Coffee|Code : Dan Scott

So here's the first of two posts based on purely wild conjecture. In a lengthening chain of trackbacks, Ryan Eby mentioned Christina's observation that Springlink has started displaying Google ads, presumably to supplement their subscription and pay-per-article income. Ryan goes on to wonder:

Will vendors continue with the subscription model or move towards a pay-per-view only model since they already have it for search engines in the future and can probably make more money? Will a search engine convince some of them to end the subscriptions and subsidize the change in order to try to pull more people into using their product instead of libraries? Will Google integrate Google Checkout with Scholar for easy shopping or perhaps personal subscriptions?

For a few months now, I've been wondering why Google hasn't made a move to purchase the Elseviers, Springers, and the rest of the ilk of the commercial research journal publishing world. If they could pull it off (and potentially avoid anti-trust measures by making the content available for "free"), I thought that ad revenue would be their public rationale for the move, but that the real reason for making that move would simply be keeping tabs on all of the research interests at both aggregated and granular levels. Think about the implications of being able to track all of the search patterns emanating from within a given company (quite often correlated with an individuals Gmail account, if they happen to have authenticated against Gmail during the same Web session). It would essentially amount to opt-in corporate espionage.

Or, for that matter, how about tracking the research interests of a given country. Iran, perhaps?

But now I've realized that Google doesn't even have to purchase the publishers. If the publishers accept Google Ads, then Google gets to track all of the searches or item views performed on that site. No purchase required.

Luckily for us, Google isn't evil, and their privacy policy doesn't leave too much room for selling that information; they can really only use it to develop new services. Hmm.

The second of tonight's wild conjecture-based predictions.

One of the things that I was thinking about as I was shovelling the snow off our driveway on Monday (other than yes! finally some snow... one of these days Amber is going to go rolling around in it) was the position that SirsiDynix has backed themselves into with their current catalog offerings. To recap, on the Unicorn side of the house they offered WebCat, then iLink / iBistro (commonly referred to as "iBLink"), and have been positioning EPS/Rooms as the next generation of their catalogs. Perhaps Web2 was somewhere in there, too. Consider it a gamut of Web-based catalogue offerings for SirsiDynix Unicorn.

However, given all of the talk of "next-generation catalogs" in the library world, and comparing the high expectations set by given the first impressive example of a faceted catalog that was built on top of Unicorn using the services of Endeca (NCSU, and the announcement that another Endeca catalog will be built on top of Horizon (McMaster), I can't help but think that one of the announcements in this session from Tom Gates at the upcoming SirsiDynix Super Conference (User Experience) is going to be something along these lines:

Based on the experience that SirsiDynix and Endeca have gained in implementing several new catalogues based on Endeca search technology and SirsiDynix's flagship integrated library systems, Unicorn and Horizon, SirsiDynix is proud to announce "Endeca-in-a-box".

Note that the preceding sentence is pure conjecture, not an actual product announcement. But here's how I think it would make sense. Despite adding libraries to the list of industries that they service, I doubt that Endeca wants to spend the next few years sending consultants off to individual libraries to earn $10K a pop to reimplement the same basic technology on top of SirsiDynix library systems. They would be happy to simply sell an Endeca license without having to lift a finger. SirsiDynix, on the other hand, desperately needs an offering that can counter the likes of Open-ILS, a.k.a Evergreen (with commercial support offered by esilibrary, Talis, Koha (with commercial support offered by LibLime, or the still rather vapourish Primo from Ex Libris.

SirsiDynix will be happy, of course, to generate revenue from their own consulting services, as witnessed by the nickel-and-diming for basic configuration changes. Providing a single Web catalogue that sits in front of both Unicorn and Horizon library systems is one step towards eliminating one of their redundant platforms. "Fixing" the front end by ponying up a few extra thousand per year while retaining the same old backend library system for staff will undoubtedly appeal to most library administrators. But most attractive for SirsiDynix would be to position Endeca-in-a-box so that it requires Unicorn sites to purchase the Oracle and Unicode modules that otherwise would sit on the shelf. This would be the real revenue-generator for the company, and that's one of the directions Vista is going to take SirsiDynix to enable [this good business] to achieve [its] full potential (yep, I still translate "full potential" as "more money").

It's wild conjecture, but damn it, I think it makes a lot of sense.

2006 was a year full of change - wonderful, exhausting change. Here's a month-by-month summary of the highlights of 2006:

January

I did a whole lot of work on the PECL ibm_db2 extension, reviewed a good book on XML and PHP, and finally fixed up my blog a little bit. I've got a few more book reviews in the works for 2007, and hope I can spruce up good old Coffee|Code a little more.

February

I live blogged a few WWdN invitational poker tourneys, wrote about Larry Menard's work on building an ADOdb driver for DB2 based on the ibm_db2 extension (which is now officially supported), documented my installation of a bird feeder (update: Spook was happy because a few chickadees visited, but Amber hasn't really noticed yet), announced that I was leaving IBM, and apologized for having to back out of some engagements due to the change in jobs. I also promised to write up some fixes to PDO_ODBC and spread out my documentation efforts for PHP, neither of which really happened in 2006 (8 commits to phpdoc ain't all that) -- but I recently made use of the xmlwriter extension in implementing MARCXML support for File_MARC and noticed that xmlwriter badly needs a tech writer. So maybe I can pull it together in 2007.

March

More live blogging of WWdN tournaments. How did I manage to have this much time in the first month of my new job? Amazing. I also helped horny teenagers find relief with GTA: San Andreas. But, in the middle of all that completely trivial stuff, our friends Mike and Kelly threw an incredible baby shower for us. It was amazing to be surrounded by so many friends who were actually happy that we were procreating! I do wish that we could visit more often, but based on last weekend's shenanigans this travel thing is starting to take more of a toll on Amber and her parents.

April

Lynn and I attended an vaudeville-style horror show. Who says Sudbury doesn't have culture? I took my readers on my walk to work, and I should note that within a couple of months of taking on the new job I had lost a bunch of weight. Activity is good! I live-blogged a couple more WWdN invitationals, and Lynn and I waited and waited for the baby to arrive, including such fine events as attending Earth Day and the inaugural Nickel City Triathlon Team barbecue.

May

We continued to wait for Amber to arrive, and managed to fit in a viewing of V for Vendetta during pre-labor. Eventually Amber did decide to join us in the outer world (saving me from having to run a 10K--yay!), and I posted the pictorial evidence. Oh, and I live-blogged some more WWdN tourneys.

June

I rode around Sudbury, posted some more Amber pics while putting my antisocial tendencies on display, and rather shockingly announced my departure from online poker. Shortly thereafter, the withdrawal symptoms kicked in and I unleashed in my first library-oriented post about our library system vendor. Looking back, I can't believe it took me almost four months to publicly snap at our vendor.

July

I started my parental leave, and oddly enough wrote two blog entries in all of July. I guess I was actually spending significant quality time with Amber -- cool! On Canada Day, I ran my first 5K race in about five years. Unfortunately, the other entry dealt with the loss of my co-worker, Alain Letourneau. I found out later that some of his friends from library school only found out about his death through my brief memorial to Alain, which is a bittersweet result I suppose. Tomorrow, a new librarian who was hired to fill Alain's position is joining the library; we won't forget Alain, but in a way it will be nice to have someone new moving around that office so that I don't have to walk past that empty room and locked door anymore.

August

During the second month of my parental leave, I focused a bit more on communicating to the outside world and posted some more pictures of Amber (although I still have to install that baby gate correctly) and pictures of the French River bridge and Bell Park dragon boat races. I kicked off my efforts to build a MARC package for PHP, which ultimately spawned another package to implement a basic linked list structure. Lynn, Amber, and I made it to a couple of bad movies, and I finished my first sprint duathlon. Lynn gets the top kudos, though, for running in a Try-a-Triathlon just three months after bringing Amber into the world. This year I'm hoping to do an Olympic distance triathlon, although I understand that some swimming skill is required for that...

September

I started out the month a little bit bitter after responding to a call for a wiki on the MARC listserv, only to be told later "thanks but no thanks, we're working on something ourselves". Eventually it ended up getting hosted on pbwiki where everybody shares a single user account (shrug). Lynn, Amber, and I ran another 5K in our neighbourhood. I wrote about some recent examples of how open source works based on the PEAR proposal process and PHP ext/filter API discussions, and noted how pseudo-open-source doesn't work after I found that IBM developerWorks had completely pulled the Mapuccino project. Come to think of it, I never did find a good open-source Web site visualization tool. Late in the month, I reflected on the role I'm fulfilling as a laundry list system librarian. That kind of role satisfies my generalist nature, even though it's a bit overwhelming at times.

October

I attended Access 2006 and felt like I had finally met other members of my own species in the flesh (although I had previously met many of the same people on #code4lib, it was nice to put names to faces and share thoughts over food). After taking a ton of notes, I called for all future Access conferences to require presenters to make their presentations available. I took a trip immediately after Access 2006 to Huntsville, Alabama for a week of training by our library systems vendor, and noted how horrible their customer experience was for sales and training pitches. Maybe their new owner will take a gander at some of their customer surveys... My PEAR proposal became an official PEAR package, and I revised File_MARC based on the results of the Access 2006 Hackfest (where I learned that loading a 500 Mb file into memory and then parsing it doesn't work too well with most systems).

November

Amber dressed up for Hallowe'en, and File_MARC became an official PEAR package. I discovered that Archimedes uses Apache Derby as its database of choice, but was disappointed with the "guessing game" user interface that broke all known usability rules. I took a bus/train journey down to Windsor for the Future of the ILS Symposium, got a sneak preview of what BiblioCommons is up to, and pressed Mike Rylander for details on how Evergreen / Open-ILS supports internationalization. I began trying in earnest to build a VMWare image running Evergreen, first with Ubuntu and then with Gentoo, before stalling out somewhere in early December. This is one ball I intend to pick up again in early 2007 -- we badly need a backup OPAC. Somehow I failed to mention the week that Lynn, Amber, and I spent in Cuba for my sister-in-law's wedding.

December

In December I was fairly quiet, as I was highly focused at work on finishing a number of projects that I had artificially set year-end deadlines for myself. To be honest, I just didn't want to spend my Christmas break thinking about them... I noticed that SirsiDynix made an odd press release on December 22nd, and indulged in wild speculation over what that meant. Library Journal picked up my blog post and quoted my creative conjecture, spawning several other posts on the topic, and I resolved to take the power of the blog a bit more seriously in the future. On December 21st I started responding to an LWN article that I felt misrepresented the state of PHP security; although I wondered at times if the holiday egg nog had me tilting at windmills, the author of the article ultimately agreed with me. On Christmas eve I gave the present of more Amber photos.

So, all in all, it was a pretty full year of geekdom, some regular exercise, a bit too much poker, a ton of travel, and a whole lot of change. There wasn't nearly enough Amber (of course there can never be enough), even though I have her all to myself a couple of mornings each week. But I'm living with the people that I love, doing fulfilling work, and that's all I can really ask for.

A little over a week ago, I made the following prediction following the extremely under-the-radar press release on December 22nd that Vista Equity Partners was investing in SirsiDynix:

I'll go out on a limb and say that a merger or acquisition of SirsiDynix in 2007 is unlikely (33% confidence), but after proving their new business strategy and the nice spikes on their revenue and profit charts, I'll say that it's quite likely in 2008 (80% confidence).

Ed Corrado just pointed out the subsequent news release on December 27th that Vista has actually acquired SirsiDynix.

So, first: I failed to make any prediction about SirsiDynix being acquired in the last nine days of 2006. Shame on me for that oversight.

And second: press releases on December 22nd and 27th? I can't think of a better time to try to bury some news.

And third: given that five of the thirteen Vista-held companies profiled on Vista's web site have been acquired, I'm going to stick by my prediction that an acquisition in 2008 is a likely event.

Jessamyn picked up the story, adding some further info from a Huntsville Times news article. Her post drew some further details on the acquisition from Andrew Pace (who had his own blog post on the subject).

These are interesting times, indeed. I'm still waiting for Stephen Abram to blog about the acquisition, but here we are: 21 blog posts since December 22nd, the initial press release on the investment / acquisition, and not a single word about what this means to SirsiDynix or its customers.