Smart Industry 1/2016

To solve the problem, Fallmann and
his team have created what one might
call a “Google for companies”; a black
box that connects to each and every
digital system within the enterprise
and launches software “crawlers”, similar
to the ones Google uses to catalog
the World Wide Web. The device then
creates a network of every bit and piece
of information it finds and stores
it in a central knowledge base, regardless
of the data’s format.
By simply clicking on the information,
employees can launch the appropriate
application that enables them to
view, watch or listen to whatever the
data contains and even interact with
the data directly. Moreover it uses artificial
intelligence and deep learning to
understand the information and give
the most accurate answers to questions.
This is especially important for
voice recordings, Fallmann maintains,
because every company deals with
customers on the phone. In call centers,
these conversations are recorded
and stored for later review, as we are
all constantly being reminded every
time we dial our supplier to complain,
ask for help, or order an item. Because
the review process is so tedious, most
companies restrict themselves to
random spot checks. As for the rest
– often thousands and thousands of
hours of direct one-on-one interaction
with clients and customers – they
land in the digital dumpster.
Based in Linz on the Danube, Mindbreeze
launched its first “search appliance”
it calls InSpire. In 2013, Gartner,
an analyst group, raised them to
the status of “Challenger” in its Magic
Quadrant for Enterprise Search, especially
praising the company’s ability to
execute.
Daniel Fallmann admits to a weakness
for science fiction novels, but in
business he stays down to earth: “I
was always fascinated by the ability
of computers to understand information
and connections - a concept that
has not ceased to captivate me to this
very day.”
Michael Mohr of Plugilo:
Making Data Smarter
Few still remember the Dotcom Bust
of 2001, but with Michael Mohr, the
memory still rankles. Flush with cash
from going public with his successful
startup DCI, a company specializing
in trade databases, he too suffered
when the bottom fell out of the
stock market. But unlike thousands
of others, he survived, and now he’s
back to settle the score.
Today, DCI AG operates subsidiaries
in Hanoi and Shanghai, where busy
programmers are hard at work creating
the “The Plug”, as Mohr calls it.
Actually, the wall plug he proudly
drapes around his shoulder for photo
ops is just a symbol for what he
describes as “plugging into the world
of Cloud Content”. His ambition is
to link every company database in
the world through a “meta-level” in
which products and services can be
described in a common language,
thus ending the “techno-babble” that
causes confusion and loss of sales.
Today, every manufacturer has its
own system of product and serial
numbers as well as its own nomenclature
to describe what the product
does and how it works. This information
is constantly being updated
internally as new product releases
appear, but this information seldom
makes it out into the real world, where
the product may already be listed
in hundreds of webshops and online
Mindbreeze
Daniel Fallmann has
created an Intelligent Enterprise
Search solution that
turns scattered information
into knowledge and serves
it up automatically at the
push of a button.
Our ultimate
goal is to
“make data
smarter”.
Michael Mohr
marketplaces. As a result, potential
customers are often misled by outdated
or non-existent product information.
“Getting manufacturers to agree on
a common system to describe their
stuff is the task of Sisyphus”, Mohr
maintains. So instead he decided to
plug everybody into a system that
acts as a mediator between the various
manufacturers, vendors and
customers.
“Every time a new picture of a given
product is stored in the company database,
it is automatically updated
all over the Web”, he describes the
way his new company, called Plugilo,
operates. The ultimate goal, he says,
is to “make data smarter”.
Right now, Plugilo is still very much
Mohr’s dream child, although the
technology behind it is ready and
working. Remember all those little
Vietnamese programmers? What is
lacking is the worldwide organization
and the funding to maintain it.
Mohr envisions the Plug as a universally
recognized symbol stating that
the information you are about to access
is updated regularly.
In fact, clicking on the plug will
take consumers directly to the
manufacturer’s database, which for
Mohr is the fount of all real knowledge
about a product. And while the
system relieves vendors of the need
(and cost) of updating the information
about the products they sell,
manufacturers for the first time get
a direct line to the consumer – something
they have been dreaming
about for years.
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