A customer recently asked me how Jumper was going to survive as a start-up in tough economic times. A very good question considering…
Cogenz has folded, Connectbeam has an uncertain future (the rumor is they are out of money), and Jive recently layed off 1/3 of their staff and “reassigned” the CEO and co-founder. How will Jumper survive?
The power of Jumper is in open source. Unlike the closed enterprise platforms of our struggling competitors the Jumper 2.0 software and source code will continue on with or without Jumper Networks. The ideas and creativity of Jumper 2.0 will live on in the community even if Jumper Networks is not the community leader. A new community will emerge to drive development of the software, continue improvements, and bring new ideas and insights into the development process. Our software isn’t proprietary, it belongs to everyone.
The opportunity of open source is that you can try some truly new ideas and see if they work. Jumper has pioneered a number of ideas that are growing rapidly. Knowledge tagging (see Wikipedia definition) was a Jumper idea that has taken on a life of its own and is being openly debated in the KM community. Rating mechanisms for search results was a Jumper idea first and is now being experimented with by the biggest of search companies. Although giving power to the people when you have customers paying for search placement will be an interesting balancing act for them to pull off.
The last great benefit of open source is that we have not had to take VC money and sell our soul to the bottom line. We can still experiment, still innovate, still create new ways of doing things and let you the users decide what you like and what you don’t. At Jumper there is no bottom line, at least not yet. There is no time table to profitability, and given the current economic environment that is a good thing. It takes time for new ideas, for revolutionary software platforms to take hold. It takes time for people to begin to grasp the benefits, opportunities, and real power of groundbreaking software. In that sense Jumper has only just begun.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Jumper versus Enterprise Search
A customer recently asked us at a show what the difference was between cluster search with Vivisimo and Jumper search? We hear this and similar questions quite often. Our response is always the same...
They are different tools to solve different problems.
Universal Search
Whether cluster search, keyword search, full-text search, page rank search, or federated search they all represent specific point solutions. Jumper provides a more global or universal view of all your information assets.
Federated search for structured data, page rank search for web pages, cluster search and keyword search for content and media, they each search across a specific silo. Each can be very effective at finding information within the silo. But they do not search across silos (either different formats, schemas, locations or vendors). Jumper provides search across all your silos and it connects disparate information together across these silos.
20% Rule
Traditional enterprise search only allows you to search storage that you already know about. The assets in centralized storage represent on average only 20% of all your information assets. The other 80% of information assets are hidden from traditional enterprise search, but are visible with Jumper.
In a large organization there can be thousands of databases, hundreds of file servers, dozens of content systems that are often distributed by division, department, geography, project, etc. Searching across all of these is, to be polite, extremely difficult with traditional search. Jumper gives you high-level visibility of all these assets regardless of format or location. It allows users who know, use, or create the information to share it with the organization.
Smarter than People?
All of the search solutions we have discussed are coded algorithms. Automated software programs that represent a one-size fits all approach to search. They lack the dexterity and the intelligence that Jumper delivers to search results.
A cluster or keyword search algorithm pulls out and indexes words that appear to be significant. However, it cannot provide the context, meaning, and value that we crave in search results. Even the best algorithm is not as good as a human being at interpreting the content or data. You have to click through each search result and analyze it for relevance. Jumper delivers the who, what, when, where, how, and why details with the search results so you can quickly determine relevance and value without inquiring each source.
Final Analysis
Your organization most likely uses both cluster search as well as federated search because they each provide value in their own way. Jumper can be included in this equation.
We always tell our customers that its not one solution or the other.
Organizations should use Jumper along side these other tools for the value it provides delivering true enterprise wide (even global) visibility as well as for its next-gen knowledge management capabilities.
They are different tools to solve different problems.
Universal Search
Whether cluster search, keyword search, full-text search, page rank search, or federated search they all represent specific point solutions. Jumper provides a more global or universal view of all your information assets.
Federated search for structured data, page rank search for web pages, cluster search and keyword search for content and media, they each search across a specific silo. Each can be very effective at finding information within the silo. But they do not search across silos (either different formats, schemas, locations or vendors). Jumper provides search across all your silos and it connects disparate information together across these silos.
20% Rule
Traditional enterprise search only allows you to search storage that you already know about. The assets in centralized storage represent on average only 20% of all your information assets. The other 80% of information assets are hidden from traditional enterprise search, but are visible with Jumper.
In a large organization there can be thousands of databases, hundreds of file servers, dozens of content systems that are often distributed by division, department, geography, project, etc. Searching across all of these is, to be polite, extremely difficult with traditional search. Jumper gives you high-level visibility of all these assets regardless of format or location. It allows users who know, use, or create the information to share it with the organization.
Smarter than People?
All of the search solutions we have discussed are coded algorithms. Automated software programs that represent a one-size fits all approach to search. They lack the dexterity and the intelligence that Jumper delivers to search results.
A cluster or keyword search algorithm pulls out and indexes words that appear to be significant. However, it cannot provide the context, meaning, and value that we crave in search results. Even the best algorithm is not as good as a human being at interpreting the content or data. You have to click through each search result and analyze it for relevance. Jumper delivers the who, what, when, where, how, and why details with the search results so you can quickly determine relevance and value without inquiring each source.
Final Analysis
Your organization most likely uses both cluster search as well as federated search because they each provide value in their own way. Jumper can be included in this equation.
We always tell our customers that its not one solution or the other.
Organizations should use Jumper along side these other tools for the value it provides delivering true enterprise wide (even global) visibility as well as for its next-gen knowledge management capabilities.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)