Wet String and Sellotape : Search, Opinion Piece

The Future of Web Search

Mike P — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 12:16:57 GMT

A very simple post here, amazing work from the Microsoft Live Labs team - simple and really cool graphics using Silverlight. I love the following:

The Halo skin (okay so I am a sucker!)
The graphics around the different types of content search
The accuracy and speed

Try it out for yourself, I suspect this is all powered from the same www.live.com search that is hugely revamped over the last few days - check out the mapping functionality which is such a huge step change on where we and the market have been, below a sample query:

Nice work :-)

Is Google Enterprise Search a joke?

Mike P — Mon, 21 May 2007 12:36:22 GMT

Well that was the title of a recent ZDNet article - and there was one question in particular that Donna asked which caught my eye:

How Google will specifically be able to significantly grow Google Enterprise revenues, given the core products have 1) low price points and 2) no services income stream?

The reason this caught my eye is the manner in which they, Google, will foster an ecosystem? So what does that mean - well - how are they helping partners to grow businesses from their software and add value to customers on top of this software? The easiest place to start here is to ask the question of ourselves. How would you do this with MOSS 07 and where would partners go to generate there own wealth? Just selling another company's software is one thing but adding value on top of the platform is quite another. By innovating on top of the platform you generate value for customers and the vendor themselves - the outcome of that is complete synchrony between customer opportunities and application of resources to deliver solutions focusing on the customer. Without this opportunity for the partners and broad channel you simply wont be able to generate the value for partners to take your products into the market and deliver the value and solutions to the customers. In other words your channel strategy will fail.

For me that is why Google Enterprise Search could well be perceived as a joke - not because of the software per se but the manner in which one size has to fit all and the lack of attention paid to taking the products to market and the tremendous value the channel provides. In the Microsoft world the Microsoft Enterprise Search platform delivers a rich set of opportunities for partners. The key is to remember that not all customers want exactly the same experience and whilst this makes the role of the software manufacturer very tough - this makes the role of the channel key. Success lies with the organisation that not only makes the best software platform but also the best manner in which to engage and interact with partners to allow them to be an extension of the software vendors sales force - not only technically but also commercially.

In essence you cannot do it alone and to think so is misguided, this is why Microsoft place so much emphasis on our channel initiatives and programmes.

Enjoy!

Rumourmill...Microsoft to buy Yahoo?

Mike P — Fri, 04 May 2007 19:47:03 GMT

Seen some press reports about Microsoft potentially buying Yahoo..

BBC

Yahoo shares up on Microsoft talk
Associated Press:

http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/ticker/article.aspx?Feed=AP&Date=20070504&ID=6846679&Symbol=YHOO

Reuters article:

http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/ticker/article.aspx?Feed=OBR&Date=20070504&ID=6846019&Symbol=YHOO

Scoble has seen it and posted here: MSFT to YHOO? , as he says loads starting to get blogged out there.... now I wonder...!

Curiouser and curiouser..... :-)

So what is the Live Maps response...

Mike P — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 20:59:31 GMT

So I guess I thought I would check what Live Maps did and happily here's the result:

http://maps.live.com/?q=london%20to%20san%20francisco&mkt=en-GB&FORM=BDRE

Phew!

London to San Fran with Google maps...

Mike P — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 20:54:03 GMT

This made me smile, doubtless there are similar 2.0 errors in Live Maps:

http://tinyurl.com/2yqwz5

Step 37 is a cracker:

Lol :-)

Software Passion...or a means to an end...

Mike P — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 20:08:49 GMT

I have been waiting to write about software passion for a little while now, and just recently have had two great examples of Software Passion in Business:

Attending the Partnering for the Future day at Microsoft Research Cambridge - we gathered a group of entrepreneurs together and spoke about the challenges in the industry and how we can address them together - check out a whole oodle of detail here on Steve's blog
Reading the Top Gear blog about the motor industry and passion in Motor Industry Execs - nice post here

So what does all this make me think about, and why am I posting this under Search and Business?

If you don't love what you do then go do something else - a bit like that Blue Monster
Whatever you are doing, do it with passion - it might be just putting up a shelf - but do it so you care if not why bother?

When I look at the software world there are people who play in the software sandpit who really don't care about your data and about what software does - whether that be those people who don't respond to customer calls for support when there is a security bug or those who are really after something else. If you are a partner or a customer make sure you do a few things before engaging with any business:

Check they are serious and passionate about what they do - buyer and partner beware, so how can you tell: do they give you a plan of how they can grow with your business plan, how will you be able to change the way you work with a given supplier so that you can meet industry or government guidelines - think compliance in Finance and or mobile working directives?
Check they are in it for the long term and will back you when the proverbial hits the fan - and if it does - can you get your information from a particular supplier format and into other freely available standards?

I guess the main thing is just to check that they care about what you do and if they don't then walk away. Some people just want a market to achieve another..watch out for them...'cos their best interests may not match yours in the short, medium or long term...

Just food for thought....information is valuable...work with people who think likewise and respect yours!

Fancy a Revolution anyone?

Mike P — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 15:03:32 GMT

Was on the tube yesterday and saw this rather cool ad about the Information Revolution, Steve also captured this in his blog: Get a free Information Revolution t-shirt as did Valley Wag with a slightly more jaded view point.

Some great videos from people talking about the information revolution and the benefits and concerns that we could all have in this field, check out the following neat video from a journalist talking on the topic:

http://www.information-revolution.org/videos.php?video=journo.flv&id_num=5&textVid=0

Of course if you do want the T-Shirt then grab one here: http://www.information-revolution.org/requestshirt.php

Interesting stuff for the future of your rights, be they copyright or just personal rights. So i guess questions I could ask would be as follows:

Could these view points be aimed at any successful company?(I remember the passport days and the trouble Microsoft got in when we asked everyone to sign in using Passport - privacy and trust issues aplenty)
Does the rise of the Search Engine make the importance, availability and prevalence of personal data on the web all the more important?
Should Government respond through policy or how can we control what people know versus have access to?
Should we all just chill out and let the market determine what happens ?(guess we should ask Amnesty for some stories there)

A hugely interesting topic and not one I want to take this blog into too far, but keen to highlight the topical nature of the technology areas I work within and the nature of future access to information.

Enjoy!

Comcast to switch from Google to Microsoft - more to it methinks!

Mike P — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 23:29:00 GMT

Just seen this post over on LiveSide 'Comcast unhappy with Google, may use MS Search?' Now it would be very easy for me to start crowing about the business proposition that Microsoft has, the account teams, the customer care, the security development lifecycle allowing us to compete strategically by business processes we follow etc but I smell procurement voodoo going on here!

Allow me to digress for 30 seconds if I may: today I had a double glazing salesman over to check out my place for some new windows - now did I hand over a signed cheque with the first chap who walked in the door - nope I went to tender (short process took 2 days) and got a few quotes - then we all bartered.

Now I imagine back in the 20th century when the first double glazing arrived, maybe people like me had no choice and so the salesman could be the King of armchair sales. Well, guess what - choice brings competition and a better commercial deal for customers - I am of course only talking about double glazing... :-)

So what do I think about the Comcast article? Blimmin' great, it means we are at the table - who would have thought it from reading some of the blog posts over the weekend!

Bring it on!!

Time to stop the hype about Google?

Mike P — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 13:33:00 GMT

So I guess a few things have been niggling away at the back of my mind around the new kids on the block and I want to put a few ideas out there, around the whole experience piece:

I like to eat out in a restaurant cared for by an owner, chef and a good waiter and or waitress - I would struggle to have that same experience in a layby cafe
When I ask for replacement windows I like to have an experience whereby I get a service, including all the essential elements so that I have a set of fitted windows, with woodwork/metalwork of my choice with glazing that match by specification and fitted to my expectations - I wouldn't ask an art school graduate to do this role - the result might look cool but would it really deliver on the experience side?

You get the point so I wont labour it any further, the key here is the experience of the end user. Often the areas that count are the back up and support to make that experience worthwhile and memorable. So how is this relevant to Google around Enterprise Search?

Their business is 80% direct but who cares and why is this important:

The beauty of a channel business (like Microsoft's which is 97% indirect) is the ability of a company to get their software tailored for the vertical and or target audience be they small businesses, legal firms, finance analysts or any other of the myriad of businesses that our partners sell into. What does this mean? The customer gets what they want in the format they desire - in short - it's all about a better user experience.

I hear what you are probably thinking - sometimes I want to speak to the horses mouth - dealing direct with a business is a great way to get future insight. At Microsoft that is easyish (no rose tinted spectacles here) but in the areas of security, specifically the ways we make software and the way in which we stand behind what we do this is really really important. So what is our experience for customers and partners: in short it's as businesses expect:

'Microsoft products are supported by Customer Support and Service and the MSRR (Security response) team. Through those two channels they have the support structure needed to address any service request that comes to us at any hour of the day from anywhere in the world'

Why do we do this at a huge cost to ourselves but equally huge value to our customers? - simple:

We make software - software is our business - it's all we do - so we care

Beware the company who sells you one thing in order to get something else - maybe they just want to get to know you so they can sell more of another service. In this hypothetical example ( :-)) - this could be an advertising business who uses software as a tactic to get more of their core strategy into a market - advertising.

Why?

The software business is worth around $140bn globally, the advertising business around $580bn - now ask yourself do Google really care about the software you consume from them?

Sound far fetched? - check this out:

Worry 2: Service level agreements. Since I put Microsoft Office on my PC I know it's going to work. For a hosted service, even one run by Google, I want to see what the SLA looks like. The issue: When I read the terms and clicked on the SLA link I got a 404 error. For this experiment, I overlooked that small item and continued the sign up. If I were a small business I wouldn't have.

Some of the related links you might like to review can be found here:

The Microsoft Software Development Lifecycle - Advantage Microsoft by Michael Howard
Read the fine print of Google Office
The Cost of Lost Data: The importance of investing in that “ounce of prevention”

Enjoy your Friday!

Looking to partner with Microsoft....simple tips on how to be successful...

Mike P — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 21:41:00 GMT

Okay, so if I was given a penny for every time I was asked:

How do I prove my value to Microsoft?

What should I do to get more visibility inside of Microsoft?

What should I do to get more face time from MSFT?

...then I would be a very rich man indeed...sadly this is not true and I impart these small words of wisdom freely (see how nice I am :-))

So here it is the top secrets to working with Microsoft (there are books on the matter just in case these few bullets whet your appetite):

To demonstrate your value sell your platform into specific verticals
The revenue they see as a result will demonstrate your value as a partner
The stories you create will demonstrate your business value and give you the PR legs to take your platform further

Many partners look for credibility from Microsoft. The way to demonstrate this is to deliver the following:

Predictability - 'revenue on the platform'
Proof Points - 'stories of how your product helps ours'
Pipeline - 'how we can take the initial stories further'

I have shared these with different alliance managers in the past working now in companies from Orange to O2 and many other types of partners. There are no complex rules and calling higher up usually doesn't work. It's nice and simple - help us to succeed and we will help you.

Enjoy!

Quick apology...

Mike P — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 20:11:00 GMT

Righty ho, so not being the most technical person in the world I have been trying out a few different blog writers/posting apps to varying success. My favorite was Live Writer until I realised that it does sometimes cut off URLs hence the apology to you all for some frustrating posts where you cannot follow my links!

This should all be over now as the boys and girls in Redmond have let me try out some funky new version of LiveWriter which totally and utterly hums! Thanks to Joe Cheng and the gang in Redmond for helping me look less stupid (tough I know).

Normal service is now resumed ;-)

Scottish Innovation at it's best....so inspiring to spend some time in Glasgow and Edinburgh...learnings we can take from Google to bespoke system builders to new business start ups!

Mike P — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 22:48:00 GMT

Right so get yourself a digestive biccie and a nice cup of cocoa as I wax lyrical on some time in the Lowlands of Scotland. For those of you from an international bent, this is where I was for the last few days:

http://maps.live.com/?q=edinburgh&mkt=en-gb&FORM=L...

Both myself and the product manager for HPC were up speaking with 6 or 7 partners all working around the topics of HPC and one a last minute addition around Search. Some of the things that struck out at me were the following:

The Innovation in the Scottish market and the support from the government offered for technology businesses - http://www.icass.co.uk/fundinginnovationspur.html
The tremendous business experience in the region - lots of entrepreneurs who have been in Silicon Valley and returned to Silicon Fen with the same spirit for technology and changing the norms of social interaction (reminded me of our own Blue Monster crusade inside of Microsoft Blue Monster)
I won’t bore you about all the businesses and people we saw but leave you with one personal meaningful experience of a partner who told me about his friend who is currently suffering from Leukaemia and using technology to share with the world his story, you can read about Douglas' gritty story here: http://www.paynehq.com (NB: not for those who are easily offended) Some goodies will be on their way Douglas and best of luck from me

Fantastic few days, great experience and great people - best of luck to you all. Now I know some of you will be saying what was the learning from Google - well, I will share that with you when I and we have completed our discussions – wouldn’t want to go off half cocked now would I :-)

Thanks to James and Rayo in the Scottish Office for all your help!

Enjoy!

Microsoft gives to charity every time you search - save this link and send to your friends!

Mike P — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 19:54:20 GMT

Give to ninemillion.org with every search. Each time you search here, Microsoft will contribute to ninemillion.org, a UN agency-led campaign providing education and sports programs for the nine million refugee youth around the world.

http://click4thecause.live.com/Search/Charity/Default.aspx

Set the link above as your home page today and rest assured that every time you search we will pay to ninemillion.org on your behalf!

Enjoy!

Google Hype: Google maps - Great post on Virtual Earth, Live Search and mapping technologies by James Senior...check it out!

Mike P — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 16:24:54 GMT

Just a quick sign posting to James Senior's blog on mapping and the differing technologies from Google and Microsoft - check it out here:

Google Hype: Google Maps

Enjoy!

Technology Audit:SharePoint Server and SharePoint Server for Search 2007 ...great document from Butler Group - free download on ms.com!

Mike P — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 13:40:54 GMT

Right so here I am refreshed from my holidays in New Zealand and Hong Kong...will post soon on the technology stuff I saw out there and some of the really cool gadgets in HK but thought this great whitepaper from butler Group was well worth highlighting to you all asap, it talks about the following:

Butler Group Technology Audit: on SharePoint Server and SharePoint Server for Search 2007
What it does
Why it's good

Download link is here:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=b7583b3b-a50f-4871-a6d5-f7146b7e38c7&DisplayLang=en

Great for colleagues in your business if you are a customer for giving them a synopsis of the work you are doing around Search or for your prospects if you are a partner!

More coming soon...cheers!