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RESOURCES FOR EVALUATING ENTERPRISE SEARCH TECHNOLOGIES
March 17, 2010

Table of Contents

Google Acquires Picnik
Google Buys DocVerse
Google Joins Movement for 'Internet of Things'
NetBase Secures $9 Million in Venture Funding
Shopping for customer data
Integrating communication in BPM
Build your own robust intranet
Coveo strengthens 2.0 in V. 6.1
Socializing the voice of the customer

Google Acquires Picnik

Google has acquired Picnik, an online photo editing site that allows users to edit, share, and print images using any internet browser on any computer platform. Picnik is integrated with social networking and photo sharing sites like Flickr, Facebook, Photobucket, and more.

While the user end of Picnik will stay more or less the same for now, the site plans to leverage Google's data storage and processing capabilites, as well as its marketing arm, to grow.

(www.google.com; www.picnik.com)

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Google Buys DocVerse

Google continues to gobble up internet startups like well-salted french fries as the search giant announced the acquisition of cloud document management company DocVerse. The 3-year-old company created an eponymous service to transfer documents from Microsoft Office to Google Docs and Apps. The first step for DocVerse after its acquisition by Google will be to integrate DocVerse with Google Docs.

(http://docverse.com; www.google.com)

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Google Joins Movement for 'Internet of Things'

The IPSO Alliance, which promotes the use of internet protocol (IP) for smart object communications, has added a new heavy hitter to its lineup. Google has joined the organization-with the end goal of connecting not only cars, phones, and computers but even mundane appliances such as smoke detectors and microwaves. With the addition of Google and four other companies (FUJITSU, Echelon Corp., the Elster Group, and Augusta Systems), the alliance totals 53 member companies.

The end result of IPSO Alliance's vision, according to chairman Geoff Mulligan, is an "internet of things." In an internet of things, household electronics would contain computer chips that allow them to connect to the internet. In this case, if a smoke detector goes off, it would call the fire department and shut off the gas in the house, Mulligan says. What's more, the homeowner could be notified via text message if he or she is out of the house.

"That kind of thing could be done today with IP," Mulligan says. "You could do this for the cost of a $2 or $3 microcontroller." While smart objects exist today, they are controlled by a host of proprietary systems. For instance, your MP3 player might link to your car stereo using one protocol, while your burglar alarm and smoke detectors communicate through a completely different setup. Moving everything to one system would reduce cost and eliminate translation problems that result from having multiple communications protocols.

IPSO supports the transition to IP because it is available, reliable, simple, and easy to use. "We aren't defining a new standard; we're saying the standards are already there," Mulligan says. "IP has already been defined-it's been around for 40 years. We're just saying let's use it, and let's teach people how to use it."

Connecting every appliance to the internet will result in a geometric expansion in the number of devices connected to the internet. Currently, the internet is run on IP version 4 (IPv4), which has been the basis for the internet for close to 30 years. However, with only 4 billion addresses, there are simply not enough to go around. Intec NetCore estimates that all of the IPv4 addresses will be exhausted in September 2011.
Before that happens, however, the framework will be switched from the 32-bit IPv4 to IPv6, which is a 128-bit system, resulting in many more available addresses.

"There's enough addresses in IPv6 to give each grain of sand in the world its own IP address," Mulligan says. While an internet of things will most likely not include grains of sand, connecting appliances and other devices to the internet would certainly necessitate the availability of more IP addresses.

Interest in the IPSO Alliance is not necessarily linked to a desire to create a more-wired set of home appliances on Google's part. Instead, the search giant is more likely interested in the data aggregation possibilities that the back end of an internet of things provides. "Google wants to collect information," Mulligan says. "They say, not specifically about you or I, but in aggregation about people. But they
also want to collect information about things."

"Google's participation in IPSO is a result of its expectation that many devices will become part of the internet environment," Google vice president Vint Cerf said in a press release. Google did not respond to a request for comment. The search giant already operates PowerMeter, an online tool that allows users to view and manage their electricity usage. Such a technology could potentially expand to kitchen appliances, cars, and other everyday items.

"Now, with the internet of things-Google can provide services that get people to use Google to capture data," Mulligan says. "They want to keep abreast of where smart object technology is going so they can be in the right place to provide services."

(www.ipso-alliance.org; www.google.com)

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NetBase Secures $9 Million in Venture Funding

NetBase, a strategic insight company, announced the conclusion of a round of Series C funding that secured an addition $9 million of capital for the company. The funding round was carried out with Altos Ventures and Thomvest Ventures Inc. According to NetBase, the funds will be used to execute a growth plan for the organization, including the expansion of sales, marketing, business development, and product management functions. The funds will also be used to expand the company's hosted cloud operations.

NetBase is a provided of rapid-scaling cloud-based data services, including semantic search and other utilities. Its clients include Procter & Gamble and Elsevier.

(www.netbase.com)

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Shopping for customer data

To optimize customer feedback data, large multimedia retailer QVC has implemented a text analytics solution from Clarabridge. QVC is using Clarabridge’s Content Mining Platform at its U.S. operations to improve the customer experience.

QVC tracks customer data at various points, including call center communications, customer e-mails, surveys, product ratings and reviews, and online forums and blogs. With the new system, QVC can efficiently access and analyze the information so it can be used by business owners to decide how to best serve customers.

"QVC has been interested in text analytics tools for a long time, but we fast-tracked the effort in view of the substantial rise in the data we were seeing, particularly from social media sources," says Dan McDermott, senior VP of customer services at QVC. "Clarabridge’s robust text analytics tools will help us process the significant amount of customer feedback data we collect on a daily basis."

Sid Banerjee, Clarabridge CEO, says, "To stay ahead of the game, global companies such as QVC must have accurate, real-time customer intelligence to help them make the right business decisions to attract and retain customers and positively impact bottom-line profits."

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Integrating communication in BPM

Software AG has launched the webMethods Communicate BPM solution, which enables users to integrate communication infrastructure into complex business processes and control them centrally.

In addition to typical business processes, all relevant communication processes can now be managed and monitored centrally. The new communication layer enables customers to incorporate requests made by phone, SMS or e-mail into the process chain, as well as automating voice applications and phone conferences.

Software AG says that by incorporating automated means of communication (e.g., through voice applications systems, speech analysis, call recording, call monitoring), customers can be better informed and can make immediate choices about their customer experience. Within the organization, employees can make rapid decisions, collaborate more effectively and ensure processes complete on time, regardless of their location and availability. This in turn boosts both the efficiency and service quality of the overall business, the company claims.

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Build your own robust intranet

Adenin Technologies has released Version 10 of its IntelliEnterprise intranet platform. The most recent version adds new capabilities that drastically cut the amount of time needed to design and implement a new or updated intranet.

The company explains that the new Intranet Modeler is a free Web-based application that lets users build a wireframe model of their intranet. Starting with industry-specific templates, the user can drag and drop pages, modules and other components into the model to customize the design for their organization’s needs. Once drafted, the team can share the model with others in the organization for feedback. The fully clickable model lets users navigate around the site as if it were already deployed, allowing them to gain a better understanding of how the layout and structure will work.

Version 10 of IntelliEnterprise also includes many other new features, such as:

  • daily digest—users can decide what types of information they want to receive and how often they want to receive e-mails;
  • Weblog API—users can publish blog posts or other content directly from Microsoft Word 2007, with images uploaded and handled automatically;
  • employee awards—awards given to employees can appear on the intranet home page, as well as be featured on employee profile pages;
  • extranet invitations—invite external individuals into community sites and disable access when needed;
  • shared content—a library provides a central place to maintain and update images and other files used in multiple places on the intranet;
  • image gallery—gallery makes it easy to share photos and other images (a slide show option is included);
  • followers/following—user profiles show who the user is connected to, similar to Facebook and Twitter; and
  • announcements—each department can have its own announcements.

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Coveo strengthens 2.0 in V. 6.1

Coveo has released Version 6.1 of its Enterprise Search Platform, which now features expanded Enterprise 2.0 capabilities, additional connectivity, search analytics and complete desktop and e-mail indexing.

The company explains that V. 6.1 combines structured and unstructured data from any enterprise system onto Coveo's proprietary unified index without moving data, thereby allowing organizations to search for information across multiple databases, including Enterprise 2.0 systems, and see the information in a single view, helping to improve decision-making and operational efficiency.

V. 6.1’s new Outlook Sidebar helps users to easily pinpoint e-mails, attachments, contact details and even search across other enterprise systems, without ever leaving Outlook. Within the Outlook Sidebar, users also see location, photos, contact information and even availability, helping geographically distributed colleagues feel more connected. The intuitive Desktop Searchbar "floats" over any Windows application to provide instant access to the unified search interface.

Also new are Enterprise 2.0 and social search elements that leverage the "wisdom of crowds," communities and more. Coveo's custom-built connectors can now index Enterprise 2.0 social networking platforms. Users can search content across Enterprise 2.0 systems and display results in a unified view with information from other enterprise systems when performing searches. V. 6.1 also enables the creation of dynamic information mashups and dashboards.

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Socializing the voice of the customer

The Attensity Group has unveiled Attensity Analyze for VOC Community Advantage. Analyze for VOC Community Advantage is a hosted solution designed to help companies, government organizations and community partners better leverage the deep insight available in customer communities.

Using Attensity's Dynamic Text Profiling, Attensity Analyze for VOC automatically mines and "reads" customer communities and other content (social media, surveys, CRM records, etc.) to provide visibility into this information. The company says that unlike other products that basically just automate searches, Analyze for VOC is the only voice of the customer solution that starts with the data itself—profiling and reading both third-party and company-sponsored customer communities and other content.

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