find bed fellows. “Find” equal “search” to me.
Here in the goose command center in Harrod’s Creek, we will be “watching” for news at 11.
Stephen E Arnold, January 9, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Inteltrax: Top Stories, January 2 to January 6
January 9, 2012
Inteltrax, the data fusion and business intelligence information service, captured three key stories germane to search this week, specifically, the way many industries are rightfully and wrongfully utilizing analytics.
One of the best stories about traditional industries embracing big data was our story, “Police and Intelligence Communities Share Analytics Needs” which showed how law enforcement and data mining are a match made in heaven.
Slightly further down the scale was our look, “Auto Industry Needs Analytics to Survive,” which showed some small successes in the car industry with analytics and encouraged a wider adoption of practices.
And something completely different came from our article, “Online Reputation Analytics a Mixed Bag,” which chronicled the companies that use analytics to gauge a person’s online reputation and fix it. Our opinion is not so high, however.
This is one of the most exciting aspects of big data analytics. It’s fun to see how established businesses and industries utilize the technology for improvement. At least in most cases (We’re looking at you Reputation.com). Keep up with us as we follow more industry exploits in the world of big data analytics.
Follow the Inteltrax news stream by visiting www.inteltrax.com
Patrick Roland, Editor, Inteltrax.
January 9, 2012
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