02.24.04
Posted in Business Intelligence at 12:50 am by Tony Baer
It’s human nature to make computers think more like people. By that, we mean software that can understand what you really want when you submit a query, or anticipate your future needs and act on them.
But most software is pretty dumb, capable only of responding to literal commands, although gradually we’ve added bits and pieces of intelligence. You can now type a search phrase into Google and it will factor in misspellings or typos. Not exactly revolutionary, but a start.
All this is pretty ironic, given repeated attempts over the past 30 years to make computers understand us. It began with top-down approaches like artificial intelligence, where software draws inferences; fuzzy logic, where systems process parameters related to what you specify; and neural networks, where software “learns” what you are doing to anticipate what you’re looking for, or want to do.
More recently, approaches have been more bottom-up. Text parsers look for incidence of phrases, and in some cases, synonyms. Voice processors transform sounds into words or vice versa, but can’t yet deduce meaning. Data mining advances ferret out hidden patterns from huge troves of data, while web services provide standard approaches for software to intelligently connect. And, thanks to Internet standards for locating resources and identifying them, newer “semantic web” proposals could add the ability to search for content based on its meaning. Adding icing to the cake, we’ve seen prototypes of IBM’s renowned Web Fountain intended to add the ability to search for content by its meaning.
But where is this all getting us? We thought of those questions as we were recently briefed by several vendors who have fused a variety of these techniques. Biz360 is developing analytic tools that apply these techniques to dissect what other people (e.g., the press, stock analysts, etc.) are saying about your products. Fair Isaac, best known for the FICO credit ratings, has integrated its rules and predictive analysis engine to help financial services companies automate more credit risk decisions. Meanwhile, we’ve seen pretty cool data mining tools from Clear Forest that can help government anti-terrorist agencies ferret out hidden links to Al Queda on the web, or pharmaceutical firms identify promising new drugs.
None of this is brand new of course. What is new is that, in place of general-purpose AI approaches, we’ve seeing the emergence of business-focused solutions that use various smart processing techniques. Not a bad idea.
Still we wonder, how smart are computers really getting? Take Biz360’s product, that shows not only how much press a company is getting, but whether the coverage is favorable. We wonder how they’d rate a recent CNET article onDell’s efforts to improve its sagging customer service levels. Would it reflect positively on Dell’s efforts to fix something or cast a negative spin on how Dell got to this sorry state in the first place? We think that it would still take a human to answer that one.
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02.13.04
Posted in IT Infrastructure, Networks, Security at 12:48 am by Tony Baer
In most IT organizations, data centers and networking are managed by different groups. And reflecting the organizational stovepipes, the vendors serving both groups are quite separate. In large part, that’s why IBM exited the network business several years ago, selling global backbones to AT&T and switching products to Cisco. From a sales and marketing standpoint, keeping the server and network product lines separate made ample sense. Yet in this era of viruses, worms, and hacker attacks, keeping both domains separate amounts to a security nightmare.
Traditionally, the data center and the network folks met through network node management software, using rudimentary SNMP interfaces to read the status of network nodes. HP, which largely invented the business, has an arms-length alliance with Cisco that enables HP OpenView console to configure Cisco devices and monitor their availability. Now IBM has upped the ante, announcing an alliance to cross-fertilize its product lines with Cisco’s. For opening shots, both companies are primarily focusing on integrating Cisco network security features into IBM ThinkPad clients covering VPN clients, intrusion detection, and access control. It’s just the first step — with the exception of intrusion detection, integration of network protection features into servers will come later.
Of course, to get a truly united front, we’d like to see the common umbrella extended to features such as firewalls and antivirus protection. However, from a business standpoint, that would make things more complicated because it would require participation by third parties. Significantly, past efforts to forge unified security suites have had rough going, as Network Associates could testify. Nonetheless, for anybody that didn’t perceive the need for converging data center and network protection, the invasion of the MyDoom worm over the past couple weeks was a cold wake up call.
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02.11.04
Posted in Enterprise Applications, Technology Market Trends at 12:48 am by Tony Baer
News that the Department of Justice is turning thumbs down to Oracle’s proposed takeover of PeopleSoft is actually a bit irrational when you look at the numbers. The ERP marketplace still has too many players, even after PeopleSoft helped matters along with its hastened acquisition of JD Edwards last fall. (We’re not going out on a limb here — virtually every major market prognosticator agrees that the market could use more consolidation.)
According to Gartner Group, if Oracle succeeds in buying PeopleSoft, it would only have 16% of the market (compared to SAP’s 25%). On the numbers alone, that’s hardly over concentration.
This is no longer 1999, when Global 2000 corporations were spending millions on new installs. Today, the ERP marketplace is primarily being driven by maintenance, or by lower-cost installs in the midmarket, for which the Microsoft/Great Plains model is better suited. Furthermore, ERP vendors have mixed records venturing outside their base in the back office. Sure, SAP has enjoyed moderate success with Business Warehouse, but unlike the ERP space, its presence hasn’t exactly vanquished Cognos, Business Objects, Hyperion, or Information Builders. When it comes to emerging markets like business activity management (BAM) or corporate performance management (CPM), the ERP crowd is not exactly in the drivers seat.
Rather, the Oracle bid for PeopleSoft is being shot down by politics, not numbers. The market has already voted against Oracle solutions. That’s ironic, given that Oracle had a head start on SAP and PeopleSoft when it launched its application business back in 1990. However, as it was slow to add functionality, the sales and marketing strategy that propelled its database to market leadership fell flat with ERP. Neither did Oracle help its case when its initial announcement of the hostile bid included statements that it intended to sunset the PeopleSoft application. Ironically, had Oracle instead announced a reverse acquisition, buying PeopleSoft to migrate Oracle ERP customers, its case for acquisition would have been far stronger. It didn’t help matters that PeopleSoft had some fairly influential clients, including many state and local governments, who were lobbying quietly against the move.
We won’t comment on whether the deal would have benefited PeopleSoft shareholders. However, we don’t necessarily buy PeopleSoft’s claim that Oracle’s $26 bid undervalued the company, since PeopleSoft’s shares haven’t been that high in over two years. Maybe it’s only appropriate that in an election year, politics has triumphed over the numbers.
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