Friday, March 30, 2007

Enterprise Portals Vendors Channel on CMS Watch

Enterprise Portals Vendors Channel on CMS Watch

Enterprise Portals Report from CMS Watch

Enterprise Portals Report from CMS Watch

EContentMag.com: 2006 EContent 100 List

EContentMag.com: 2006 EContent 100 List

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

FT.com / Companies / IT - Will twittering be big business?

FT.com / Companies / IT - Will twittering be big business?

Will twittering be big business?
Published: March 28 2007 03:00 | Last updated: March 28 2007 03:00

Spring has sprung, the birds are singing and San Francisco is hearts a-flutter over a Web 2.0 service called Twitter.

I encountered it first in January at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Tekkies were using it to track events and each other's movements around the vast show. It has been growing exponentially ever since.

Twitter essentially allows you to broadcast SMS-type messages to friends and the public about what you're up to, with an archive of your one-sentence twitterings available on the twitter.com website.

Opinions are divided on whether to love or hate Twitter and whether it is full of useless minutiae or useful information. Photo blogger Thomas Hawk finds it as addictive as Flickr and says: "It is the micro blogging platform du jour, allows me to stay in contact with over 400 people, serves as a great daily record of what I've been up to for archive purposes, and is fun as hell."

Others might say this is taking Web 2.0's interactive tools and blogging into the realms of the absurd.

Just looking at the current twitterings on the public page, there are some interesting comments but also entries such as "same thing I was doing eight hours ago", "uploading a new image", "getting dinner on my way home" and commercial messages including the BBC posting what is up next on the World Service.

These may tell us little about the zeitgeist but there is no doubt that Twitter itself is very much of the moment - the Hitwise research team says its traffic has risen 55 per cent in the space of a week, and although still niche, it is already spawning related sites such as Twittersearch, Twitterholic, which ranks "twits" by postings, and Twittermaps and Twittervision, mash-ups that mix Google maps of the world with the latest twitterings and their locations.

What is also interesting about Twitter is what it says about Web 2.0 and Silicon Valley's culture. Valley companies have a habit of working on one idea until a better one comes along. This is not a world of carefully hatched business plans leading to world domination, it is one of happenstance and serendipity, quick adaptations and imaginative improvisations on existing themes.

In Twitter's case, Evan Williams is behind the service, an entrepreneur and developer who founded Blogger, the blogging service bought by Google in 2003. He went on to create Odeo, a podcasting technology that has made little impression, but one of his engineers came up with Twitter as a project and this has now changed the course of the business.

But what is the business? Williams doesn't know and doesn't seem to care. Build a great user experience and the business model will follow, he told the San Francisco Chronicle.

I have heard this more than once in recent weeks from Web 2.0 companies, including Izimi, a British company that is following other foreign start-ups in setting up in San Francisco, the heart of the movement.

This seems part of a new confidence and independence that Web 2.0 fosters. The code-sharing that goes on, the coffee-shop offices and the cheap technology now available means these small companies can survive for long periods without the need to seek venture capital or go to the markets.

It's a refreshing change from the 1999 bubble of MBAs with carefully prepared business plans designed to attract venture capital. There were too many me-too ideas and everyone had the same SASSy proposals for making money, as in Subscriptions, Advertising, selling Services or earning Sponsorship. All the while, they had sweet FA - as in Flotation or Acquisition - in the back of their minds as the best way to cash in.

So in contrast, the Web 2.0 crowd seem happy to, and can afford to, go with the flow of where their users take their services. Look at Google, they point out, it went four years before finding a business model, and a pretty spectacular one at that.

This is all very well, but there is only one Google, and MySpace and YouTube have achieved similar dominance in social networking and online video. The future could be big for Twitter or it could end up as a passing fad - already many people are learning to turn down or turn off the constant messaging to their phones.

Instead of understanding their market in advance with focus groups, Web 2.0 companies are doing it on the fly by observing user behaviour. They are user-driven in every sense and will live or die by those users and their attention spans.

The best outcome for most would be an acquisition by a larger company, in the way that Google and Yahoo! have picked up Web 2.0 services such as Del.icio.us, Flickr, JotSpot, Keyhole, Konfabulator, Oddpost, Upcoming and Writely.

The rest need to partner and club together, according to a new Forrester Research survey, if they want to address enterprises with their services. Businesses made clear they wanted to buy suites of Web 2.0 applications not stand-alone services.

And mass-market consumers may prefer integrated offerings rather than idle twitterings as well.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007

FT.com / Technology - A message to the world

FT.com / Technology - A message to the world

A message to the world
By David Bowen

Published: March 28 2007 10:13 | Last updated: March 28 2007 10:13

Alarge company’s web presence is an expensive thing – companies brave enough to tot up the cost may find it runs into tens of millions of dollars a year. Yet return on investment is impossible to calculate.

But with the web now becoming a mass medium in the developed world, and growing at a giddy rate elsewhere, it is an essential part of the communications mix.

What is needed is a way of judging whether a web package is as good as it can be – that is, doing all the things it could be doing, as well as it can do them. And – at least as important – to see who is doing better so that best practice can be observed and adopted or adapted. These are the jobs the FT Bowen Craggs Index is attempting to do.

The Index, featured on Page 5, is a ranking – in fact it is many rankings. The aim is not to stimulate praise, blame or panic, but to show what should be done (and what should not be done) to make a website as effective as possible under several headings.

This Index is valuable partly because it takes an overall view, looking at the different (and often complex) jobs a site is asked to do, and seeing how well it does them. The advantage with corporate sites is that although there are considerable differences in emphasis, these tasks are pretty much the same for all. It is also valuable because it is based on judgments, rather than a “checklist” approach (see Methodology, Page 5, for details).

The Index looks at 60 of the world’s largest companies, taken from the 2006 FT Global 500, which ranks companies by market capitalisation. The top 20 from each of the US, Europe, and the rest of the world have been analysed.

So what makes a top-class corporate web presence? First, you can move around easily without losing your bearings. This is a sign both of good construction and good governance – that is, the web presence is run according to well-observed rules and processes.

Second, the best sites do all the jobs they could be doing. They offer a high-quality service to all stakeholders: people looking for jobs, customers, journalists, investors and the important social responsibility lobby. They even take care to offer good contact points – an element we include separately because it is often the most important role a site plays.

Third, they make good use of web technology. With broadband spreading, video, podcasts and other features make increasing sense, although imaginative use of less bandwidth-hungry tools can be at least as valuable. We see little evidence yet of Web 2.0 and its interactive functions to build communities online. This may be because these corporate giants are laggardly, or because they are rationally cautious. Whichever, we can expect to see more experimentation over the next year.

But the companies at the very top do more. Siemens stands out not only because it has a huge and highly coherent web presence, but also because of the attention to detail. Try looking for a product: the drilldown is ultra-rational. Look at the contact page or its press release archive: ditto.

It is clear that Siemens has not just said: “Let’s do the same as others, only better”; it has taken each problem and tried to solve it from first principles.

Shell does everything well, too. Until recently, its site was classy but conservative. That has changed with its new home page: here is a “tag cloud”, words in different sizes that reflect their popularity as search terms. It is not only clever, but carries a touch of Web 2.0 about it.

BP is slightly different: it stands out less for overall coherence than for flashes of brilliance, particularly in the use of web technology. Click the “Statistical Review of World Energy” on the home page, then the “Energy Charting Tool”. Useful and fun.

These are companies that are taking their websites very seriously indeed. Is it a coincidence that all three at the top have run into reputation problems recently? Almost certainly, yes. But it is no coincidence that they have used the web to manage the damage to their reputations (see the “Serving society” column in the table, Page 5).

What of the overall trends the Index has identified?

There is nothing notable by sector, but the regional differences are striking. Eight of the top 10 sites are European. This may come as a surprise to Americans, who took to the web so early, but that is part of the problem. Many US corporate websites have a distinctly frayed feel – they do little to polish the brand, and make rather too obvious their owners’ divisions (nothing like a website to uncover internal politics).

They also often have a strong marketing and selling focus, with brand and other communications tasks left to languish. This is confirmed by how US and Canadian sites fare better in the “serving customers” category – where six of the top 10 are North American – than they do in the ranking by “construction” (overall coherence) – where North America provides only two of the top 10.

Europeans came from behind, and some have been playing leapfrog. The best example is ENI, which comes out best in the construction list: a few years ago, the then-unwired Italians would have languished near the bottom of any table like this.

The US attitude, on the other hand, is exemplified by Bank of America. Its site is an architectural and branding nightmare – except for customers, who are directed step by easy step to where they can place their business. ENI comes nowhere in the marketing ranking, however. The two sides of the Atlantic can learn from each other.

What does this mean for the companies at the bottom of the list – nearly all from the developing world? Will they play leapfrog, too? It is probable that only some will. Russian sites are poor because they are being built on budgets that are far too mean. They will surely improve fast. The Saudi sites are very thin on content: they too will improve as they bulk out.

But what of companies that have spent on their sites but to no great effect? They have most to do. Companhia Vale do Rio Doce, the Brazilian mining giant, has an expensive site that just does not work well.

It is also surprising to see many Japanese sites in a mess. Our Japanese analyst checked to see if the domestic versions of Japan’s websites were better: there was much more marketing material from the banks, and also good information for graduates, but overall the answer was “no”.

For example, it has not helped that Honda’s US subsidiary has taken its standard “dot-com” address but the most charitable thing that can said about its global site (www.world.honda.com) is that it is charming in its eccentricity.

Not that eccentricity is the preserve of the Japanese. EDF (www.edf.com) has a musical home page that also acts as a hub for navigating the web. Every time you pass through it you get the music. Sound is a neglected aspect of the web – but you can have too much of a good thing.

■ David Bowen (dbowen@bowencraggs.com) is an ft.com columnist and senior consultant for Bowen Craggs & Co.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007

FT.com / Technology - Valley view: Will twittering be big business?

FT.com / Technology - Valley view: Will twittering be big business?

Monday, March 26, 2007

FIRSTspirit - your content integration platform

FIRSTspirit - your content integration platform

SharePoint et MOSS au Quotidien Blog d'EROL: Downloadable books for Office SharePoint Server 2007

SharePoint et MOSS au Quotidien Blog d'EROL: Downloadable books for Office SharePoint Server 2007

Downloadable books for Office SharePoint Server 2007 Updated: March 15, 2007

Some of the content in the Office SharePoint Server technical library is available in downloadable and printable form as Microsoft Office Word documents (.doc files).

The content in these 4 books is a copy of selected content in the Office SharePoint Server technical library (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=84739) as of the date listed for each book.

The 4 books for WSSv3 are here :
http://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver/WSS/en/library/decec839-73d9-4e23-b167-11e05dfc2feb1033.mspx?mfr=true

Sunday, March 25, 2007

FT.com / Companies / US & Canada - Mini-blog is the talk of Silicon Valley

FT.com / Companies / US & Canada - Mini-blog is the talk of Silicon Valley

Mini-blog is the talk of Silicon Valley
By Richard Waters and Chris Nuttall in San Francisco

Published: March 25 2007 22:03 | Last updated: March 25 2007 22:03

Silicon Valley is abuzz over a new mini-blogging service for mobile phones that some predict will be a mass-market hit with the reach of a YouTube or MySpace.

Over the past two weeks, Twitter has attracted the sort of hyperbole the Valley reserves for its next internet darling – though such self-reinforcing adulation also led to dotcom mania.

Jonathan Schwartz, chief executive of Sun Microsystems, singled Twitter out at the end of last week as the latest hit from the post-YouTube generation of “viral” internet applications that have the potential to attract massive online audiences.

The internet has “become so consumerised that social phenomena can take off like lightning”, he said. Warning against the temptation to reject Twitter as a flash in the pan, Mr Schwartz added: “YouTube was funny until it was worth $1.65bn to someone,” a reference to Google’s purchase of the company last year.

“This is the first application that people have got excited about since Flickr came out,” said Ross Mayfield, a Valley entrepreneur, comparing it to a popular photo-sharing site bought by Yahoo in 2005. “I don’t think it will be the next YouTube – but I do think it will gain wide adoption,” he said.

Users of Twitter post short messages – up to 140 characters – that can be viewed either on a website or on mobile phones. “Twitter probably wouldn’t have existed before blogging, when people learned to be more transparent,” Mr Mayfield added.

Though launched publicly last summer, use of Twitter started to take off in the middle of March after it was adopted by tech­nology bloggers attending the South by Southwest conference in Texas. As people like Mr Mayfield lauded the service on their blogs, interest spread quickly among the Valley’s key opinion-formers.

The sudden popularity of Twitter has seen the number of messages posted on its site jump from 20,000 to 70,000 a day, said Biz Stone of Obvious, the internet company which started the service. According to HitWise, which measures web traffic, use of the service jumped by 55 per cent the week after the conference, though it said Twitter was “still very niche” and had yet to reach the mass market.

The sudden jump in use has put a strain on Twitter’s servers, and the service has become “sluggish” as a result, said Mr Stone. That could point to the sort of difficulties that accompanied the sudden popularity four years ago of Friendster, the first widely used online social networking service. As it struggled to build the technological infrastructure capable of keeping up with demand, users tired of its patchy service and eventually turned to other sites like MySpace.

“We’ve seen the Friendster experience and we don’t want that to happen,” said Mr Stone. Twitter’s development team had now stopped adding new features to the service so that it could focus all its attention on coping with the surge in traffic, he said.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007

Friday, March 23, 2007

Oracle’s Strong Quarter and the Case of the Purloined Passwords | AMR Research

Oracle’s Strong Quarter and the Case of the Purloined Passwords | AMR Research

My initial plan for this week’s First Thing Monday was to analyze Oracle’s 3Q07 results. While the third-quarter performance was the strongest in more than five years, the financial news was overshadowed by the company’s news that it is suing archrival SAP, alleging “corporate theft on a grand scale.” Here’s our analysis of both.

Thursday, March 22, 2007

CeBIT - Trends und Themen CeBIT 2007

CeBIT - Trends und Themen CeBIT 2007

CeBIT - Trends und Themen CeBIT 2007

CeBIT - Trends und Themen CeBIT 2007

Trends und Themen CeBIT 2007
Zum Abschluss der CeBIT 2007

Die CeBIT war erneut die Messe für Innovationen in der ITK-Branche. Zu den Highlights 2007 gehörten neue Dienste rund um Voice over IP (VoIP) und IPTV, das mobile Fernsehen sowie HD-DVD und Blu-Ray.

Weitere Top-Themen waren der Einsatz energiesparender Technologien, IT-Sicherheit sowie leistungsstärkere Telematik- und Navigationssysteme. Viel diskutiert wurden außerdem die Einsatzmöglichkeiten von Auto ID/RFID, SOA-basierte Unternehmenslösungen, "Software as a Service" und neue Entwicklungen im Bereich eGovernment.

CeBIT: Alle trends op een rijtje - Personal Computer Magazine

CeBIT: Alle trends op een rijtje - Personal Computer Magazine

De afgelopen week heeft u iedere dag vers nieuws van de CeBIT - de grootste technologiebeurs van Europa - kunnen lezen. Gisteravond sloot de CeBIT. Vandaag krijgt u nog de allerlaatste nieuwtjes én kunt u ons verslag lezen.

Thursday, March 15, 2007

:: PIRONET NDH AG ::

:: PIRONET NDH AG ::

Pironet NDH auf der CeBIT: Pironet NDH stellt Redaktionssystem für das SAP NetWeaver Portal vor
Köln, den 15. März 2007 - Pironet NDH bietet eine weitere Content-Management-Lösung für SAP. Das pirobase Enterprise Content Studio (ECS) erweitert das SAP Netweaver Portal um ein vollständiges Redaktionssystem. Die Lösung setzt auf den Funktionen des SAP Netweaver Portals im Bereich Knowledge Management & Collaboration auf.

Zum Leistungsumfang gehört beispielsweise ein Editor, mit dem sich komplexe Intranetseiten erstellen und pflegen lassen. Dabei organisiert pirobase ECS auch die Freigabe von Dokumenten. Durch die Integration in die Netweaver-Umgebung entfällt für die Redakteure zudem die doppelte Pflege der Navigationshierarchie, da das Portal die im Editor erstellten Inhaltsbäume nach der Freigabe automatisch übernimmt. Zusätzlich erweitert pirobase ECS das Netweaver Portal um eine Mandantenverwaltung. Hierdurch lassen sich komplexe Organisationsstrukturen leichter im SAP Netweaver Portal abbilden.

„Innerhalb unseres ECM-Portfolios für SAP haben wir pirobase ECS als kleine, leicht zu integrierende Lösung konzipiert. Sie bietet Autoren eine intuitive Redaktionsoberfläche, mit der sich sehr einfach komplexe Intra-, Extra- und Internetauftritte realisieren lassen. Dabei nutzt pirobase ECS vorhandene Netweaver-Funktionen wie etwa die Portal-Navigation, Knowledge Management oder Web Dynpro“, erklärt Ali Saffari, Leiter Portal Solutions bei Pironet NDH. Mit der Laufzeit- und Entwicklungsumgebung Web Dynpro können Unternehmen professionelle Browser-basierte Anwendungen bauen und eine geräte- und plattformunabhängige Anwendungsumgebung schaffen.

Weitere Informationen zum pirobase ECS bietet Pironet NDH auf der CeBIT in Halle 4, Stand D12.

Über Pironet NDH
Die 1995 gegründete Pironet NDH bietet innovative Lösungen zur Erstellung, Synchronisierung und Verteilung von digitalen Inhalten jeglicher Art sowie zur Optimierung von internen und externen Geschäftsprozessen. Zu den Schwerpunkten gehören Beratungs- und Kreationsleistungen, Softwareprodukte und der Betrieb von unternehmenskritischen Infrastrukturen und Anwendungen. Das börsennotierte Technologieunternehmen mit Hauptsitz in Köln beschäftigt mehr als 300 Mitarbeiter an mehreren Standorten in Europa. Zu den Kunden zählen sowohl mittelständische Unternehmen als auch international agierende Konzerne.
Pressekontakt:

Pironet NDH AG
Press Office
Andrés Sieverding
Maarweg 149-161
50825 Köln
Tel.: +49 (0)221/770-1224
Fax: +49 (0)221/770-1205
press@pironet-ndh.com
www.pironet-ndh.com/press

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Cool vendors in content management, 2007

The cool vendors in this document are setting trends in areas like open-source enterprise content management, the business value of content analytics, knowledge applicability of social networks and better support for e-discovery.

FT.com / Companies / IT - Microsoft searches for Google reply

FT.com / Companies / IT - Microsoft searches for Google reply

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

H-P Goes All-In on Software Gamble - Preview

H-P Goes All-In on Software Gamble - Preview

FIRSTspirit - maximale Leistung in allen Portalen

FIRSTspirit - maximale Leistung in allen Portalen

e-Spirit präsentiert auf der CeBIT High-End-Funktionalitäten für effektives Content Management großer und weltweit genutzter Webseiten

FIRSTspirit ab sofort auch nahtlos in den Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server 2007 integrierbar

FIRSTspirit, das Content-Management-System des Dortmunder Softwarehauses e-Spirit, zeigt sich auf der CeBIT 2007 mit einem Leistungsspektrum, das für Unternehmen mit komplexen Inter- und Intranet-Projekten noch mehr Vorteile bietet. in|SHARE, ein Tool der adesso AG für umfassende Integration in den Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server 2007 (MOSS), vervollständigt FIRSTspirits Integrationsfähigkeit und macht es zu einem perfekten Content-Management-System für Unternehmen mit SAP-, IBM- und Microsoft-Portalen.

Perfekt im Portal

Neu im Bereich der Portalintegration ist in|Share, die Integrationslösung für den Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. Gemeinsam entwickelt mit der adesso AG, komplettiert in|Share die Produktpalette der Integrationslösungen. FIRSTspirit verfügt somit über eine perfekte Anbindung an das SAP NetWeaver und das IBM WebSphere Portal und nun auch in den Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. Selbstverständlich kann FIRSTspirit all diese Portale auch gleichzeitig bedienen und so den gleichen Content in verschiedene Portale ausgeben.

In allen Portalen profitieren die Anwender vornehmlich von der Möglichkeit, Inhalte ohne das entsprechende Portal-Know-how pflegen zu können. Inhalte können in FIRSTspirit komfortabel bearbeitet und anschließend inklusive Navigationsstrukturen, Berechtigungen und Sprachen automatisch ins Portal übernommen werden. Die Ausgabe erfolgt in allen gewünschten Sprachen und Schriften sowohl auf Webseiten als auch in PDF-Dokumente.

Die Portalfunktionen auf einen Blick:

- Pflege mehrsprachiger Inhalte direkt am Seitenobjekt
- Generierung der Inhalte in beliebig viele Ausgabeformate
- Anlegen und Pflegen von Portal-Menüpunkten direkt aus FIRSTspirit heraus
- Personalisierung der Inhalte durch die Redakteure
- Frei definierbare Redaktionsprozesse
- Automatische Erzeugung von Druck- oder PDF-Versionen der Portalinhalte
- Wiederverwendung von Inhalten für Internet- und Extranet Projekte
- Keinerlei Portal-Know-how für Redakteure erforderlich
- Keinerlei FIRSTspirit Know-how für die Portal Administratoren erforderlich

High-End Content-Management

FIRSTspirits High-End-Funktionen sind vornehmlich für große und international agierende Unternehmen interessant, für die eine hohe Leistungsfähigkeit und Flexibilität des Systems ebenso wichtig ist, wie dessen Benutzerfreundlichkeit.

FIRSTspirit ist eine 100% in Java implementierte Client/Server-Anwendung, eine seiner zentralen Funktionen ist die Trennung von Struktur, Inhalt und Darstellung. Inhalte können einmal gepflegt und in verschiedenen Kontexten wieder verwendet werden, d. h. eine Webseite ist in sekundenschnelle beliebig umstrukturierbar. FIRSTspirit basiert auf Unicode und unterstützt daher alle Sprachen und Zeichensätze.

Fast alle Datenbanken werden mit wenig Programmieraufwand ohne Redundanzen integriert und die Erstellung der Datenbank-Schemata unterstützt ein grafischer Editor. Als revisionsbasiertes Repository erlaubt FIRSTspirit überdies das lückenlose Nachvollziehen aller Änderungen und Zugriffe auf einen Systemzustand in der Vergangenheit. Die hohe Skalierbarkeit und Performance stellt sicher, dass die Stabilität des Systems auch bei der gleichzeitigen Nutzung durch mehrere Hundert User konstant bleibt.

Ein besonderes Augenmerk legt FIRSTspirit auf die Usability. Es lässt seinen Anwendern die Wahl: regelmäßige Nutzer können auf einen komfortablen Java-Client, Gelegenheitsnutzer auf einen intuitiv zu bedienenden Web-Client zurückgreifen - unnötiger Schulungsaufwand wird so vermieden.

Aus den medienneutral im XML-Format abgelegen Inhalten kann FIRSTspirit beliebige Ausgabeformate erzeugen und diese an frei wählbare Live-Systeme ausgeben. Aber natürlich werden auch Webseiten und gedruckte Medien bedient. Beispielhaft für die Qualität dieser Funktionen sind die Portalintegrationslösungen.

13.03.2007, Marc Kleine

Thursday, March 08, 2007

FT.com / Companies / IT - Microsoft web search chief resigns

FT.com / Companies / IT - Microsoft web search chief resigns

The 3D Internet; New “Knowledge Services”

We’re always on the lookout for the next new thing. In some cases, the impact of innovation is obvious at first glance. Other times we need someone to take us beyond the obvious.

Take Second Life, for example. In January, David Kirkpatrick, a senior editor at Fortune, wrote about IBM’s $10M investment to help construct the 3D Internet. He described how, at a presentation in Beijing, IBM CEO Sam Palmisano walked up to a PC and logged into Second Life, the best known of the 300 or so three-dimensional “metaverses” (a contraction of metaphysical universe—think virtual worlds).

While on stage, Mr. Palmisano, via his avatar, entered the virtual version of The Forbidden City and attended an internal meeting where employees were discussing supercomputing. He joined other avatars representing employees from Australia, India, Ireland, the United States, and other sites.

To be honest, my initial reaction was, “Why are corporations wasting time and money on virtual worlds?” At the same time, though, I printed Mr. Kirkpatrick’s article and kept it on my desk.

This week I ran into a friend from IBM at an SAP conference in Germany. He told me that if I continued thinking that Second Life was only about creating a new persona, I was missing the bigger picture significance of the 3D Internet. He then described some of IBM’s uses as well as some of the projects that it has worked on for clients.

Some of his ideas were intriguing. Imagine one day there is a 3D representation of your house—inside and out—in a virtual world. In the future, you might receive an e-mail from a vendor saying, “I visited your house in Second Life,” and an invitation to see how a new kitchen would look in your house will be included. Without leaving your PC, you can see cabinets, countertops, flooring, appliances, windows, and the like that fit within the dimensions of your home.

To some it sounds creepy, but others will think of how 3D will bring us closer to one-to-one marketing.

My IBM friend also talked about its value as a tool for marketing. For example, some car and clothing companies use Second Life to test new products ideas. IBMers also use Second Life for meetings, distance learning, and internal “innovation jams.” My friend wants to use it as a tool for visualizing core business processes. Imagine seeing a real-time 3D view of your supply chain.

3D customer service: seeing, not hearing, what to do

It would also be great for customer service. Recently, I spent nearly an hour on the phone with Dell customer service in an unsuccessful attempt to get my father in law’s PC to work. The poor service rep had me take the PC apart and remove memory boards and a video adapter in an attempt to get it to work. I would have preferred to go to a Dell website where I could see what he was trying to tell me to do. Of course, without a working PC, that visit would be moot.

When Mr. Kirkpatrick wrote his article, Second Life had received 2.6 million visits. When I visited this week, that number had grown to 4.4 million. No doubt, many people are joining for fantasy reasons—it’s the web, after all. Still, whether Second Life succeeds or not, the 3D Internet concept is an intriguing idea for selling, marketing, customer service, education, and running your business. In a future column, I’ll tell you more about IBM’s plans.

Closer to earth—“knowledge services”

Returning back to Planet Earth, I’ve been rereading my notes from last month’s trip to India. Here are some of the innovative new knowledge services being created and offered by services firms. They are being made available as consulting engagements or through knowledge process outsourcing services.

HCL

Most of the meeting with HCL president Vineet Nayar was spent discussing the company’s remote infrastructure management services. HCL lays claim to having a 76% share of this market.

What’s most interesting is what might come next. HCL sees opportunities to bring the same virtualization expertise to the applications market. We spent a fair amount of time talking about the concept of application appliances. Look for further coverage in an upcoming column.

Intelligroup

The SAP upgrade market is a huge opportunity for nearly every Indian firm. For its part, Intelligroup is creating an Upgrade Factory model to standardize, create reusable code, and make productivity improvements in SAP upgrade projects. It also will include prebuilt templates that incorporate best practices and frequently asked questions. Intelligroup told us that it can reduce the cost of upgrades by up to 40%.

ITC Infotech

You may have read about what ITC Infotech is doing for Indian farmers. The company has implemented SAP’s IS-Retail applications at Choupal Sagar, its parent company’s “shopping mall” for Indian farmers.

Farmers can sell their soybeans, wheat, and produce here, as well as buy fertilizer, pesticides, diesel oil, pumps, clothes, appliances, and life insurance. Other services available include training and banking. This is a huge improvement from how commerce was previously conducted.

Larsen & Toubro Infotech

Parent company Larsen & Toubro describes itself as a “technology-driven engineering and construction organization.” It’s also one the largest private companies in India.

Our meeting began with a discussion with Vijay Magapu, a member of parent company L&T’s board. Fitting his company’s engineering heritage, we spent most of the time talking about a range of new outsourced engineering services, including warranty analysis, engineering change, manufacturing problem resolution, and price management.

NIIT Technologies

Chairman Rajendra Pawar described several interesting projects in the insurance, transportation/airlines, and retail industries. What caught our attention most was the knowledge portal built for a well-known European retailer. Over the holiday season, more revenue came in through the portal or website than the stores. We intend to follow up and report on the details.

Satyam

Over coffee with Ram Mynampati, president of Satyam’s commercial and healthcare business, we talked about the company’s entry into several new markets, including pharmacogenomics (new services around clinical trial analytics and drug discovery), “pack management” or labeling for life sciences, animation, and new analytic services for the financial industry as a result of the acquisitions of Citisoft and Knowledge Dynamics in 2005.

Siemens Information Systems Ltd.

We spent most of the time discussing Siemens’s SAP expertise. Per my notes, the company has 1,300 SAP consultants and has completed 200 engagements. Siemens appears to be very strong in process industries, especially the Indian pharmaceutical companies, and automotive. In addition, the company has also developed two NetWeaver certified products.

SISL is also unique in that it has built a consulting group around Eli Goldratt’s Theory of Constraints to serve the Indian market. To date, the company has completed 15 projects for clients in consumer packaged goods, food and beverage, steel, steel plant equipment manufacturing, and engineering software.

TCS

We started our conversation with N. Chandrasekaran by catching up on hardware virtualization. He described a project for one company in which TCS shrunk the server base from 640 boxes to 40 boxes. The conversation segued into three areas to watch for virtualization: multichannel management, mobile, and applications. More on this in a future column.

Next stop: Washington, DC

While many of us may be tempted to go to Washington to protest the early start of daylight savings time, I’m actually going to attend Servigistics’ user conference. As it turns out, Dell is a customer of Servigistics strategic service management software. I hope to test out my idea of 3D customer support on Dell and other customers. Look for my findings next week.

In the meantime, I welcome your comments and insights on metaverses, knowledge services, and the next big deal in the business intelligence/performance management space—brichardson@amrresearch.com.

Tuesday, March 06, 2007

FT.com / Companies / Media & internet - Google chief dismisses rivals’ criticism

FT.com / Companies / Media & internet - Google chief dismisses rivals’ criticism


Google chief dismisses rivals’ criticism

By Aline van Duyn in New York
Published: March 6 2007 19:41 Last updated: March 6 2007 19:41

Eric Schmidt, chief executive of Google, on Tuesday shrugged off criticism being heaped on the internet company by rivals and some media companies over its approach to copyrighted content, dismissing it in barbed comments as a form of negotiation.

“The kinds of comments you’re referring to [criticising Google] are in the context of a business negotiation,” Mr Schmidt told investors at a Bear Stearns conference.

“I have learned that as part of being a player in the media industry, the way one negotiates is everything is leaked and you’re sued to death. So the lawsuits...appear to be in the course of doing normal business,” he said, adding this might reflect the preponderance of lawyers in the media industry.

“It is not normal in the technology industry, I can assure you,” he added.

Mr Schmidt’s comments follow a fierce attack on Google by its rival Microsoft over its “cavalier” approach to copyright. Tom Rubin, associate general counsel for Microsoft, earlier accused Google of exploiting books, music, films and television programmes without permission.

A number of book publishers have sued Google for making digital copies of copyrighted books from libraries without permission. In addition, a number of media companies have stepped up pressure on Google to remove their video content from the popular video sharing site YouTube as some negotiations to license the content and share advertising revenues have stalled.

Among the companies facing difficult negotiations with Google are Viacom, CBS and NBC Universal. The discussion started last year after Google paid $1.6bn to acquire YouTube, the most popular online video sharing site. As well as large amounts of videos created by YouTube users, people also share illegally copied videos.

Google has grown to be one of the world’s biggest media companies on the back of strong growth in search advertising, a market it dominates around the world. Google is working to extend its ability to target advertising to other online sectors as well as traditional advertising markets, such as television and radio.

Mr Schmidt said on Tuesday that there was a “genuine disagreement” between it and media companies about the value of copyrighted video material.

“The value is determined by whether people view it, and in our world value is measurable,” he said. “People say: my product is worth x, and Google says: prove it. In that context there is a genuine disagreement.”

Google plans to introduce targeted advertising to the US radio market this year and it is experimenting with introducing it to the television market. Mr Schmidt also said that mobile advertising could become a huge new market sector.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007

Friday, March 02, 2007

CeBIT: RedDot zeigt umfassende Content-Integration und individuelle Inhaltsauslieferung in Webmedien

CeBIT: RedDot zeigt umfassende Content-Integration und individuelle Inhaltsauslieferung in Webmedien

RedDot, die Open Text Web Solutions Group, zeigt auf der CeBIT in der Halle 3 am Stand D09 einfache Wege, um Informationen über Websites, Portale, Extra- und Intranets zur richtigen Zeit den richtigen Personen im richtigen Kontext bereitzustellen. Dabei spielt die Integration beliebiger Inhalte und Applikationen eine tragende Rolle: Content-Quellen, Drittsysteme, Anwendungen, Sprachen und Web 2.0-Funktionalitäten lassen sich mit der RedDot ECM Suite out-of-the-Box, ohne Programmieraufwand integriert nutzen.

Forrester Research: Microsoft's 2007 Enterprise Content Management Platform

Forrester Research: Microsoft's 2007 Enterprise Content Management Platform

March 2, 2007
Microsoft's 2007 Enterprise Content Management Platform
What Information And Knowledge Management Professionals Should Know

Microsoft's enterprise content management (ECM) support in Office SharePoint Server 2007 represents the vendor's formal entry as an ECM platform provider. No longer focused solely on document collaboration, SharePoint Server 2007 provides a single environment for collaborative document management, Web content management, records management, workflow, and eForms support. But Microsoft is not a single source provider for all ECM needs. Information and knowledge management professionals should look at Microsoft Office as a platform for their business content initiatives and be patient while Microsoft matures its ECM capabilities to meet enterprise needs.

Thursday, March 01, 2007

Pressemitteilungen zu CMS und ECMS Lösungen von RedDot

Pressemitteilungen zu CMS und ECMS Lösungen von RedDot

CeBIT: RedDot zeigt umfassende Content-Integration und individuelle Inhaltsauslieferung in Web-Medien
Oldenburg, 01.03.2007

RedDot, die Open Text Web Solutions Group, präsentiert neue Lösungen

RedDot, die Open Text Web Solutions Group, zeigt auf der CeBIT in der Halle 3 am Stand D09 einfache Wege, um Informationen über Websites, Portale, Extra- und Intranets zur richtigen Zeit den richtigen Personen im richtigen Kontext bereitzustellen. Dabei spielt die Integration beliebiger Inhalte und Applikationen eine tragende Rolle: Content-Quellen, Drittsysteme, Anwendungen, Sprachen und Web 2.0-Funktionalitäten lassen sich mit der RedDot ECM Suite out-of-the-Box, ohne Programmieraufwand integriert nutzen.

Bei der Integration und personalisierten Auslieferung von Inhalten in den gängigen Portalen wie SAP, Microsoft oder IBM weist der CMS-Anbieter mit seinen neuen Produktversionen CMS 7.5 und LiveServer 3.5 besondere Stärken auf. So zeigt RedDot auf der CeBIT, wie Anwender des SAP Enterprise Portals mit den stark erweiterten RedDot for SAP-Lösungen sämtlichen Content und selbst Navigationen individuell pflegen und bereitstellen können. Die Integration der SAP TREX Suchmaschine in das RedDot System ermöglicht zudem das automatische Indizieren redaktionell gepflegter Inhalte und das einfache Finden relevanter Informationen auf Basis einer zentralen Suche über alle Portalinhalte.

Einen weiteren Schwerpunkt am RedDot-Stand bildet die Schnittstelle zur ECM-Lösung Livelink von Open Text sowie das Thema Social Computing, beziehungsweise Web 2.0. RedDot bietet vor allem mittelständischen Unternehmen interessante Ansätze und Konzepte, um Social Computing erfolgreich im Unternehmensalltag einzusetzen. Einfach nutzbare Web 2.0-Funktionalitäten, die im Content Management System vollständig integriert sind, sowie eine einheitliche Benutzerverwaltung und Datenhaltung gehören zum RedDot-Ansatz.
RedDot-Experten stehen am Stand für Produktpräsentationen und Gespräche bereit. Wenn Sie an einem Termin mit einem Spezialisten interessiert sind, können Sie sich gerne bei Marina Ziegler unter 0049 (0)89 173019-28 oder Linda Holz unter 0049 (0)89 173019-28 melden.

Google Applies Itself - Week of 03/01/2007

Google Applies Itself - Week of 03/01/2007
Last week Google released Google Apps Premier Edition, an 'industrial strength' version of its free hosted applications suite. The earlier version, which is free, included Gmail accounts, a shared calendar, Google Talk instant messaging, access to Google Docs & Spreadsheets and a Web page creator. The new product, which is aimed at the enterprise, costs $50 a year per user and adds a 99.9 percent uptime guarantee for e-mail, additional e-mail storage, and new administration and business integration features.

Reaction to the release has been mixed. On the one side are those that believe this to be a serious threat to Microsoft's Office suite and their dominance in this arena. This camp believes the success of hosted applications such as those provided by salesforce.com, indicates a waning of concerns that existed for this model when it was first introduced a decade ago. Combined with a younger generation of users more comfortable with the Internet as a delivery mechanism, online hosted services will become mainstream. The other camp may not deny that the move to hosted applications is on the rise, but they hold that there are serious issues, primarily relating to security and performance, which need to be resolved before adoption by enterprises becomes widespread.

The reality of the situation is that there is a move toward hosted applications, one that will increase as familiarity grows and concerns are allayed. To deny that seems to be denying the future, but to think that the first iterations of a replacement to that model are themselves the future is not very realistic. Google Apps Premium Edition as well as Microsoft's Windows Live offering are the tip of the iceberg; not a whole lot has changed, it's just that the future has become a bit more clear and present.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt says, "Our product is so cheap that it's sort of no-brainer to try it out." However, the price difference between Google's offering and Microsoft's may not be as wide as it appears. Though the advertised price for Microsoft's Office Suite is indeed higher than Google's $50, enterprises often negotiate this down. Forbes refers to research released last year by Merrill Lynch analyst Kash Rangan which indicates, "that the average corporate cost for Office works out to about $60 to $120 annually per user, assuming the software is used over a two- to three-year cycle." Also, as Forbes aptly points out, in the end, "Price is rarely the only concern of large companies when they are deciding which software products to buy. Security, reliability and performance also sway corporate buying decisions."

There may be a change in the attitude toward applications such as Google's, however, these other concerns are still very real and do not belong to just a few. BusinessWeek states, "Many large corporations are wary of having an e-mail system run outside their own walls, where they can't be sure it's secure from hackers and spies. And even Google concedes its services don't have all the bells and whistles of Microsoft's products, such as centralized e-mail backups that help them comply with regulatory rules." Mark R. Anderson, an analyst at technology consulting firm Strategic News Service, concurs, “Google will have to prove itself in terms of security and in terms of quality."

To prove its product is worthy Google has touted the fact that it has over 100,000 small and medium sized businesses already using its hosted Apps solutions, and that this list includes some big names such as GE and Procter & Gamble. This was noted by BusinessWeek, "It's testament to Google's popularity that even though Google Apps is still in trial mode, hundreds of thousands of users at thousands of organizations are already using it. That includes a few big ones." However, for the most part, these are users of the previous version of the product, not the full service model, and though the numbers may be indicative of Google's popularity, the true testament will be how many businesses sign on to the new model, as well as how many continue to use it and to what degree; trials fall through all the time. Also, though 100,000 is a large number it should be put in perspective. According to the New York Times, "Google said more than 100,000 small businesses had been using Google Apps for Your Domain, as the earlier package of e-mail and messaging programs was known. Docs and Spreadsheets had 432,000 users in December, according to Nielsen/NetRatings. Microsoft says Office has 450 million to 500 million users."

In addition, Google also has a long way to go before such a product can add to its bottom line. According to Forbes, "Software licensing accounted for slightly more than $100 million, or 1 percent, of Google's $10.6 billion in revenue last year." It takes a lot of $50 to put a dent in Microsoft's numbers or to raise Google's one percent. As Google tries to gain a foothold and raise its numbers, the company may find themselves challenged to make the product pay for itself. Donna Bogatin wrote on her ZDNet blog, "The Google version of Microsoft Office may be housed in the Google cloud, but it nevertheless must support service delivery on the costly real-world ground for telephone support, service guarantees . . . As Google acquires customers, Google’s incremental costs increase, and the more Google Apps users use the service, the more Google’s cost of delivery increase."

Forbes refers to AMR Research analyst Jim Murphy, "While Google's latest foray into the corporate software market seems unlikely to topple the status quo right away . . . it's only a matter of time before the Mountain View-based company becomes a major player." Though this area may be newer to them than search and advertising Google already is a major player, and they may just have the capital, the brand recognition, and the following to successfully branch out in an endeavor such as this. However, success is neither inevitable nor immediate; as Murphy points out later in the article, "This is just the beginning . . . The real impact of what Google is trying to do probably won't be evident for another five years." Five years is a long time in this arena, particularly when the major competitor is already established and has a similar product in place; according to BusinessWeek Windows Live has some 250,000 small business users. Half a decade from now the way users, many of whom do not yet exist, interact with their data may have drastically changed, who controls that bridge is still very much up for grabs.