Over the summer we came up with the idea for hosting a blog for CTOs from all parts of the content and information industry to debate technologies and architectures. We finally got around to launching the Content Technology CTO Blog today. Here is the press release, and more info on how it works and how to contribute. John Newton, CTO of Alfresco and Vern Imrich CTO of Percussion already have posts up. Stop by and comment!
Category: Computing & data (Page 98 of 99)
Computing and data is a broad category. Our coverage of computing is largely limited to software, and we are mostly focused on unstructured data, semi-structured data, or mixed data that includes structured data.
Topics include computing platforms, analytics, data science, data modeling, database technologies, machine learning / AI, Internet of Things (IoT), blockchain, augmented reality, bots, programming languages, natural language processing applications such as machine translation, and knowledge graphs.
Related categories: Semantic technologies, Web technologies & information standards, and Internet and platforms.
As Tim Bray says “Wow”. Here is the announcement post with a huge number of comments. This is discouraging. As I have argued before, we need the kinds of capabilities WinFS was striving for to make the next leap in managing information. I remain skeptical that database platforms are a sufficient solution for effective object management – they may be the necessary next step, but they are certainly not the ultimate answer.
There are no doubt many easier, shorter-term ways to get return on software development than a radically different operating system, but hopefully at some point there will be sufficient recognition by all the software infrastructure vendors that working together to build a modern OS would be worth it. On the other hand, perhaps what has happened to WinFS is really a sign that the days of huge operating systems are numbered. The problems are really bigger than any one platform. What kind of cross-platform infrastructure is feasible to accomplish the fluid, granular and meaningful interchange of content and behavior we know we need? This is a more interesting question than whether WinFS itself is dead.
UPDATE: There is a lot of commentary out there, but as usual Jon Udell has a view worth reading.
Lot’s of talk about ‘attention’ here at ETech. Thinking of attention in terms of economics is fascinating and thought provoking, but I have not quite got the essence of the excitement – just saw Tim Bray who also said he was not sure he got it, and everyone at my lunch table squirmed and then said they didn’t get it either.
The last thing I want is someone managing or making money or even knowing about my attention allocation. I don’t mind some – I am not averse to sharing certain preferences and behavior – but it is mine to share or not, and mine to monetize or not. As a consumer, what is the return? I get more personalized ads? I get stats on my own behavior? I get more people and advertisers paying attention to me? I definitely am not yet interested in making it easier for others to try to influence me based on some attempt at interpreting my activity/interest – is this a matter of not just being good enough at it yet? Maybe.
Will Attention Trust make a difference? I don’t know.
I understand that some people have more intense desires to communicate everything they think and do and will buy into attention for that, but surely that is an edge group…?
Attention and its scarcity and therefore value are important to pay attention to when deveoping products or businesses – but it is not all in the user’s interest.
UPDATE:
Listened to Michael Goldhaber’s talk on the economy today at ETech. He’s the one who everyone quotes. Interesting talk, but I still don’t get it. I suppose the desire for attention might be as rational as the desire for money (although I hope not – it doesn’t seem as practical, you can’t simply bank attention over time without its value diminishing). Trading in “attention bonds” as Seth Goldstein wants, is a bit scary in that it depends on people who don’t think they get enough attention!? I thought Seth’s talk was the most enlightening on the topic.
UPDATE 2:
And this will be it for the updates. See Jon Udell’s and Doc Searls’ comments on this.
UPDATE 3:
Well, it is now 2018, and does this dated or what!
Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ: SUNW) and Storage Technology Corporation (NYSE: STK) announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Sun will acquire StorageTek. The combination will create a new global leader in comprehensive network computing and data management which collectively had total annual revenues of more than $13 billion in the past four quarters. The aquisition will deliver a systems approach to Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) to help customers better manage their growing privacy, security, compliance and policy requirements. Under the terms of the agreement approved by both boards of directors, StorageTek stockholders will receive $37 per share in cash for each StorageTek share for an aggregate value of approximately $4.1 billion, including the assumption of employee stock options. The completion of the proposed transaction is expected to occur in late summer/early fall 2005. http://www.sun.com, http://www.storagetek.com
Dan Farber raises the issue of Longhorn adoption and quotes a Jupiter analyst who claims the challenge is that XP is “good enough”. There is actually a more fundamental reason the question of adoption is interesting. What is that and what does it have to do with content technology?
I’ll start the answer with a little history. In 1994 at our first Documation conference, I moderated a debate between Tony Williams, Chief Architect of COM at Microsoft, and Larry Tesler, Chief Scientist at Apple. The Microsoft COM and OFS/Cairo and Apple OpenDoc efforts both recognized the need for operating systems to provide more support for the richness of unstructured information than is possible with the primitive file systems we had then.
Before the debate I preferred the OpenDoc approach because it seemed more consistent with my view that new operating systems needed to be able to manage arbitrary information objects and structures that could be described with a markup language (like SGML at the time). However, Tony convinced me that OpenDoc was too radical a change for both users and developers at the time. Tony agreed with the ultimate need to make such a radical change to file systems to support the growing need for applications to manage more complex content, but he said that Microsoft had decided the world was not ready for such a shock to the system yet, and defended their strategy as the more realistic.
Eleven years later and we are still stuck with the same old-fashioned file system in spite of the fact that every modern business application needs to understand and process multiple types of information inside files. This means that database platforms and applications need to do a lot more work than they should to work with content. I am no expert on Longhorn, but the file system that will be part of it (although maybe not initially), WinFS, is supposed to go a long way towards fixing this problem. Is the world ready for it yet? I hope so, but it will still be a big change, and Tony’s concerns of 1994 are still relevant.
5/18/04
Industry Veterans on Board to Manage Growth of Content Technology Works™ Program and Industry Consulting Services
Contact:
Mary Laplante
mary@gilbane.com
(630) 820.3007
Cambridge , MA , May 18, 2004. Bluebill Advisors, Inc. and the Gilbane Report announced the appointment of two highly respected industry veterans to meet the rapidly growing demand for the company’s consulting services. Mary Laplante has joined the company as Vice President, Consulting Services, and will be responsible for the management and operations of the Content Technology Works Program, Gilbane Report webinars, white papers, and consulting projects. Mary is well known throughout the content technology industry from her extensive industry sales, marketing, and management experience, from her work as an analyst, writer, and consultant, and from her role as Founding Executive Director of OASIS (www.oasis-open.org/). Mary’s experience and exceptional management and organizational skills will help grow the Gilbane Report CTW program and consulting activities to the next level. Mary will also chair the CTW Track at the Gilbane Conference on Content Management Technologies Conference in Boston.
Bill Zoellick has also joined the Gilbane Report as Senior Analyst, and will be devoting his considerable analytical and writing skills to the Gilbane CTW and White Paper programs. Bill is a highly regarded author whose books include CyberRegs: A Business Guide to Web Property, Privacy, and Patents, and Web Engagement: Connecting to Customers in e-Business, both from Addison-Wesley. Bill’s insightful and penetrating analysis has informed his many roles as a manager, researcher, developer and author in the content and information management industry.
“It is great to be working with Mary and Bill again,” said Frank Gilbane, CEO of Bluebill Advisors, “Bill, Mary, and Adina Levin worked with me as analysts at CAP Ventures in the mid-nineties where they developed a prodigious amount of sought-after analysis for the industry, including the very first research report on Content Management in 1997. Their experience and knowledge will be a great resource for all our customers.” Sebastian Holst, founder of the Gilbane CTW program, will continue to be a valuable contributor to the Gilbane Report.
About Bluebill Advisors, The Gilbane Report
Bluebill Advisors, Inc. serves the content management community with publications, conferences and consulting services. The Gilbane Report (www.gilbane.com) administers the Content Technology Works™ program disseminating best practices with partners Software AG (TECdax:SOW), Sun Microsystems (NASDAQ:SUNW), Artesia Technologies, Atomz, Context Media, Convera (NASDAQ:CNVR), INSCI (OTCBB:INSS), Trados, Vasont, Venetica, and Vignette (NASDAQ:VIGN).
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Snapbridge Software announced Snapbridge XStudio 2.5, a drag-and-drop development environment for building information processing solutions based on XML technologies. The improved development tool allows drag and drop development to choreograph the integration and publication of data and content with no coding or data schema required. In addition to availability on a stand-alone basis, XStudio is bundled with each version of FDX Information Server to provide developers with tools to build, test, debug, and deploy information integration solutions built with XStudio 2.5 for deployment to a full production environment. Snapbridge FDX Information Server is available in 3 editions, scaled appropriately to meet organizational needs. Both XStudio 2.5 and FDX Information Server are based on Snapbridge FDX, a technology for federating large amounts of heterogeneous kinds of data in real-time, including data from relational databases, flat files, mainframe data, Web services, digital images from content repositories, streaming feeds, etc., to create composite objects that can be viewed, or updated as part of a transaction. XStudio 2.5 retail price is $199 USD per seat and can be downloaded at www.snapbridge.com
Mondosoft announced enhancements to its third generation search activity and visitor behavior reporting software, BehaviorTracking. BehaviorTracking 5.1 offers insight into web site visitors’ behavior and identifies new trends on the web site, and new content demands. It gives a picture of the site performance, success in meeting users’ expectations as well as a number of success metrics. The information is available online and sent directly with individual content to the inboxes of management, marketing, and web editors. BehaviorTracking 5.1 was built using .NET technology and has been integrated and tested to support Microsoft’s Enterprise server product suite. Along with the BehaviorTracking enhancements, Mondosoft offers an InformationManager tool kit that use search best practice metrics, to apply findings from the search and visitor behavior data for continual site tuning and optimization. www.mondosoft.com
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