What Facebook and Wikileaks mean to business strategy

Social Internet and Information availability will disrupt all businesses.

Most businesses are going to be reshaped by the social capacities provided by today’s Internet, this is Mark Zuckerberg vision and he’s right. Photo and games are already different industries, but all verticals will follow. (See interview of Facebook founder and CEO at the Web 2.0 Summit 2010: "A Conversation with Mark Zuckerberg").

The Wikileaks episode also reminds us that hard facts will always be available for consumers and voters.

So how should business leaders and investors react to that?

Imagine you are considering buying a book, a new smartphone, booking a hotel, looking for a dentist,… Instead of reading reviews from journalists you trust less and less (after all, they do this for a living, don’t they ?), you may prefer to have accurate data points and feedback from your friends. How about having at hand advice and experience from those you trust and know well ? How about having reliable datapoints to help you in your decision process? Facebook exponential growth and valuation clearly tell us what you prefer.

My recommendations for businesses would be:

At the strategy level:

· focus on doing very well whatever you do, make sure it’s meaningful to the market. If you don’t have the best product/service, work to get there, partner to do so, or do something different.

· focus on satisfying your customers which means having a relation with them (especially those that make you earn money and that can recommend you).

Without this, social economy can only accelerate your fall.

At the operational/marketing level:

· invest in Facebook and others to socially enable sales, communication and marketing (either using their social infrastructure or finding another smart way),

· create a unique post sales experience and invest in it, make it social

It sounds simplistic, it means very different things depending on the vertical you are in, but there is a tsunami coming up and everybody would better get prepared.

360 degree view of the customer : from philosophical considerations to next generation CRM

The importance of search-based applications and solutions in today’s competitive market

If only they remembered who are their customers, instead of asking over and over the same questions. The customer experience would be much better. If you like philosophy, I invite you to check out Kierkergaard Repetition. If you cannot have the past at hand, today's experience is less valuable...

More seriously, the volatile economy means that an immediate, 360 degree view of the customer has never been more important. Like discussed in my post Moving from Search to Business Search, for such complete visibility, an enterprise search engine is nice to have, but what really matters are search-based applications that support information-intensive, customer service processes.

Sinequa navigates and synthesizes all customer information from structured applications, unstructured information and people data, regardless of source or volume. In a single interface, users have access to every customer detail and interaction — and the visibility they need to provide better services, upsell appropriately and ultimately ensure customer retent

At Credit Agricole, the largest Retail bank in France, second largest in Europe and eighth largest in the world, tens of thousands of employees will use a Sinequa search-based application for complete, instantaneous access to all critical customer information among: 8 billion customers transaction records per year; over 2.6 billion contracts and documents in its ECM systems, SharePoint and other sources; and 600 million emails per year.

Through Sinequa's all-in-one solution, the bank is able to fulfill its promise “to offer customers the right product at the right time, in accordance with their interests,” while also realizing complete ROI in a month, saving employees at least 20 minutes a day, and consolidating five data centers into a single, green data center.

I think this is great. I think this is the future...

NEW: context-based search + rich user interfaces, changing our life for good

Sinequa just became Silver Adobe partner. I had today the first demo of a prototype we developed together. It is amazingly sexy. Of course, theoretically all this can be done with the other existing rich interfaces technologies, but this one really rocks (by the way, it's the one the large bank I mentioned last mont in my post has chosen)

The power of a real-time context based multidimensional search tool like Sinequa's combined with the rich and collaborative functionalities offered by a rich client interface like Adobe's is very impressive.

Intelligent and dynamic display, a lot is possible and a lot can happen, but showing just what is necessary; No compromision on speed and volume. But also built in capacity to include collaboration around the search interface, thus providing real social search. You have to see it to believe it. Complete multi-channel management, including intuitive integration of smart phone and tablet specificities.

Illustration? your search, some results, cool ways to refine that appear from everywhere only when you need them. Then you want to share the context of your screen to work with another person or get advised on the fly (think of customer care situations). 17inch screen or smartphone, it works.

This is really the beginning of an industrial disruption. We are about to see a tremendous transformation in the way companies will serve their customers and market themselves. A change in the way they will help their employees work efficiently, with appropriate context and always in real time. I can't wait to be in the VIP section of the working/commercial world : work in a company and only interact with companies and administrations that use efficiently those smart technologies. No more clicking, scrolling, navigating,... simply the pleasant experience of a smooth and obvious transition from my personal context to the answers to my questions. For real, this is going to change our life in very good.

A large bank will better serve customers using Sinequa Search Application Platform

Sinequa achieving 12,8 Millions US dollars of revenues for fiscal 2009 is a rather good performance considering 2008 economic downturn impact.

We are becoming mission critical inside strategic projects for large organizations. As a matter of fact, one of the top ten banks in the world has retained Sinequa for its application platform to build its new front office desktop for customer facing employees. For millions of customers of this bank as well, we will be at the heart of the direct access to their own data and information. Our search platform is integrated here with other technologies (database, rich client, SOA,...) from leading vendors such as IBM, Adobe, Software AG.

This project should be an example for many. Once more, a web interface powered by an agile, fast and scalable information unification technology such as the Sinequa search platform is the only answer to the issues companies have to face. The only solution to cope with exploding volumes of data and the need for an immediate access to information combined with a unified vision: wether it be for customers, employees, or to meet internal processes requirements. In the perspective of an extended enterprise, with well informed customers in demand of instantaneous interactions, this technological and applicative challenge must be taken very seriously.

Exalead bought by Dassault Systèmes for 135 M€...

Sinequa becomes the European leader among European pure players Search vendors after Autonomy. A few personal comments on Exalead takeover by Dassault Systèmes: I see three reasons to be enthusiastic:

A very nice deal

As a French tax payer, I am happy to see a company that has been heavily supported by French innovation funding system be saved by a brilliant exit, even more when this exit is with the French bigger software vendor. It’s great and I congratulate the protagonists with a sincere admiration (we are competitors, but it does not mean enemies, it just means we play in different sides but on the same playground).

I used the word « saved » because Exalead displays in 2009 revenues of 13,9M Euros with 15 Millions of losses for the same year. Those consolidated figures are available to all at the French Tribunal de commerce.

So everything Exalead created will be capitalized and developed by Dassault Systèmes. It’s excellent news. As an entrepreneur and as a board member of the AFDEL (French Software vendors Association of whom Dassault Systèmes is one of the founding members), I have a lot of respect and admiration for the company Dassault Systèmes and for its leader Bernard Charles, who inspired me. This is a positive message and model sent to the French Software industry. Dassault Systèmes saw the importance of Search and they have paid the value for an european technology.

A new High in valuation, good news for the industry in général and for search in particular

The important valorisation (around 10 times 2009 revenues, 8 times 2009 losses) is an excellent news for many reasons:

First of all, this is even better than last valuation ratio (FAST bought by Microsoft a bit more than two years ago, with a multiple of around 7. This shows that Search is becoming more and more strategic.

This amount proves that search is not becoming a commodity, but indeed it is becoming a mission critical enabling technology for enterprise applications: PLM, ERP, CRM, CMS, etc… that is for search in OEM.

Just like databases when ERP emerged, Search also demonstrates every day more and more that it’s not only a way to access to documents or information, but also an enabling technology allowing customers or employees to perform their tasks efficiently. At Sinequa, we put this simply: we went from a search engine allowed to find documents and information to a search that triggers decisions or actions (hence the integration in other applications, or the generation of new functionalities - SBA).

Excellent news for Sinequa and for its customers and partners

Search is strategic, but it has not reached maturity in terms of industrial applications. We only begin to see how search integrated with other tools can become the corner stone for tomorrows’ enterprise applications.

There are two projects in this Exalead - Dassault Systèmes deal, as underlined by the communication in two times : first the OEM deal a few weeks ago, then the takeover today.

The first project aims at empowering Dassault Systèmes offer. I am confident this will work.

The second project aims at developing Exalead on its existing SBA positioning. I will wait and see. I believe that a company on a emerging market needs to be focus and independent to create the best partnerships, to choose the best early customers, etc… Exalead was already quite spread out as illustrated by the variety of its references and its poor profitability despite a good technology and some good sales. My scepticism is even more acute since I foresee that Dassault Systèmes will not accept continuing financial losses.

* * *

As said, Sinequa becomes de facto the European leader after Autonomy among enterprise search “pure players”. Wether it be in SBA or in Enterprise Search, this opens very nice possibilities. At a moment when our product has demonstrated its superiority on all competitors when it comes to large infrastructure project or large internal search projects, I come to hope of a future where it would be our turn to shape this market, at a European or even global level.

Congrats to Exalead for a very fine rodeo, and it is now time for Sinequa the new independent European leader to show what it can do. I’m expecting to make announcements in a near future.

Made In Presse joins the Appstore

Made In Presse is a French online service that allows you to find any (French) magazine. The magazines are digitalized, one can search and refine by title or topic, or the other way around.

Then, Made In Presse allows you to preview and to buy the magazine in order to go and pick it up in a store nearby, or to browse it on or offline. The reading device ergonomy is terrific, it feels like your were turning real pages.

I'm happy that after having reviewed the market, Made In Press chose the most intuitive and obvious search solution : Sinequa. By the way, Made In Press is an example among others of a Search Based Application.

With the release of the App "Made In Presse", it is going to be easier than ever to browse and buy French magazines on Iphone and Ipad, still using Sinequa semantic search.

Congratulations to the Made In Presse team, they're great !

URL APPS: AppMadeInPresse

URL: MadeInPresse

Moving from Search to Business Search

Search is no longer Sexy. Is that sad?

When I used to say in social events that I work in search, people would be excited. Thank you Google I guess. Now if I say that same thing, they are bored and feel sorry... Should I thank Microsoft?

Enterprise Search Summit last week in May in New-York was very interesting in that respect. It was both boring and thrilling. Our industry is transforming itself.

Search for search is a technology, there seem to be a few good enough products out there, at least if you put the service effort that's needed. And it's true, if you want to do a search on enterprise contents, many vendors can help you. And so does Microsoft now. So it's a commodity, right?

Actually it is a little bit more complex. Because customers do not need search, nor do they want to pay for search. They want to solve information access problems, ideally directly related with business performance or risk related issues. And they start to understand that only Search Based Applications can help them achieve this objective.

So we are in for a brand new game. Because Search Based Application means a lot more functionalities and integration to provide, specific relevancy requirements that will have mission critical impact, business organized facet navigation, real time absolutely vital needs, and much much more... There, very few technologies can handle the challenge, and that's good news for Sinequa.

This is the begining of a new era for this industry. At last, we are going to see the tremendous value of search even if we stop talking about search. Search Based Applications will make the difference for customer relation, enterprise reactivity and efficiency, supply chain management, etc...

Special thanks and congratulations to Leslie Owens, Sue Feldman and Lynda Moulton for their insightful presentations in New-York.

Complexity driven collapse applied to information management/access

Dare not be a documentalist.

We create more documents, more information and data, need more servers, more system units, more network bandwith, more regulation to manage data and information. More and more, ever...

Surrounded by process and business rules, this generates need for always more complex information access system. And complex consulting to manage the technical and organizational challenge around this.

I so enjoyed Clay Shirky's excellent new essay: "The Collapse of Complex Business Models" thanks to twitter: @mathewi and @rdeclermont

What Clay Shirky demonstrates is that when complexity is such that any move will be by nature very complex and generate negative value, collapse is the only solution to create value.

In the case of data and information, collapse could be shutting down tons of servers, loosing information and knowledge to become agile again (just like Bergson explained that we need to forget the past to be able to apprehend the future).

A "smart" collapse could be not shutting down the servers, but simply pretending to forget them and... setting an intelligent search to give access to everything.

To make a long story short : if organizing and archiving your emails and files is too time consuming and would make your job worthless, why not use a search that makes the relevant connections between all elements.

A fresh new start for your work habits if you accept to set aside your documentalist skills.

Techno-diversity is good, and right

I enjoyed reading the "I Can't Wait for NoSQL to Die" post of Ted Dziuba cf. his blog.

Indeed, technology generates so much dogmatic statements.

What if .Net AND Java leaved happily together, what if Sharepoint did not absorb the whole CMS market, what if Windows and Linux continued to co-exist. What if technology focused on solving problems and not creating buzzwords and dogmas.

What if there was a little bit less testosterone when it comes to technology, and more pragmatism. Customers would be better served, business would be better run.

Enteprise Search Bus : the intelligent fondation of the entreprise 2.0

The Enterprise Search Bus is becoming key in the information and IT infrastructure of organisations. It announces a decline in the strategic importance of the relational database, emphasizing its greatest weakness: its rigidity that seen from an intelligence perspective makes it a rather dumb tool. Here's why and here are some consequences to the software ecosystem.

The context has two axes: the content and the container

Axe 1: there are three main types of data:

1. Structured (numbers, values, positions…),
2. Unstructured (contracts, catalogues, documents…),
3. Issues of exchanges and collaboration (messages, discussions, directories,...).

Axe 2: containers of all types of content share three main missions:

1. The first is historically their main purpose: to guarantee transactions, because this is ultimately where the data is born and/or makes sense in the real economic activity of the company.

2. The second is a corollary to the first but has grown increasingly important with the growth of volumes to be searchable, for one must be able to put the right data in front of the right operator or to ensure a good transaction.

3. And the third arises from the info-explosion and issues of cost and energy control: managing the archiving, and organized retention of data.

In a predictable Darwinian phenomenon, each of these major functions has become a playing field for specialized players. Depending on whether the data is structured or unstructured, the actors may be different. But there is a groundswell of interest: the database was the backbone of the company and this is now changing. The success of the database was based on its ability to organize and secure transactions. These are now, at the time of redundancy and the Cloud, fairly basic if not commonplace qualities.

To sum up the software landscape, the table below explains how software has emerged at the 9 key intersections of the two axes mentioned above.

Function/ type of data	Structured	Unstructured	People
Transaction and process management	ERP, CRM, business applications + Database.	BPM + CMS + Database	Mail tool, enterprise social network
Search and navigation, analysis	Business Intelligence + Data warehouse	Integrated Search Engine	Integrated Search Engine
Archiving, backup,…	Dedicated archiving tools	Dedicated archiving tools	Dedicated archiving tools

The info-explosion is relativizing the hegemony of the relational database

Until the info-explosion, it was vertical integration: Oracle is a good example starting from the relational database and going to the business application managing structured data. Those prospered inside a silo. For this to work, application servers with the ambition to make apllications talk to applications were the next logical step in this paradigm. This was the core fondation of the enterprise 1.0 information system. Such a system was busy properly handling its transactions, and counting and analyzing its business data: its core component was naturally the relational database. Outside the File System and the email box, long regarded as tools reserved for minor office uses, almost all enterprise computing has been built around the relational database.

But the relational database system is cumbersome and expensive on one hand, when in addition Business Intelligence tools lack agility. On the other hand, the info-explosion of unstructured data (emails and files in directories that are stored "flat" without a relational model) has stimulated the advance of the technology of search and navigation. As unstructured data has become increasingly business critical, the tools to access data have become increasingly professional. Finally, if one can say ‘who can do more can do less’. The relational database becomes a source of information as any other, it is moving from the status repository of system information to a simple container of structured data. It is as such, neither more nor less important and strategic than the CMS.

Two important consequences on the value of the search engine in the structured world

1. The Business Intelligence tools are being marginalized by the search engines to access information and provide a 360° view. In 90% of the time, the search engine is more flexible and better than the BI tool. See the recent testimony of the Laser Group in 01 Informatique in French (the recent choice of Sinequa in a database offload bench against a known French rival. A very interesting project which aims to index the entire transaction history of the 22 million credit cards of Laser / Cofinoga).
2. With server virtualization, not to mention the gradual migration to the Cloud, the challenge is not to allow applications to talk to each other, but to enforce a consistent repository of data. From this perspective, this is the announcement of the victory of the Enterprise Search Bus. An intelligent Enterprise Search Bus is capable of ensuring the consistency of all data by making it searchable by business relevant categories/metadata, either inherited from the source or generated on the fly. In this respect, one can imagine that a vision based on the Enterprise Search Bus will absorb MDM (Master Data Management) type approaches that are in fact a very accomplished, but very specialized response to the question.

The Enterprise Search Bus becomes strategic for the enterprise

The important point for the construction or development of an information system is - but it is not surprising to see me push this argument - that the search engine has gone from a fun gadget (it’s true, who really needs a search engine to find data a little faster on the Intranet or to find lost documents on shared directories?) to an essential element of the enterprise information system. The Enterprise Search Bus is:

• Key to unify the data by structuring it within the business context,
• Essential for help not in searching but to achieve effective results with the right information in the right place within the right application.
• Major in the logic of supporting a simple work ethic. Simple as it digests the real complexity of our business ecosystem by reducing it to a logical layout, that is easy and intuitive. Talk to consultants from Atos Origin, who have recently selected Sinequa to access their unstructured data, or consultants from Mercer (see Press Release attached).

Consequences on the market of the enterprise search engine

To be up to the challenges, your Enterprise Search Bus will have to validate several key criteria:

1. Integrate the generation of smart technology and metadata processing. If the relational database is losing ground, the search engine needs to provide the necessary business structure more than ever. In this area, you have the choice of linguistics (Sinequa, FAST) or Bayesian (Autonomy).
2. Absorb all the volumes and heterogeneity of your information system. You needlinear scalability and secure connectors that are rapidly deployable without any specific development.
3. Integrate in a logical and portable platform. You are Java or .Net, private servers or Cloud: your Enterprise Search Bus must be agnostic on the subject.
4. And many other criteria such as ergonomics as simple as an iphone. A true 2.0 product in the way it is used (interactivity) and in its way of being deployed (pilot site), ...

Sinequa validates these criteria better than anyone I think. Our vision for many years, the work we have with our customers in particular since 2005, and our flexibility allow us today to have the right product at the right time.

I must confess: 5 years ago, we thought the topic was to translate the value proposition of Google in the enterprise. Our technical department was obsessed with Google. Today, this seems ridiculous, because our mission is at the heart of a business increasingly virtualized, both literally and figuratively (Cloud computing, outsourced supply chain management, outsourcing of most enterprise processes, offshore development, outsourced marketing, etc.). The heart of the intelligence and agility of a company needs an Enterprise Search Bus. Some speak of meaning-based computing; I dare to say simply Intelligent business. The following definition from Wikipedia seems eloquent to me.

“Intelligence comes from the Latin Intelligentsia (ability to understand), derived from Latin intellegere meaning understand, and whose prefix inter (between), and the radical legere (to choose, pick) or ligare (link) suggests essentially the ability to link elements who would otherwise be separated.”

“Intelligence is all mental faculties to understand things and events, to discover relationships between them. Intelligence is also recognized as being what in fact it allows: adaptability. Also, practical intelligence is the ability to act appropriately to situations. In terms of evolution of human understanding cannot be conceived without a diversified coding system. It therefore comes to conceptual intelligence, inseparable from a mastery of language (and therefore "words") to complex reasoning and the reasoning is the mental process of analysis for determining the relationships between elements. Finally, and at this level, the purpose of intelligence is the conceptual and rational knowledge.”

The market for Enterprise Search is exciting. We realized that Google was a mediated and talented follower, little present in value-added projects. Today, all eyes are turned to FAST / Microsoft. But I think that innovation and value this time will still come from others. I think the winning visions cannot be based on an Enterprise Search Bus choked by a complete proprietary chain from the OS to the browser through the portal, CMS and database.

I think that the winning vision will be an intelligent and flexible Enterprise Search Bus, able to keep up with new innovative technologies, delivering a capacity to create the link between the user and the data. It is a Darwinian market, it is not enough to be right, we must constantly adapt. So see you in 5 years, when the Cloud is ubiquitous.

The rock star is the founder, not the CEO

To be or not to be ... the boss. An existential question or a matter of efficiency?

In the U.S., the founder is a rock star even if he loses the leadership of the company. In France, if he is no longer the CEO, he is ousted, damned, frowned upon. He is thrown to the wolves. We toss out the baby with the bathwater. Founder not CEO anymore = Samson deprived of his hair. In the U.S. the CEO is the person who manages the business, the shift manager who coordinates the steering of the boat, not necessarily the owner, nor even the captain. He is much better paid for his job than in France (I mean in a start-up not in a large corp.), but he is not sacred. It's just a job, somebody has to do it and that's all. It should not be our job title but what we really do in our work that should define us. As noted in TechCrunch by Cedric Giorgi on the replacement of the CEO of deezer.com, this French phenomenon provokes an unnecessary crisis between managers and shareholders (we also remember NetVibes, Glowria, etc.). But is it really the fault of the French founders as suggested perhaps too fast by Cedric Giorgi?

An interesting topic, another French exception? A bit similar to what has long limited the French cinema in its industrial progression? After the Nouvelle Vague, the director who had to be both the author and editor wouldn't give the final cut to the producer, because he was a "business guy" meaning a "bad guy."
The filmmakers, however, do not handle the launch of the film, which is critical for its "full media" success and value. To take one recent example, Avatar is a great film (so great!!!), but also an incredibly successful global launch. James Cameron is a director and a business mogul, however, not necessarily the CEO of all companies he works with. I hope he's not; otherwise what's the point of having all this money and talent. On the other side, in a successful hexagonal industry, Yves Saint-Laurent has left the management to Pierre Berger. Bernard Arnaud or François Pinault are not designers. What does this mean?

Firstly, perhaps it's a baseless accusation to say that the founders and creators of French start-ups refuse to hand over to a new CEO; it's too easy to blame them for showing signs of immaturity. For more French start-ups to become world leaders, they would then need to hire a coach or a psychoanalyst on the Board of Directors. It's too easy and too obvious, perhaps, to label the founder as a "scapegoat."

In psychoanalysis, we talk about false belief. This is a distorted vision of the world, because we were educated with this in mind. A cultural heritage which tends to fossilize society and prevent evolution. A self-perpetuating circle. For example: women are bad managers, so I recruit men in management positions, so actually, good managers are men (and bad for that matter, but that doesn't prove anything about women except that we must urgently call for affirmative action). The false belief about the CEO founder in France comes from a society where we want to believe and suggest that the leader does everything, he is everything and decides everything. If as a CEO you dare say simply that you believe in collective intelligence, that you are a leading influencer, manager, motivator and a developer of talent. If you admit that vision can come from anywhere and not only from you. If you admit that you are not the alpha and omega of your product and of your business, in France you will be looked at sideways. This is perhaps not the right leader? In the U.S. people will think they are dealing with a professional, and that's all.

This very archaic vision of how business works and the role of leadership is a reflection of our institutions of the 5^th Republic in France seen from afar: We would like the leader to be everything, to decide everything and know everything about everything. If the President of the Republic abandons the Napoleon style story-telling, and if he admits his lack of technical expertise on any subject, he begins to look like an incompetent. The French like divine power. Yet it is ultimately reassuring that the leader focuses on what he should do well: to govern, to manage. And he surrounds himself with people (more) competent (than himself) without micromanaging what they do.

We must integrate the cultural reality of our society and businesses of the 21st century as soon as possible. Accept networking and collective intelligence. The founder may have the intelligence of the product, but not be the right person to lead the business and make management decisions. It seems obvious, yet we often see businesses lacking the emotional intelligence to understand, accept and live with what they have. This is true at the executive level and it's true at the management level. And it's not necessarily the shareholders who don't see it, it's more in the business environment where the "wiring" is inhabited by these false beliefs that I mentioned above.

So it must be said: the rock star is clearly the founder. And whether he remains CEO or not, he's just the same a rock star. As a non CEO founder, he's faithful to what he is and to what he loves to do. If society was willing to accept this, rock stars would be more fulfilled and prosperous, and would create more jobs and wealth. By extension (it's often said that there is a lack of positive role models for managers or bosses), many experts who have no desire to become a Director or Manager, would no longer feel that they have failed in their career, simply because they love their job.

Happy New Year to Competition too

Happy New Year 2010. All my wishes for happiness and success.
2009 ended well for Sinequa with the signing of new contracts and the release of Sinequa Enterprise Search V7. Many videos of customers, partners and Sinequa management can be seen at the following link - thank you to TiViPRO for producing these videos (in French). http://www.sinequa.com/ressource,video,77.html

For those who will attend, Sinequa will be in Orlando next week for the annual Lotusphere event. We'll be accompanied by our partner and customer Sogeti. Let us know if you would like to meet our team there.

Last year Sinequa was the only vendor to enter the Magic Quadrant, and we also entered the vendor analysis of IDC. Among other things, CMS Watch highlighted the quality of our technology: http://www.cmswatch.com/Trends/1737-Death-of-Taxonomies-Revisited

Our presence is steadily increasing in the area of Homeland Security, by the size of the contracts we sign and the depth of functionality that we provide:
http://www.cmswatch.com/Trends/1764-Searching-Terrorists

Last year we advanced with courage (including the employees of our company, but also some customers and partners) through a difficult crisis. At Sinequa we have achieved many successes, growth and profitability in 2009. I hope this year will be one of the revelations with the maturation of Search Based Applications and with more mature "main stream" offers: Microsoft, Google and Open Source.

We will speak less about vision, product roadmap, feelings about what's happening, and instead we will increasingly experience the reality of changing organizations, next generation workstations, and companies being redesigned around the Search Bus. We no longer speak of enterprise search engines handling one question per employee per week, but up to 10 or more questions per hour per employee.

There are great opportunities ahead for all and especially for those who have persevered in this demanding but exciting industry of enterprise search. I also wish a happy new year to Sinequa's competitors.
With a product like ours, if they do well, we can only do great.

Adieu Monsieur Seguin

It was January 8th, 2001, that was 9 years ago. President of Silicon Sentier at the time, I met with the main candidates in the Parisian municipal election in a theater in Paris for a debate/interview around the theme "what will you do to develop broadband in Paris."

The meeting on January 8th marked me. All the candidates for the City of Paris did the exercise. His human and political stature was obvious. During the discussion with a few dozen people on a subject that did not overly excite him, he feverishly chained smoked a few cigarettes (a time when you could still smoke in certain public places). I remember his modesty and courtesy.

He exuded a lot of humanity in addition to being a man of great status ansd intelligence. These things you can feel and they make an impression on you. He was a man of great strength.

Adieu Monsieur Seguin, with all my admiration.

Sinequa Enterprise Search V7 launch first feedbacks

We had almost 200 attendants to the Sinequa Enterprise Search V7 Launch. That was a great moment and thanks to the participating sponsors, IBM, Logica, Atos Origin and Edifixio.

I think among other things, everybody was impressed by the live demo performed by Luc Manigot. He configurated live a Lotus connector in just a few clicks, and – among other things - demonstrated Sinequa ES7 capacity to extract relations through its text-mining agents.

Then we stayed around quite late with Champagne and "petits fours"… thanks to all of those who could make it.

Thanks to Theresa Regli who took the time to interview a few early adopters of Sinequa ES7. She actually wrote an interesting article than mentions how Sinequa uses metadatas. I can only recommend it http://www.cmswatch.com/Trends/1737-Death-of-Taxonomies-Revisited?source=RSS

Sinequa Enterprise Search 7.0 launch in Paris the 24th of November

I'm pleased to announce we already have close to 200 registrants for the official launch of Sinequa Enterprise Search at L'Echangeur in Paris, the evening of November 24th.

This event hosted by Frederick Simottel, editor of 01 Informatique, will begin with a welcome from Philip Lemoine, Chairman of the Groupe LaSer, who is a leader, an intellectual and a visionary in new technologies and their appropriate use in society.

We then have a presentation by Antoine Gourevitch, Managing Director of the Boston Consulting Group, who heads the IT practice in Paris. He will address issues of collective intelligence and the consequences of the info explosion on the role of the CIO in business today.

Following this strategic insight, Patrice Fontaine, Market Manager, IBM Lotus, will illustrate the transition from a standard enterprise to a collaborative enterprise, presenting IBM Smart planet and Smart workplace vision and how search fits into that.

I will then present Sinequa's vision on these topics, how Sinequa Enterprise Search transforms the enterprise and its Information Landscape. How Sinequa affects everyday life and the workplace of our users. I will include some interesting results from a recent study from IDC in passing.

Last but not least, there will be a demonstration of Sinequa Enterprise Search 7.0, the simple and revolutionary product that triggers standing ovations when in production (yes it's true and this is an important part of the value of our solution: re-motivating people who have lost the desire to work in a professional environment that has become too complicated and cumbersome - tell your account managers, your clients or acquaintances who are engineers, consultants and project managers).

Finally, Franck Peyramaure our VP of Alliances, will conclude and thank our partners, event sponsors, including Platinum Partner IBM, and Gold Sponsors Logica, Atos Origin and EdifiXio, before inviting our guests to enjoy a glass of champagne and a buffet. If you're in the ecosystem of Sinequa business and not a competitor, sign up quickly – you're welcome to join us.

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Existing and working in the extended enterprise

In an excellent article published in Le Monde Monday October 12th, Pierre Baqué, Enterprise Consultant, retraces the evolution of the enterprise which he claims "by losing its skin is emptied of its substance" (click here to read article in French), or in other words with the increase of externalization there is no longer the notion of 'internal or external.'

The enterprise is no longer the social body which sought among many other objectives the pursuit of profit and service to customers. It is no more that "thing" forming a group around a shared project, values and common experiences. A group forged around a myth related to its pioneers, inventors, etc. (such as HP, Bell, JP Morgan…), a trade or a technology (as for Microsoft, Saint Gobain…), a social function (i.e. The French Post, EDF…), of accrued benefits the envious would say.

As Pierre Baqué says, the enterprise is a bloodless body both literally and figuratively. The enterprise has been emptied of its meaning, because the satisfaction of the shareholders and the clients has become the main, if not the only, goal. Emptied of its role as a social body, since the "We" does not mean much anymore, the enterprise is still defined by a chain of value creation. However those involved are not necessarily employees (as Fabrice Bregier explains that Airbus, like its rival Boeing, has more external subcontracted engineers than employees). Duly noted, the enterprise is emptying... of its meaning and therefore can no longer provide its employees a sense to their actions within it. There is at first look, an alarming and depressing fact. In France/Europe where the work is statutory, one imagines that this can be destabilizing for employees. It's easier then to understand the social tensions, the refusal to change, the increases of suicides as were pointed out at France Telecom…

In addition, there is another more pragmatic reason for employees to feel bad and less passionate: it's a question of tools. I dare to use the word suffering that I often hear from my prospects. Their staff cannot do their jobs, and this is actually horrible to experience: being paid to do a job you cannot do. The objectives are perceived as unrealistic or arbitrary, difficult to reconcile with the vision or the overall strategy and too often this boils down to "do more, do it faster, do it cheaper, do it better....". Plus, these "goals" are distributed by a management that doesn't know us anymore and with whom we work less (as a result of the extended enterprise). All this is combined with an explosion of information to be processed, produced by systems or by correspondents (we don't know how to describe them anymore), increasingly numerous and difficult to understand. Furthermore, the employees must use more than ten different applications to work (Debra Logan of Gartner, Inc. announced last month in London an average of 14 different applications). Volumes, zapping, incoherence... it makes heads spin.

As any problem, it may be seen through the eyes of yesterday or tomorrow. But do we have a choice? Like Oscar Wilde, I think we should be optimistic, at least by heroism.

On the absence of meaning (and I thank Antoine Rebiscoul, President of ANVIE for his brilliant presentation on the brand 2.0 and positive externality), we have to accept the enterprise as a being, therefore, take into account its soul as much as its body. We have to concentrate on positive externalities, outside of the products and cash flow generated. What define Google, Apple and Amazon are not their products, but their way of looking at the world and their desire to change it. Their brand has taken on a spiritual dimension. For example, BMW sells pleasure today, not cars. We recall that Arcelor lost the battle against Mital because the company simply defined itself as a (good) producer of steel when it could have, for example, defined itself as a transformer of the world of objects that surround us. So we will find meaning in working for companies/brands that may employ us or not, because they give us a sense of belonging to a great design that transcends the products or services sold. We become part of communities that make the world a different/better place. Clearly, this is also the issue of the French Post, the only way to overcome the legitimate debate today around its status and its privatization. That is certainly what Orange pursues with its communication on "its" internet that is "different" from the Internet… Now that the planet is in danger, that economic growth is going to be shared by all, that religions are no longer enough, all this is not a pitch from the ad agencies, all this is essential in the true meaning of the word. I should also comment on the enterprise and its duty to guarantee the material welfare of the population, but this is a subject of political economics out of my reach. In a global and delocalized economy, I would think it is up to the state to take charge, more than before.

On how to successfully work once you have found meaning, I think we should move urgently to 2.0 tools in the enterprise, not least because they already exist outside the enterprise. Stop the torture by stacks of poorly interconnected application silos where the employee as a worker is caught between several chains of assembly lines to infernal cadences. The fate of Prometheus seems almost enviable in comparison. It is high time to establish a unified search engine that communicates with all enterprise sources and applications, as well as social networking and collaboration tools... We have to provide a humanly manageable working environment. It's not a question of return on investment even if the said return is huge; it's about respect for employees or subcontractors. When enterprises offer such tools, a sticking point is resolved. It's just tools, but what can a good workman produce without the right tools...

Sinequa enters the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Information Access Technology

Sinequa is the only new entrant this year in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Information Access Technology. I'm happy and proud for the whole Sinequa team and for our partners and customers.

I believe we have an incredible product. We are soon going to reveal new customers in the US and major deals.

I can't wait to see the traction that Sinequa Corporate Search 7.0, our revolutionary Scalable and Linguistic Enteprise Search Platform will generate on the market.

If Bing + Yahoo = Microhoo THEN Google ~ Microsoft and THEN Facebook + Twitter = $$$

Bing + Yahoo clearly make Microsoft a formidable competitor to Google on the Internet.

As Don Reisinger points out in "10 Reasons Why Is Microhoo Good for Enterprise Search", all the ingredients are now combined for balanced competition between Microsoft and Google: 1) critical market share (Microsoft + Yahoo account for nearly 1/3 of the market), 2) technological know-how (I hope the transition for our dear friends who have gone from Sinequa to Yahoo a few years ago will not be affected by the new restructuring), 3) financial resources, 4) strategic envy.

 

This war is finally on a level playing field (awaiting the regulatory approval which may take a small year) and will have a clear positive effect for users of Internet search engines. It is expected to force the two competitors to increase their innovation and user benefits to retain their customers and grow their market share. There should be less pressure on monetization of each user, for fear of losing them to the competition.

 

This will be an opportunity for Google to return to its roots, as in the days of "No Evil", and to pay even more attention to its products and customers, from the user point of view. Don Reisinger thinks that Microhoo will prevent Google from becoming a Microsoft. In this regard, I see no problem to become a Microsoft, it would be quite a compliment, but it is my personal view.

 

Nevertheless there is another way to look at the subject. Indeed, Google and Microsoft are two giants engaged in a titanic tug-of-war, a race for power and functional wealth. That is, who will be the best search engine on the Internet? But it is interesting to note that (see the excellent Wired article about this on Facebook's plan to dominate the Internet at the expense of Google) there could be a shift from the paradigm of complete search on the Internet with the emergence of social networks and social search. Indeed, taking the technological point of view, remaining in the logic of engineering pioneers, we can do a remarkable job technologically and industrially but risking to forget one small thing: the customer, the user.

 

Finally, what the user needs are answers to their questions, they don't care whether it comes from the best search engine; most often I prefer information that comes from a trusted third party: a friend on Facebook or LinkedIn, a media source that I like, the twit of a known person. Is it better to find a pizzeria in the yellow pages (yes, they still exist ...) or on Google Maps, reading a dozen unknown comments on the quality of their pizza, or is it better to find a post, a twit or other from a friend who recommends the Pizzetta, a nice pizza place just a few steps from where you are (because Manu the server is very nice and the whole wheat pizza dough is organic and the Buffalo mozzarella is so good you'll believe you're at the heart of Puglia...). Personally, I prefer the second approach if it's possible. Interesting that Twitter has just released an internal search function this week.

 

And the business model you say? I don't worry; years of entrepreneurship have taught me one thing: satisfied users are worth something; just as one cannot indefinitely prefer their operating accounts to their clients, everything gets paid for one day or another. I therefore believe that the two giants will differentiate themselves as much by their intrinsic qualities as by their ability to find ways to work with social networks, especially Facebook, Twitter, and why not LinkedIn. From this point of view, Google has a small disadvantage in my opinion, this attitude of "fake cool". This slightly condescending way of looking at others like a child prodigy who would not want to grow old and see other young emerging talents. If Facebook has refused their offer and sold a stake to Microsoft, it may be because of this immodesty. But Google is a great company lead by very smart people motivated by humanist ambition, they will surely soon correct this and it will certainly help to manage their strategic partnerships better.

 

I wanted to write about this subject because it has lots of parallels with what we are experiencing in the enterprise search engine market. Those who know Sinequa know that one strong focus of our product is people search and integration of enterprise search into the enterprise social networking tools (see my post Searching What or Searching Who). Using text-mining, we are trying in particular to enhance enterprise social networking by leveraging the data from other sources and vice versa. At Sinequa, we must simultaneously work hard on difficult technological issues sometimes close to infrastructure (management of very large volumes, speed, language relevancy, text-mining, security, real time, integration into or with heterogeneous applications...) and at the same time we are ultimately judged on something quite simple: the customer's smile. Apple is a good example of successful management of this paradoxical injunction, the iPhone is a technological feat, however, sometimes with choices that others would not have made (no 3G or no video for a very long time for example). Without technological excellence: no iPhone, but without a radical desire to satisfy the client at the expense of technology: no iPhone.

 

I cannot detail the choices and strategy of Sinequa, but those who know me have seen all the value that I attribute to the smiles of our customers.

Searching What or searching Who, special thanks to Eric Juin

In the title of his article (in French), "Search : Sinequa searching What or searching Who", Reynald Flécheaux, Editor of the Mag IT (www.lemagit.fr) illustrates issues Sinequa has identified in recent years: enterprise search is not just about seeking documents. Incidentally, this is an opportunity to read (in French I'm sorry) a clear, well structured article and to see a nice screenshot.

Let's explore this idea that enterprise search is not limited to finding documents. Very simply, let's start from the business driver: why do enterprises need a search engine? Answer: It depends, but facilitating access to document/information is rarely the only goal

Indeed, behind the need for information, there is knowledge and experience, particularly knowledge within context for better decision making. Users of the Sinequa solution are not scholars in quest of new knowledge, and they are professionals who wish to carry out their missions. For example: 1) a manager wants to have the full client history to sell a new life insurance product, 2) a lawyer wants to find the answer to a question related to property taxation, 3) a researcher wants to know if the patent that he/she plans to file uses a state of the art technology already discovered by another researcher of the same company.

In other words, what do our users need? Of course information, but integrated in the context of their objectives and business needs. Often we prefer identifying the relevant person or persons in order to ask questions, or to initiate collaborative efforts, instead of just reading a document.

That's why Sinequa extended the functionality delivered to Bouygues Construction in 2006 (see article in French by Bertrand Lemaire for CIO Magazine "Bouygues Construction is guided in an ocean of information"), who's brief could be reduced to: "any foreman experiencing a problem must be able to identify others in the company who have had a similar experience." Sinequa has developed around its search solution a set of people-oriented features and application-level integration with important collaborative tools and social networks. Eric Juin, Director of KM and e-services at Bouygues Construction, has inspired us and helped Sinequa to better understand these topics. I personally thank him.

The impact of the crisis on confidence in IT: buyers more rational in the image of Saint-Gobain

The economy and our society as a whole are suffering from a lack of trust inherited from the financial and real-estate crisis. The IT industry is no exception, but every cloud has a silver lining, as CIOs are now becoming more rational in their business decisions.

One of the problems identified at the beginning of the global crisis was the opacity of financial products. As a result of combining, deriving, and reevaluating assets and their potential, portfolios became more opaque. The value of a product was difficult to relate to its content, and depended too much on the vox populi, of what the market dictated, rather than the real content and value of assets. It was the same for the balance sheets of publicly listed companies. Some customers, including the most illustrious, trusted the advice of leading firms (analysts, banks, etc.) and bought assets they did not understand or take the time to fully evaluate, particularly in terms of risk. Conversely, some global companies like Saint-Gobain, for example, a world leader in several businesses, were clearly undervalued in terms of their industrial reality.

The software industry also appears quite opaque with its patterns, its acronyms, its omniscient analysts. There are free products on the market along with others that are worth millions. How do we set the (fair) price of an IT project and the software, and what is the added value - why is it sometimes so difficult to decipher the marketing of a software vendor and the logic of their pricing? What is the real price to pay for the complete project, taking into account maintenance and future developments needed?

How do we place confidence in those who claim to evaluate the software industry and mostly just read the marketing materials of the vendors? Again, there are big brands : consulting firms, analysts and of course, software vendors themselves. But just as the largest asset management bank could not protect its customers from a Madoff investment, no industry analyst can protect a CIO who has invested in a solution for its brand more than the actual quality of the software…

Some companies prefer to pay five to ten times more for software from a leading brand vendor. Rather I should say that there are certain departments making these decisions, because I doubt that in these times of financial and budget crises companies continue to find this spending behavior acceptable. I was pleased to recently learn that some consulting firms have started working for senior managers to analyze the rationality of investment decisions made by their IT departments.

I wish to personally thank and pay tribute to Saint-Gobain, who conducted a rigorous analysis of its business needs and the value delivered in their selection of an enterprise search engine provider. From a list of 10 vendors, 4 were short-listed and fully tested as described in the article (in French) by Jean-Claude Streicher "Sinequa imposes itself in large companies." Without being put to the test, Sinequa probably would have lost this deal due to lack of awareness. Saint-Gobain would have paid more for a solution probably less suited to meet its needs, and would not even have found a vendor capable of solving the problem of security management within the search engine. Here on the contrary, the project was completed with a delay and budget that were less than originally estimated.

A problem highlighted recently due to the financial crisis was the importance on the global economy of unregulated areas that represent tax havens. Why regulate Paris, New York and Singapore if other places do not play the game with the same rules and if the balances can be "tipped" with impunity. What's the parallel with IT? The mix of genres in IT between the different players (analysts, resellers, consultants, experts ....) generates opacity and confusion that sometimes pushes the limit, like when inviting prospective clients to luxurious seminars, offering them consulting, in order to launch calls for tender that will only include certain vendors; "We give you this but will make your company pay more for it later". I think the IT industry and its customers will not tolerate these practices much longer, and the benefit of this crisis is perhaps to increase rationality of customer buying behavior. The heroic days of cowboy salesmen, and dandies with flashy cuff links, is over. This is good news for those who play cards on the table, just focusing on creating value within their product for their customers.