BUSINESS SOFTWARE FOR THE MIDMARKET
SharePoint alternatives seek to fill in the gaps
Christina Torode, Senior News Writer
12.18.2008
When it comes to departmental file sharing or collaborative workspaces, Microsoft's SharePoint has legions of fans in midsized companies. But for those not interested in paying for SharePoint (the basic version is free), or who find some features immature in the latest version, there are SharePoint alternatives.
The reason for SharePoint adoption is clear: Many organizations (and non-IT departments) began grassroots deployments after they upgraded to Windows Server and got a basic SharePoint feature set for free. There were also products in the SharePoint family available for a fee, including SharePoint Portal Server 2003, which many organizations used as a steppingstone to Microsoft Office SharePoint 2007 (MOSS 2007). MOSS 2007 is a major upgrade from SharePoint Server 2003, with a lot more functionality.
The move to MOSS 2007 seems to be natural once users install Office 2007. A Forrester Research Inc. survey conducted in March of 233 IT decision makers using Office 2007 showed that 24% said they had immediate plans to move to MOSS 2007 and 41% expected to install it within six months. And in yet-to-be-published research, Information Architected Inc. found that of 400 respondents surveyed, the majority of the midmarket companies already had MOSS 2007 installed. Midmarket companies accounted for 35% of the respondents, and among this group, half said price was not an inhibitor for MOSS deployments. Although nearly half -- 46% -- said the price was higher than they expected.
SharePoint add-ons:
A sampling
Microsoft typically leaves plenty of room for partners and competitors to fill in the gaps when it releases a new technology. Startups have grown out of developing applications and tools for Microsoft's server and desktop management products, and behemoths have built security add-ons for the Windows OS for years.
This tradition is continuing with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS 2007). Below is a sampling of the many SharePoint add-ons now available.
NewsGator Social Sites 2.5 is a social computing enhancement that lets users create community discussions around documents within SharePoint.
MOSS Faceted Search is a free set of Web parts that refine search results by category.
Colligo for SharePoint lets users drag and drop emails and attachments into document libraries and gives mobile workers offline access to SharePoint.
Site Administrator for SharePoint from Quest Software Inc. comes with 30 standard reports and allows IT to manage permissions and set policies in SharePoint.
"When we asked [the survey respondents] if the cost of MOSS was in line with their expectations or more than they expected, 50% said the cost was pretty much in line with their expectations," said Carl Frappaolo, co-founder and principle of Boston-based Information Architected.
Microsoft estimates MOSS pricing at $4,424 for a server license and $94 per client access license in the U.S.
Microsoft's strategy with SharePoint is to undercut competing enterprise content management (ECM) products that are perceived as complex and expensive, with a product that promises ease of use, flexibility and a less costly enterprise-scale feature set. One key benefit is its tight integration with other Microsoft products such as Exchange Server, Office Communications Server, Office Live Meeting and Live Workspace. Simplicity allows business departments to create their own team workspaces.
"Basic functions like workspaces typically come first and getting governance around that, then people tend to explore other areas [of SharePoint] based on pain points or risk factors," said Rob Koplowitz, an analyst at Cambridge, Mass.-based Forrester.
MOSS' capabilities range from basic collaboration to portal creation and business intelligence content management. Yet MOSS' breadth is both too much and not enough for some midmarket users.
While the portal capabilities in MOSS are mature, for example, some companies are holding off on what they perceive as less-developed features in the suite, such as social networking, enterprise search and Web content management capabilities. These companies are waiting until Microsoft releases the next version, Koplowitz said.
Another potential drawback is a dearth in skill sets, as well as a lack of SharePoint documentation coming from Microsoft, said John Bissa, a partner and Web development team leader at accounting firm Plante & Moran PLLC in Southfield, Mich. On the surface, SharePoint is easy to get off the ground, but he said he's finding that people quickly get in over their heads.
"There's a lot of bad SharePoint [deployments] out there because there are more people deploying it than those who know how to use it," he said.
The alternatives
Although SharePoint appears to be on a lot of CIOs' agendas, midmarket businesses have plenty of other choices.
There's integration with enterprise content management systems. IBM offers integration between FileNet ECM and MOSS 2007, for example. Fellow competitor Oracle Corp. has made it possible for users to access Oracle Universal Content Management files from the SharePoint interface.
There's a lot of bad SharePoint [deployments] out there because there are more people deploying it than those who know how to use it. John Bissa
partner and Web development team leader, Plante & Moran PLLC
There are also third-party add-ons (see related story, above right).
Lotus Notes and Domino's collaboration and content management capabilities are often stacked up as a SharePoint alternative, as are Lotus Quickr and Novell's SiteScape for workspaces. There is also Oracle's WebCenter suite for portals and Web application development and its Beehive online workplace.
Open Text Corp., with its ECM suite, is another company that both competes and integrates with SharePoint.
Competing products and vendors in the Web 2.0 space include Jive Software's Clearspace business social community software, which has customers in the midsized market, and Atlassian Software Systems Pty Ltd. and Socialtext Inc. These started out as wikis but are broadening their community-based collaborative offerings.
For open source alternatives, Alfresco Software Inc. has its ECM platform and Drupal is free software that lets you build community workspaces and portals.
Yet for all these options, SharePoint may be the 800-pound gorilla -- at least for now.
"Competitors are trying to do similar things [as SharePoint], but they really only have point solutions in comparison," said Peter O'Kelly, a Boston-based independent industry analyst.
Let us know what you think about the story; email: Christina Torode, Senior News Writer.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Was it right to censor a Wikipedia page?
Was it right to censor a Wikipedia page?
By Struan Robertson, legal director, international law firm Pinsent Masons
Published: December 11 2008 16:37 | Last updated: December 11 2008 16:37
At the moment, most people cannot edit the page on Wikipedia that describes the Internet Watch Foundation. The “free encyclopaedia that anyone can edit” is wisely restricting who can edit that page following an outbreak of what it calls “vandalism”. Right now, the IWF is very unpopular.
The IWF exists to minimise the availability of indecent images of children on the internet. But its existence is being challenged over its handling of a recent complaint. It was about an image that appeared on another Wikipedia page, concerning an album by German rock band Scorpions. The image featured a naked young girl. It was the original sleeve design for the band’s 1976 album “Virgin Killer”.
The IWF deemed the image potentially illegal and added the page on which it appeared to a blacklist that is enforced by all of the UK’s major internet service providers (ISPs). That action prevented most UK internet users from accessing the Wikipedia page and, due in part to the way that Wikipedia functions, it had the unintended side-effect of stopping those users from editing any of the millions of Wikipedia pages.
The web community erupted in fury. Comments on blogs were overwhelmingly anti-IWF. Fairly quickly, the IWF gave in to some of the criticism. It removed the image from its blacklist, though, after consulting with senior police officers, reiterated its view that the image is potentially illegal.
In my view, the IWF was right to put the image on its blacklist. It was wrong to remove it from the list.
Many people were alarmed to learn this week that there are restrictions on their freedom to surf the internet. Wikimedia, the non-profit operator of Wikipedia, said that this was the first time its site has been censored in the UK. It noted that it has been censored at various times in China, Syria and Iran.
Like it or not, censorship exists in the UK. The right to freedom of expression in the country is a qualified right. The European Convention of Human Rights provides that it can be restricted by laws to protect morals, the reputation or rights of others or laws to prevent the leak of confidential information. Laws on child protection, defamation, intellectual property and confidence all contain a right to suppress online material – which falls within Wikipedia’s own definition of censorship.
Other critics dislike that the IWF decides what to censor. They are right that it should not make that decision if it fails to perform that duty well. But do not judge it on the basis of one decision. It assessed 35,000 complaints in the course of last year alone (and in two-thirds of cases the image was deemed lawful).
The blacklist is kept secret for obvious reasons, but internet users who try to visit the pages on it will be oblivious to the censorship – and I think this is a mistake. ISPs present an error message that does not disclose the censorship. While the IWF can’t control that message, it could encourage transparency.
There is another problem with the IWF’s model: it bans pages, not the images themselves. It says this approach is simpler and more effective, though I confess that I don’t understand why. Still, if that policy is disproportionate it is only slightly so: it did not blacklist an entire site.
The IWF was set up by the UK’s internet industry. It began as a “notice and takedown” body for images of child abuse that are hosted in the UK, giving the public a hotline for reporting illegal images. Web hosts do not know what images are on their customers’ sites and do not need to, provided they react quickly when alerted to potentially illegal content. Only a court can officially declare an image illegal but hosts cannot afford to await that declaration – otherwise it may come at their own trial on charges that carry a maximum 10-year sentence. And they don’t want to give their own staff the job of receiving complaints with images of child abuse attached, so they outsourced the bulk of the work of receiving and assessing complaints – and the IWF was born.
When child abuse images are hosted in the UK, the IWF can identify and notify the host and the host removes them. Its work has cut dramatically the volume of illegal images hosted in the UK.
The IWF’s more controversial operation is the maintenance of its blacklist. When images are found to be hosted outside the UK, the IWF cannot ensure they are taken down. It reports the image to equivalent bodies and law enforcement in the hosting country and adds the URL to its blacklist, a list it updates twice a day. That list is followed by most ISPs in the UK, mainly to prevent their customers stumbling upon illegal images, images which are illegal to view.
Many people don’t like ISPs using this blacklist to censor their surfing. But ISPs do it in the knowledge that if they don’t, the government will intervene. Vernon Coaker, Minister of State for policing, security and crime, said so. He set a target for the end of 2007 for all ISPs to put in place technical measures ”that prevent their customers accessing websites containing illegal images of child abuse identified by the IWF”.
The IWF does not lobby for legal reform – it just interprets the legislation and court rulings that exist. It has a small team of analysts who train with the police and are experts in assessing content in line with those laws. The government trusts it to do this job.
Other industries have their own self-regulatory bodies staffed by experts in the field. The Advertising Standards Authority can ban adverts from TV without a court ruling. Spamhaus blacklists spammers to protect e-mail inboxes. Such bodies are accountable to their industries and the IWF is no different. If it fails in its duty, ISPs can kill it. If they do, they can either replace it or the government will replace it for them.
Some people have said that the Scorpions’ image is harmless in their opinion. My advice: consider it illegal because the IWF’s opinion is likely to be, in legal terms, better informed – and therefore more influential in the mind of a judge. So don’t go looking for it. It was blacklisted because it fails a test of the Protection of Children Act (a law that did not exist at the time of the album’s release). That test says that an erotically posed photograph of an under-18 will constitute an indecent and therefore illegal image. It will not censor Michelangelo’s David or a cartoon, because it is limited to photographs and pseudo-photographs. It is unlikely to censor the album cover of Nirvana’s Nevermind, on which a naked baby swims towards a dollar bill, because courts have never interpreted such images as erotically posed.
The IWF deemed the Scorpions’ image sexually provocative. It invoked its appeals procedure after Wikimedia complained and it upheld its original ruling. But the IWF decided to remove the page from its blacklist ”in light of the length of time the image has existed and its wide availability”, it said. Further reports of the image being hosted abroad will not be added to its blacklist, though if the image is found to be hosted in the UK, it ”will be assessed in line with IWF procedures”.
”IWF’s overriding objective is to minimise the availability of indecent images of children on the internet, however, on this occasion our efforts have had the opposite effect,” it said.
I think it was right to blacklist the image after it deemed the image illegal. But a dangerous message is sent by the decision to remove the image from its blacklist. If an image is illegal, should its age or wide dissemination excuse repeated publication? The image cannot be erased from every corner of the internet and prosecutors will not be taking action against all those who own a copy on album sleeve or hard drive. But the IWF’s job is to minimise exposure to illegal images – not to eliminate it. Under enormous pressure I think it lost sight of the distinction.
Censorship takes place in the UK every day, for legal, moral and commercial reasons. When Wikipedia blocks those who vandalise its pages or deletes their hateful comments, it too engages in censorship. Internet companies engage in censorship because they have to – and they outsource part of that burden to the IWF. This incident has focused attention not just on a 1970s album cover. Clearly some people dislike our laws, our industry’s preference for self-regulation and/or the operation of the IWF, though they have failed to offer a credible alternative, one that the industry and government would support.
Balancing our freedom of expression with the protection of children is difficult and important. It is a healthy issue to debate. But like any Wikipedia article, that debate needs some balance. In this case, that balance was missing.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
By Struan Robertson, legal director, international law firm Pinsent Masons
Published: December 11 2008 16:37 | Last updated: December 11 2008 16:37
At the moment, most people cannot edit the page on Wikipedia that describes the Internet Watch Foundation. The “free encyclopaedia that anyone can edit” is wisely restricting who can edit that page following an outbreak of what it calls “vandalism”. Right now, the IWF is very unpopular.
The IWF exists to minimise the availability of indecent images of children on the internet. But its existence is being challenged over its handling of a recent complaint. It was about an image that appeared on another Wikipedia page, concerning an album by German rock band Scorpions. The image featured a naked young girl. It was the original sleeve design for the band’s 1976 album “Virgin Killer”.
The IWF deemed the image potentially illegal and added the page on which it appeared to a blacklist that is enforced by all of the UK’s major internet service providers (ISPs). That action prevented most UK internet users from accessing the Wikipedia page and, due in part to the way that Wikipedia functions, it had the unintended side-effect of stopping those users from editing any of the millions of Wikipedia pages.
The web community erupted in fury. Comments on blogs were overwhelmingly anti-IWF. Fairly quickly, the IWF gave in to some of the criticism. It removed the image from its blacklist, though, after consulting with senior police officers, reiterated its view that the image is potentially illegal.
In my view, the IWF was right to put the image on its blacklist. It was wrong to remove it from the list.
Many people were alarmed to learn this week that there are restrictions on their freedom to surf the internet. Wikimedia, the non-profit operator of Wikipedia, said that this was the first time its site has been censored in the UK. It noted that it has been censored at various times in China, Syria and Iran.
Like it or not, censorship exists in the UK. The right to freedom of expression in the country is a qualified right. The European Convention of Human Rights provides that it can be restricted by laws to protect morals, the reputation or rights of others or laws to prevent the leak of confidential information. Laws on child protection, defamation, intellectual property and confidence all contain a right to suppress online material – which falls within Wikipedia’s own definition of censorship.
Other critics dislike that the IWF decides what to censor. They are right that it should not make that decision if it fails to perform that duty well. But do not judge it on the basis of one decision. It assessed 35,000 complaints in the course of last year alone (and in two-thirds of cases the image was deemed lawful).
The blacklist is kept secret for obvious reasons, but internet users who try to visit the pages on it will be oblivious to the censorship – and I think this is a mistake. ISPs present an error message that does not disclose the censorship. While the IWF can’t control that message, it could encourage transparency.
There is another problem with the IWF’s model: it bans pages, not the images themselves. It says this approach is simpler and more effective, though I confess that I don’t understand why. Still, if that policy is disproportionate it is only slightly so: it did not blacklist an entire site.
The IWF was set up by the UK’s internet industry. It began as a “notice and takedown” body for images of child abuse that are hosted in the UK, giving the public a hotline for reporting illegal images. Web hosts do not know what images are on their customers’ sites and do not need to, provided they react quickly when alerted to potentially illegal content. Only a court can officially declare an image illegal but hosts cannot afford to await that declaration – otherwise it may come at their own trial on charges that carry a maximum 10-year sentence. And they don’t want to give their own staff the job of receiving complaints with images of child abuse attached, so they outsourced the bulk of the work of receiving and assessing complaints – and the IWF was born.
When child abuse images are hosted in the UK, the IWF can identify and notify the host and the host removes them. Its work has cut dramatically the volume of illegal images hosted in the UK.
The IWF’s more controversial operation is the maintenance of its blacklist. When images are found to be hosted outside the UK, the IWF cannot ensure they are taken down. It reports the image to equivalent bodies and law enforcement in the hosting country and adds the URL to its blacklist, a list it updates twice a day. That list is followed by most ISPs in the UK, mainly to prevent their customers stumbling upon illegal images, images which are illegal to view.
Many people don’t like ISPs using this blacklist to censor their surfing. But ISPs do it in the knowledge that if they don’t, the government will intervene. Vernon Coaker, Minister of State for policing, security and crime, said so. He set a target for the end of 2007 for all ISPs to put in place technical measures ”that prevent their customers accessing websites containing illegal images of child abuse identified by the IWF”.
The IWF does not lobby for legal reform – it just interprets the legislation and court rulings that exist. It has a small team of analysts who train with the police and are experts in assessing content in line with those laws. The government trusts it to do this job.
Other industries have their own self-regulatory bodies staffed by experts in the field. The Advertising Standards Authority can ban adverts from TV without a court ruling. Spamhaus blacklists spammers to protect e-mail inboxes. Such bodies are accountable to their industries and the IWF is no different. If it fails in its duty, ISPs can kill it. If they do, they can either replace it or the government will replace it for them.
Some people have said that the Scorpions’ image is harmless in their opinion. My advice: consider it illegal because the IWF’s opinion is likely to be, in legal terms, better informed – and therefore more influential in the mind of a judge. So don’t go looking for it. It was blacklisted because it fails a test of the Protection of Children Act (a law that did not exist at the time of the album’s release). That test says that an erotically posed photograph of an under-18 will constitute an indecent and therefore illegal image. It will not censor Michelangelo’s David or a cartoon, because it is limited to photographs and pseudo-photographs. It is unlikely to censor the album cover of Nirvana’s Nevermind, on which a naked baby swims towards a dollar bill, because courts have never interpreted such images as erotically posed.
The IWF deemed the Scorpions’ image sexually provocative. It invoked its appeals procedure after Wikimedia complained and it upheld its original ruling. But the IWF decided to remove the page from its blacklist ”in light of the length of time the image has existed and its wide availability”, it said. Further reports of the image being hosted abroad will not be added to its blacklist, though if the image is found to be hosted in the UK, it ”will be assessed in line with IWF procedures”.
”IWF’s overriding objective is to minimise the availability of indecent images of children on the internet, however, on this occasion our efforts have had the opposite effect,” it said.
I think it was right to blacklist the image after it deemed the image illegal. But a dangerous message is sent by the decision to remove the image from its blacklist. If an image is illegal, should its age or wide dissemination excuse repeated publication? The image cannot be erased from every corner of the internet and prosecutors will not be taking action against all those who own a copy on album sleeve or hard drive. But the IWF’s job is to minimise exposure to illegal images – not to eliminate it. Under enormous pressure I think it lost sight of the distinction.
Censorship takes place in the UK every day, for legal, moral and commercial reasons. When Wikipedia blocks those who vandalise its pages or deletes their hateful comments, it too engages in censorship. Internet companies engage in censorship because they have to – and they outsource part of that burden to the IWF. This incident has focused attention not just on a 1970s album cover. Clearly some people dislike our laws, our industry’s preference for self-regulation and/or the operation of the IWF, though they have failed to offer a credible alternative, one that the industry and government would support.
Balancing our freedom of expression with the protection of children is difficult and important. It is a healthy issue to debate. But like any Wikipedia article, that debate needs some balance. In this case, that balance was missing.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
Friday, December 05, 2008
Web 2.0 in and beyond the recession
Web 2.0 in and beyond the recession
By John Newton, chief technology office for Alfresco
Published: December 5 2008 11:17 | Last updated: December 5 2008 11:17
Chris Nuttall, in his Valley View column in Digital Business on October 22, pointed to a severe belt tightening in California by the Web 2.0 cohort. On the advice from the venture capitalist Mike Moritz of Sequoia, a number of companies are preparing for a long, slow and perhaps painful downturn.
It makes for gloomy reading. With consumer confidence at a low and debt at a high, no technical sector will be immune.
Throughout Silicon Valley and San Francisco’s South of Market, everyone is preparing for the shock. People are being laid off and business models re-examined.
Advertising has been the lifeblood of many of the Web 2.0 sites, and companies that pay for that advertising will chop this discretionary spend, cutting those sites’ lives short. There were already a lot of me-too types of Web 2.0 properties out there that were not long for this world, regardless of a recession. A smart venture capitalist would mercifully end the life of some of these companies now and avoid prolonged agony. Even those with a sufficient critical mass of users and momentum should seriously look in the mirror and decide where to trim the fat.
But in some ways Web 2.0 has never been more alive. Web 2.0 sites that connect people and allow them to share information and more – such as YouTube, Facebook, Wordpress, Wikipedia, and LinkedIn – continue to grow in audience, if not revenue. We are looking up new terms, concepts and people on Wikipedia because it is the only source to be current enough to be authoritative. People are reaching out on Facebook to console each other. I have received a flood of LinkedIn introductions from individuals networking in anticipation of having to find a new job.
Experts reach a new audience through their blogs. There are even complaints that the BBC economics editor, Robert Peston, has too much power in this crisis, in part due to the influence of his blog. In previous recessions, we would read the newspaper and watch television to see the latest in developing economic crises. Not any more.
Companies are turning to blogs, wikis, mash-ups and highly responsive websites in an attempt to engage and keep customers. This is where Web 2.0 excels during the recession. It has been built primarily on open source, much of which costs nothing, thus encouraging this type of prototyping and experimentation.
Open source AJAX Toolkits such as the Google Web Toolkit (GWT) and Yahoo User Interface (YUI) provide a much richer user experience – livening up dull, tedious websites. Web 2.0 is the power of mass participation and much greater ease-of-use to empower our users as part of the process rather than the target. So many more business initiatives are possible using low-cost business models of mass participation and lowering expenditure through the use of open source.
The best of Web 2.0 will regain their previous value just as Amazon did from Web 1.0. Perhaps Web 2.0 businesses will have to rely on making money by selling low cost services that add value to a person’s life or to their job prospects during the recession. As a result, Web 2.0 properties are likely to be some of the first beneficiaries of recovery due to their engagement through the downturn.
Clever entrepreneurs will create the next great idea from insights gained from both the rise and fall of Web 2.0, just as Web 2.0 was formed from the remains of the previous burst bubble. Some will just be out of work with nothing better to do. Some are too young now to start a company, but will begin developing ideas. There is a very good chance that next year’s freshman intake at Stanford will yield one of these companies just as it did for Jerry Yang and David Filo of Yahoo or Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google.
Whatever comes next, we can be sure that there will be greater storage, bandwidth and computing power to provide that amazement, just as Web 2.0 leveraged the infrastructure that was created at the end of Web 1.0. There is the possibility that these new ideas come out of somewhere other than the west coast of the US, but I wouldn’t count out Silicon Valley’s ability to re-invent itself yet again.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
By John Newton, chief technology office for Alfresco
Published: December 5 2008 11:17 | Last updated: December 5 2008 11:17
Chris Nuttall, in his Valley View column in Digital Business on October 22, pointed to a severe belt tightening in California by the Web 2.0 cohort. On the advice from the venture capitalist Mike Moritz of Sequoia, a number of companies are preparing for a long, slow and perhaps painful downturn.
It makes for gloomy reading. With consumer confidence at a low and debt at a high, no technical sector will be immune.
Throughout Silicon Valley and San Francisco’s South of Market, everyone is preparing for the shock. People are being laid off and business models re-examined.
Advertising has been the lifeblood of many of the Web 2.0 sites, and companies that pay for that advertising will chop this discretionary spend, cutting those sites’ lives short. There were already a lot of me-too types of Web 2.0 properties out there that were not long for this world, regardless of a recession. A smart venture capitalist would mercifully end the life of some of these companies now and avoid prolonged agony. Even those with a sufficient critical mass of users and momentum should seriously look in the mirror and decide where to trim the fat.
But in some ways Web 2.0 has never been more alive. Web 2.0 sites that connect people and allow them to share information and more – such as YouTube, Facebook, Wordpress, Wikipedia, and LinkedIn – continue to grow in audience, if not revenue. We are looking up new terms, concepts and people on Wikipedia because it is the only source to be current enough to be authoritative. People are reaching out on Facebook to console each other. I have received a flood of LinkedIn introductions from individuals networking in anticipation of having to find a new job.
Experts reach a new audience through their blogs. There are even complaints that the BBC economics editor, Robert Peston, has too much power in this crisis, in part due to the influence of his blog. In previous recessions, we would read the newspaper and watch television to see the latest in developing economic crises. Not any more.
Companies are turning to blogs, wikis, mash-ups and highly responsive websites in an attempt to engage and keep customers. This is where Web 2.0 excels during the recession. It has been built primarily on open source, much of which costs nothing, thus encouraging this type of prototyping and experimentation.
Open source AJAX Toolkits such as the Google Web Toolkit (GWT) and Yahoo User Interface (YUI) provide a much richer user experience – livening up dull, tedious websites. Web 2.0 is the power of mass participation and much greater ease-of-use to empower our users as part of the process rather than the target. So many more business initiatives are possible using low-cost business models of mass participation and lowering expenditure through the use of open source.
The best of Web 2.0 will regain their previous value just as Amazon did from Web 1.0. Perhaps Web 2.0 businesses will have to rely on making money by selling low cost services that add value to a person’s life or to their job prospects during the recession. As a result, Web 2.0 properties are likely to be some of the first beneficiaries of recovery due to their engagement through the downturn.
Clever entrepreneurs will create the next great idea from insights gained from both the rise and fall of Web 2.0, just as Web 2.0 was formed from the remains of the previous burst bubble. Some will just be out of work with nothing better to do. Some are too young now to start a company, but will begin developing ideas. There is a very good chance that next year’s freshman intake at Stanford will yield one of these companies just as it did for Jerry Yang and David Filo of Yahoo or Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google.
Whatever comes next, we can be sure that there will be greater storage, bandwidth and computing power to provide that amazement, just as Web 2.0 leveraged the infrastructure that was created at the end of Web 1.0. There is the possibility that these new ideas come out of somewhere other than the west coast of the US, but I wouldn’t count out Silicon Valley’s ability to re-invent itself yet again.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
Magic Quadrant for Social Software, October 2008
Magic Quadrant for Social Software
31 October 2008
Nikos Drakos, Anthony Bradley, Jeffrey Mann
Gartner RAS Core Research Note G00162146
The social software market continues to be fueled by increasing interest from buyers looking for social interaction support as well as from vendors looking to establish a foothold in a growing market.
What You Need to Know
Growth, volatility, innovation and immaturity characterize the current state of the social software market. It is evolving in response to the demand for a coherent way to support information creation and sharing, team communication and coordination, and communities and informal social interaction. Buyers are looking for flexible environments where participants can find and interact with one another, and create, organize and share information. The promise is one of improved "connectedness" as well as the capture and dissemination of informal knowledge by capitalizing on community involvement. The idea is to delegate to the community what the community can do more quickly and effectively. Established vendors are enhancing their products with improved support for social interactions. Several smaller vendors have experienced growth so far in 2008 and are gaining some traction within enterprises. A large number of small new vendors (including open-source products) are also competing for enterprise attention. Even though most vendors are still far from delivering mature, complete and dependable social software suites, each could be a good choice for a particular set of requirements and context. Differences in product strengths and questions around long-term viability make it more important to be clear about requirements and payback timescales.
31 October 2008
Nikos Drakos, Anthony Bradley, Jeffrey Mann
Gartner RAS Core Research Note G00162146
The social software market continues to be fueled by increasing interest from buyers looking for social interaction support as well as from vendors looking to establish a foothold in a growing market.
What You Need to Know
Growth, volatility, innovation and immaturity characterize the current state of the social software market. It is evolving in response to the demand for a coherent way to support information creation and sharing, team communication and coordination, and communities and informal social interaction. Buyers are looking for flexible environments where participants can find and interact with one another, and create, organize and share information. The promise is one of improved "connectedness" as well as the capture and dissemination of informal knowledge by capitalizing on community involvement. The idea is to delegate to the community what the community can do more quickly and effectively. Established vendors are enhancing their products with improved support for social interactions. Several smaller vendors have experienced growth so far in 2008 and are gaining some traction within enterprises. A large number of small new vendors (including open-source products) are also competing for enterprise attention. Even though most vendors are still far from delivering mature, complete and dependable social software suites, each could be a good choice for a particular set of requirements and context. Differences in product strengths and questions around long-term viability make it more important to be clear about requirements and payback timescales.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
IT skills and the mobile workforce (FT.com)
IT skills and the mobile workforce
By Bill Murphy, managing director, BT Business
Published: November 25 2008 17:40 | Last updated: November 25 2008 17:40
To make the most of opportunities in the current climate, it is crucial that small and medium enterprises invest more in attracting and retaining talent. Workforces must be equipped with adequate IT skills allowing them to harness technology – in turn increasing productivity and saving money.
But BT Business research shows many small businesses are still not investing as much as they should in IT training.
One area where many small businesses could do better is in introducing new working patterns and places. Studies continually document the business benefits of flexible working – from improved staff retention and productivity, to cost savings and new business wins. At BT, nearly 80,000 of employees have the means to work flexibly. More than 14,500 work from home – which has increased each employee’s productivity on average by 20 per cent and provided huge cost savings.
However, a report we commissioned into IT skills for flexible working suggests a different story. Compiled by the Centre for Future Studies, it creates definitions for three different types of flexible working.
It defines the “first generation” as “time flexibility” – offering part-time or short-term working to employees.
The second generation involves both time and location flexibility; so in addition to offering flexi-hours to staff, technology is provided for employees to work on the move.
The most sophisticated and revolutionary form of flexible working – third generation – involves the emergence of the “virtual office”. Here, employees have total location independence and are given greater autonomy in the way they manage and plan their work.
But does the modern workforce have the IT skills needed to reap the full benefits of these emerging work styles? Our research would suggest not.
Surprisingly, although 62 per cent of small business managers claim to offer their employees some form of flexible working, they feel they lack the IT skills and training to exploit properly their existing technology and therefore achieve the most advanced, or “third generation”, of flexible working.
While many SMEs have successfully adopted first and second generation practices, few are adopting third generation practices – where technology is fully integrated to create a virtual office. They need enhanced skills that will enable them to embrace more sophisticated work styles.
At the root of the problem is a lack of training. At present, 75 per cent of SMEs do not provide specific IT training for remote workers, while 88 per cent of managers have not received any training on how to manage remote workers and are not familiar with the IT requirements. In the current climate, an increasing number of businesses are neglecting investment in training in favour of making short-term savings – something that will inevitably impact on the development of IT skills and adoption of new working styles.
The perceived cost of training is a common barrier to the development of IT skills. However it needn’t be expensive. Free mentoring and advice services are available to businesses online.
Businesses also need to recognise that, when it comes to IT skills, the workforce demographic is changing. For the first time a new generation of younger employees are entering the workforce with more advanced IT skills than their seniors. It seems that older generations in particular often value attendance as much as output, especially when they’ve grown up without computers. Indeed, a lot of employers are still wedded to a culture of office “presenteeism” – the belief that employees need to be present in the office to be working. By contrast, young workers are typically better versed in the business benefits of flexible working, and more disposed to new work styles.
As they reach management level, investment in IT training, development of IT skills and the adoption of new work styles is likely to increase. But it is important that older managers are not forgotten and that there is investment in their IT training.
The emergence of a “new workforce” is going to shake up the workplace in coming years – and employers need to start investing in training to be ready.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
By Bill Murphy, managing director, BT Business
Published: November 25 2008 17:40 | Last updated: November 25 2008 17:40
To make the most of opportunities in the current climate, it is crucial that small and medium enterprises invest more in attracting and retaining talent. Workforces must be equipped with adequate IT skills allowing them to harness technology – in turn increasing productivity and saving money.
But BT Business research shows many small businesses are still not investing as much as they should in IT training.
One area where many small businesses could do better is in introducing new working patterns and places. Studies continually document the business benefits of flexible working – from improved staff retention and productivity, to cost savings and new business wins. At BT, nearly 80,000 of employees have the means to work flexibly. More than 14,500 work from home – which has increased each employee’s productivity on average by 20 per cent and provided huge cost savings.
However, a report we commissioned into IT skills for flexible working suggests a different story. Compiled by the Centre for Future Studies, it creates definitions for three different types of flexible working.
It defines the “first generation” as “time flexibility” – offering part-time or short-term working to employees.
The second generation involves both time and location flexibility; so in addition to offering flexi-hours to staff, technology is provided for employees to work on the move.
The most sophisticated and revolutionary form of flexible working – third generation – involves the emergence of the “virtual office”. Here, employees have total location independence and are given greater autonomy in the way they manage and plan their work.
But does the modern workforce have the IT skills needed to reap the full benefits of these emerging work styles? Our research would suggest not.
Surprisingly, although 62 per cent of small business managers claim to offer their employees some form of flexible working, they feel they lack the IT skills and training to exploit properly their existing technology and therefore achieve the most advanced, or “third generation”, of flexible working.
While many SMEs have successfully adopted first and second generation practices, few are adopting third generation practices – where technology is fully integrated to create a virtual office. They need enhanced skills that will enable them to embrace more sophisticated work styles.
At the root of the problem is a lack of training. At present, 75 per cent of SMEs do not provide specific IT training for remote workers, while 88 per cent of managers have not received any training on how to manage remote workers and are not familiar with the IT requirements. In the current climate, an increasing number of businesses are neglecting investment in training in favour of making short-term savings – something that will inevitably impact on the development of IT skills and adoption of new working styles.
The perceived cost of training is a common barrier to the development of IT skills. However it needn’t be expensive. Free mentoring and advice services are available to businesses online.
Businesses also need to recognise that, when it comes to IT skills, the workforce demographic is changing. For the first time a new generation of younger employees are entering the workforce with more advanced IT skills than their seniors. It seems that older generations in particular often value attendance as much as output, especially when they’ve grown up without computers. Indeed, a lot of employers are still wedded to a culture of office “presenteeism” – the belief that employees need to be present in the office to be working. By contrast, young workers are typically better versed in the business benefits of flexible working, and more disposed to new work styles.
As they reach management level, investment in IT training, development of IT skills and the adoption of new work styles is likely to increase. But it is important that older managers are not forgotten and that there is investment in their IT training.
The emergence of a “new workforce” is going to shake up the workplace in coming years – and employers need to start investing in training to be ready.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
Monday, November 24, 2008
Facebook targeted Web 2.0 start-up Twitter (FT.com)
Facebook targeted Web 2.0 start-up Twitter
By Richard Waters in San Francisco and Tim Bradshaw in Oxford
Published: November 24 2008 21:41 | Last updated: November 24 2008 21:41
Twitter, the micro-blogging company that has become one of Silicon Valley’s most closely watched start-ups, recently held talks about an acquisition by social networking company Facebook.
The negotiations, which put a valuation of as much as $500m on the 2½-year-old private company, could throw a fresh spotlight on its rapid growth and prompt other big internet companies to consider bids.
Twitter has become a leading light of the Web 2.0 generation of consumer internet companies, whose services rely more heavily on communication and social interaction than the original dotcoms. Users of Twitter post short messages of up to 140 characters about what they are doing, and the “tweets” are broadcast to anyone who wants to sign up to follow them.
However, its name has also become synonymous with the lack of revenue in the Web 2.0 world. Despite its passionate following among Silicon Valley’s digerati, and an audience that is now growing rapidly, Twitter has yet to make any money.
The talks were first reported by the AllThingsD blog and confirmed on Monday by two people familiar with the situation.
Facebook’s approach to Twitter is set to raise as many questions about the bidder’s value as it does about the target. The social networking site offered to pay for the acquisition in stock, according to one person close to the situation, but putting a value on its shares proved controversial.
Had it used the $15bn valuation at which Microsoft bought a stake in Facebook last year, it would have valued the Twitter purchase at $500m, though that investment was seen as a high-water mark for Web 2.0.
Speaking on Monday at a gathering of internet entrepreneurs at Oxford University, Chris Sacca, a Twitter investor, questioned the valuation. “If Facebook brings $500m of stock to the table to buy Twitter, the first thing you talk about is whether that stock is worth $500m or not,” he said.
However, one person close to the situation suggested that the $15bn valuation for Facebook was the top end of a range of values the two companies talked about, implying that a deal might have valued both Facebook and Twitter at a much lower level.
Biz Stone, Twitter’s co-founder, would not comment on the talks, but suggested that the company wanted to remain independent to build on its messaging service.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
By Richard Waters in San Francisco and Tim Bradshaw in Oxford
Published: November 24 2008 21:41 | Last updated: November 24 2008 21:41
Twitter, the micro-blogging company that has become one of Silicon Valley’s most closely watched start-ups, recently held talks about an acquisition by social networking company Facebook.
The negotiations, which put a valuation of as much as $500m on the 2½-year-old private company, could throw a fresh spotlight on its rapid growth and prompt other big internet companies to consider bids.
Twitter has become a leading light of the Web 2.0 generation of consumer internet companies, whose services rely more heavily on communication and social interaction than the original dotcoms. Users of Twitter post short messages of up to 140 characters about what they are doing, and the “tweets” are broadcast to anyone who wants to sign up to follow them.
However, its name has also become synonymous with the lack of revenue in the Web 2.0 world. Despite its passionate following among Silicon Valley’s digerati, and an audience that is now growing rapidly, Twitter has yet to make any money.
The talks were first reported by the AllThingsD blog and confirmed on Monday by two people familiar with the situation.
Facebook’s approach to Twitter is set to raise as many questions about the bidder’s value as it does about the target. The social networking site offered to pay for the acquisition in stock, according to one person close to the situation, but putting a value on its shares proved controversial.
Had it used the $15bn valuation at which Microsoft bought a stake in Facebook last year, it would have valued the Twitter purchase at $500m, though that investment was seen as a high-water mark for Web 2.0.
Speaking on Monday at a gathering of internet entrepreneurs at Oxford University, Chris Sacca, a Twitter investor, questioned the valuation. “If Facebook brings $500m of stock to the table to buy Twitter, the first thing you talk about is whether that stock is worth $500m or not,” he said.
However, one person close to the situation suggested that the $15bn valuation for Facebook was the top end of a range of values the two companies talked about, implying that a deal might have valued both Facebook and Twitter at a much lower level.
Biz Stone, Twitter’s co-founder, would not comment on the talks, but suggested that the company wanted to remain independent to build on its messaging service.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
Advice from a CIO on skills that breed success in IT (FT)
Advice from a CIO on skills that breed success in IT
By Sam Coursen, VP and CIO of Freescale Semiconductor
Published: November 24 2008 18:41 | Last updated: November 24 2008 18:41
In the current climate, all departments, including IT, are being affected by labour cuts and the job market is becoming an increasingly aggressive place. Possessing the right job skills has never been more important.
So what does a CIO look for when hiring?
When I am searching for employees for the infrastructure side of Freescale, I look for people well-versed in technologies such as end user productivity services (eg e-mail), voice and data networking, data centre processing and storage, and remote monitoring/management.
Additionally, they need to be able to recognise not only how technology is changing, but how the company can easily adopt it. If I were delivering these services directly, I would require deep skills in these areas. However, we have outsourced these infrastructure services, like many companies, to take advantage of economies of scale and lower costs of services providers. In this case only, a general knowledge of these skills is important (in order to develop and drive strategies with the outsource partner).
On the application side, the most critical skill I look for in IT is the ability not only to understand the technology well but also recognise the extent to which it can affect business processes. People who can translate how a technology or infrastructure change will impact a business function are an invaluable asset not only to IT, but to the overall business. Their role becomes that of an IT business analyst, one who can then work with business executives to create solutions that will benefit the business for both the short term and the long term.
A good example of this is someone who can look at a business function, such as human resources, and visualise how technology can be applied to improve this function, eg automate a process that was previously handled manually. Although this will increase work for the IT department in the short term, it reduces the business’s overall expense in HR.
It is easier to find a person who has an abundance of IT knowledge or business knowledge, but it is more difficult to find someone who possesses a balance of both skills. CIOs will first look internally within both IT and business departments for likely candidates. In my experience, these people will usually grow from either the IT side and learn the business operations or they will start on the business side and learn the IT functions. If a likely candidate does not emerge internally, management consulting companies, such as Accenture and Bearing Point, are another good resource for this type of candidate. These companies produce some of the best candidates for internal IT positions.
On the reverse side, the ability to focus concurrently on making sure IT is running as efficiently as possible while simultaneously driving solutions for other business processes within the company has been the single most critical skill in bringing success to my own career. In the 10-plus years that I’ve served as a CIO, I’ve learned that adopting both of these as the overall IT objective escalates the value of the company’s IT programme to the business operations.
Technology is changing at an increasingly fast pace. New technology is being developed every day and new ways to deploy existing technology is continually being expanded. The growing sophistication of the internet makes it easier for people to keep track of what’s going on with technology. It puts the world of information at your fingertips, but there is no substitute for finding the next position as soon as possible to keep your experience and your skills fresh. With sites such as Monster.com and social networking sites such as LinkedIn and Facebook, the internet makes establishing your own network and finding a job much easier.
In summary, IT departments are feeling the pressure to reduce costs. With the outlook on the economy uncertain, it’s critical to continue to recognise what’s important for the company you are currently working for, or if you are looking for a job, recognise the skills that prospective companies deem important.
Remember that IT is a function that enables all other parts of the company, so there are opportunities for it to help lower costs by automating processes, eliminating redundancies and reducing mistakes. IT professionals should always be thinking about how they can optimise costs and drive solutions for other processes in the company, thereby adding value not only to the larger business strategy, but ultimately to the bottom line.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
By Sam Coursen, VP and CIO of Freescale Semiconductor
Published: November 24 2008 18:41 | Last updated: November 24 2008 18:41
In the current climate, all departments, including IT, are being affected by labour cuts and the job market is becoming an increasingly aggressive place. Possessing the right job skills has never been more important.
So what does a CIO look for when hiring?
When I am searching for employees for the infrastructure side of Freescale, I look for people well-versed in technologies such as end user productivity services (eg e-mail), voice and data networking, data centre processing and storage, and remote monitoring/management.
Additionally, they need to be able to recognise not only how technology is changing, but how the company can easily adopt it. If I were delivering these services directly, I would require deep skills in these areas. However, we have outsourced these infrastructure services, like many companies, to take advantage of economies of scale and lower costs of services providers. In this case only, a general knowledge of these skills is important (in order to develop and drive strategies with the outsource partner).
On the application side, the most critical skill I look for in IT is the ability not only to understand the technology well but also recognise the extent to which it can affect business processes. People who can translate how a technology or infrastructure change will impact a business function are an invaluable asset not only to IT, but to the overall business. Their role becomes that of an IT business analyst, one who can then work with business executives to create solutions that will benefit the business for both the short term and the long term.
A good example of this is someone who can look at a business function, such as human resources, and visualise how technology can be applied to improve this function, eg automate a process that was previously handled manually. Although this will increase work for the IT department in the short term, it reduces the business’s overall expense in HR.
It is easier to find a person who has an abundance of IT knowledge or business knowledge, but it is more difficult to find someone who possesses a balance of both skills. CIOs will first look internally within both IT and business departments for likely candidates. In my experience, these people will usually grow from either the IT side and learn the business operations or they will start on the business side and learn the IT functions. If a likely candidate does not emerge internally, management consulting companies, such as Accenture and Bearing Point, are another good resource for this type of candidate. These companies produce some of the best candidates for internal IT positions.
On the reverse side, the ability to focus concurrently on making sure IT is running as efficiently as possible while simultaneously driving solutions for other business processes within the company has been the single most critical skill in bringing success to my own career. In the 10-plus years that I’ve served as a CIO, I’ve learned that adopting both of these as the overall IT objective escalates the value of the company’s IT programme to the business operations.
Technology is changing at an increasingly fast pace. New technology is being developed every day and new ways to deploy existing technology is continually being expanded. The growing sophistication of the internet makes it easier for people to keep track of what’s going on with technology. It puts the world of information at your fingertips, but there is no substitute for finding the next position as soon as possible to keep your experience and your skills fresh. With sites such as Monster.com and social networking sites such as LinkedIn and Facebook, the internet makes establishing your own network and finding a job much easier.
In summary, IT departments are feeling the pressure to reduce costs. With the outlook on the economy uncertain, it’s critical to continue to recognise what’s important for the company you are currently working for, or if you are looking for a job, recognise the skills that prospective companies deem important.
Remember that IT is a function that enables all other parts of the company, so there are opportunities for it to help lower costs by automating processes, eliminating redundancies and reducing mistakes. IT professionals should always be thinking about how they can optimise costs and drive solutions for other processes in the company, thereby adding value not only to the larger business strategy, but ultimately to the bottom line.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Bring Your SharePoint Sites Under Control…
Bring Your SharePoint Sites Under Control…
SharePoint has become one of the most popular, fastest-growing products ever shipped by Microsoft®. It’s designed to be easy to deploy and manage without significant IT involvement or expertise.
That’s the good news…the bad news is that the ease and convenience of SharePoint can create a security nightmare, especially if sensitive data winds up on the wrong site.
Key Features & Benefits
Know what SharePoint sites are in use – automatically locate and identify sites.
Determine who has access rights – Identify users and groups with access to the site and evaluate their permissions and access rights.
Identify security issues – Highlight users or groups with access rights that are inconsistent with corporate policy or industry best practices.
Correct deficiencies – Integration with Courion’s compliance solutions provides managers with the ability to quickly and effectively remediate permissions and inappropriate access rights.
Reduce or eliminate potential security risks – Verify that only users with the appropriate permissions have access to SharePoint sites containing sensitive data.
SharePoint Identity and Access Concerns
SharePoint is powerful, flexible and easy to implement, but it has a limited security and governance model.
Given the popularity of SharePoint, system administrators and security personnel have some thorny questions they need to answer:
What SharePoint sites are on our network and who owns them?
Who has access to these sites and what Permissions do they have?
Are sites with sensitive data are being managed using best practices consistent with the organization’s security policies?
How can I fix sites that are exposing the organization to security problems?
Protect Your SharePoint Sites
Courion, a leader in access management and compliance, has responded to customer’s needs by producing Courion Solutions for SharePoint, which gives IT managers the ability to analyze, evaluate and manage an organization’s exposure to risk as a result of inadequate SharePoint governance.
The solution is designed to enable system administrators to identify and reduce risk by remediating inappropriate access to SharePoint sites and bringing them into compliance with corporate policy. Using Courion, you can be assured that SharePoint users aren’t opening security holes and demonstrate to your auditors or industry regulators that you’re in compliance with corporate policy.
Courion Solutions for SharePoint can scan a SharePoint server and identify all the SharePoint sites on the server. For each site, the solution identifies all users who have access rights to the site. If the organization uses Active Directory, Courion also identifies users and groups who have been granted access to SharePoint sites through their Active Directory profile.
If the administrator determines that users have inappropriate rights to access data on a SharePoint site, he or she has the option to initiate a process to remediate those rights.
The administrator examining the SharePoint site can perform the following reviews:
Policy Review
This process allows the IT administrator to review a list of potential policy violations (such as a Finance portal with “Everyone” group access enabled). He or she can select a particular policy violation, evaluate the security implications of the violation and accept or modify the site configuration.
Privileged Access
The Privileged Access review allows the administrator to identify individuals with elevated SharePoint privileges (such as Administrator or Web Designer) and the sites where they are privileged access. If a user is identified as having inappropriate privileged access, action can be taken to either block the individual from accessing the site or reduce their permissions level.
Site Access
This workflow allows the IT manager to review a list of sites. After selecting a site, the manager sees a list of all users with access to the site, sorted by their permission level. At that point, the manager can select individual users and accept or modify their access rights to the site.
SharePoint has become one of the most popular, fastest-growing products ever shipped by Microsoft®. It’s designed to be easy to deploy and manage without significant IT involvement or expertise.
That’s the good news…the bad news is that the ease and convenience of SharePoint can create a security nightmare, especially if sensitive data winds up on the wrong site.
Key Features & Benefits
Know what SharePoint sites are in use – automatically locate and identify sites.
Determine who has access rights – Identify users and groups with access to the site and evaluate their permissions and access rights.
Identify security issues – Highlight users or groups with access rights that are inconsistent with corporate policy or industry best practices.
Correct deficiencies – Integration with Courion’s compliance solutions provides managers with the ability to quickly and effectively remediate permissions and inappropriate access rights.
Reduce or eliminate potential security risks – Verify that only users with the appropriate permissions have access to SharePoint sites containing sensitive data.
SharePoint Identity and Access Concerns
SharePoint is powerful, flexible and easy to implement, but it has a limited security and governance model.
Given the popularity of SharePoint, system administrators and security personnel have some thorny questions they need to answer:
What SharePoint sites are on our network and who owns them?
Who has access to these sites and what Permissions do they have?
Are sites with sensitive data are being managed using best practices consistent with the organization’s security policies?
How can I fix sites that are exposing the organization to security problems?
Protect Your SharePoint Sites
Courion, a leader in access management and compliance, has responded to customer’s needs by producing Courion Solutions for SharePoint, which gives IT managers the ability to analyze, evaluate and manage an organization’s exposure to risk as a result of inadequate SharePoint governance.
The solution is designed to enable system administrators to identify and reduce risk by remediating inappropriate access to SharePoint sites and bringing them into compliance with corporate policy. Using Courion, you can be assured that SharePoint users aren’t opening security holes and demonstrate to your auditors or industry regulators that you’re in compliance with corporate policy.
Courion Solutions for SharePoint can scan a SharePoint server and identify all the SharePoint sites on the server. For each site, the solution identifies all users who have access rights to the site. If the organization uses Active Directory, Courion also identifies users and groups who have been granted access to SharePoint sites through their Active Directory profile.
If the administrator determines that users have inappropriate rights to access data on a SharePoint site, he or she has the option to initiate a process to remediate those rights.
The administrator examining the SharePoint site can perform the following reviews:
Policy Review
This process allows the IT administrator to review a list of potential policy violations (such as a Finance portal with “Everyone” group access enabled). He or she can select a particular policy violation, evaluate the security implications of the violation and accept or modify the site configuration.
Privileged Access
The Privileged Access review allows the administrator to identify individuals with elevated SharePoint privileges (such as Administrator or Web Designer) and the sites where they are privileged access. If a user is identified as having inappropriate privileged access, action can be taken to either block the individual from accessing the site or reduce their permissions level.
Site Access
This workflow allows the IT manager to review a list of sites. After selecting a site, the manager sees a list of all users with access to the site, sorted by their permission level. At that point, the manager can select individual users and accept or modify their access rights to the site.
Courion Survey: Most Corporations Ignore Microsoft SharePoint Security and Data Risks
Courion Survey: Most Corporations Ignore Microsoft SharePoint Security and Data Risks
Courion Corporation
87% of Companies Cite SharePoint as a Source of Concern for Sensitive Data Leaks; Two Thirds Do Not Have Tools to Monitor and Control SharePoint Usage FRAMINGHAM, Mass., Nov. 18 /PRNewswire/ --
WHAT: Courion(R) Corporation, leaders in access management and compliance, releases survey results revealing that while many organizations are adopting collaborative work environments such as Microsoft SharePoint to improve productivity, they are not effectively addressing the considerable security and compliance risks associated with these environments.
DETAILS: A survey of more than 150 business managers reveals that companies are largely unaware of what is happening within Microsoft SharePoint Environments. They do not know if sensitive data is being shared in these sites, who is using these sites, who has access to them and who needs access. And in many cases, companies do not even have acceptable use policies in place for SharePoint, nor is there anyone in the organization responsible for ensuring SharePoint security and compliance.
Key survey results include:
-- The majority of respondents (86.7%) cite SharePoint as a point of
concern for data theft.
-- More than one-third (33.8%) of respondents do not have a policy defining
acceptable usage for SharePoint.
-- More than 36% of companies do not currently monitor their SharePoint
usage.
-- Nearly two-thirds (62.7%) do not currently have tools in place to
monitor SharePoint usage, access or policy compliance
Courion recommends that organizations establish risk-based governance and controls in these environments to ensure long term security and compliance with business policy and industry regulations. System administrators and security personnel need to be able to answer the following questions:
-- What SharePoint sites are on our network and who owns them?
-- Who has access to these sites and what Permissions do they have?
-- Are sites with sensitive data being managed using best practices
consistent with the organization's security policies?
-- How can I fix sites that are exposing the organization to security
problems?
To download a copy of the survey report, please visit: http://www.courion.com/solutions/sharepoint.aspx
To arrange an interview with experts who can discuss SharePoint security and compliance issues, contact:
Brenda Menard
Davies Murphy Group
bmenard@daviesmurphy.com
781-418-2435
Courion Corporation
87% of Companies Cite SharePoint as a Source of Concern for Sensitive Data Leaks; Two Thirds Do Not Have Tools to Monitor and Control SharePoint Usage FRAMINGHAM, Mass., Nov. 18 /PRNewswire/ --
WHAT: Courion(R) Corporation, leaders in access management and compliance, releases survey results revealing that while many organizations are adopting collaborative work environments such as Microsoft SharePoint to improve productivity, they are not effectively addressing the considerable security and compliance risks associated with these environments.
DETAILS: A survey of more than 150 business managers reveals that companies are largely unaware of what is happening within Microsoft SharePoint Environments. They do not know if sensitive data is being shared in these sites, who is using these sites, who has access to them and who needs access. And in many cases, companies do not even have acceptable use policies in place for SharePoint, nor is there anyone in the organization responsible for ensuring SharePoint security and compliance.
Key survey results include:
-- The majority of respondents (86.7%) cite SharePoint as a point of
concern for data theft.
-- More than one-third (33.8%) of respondents do not have a policy defining
acceptable usage for SharePoint.
-- More than 36% of companies do not currently monitor their SharePoint
usage.
-- Nearly two-thirds (62.7%) do not currently have tools in place to
monitor SharePoint usage, access or policy compliance
Courion recommends that organizations establish risk-based governance and controls in these environments to ensure long term security and compliance with business policy and industry regulations. System administrators and security personnel need to be able to answer the following questions:
-- What SharePoint sites are on our network and who owns them?
-- Who has access to these sites and what Permissions do they have?
-- Are sites with sensitive data being managed using best practices
consistent with the organization's security policies?
-- How can I fix sites that are exposing the organization to security
problems?
To download a copy of the survey report, please visit: http://www.courion.com/solutions/sharepoint.aspx
To arrange an interview with experts who can discuss SharePoint security and compliance issues, contact:
Brenda Menard
Davies Murphy Group
bmenard@daviesmurphy.com
781-418-2435
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
IT skills: In with the old, out with the new (FT.com)
IT skills: In with the old, out with the new
By Colin Wright, managing director at Veeam Software
Published: November 18 2008 15:45 | Last updated: November 18 2008 15:45
Skills in IT can often be a mixed bag. Some are old, some are brand new. Some are borrowed from outside while others can make their users turn the air blue. Yet the one thing they all have in common is the need to evolve.
Despite the benefits brought by new waves of technology, one of the most obvious downsides is organisations being exposed by the equally new blind spots in knowledge and training. Inevitably there will be a new industry of “experts” formed to help guide managers around the pitfalls. At the same time, or shortly after, there will be a new range of smart and simple-to-use tools developed to make managing the new technology easier and thus reduce the need for such specialised skills.
A prime example of this is the rush towards virtualisation. Virtualisation is one of the biggest technological leaps to hit IT in a long while. The move from easily visible, physical assets to more intangible virtual servers has many benefits but also presents a number of management challenges. To gain the benefits of virtualisation in the long term new skills and management approaches will be needed.
The challenges thrown up by virtualisation are varied. The most evident is the lack of an obvious, physical machine to track and report on. In a poorly managed virtualised environment, a raft of virtual machines can be created with managers none the wiser, while even properly tracked virtual machines can easily multiply swiftly if not correctly monitored and retired, creating an ungovernable sprawl. Innovative management techniques need to be developed to prevent potential flaws appearing in these virtual environments.
Skills that IT managers have developed to deal with physical environments can help with some of the issues surrounding virtualisation technology, but there will still be gaps and inconsistencies that need addressing. How can businesses address these problems before their IT department reaches an impasse?
As with any new technology, the problem lies with finding, attracting and retaining highly skilled people who can manage it. In this respect, parallels can be drawn between the advent of virtualisation and early adoption of Windows as an operating system for servers. When the technology appeared there were only a handful of IT managers who were fully qualified in its use, yet the business benefits were so obvious that a vast number of organisations had to act.
Waiting until the technology became common knowledge would mean losing out on the competitive advantages it could offer. As a result, those with high-level, in-depth skills became incredibly valuable, with businesses swiftly snapping them up at great expense to utilise their skills and, hopefully, educate other employees.
After a few years, it became obvious that these elite employees are still a big company overhead. Eventually, as more members of the IT department advanced to at least a reasonable standard with the new systems, businesses looked for another method to perform many of the tasks associated with the new technology, especially those that were more mundane and could easily be automated.
Using management tools to take over these everyday tasks greatly reduced the amount of work that required multi-skilled staff. Companies no longer needed to hire such a broad skill-set, allowing them to exist with fewer highly skilled workers or a larger pool of specialists. Either way, the cost savings were substantial.
The main mistake companies made previously was waiting to implement these management tools until the new technology had been active for some time. Unless organisations act now, these mistakes could easily be repeated as virtualisation technology becomes pervasive within the IT environment.
IT directors should be looking to bring in new skills to ensure proper governance around the implementation and use of virtualisation technology. However, at the same time they should be looking at management tools that can reduce the need for these skills.
Essentially, they need to balance new skills with management tools to ensure they are dealing with the proliferation of virtualisation technology in the most efficient way. Tools can be used to take care of the everyday mundane, but important, tasks of managing virtualisation, leaving highly skilled professionals in virtualisation to focus on the strategy and governance of this new technology.
As with technologies in the past and technology yet to come, the march to virtualisation appears to be inevitable. Skills need to be developed and modified in order to deal with this, but that shouldn’t require knee-jerk moves to acquire expensive personnel.
By seeking tools to take care of the easily-automated parts of a new skill set, businesses can adapt to new technology at their own pace rather than forging blindly ahead, progressing through small steps rather than giant leaps into the unknown.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
By Colin Wright, managing director at Veeam Software
Published: November 18 2008 15:45 | Last updated: November 18 2008 15:45
Skills in IT can often be a mixed bag. Some are old, some are brand new. Some are borrowed from outside while others can make their users turn the air blue. Yet the one thing they all have in common is the need to evolve.
Despite the benefits brought by new waves of technology, one of the most obvious downsides is organisations being exposed by the equally new blind spots in knowledge and training. Inevitably there will be a new industry of “experts” formed to help guide managers around the pitfalls. At the same time, or shortly after, there will be a new range of smart and simple-to-use tools developed to make managing the new technology easier and thus reduce the need for such specialised skills.
A prime example of this is the rush towards virtualisation. Virtualisation is one of the biggest technological leaps to hit IT in a long while. The move from easily visible, physical assets to more intangible virtual servers has many benefits but also presents a number of management challenges. To gain the benefits of virtualisation in the long term new skills and management approaches will be needed.
The challenges thrown up by virtualisation are varied. The most evident is the lack of an obvious, physical machine to track and report on. In a poorly managed virtualised environment, a raft of virtual machines can be created with managers none the wiser, while even properly tracked virtual machines can easily multiply swiftly if not correctly monitored and retired, creating an ungovernable sprawl. Innovative management techniques need to be developed to prevent potential flaws appearing in these virtual environments.
Skills that IT managers have developed to deal with physical environments can help with some of the issues surrounding virtualisation technology, but there will still be gaps and inconsistencies that need addressing. How can businesses address these problems before their IT department reaches an impasse?
As with any new technology, the problem lies with finding, attracting and retaining highly skilled people who can manage it. In this respect, parallels can be drawn between the advent of virtualisation and early adoption of Windows as an operating system for servers. When the technology appeared there were only a handful of IT managers who were fully qualified in its use, yet the business benefits were so obvious that a vast number of organisations had to act.
Waiting until the technology became common knowledge would mean losing out on the competitive advantages it could offer. As a result, those with high-level, in-depth skills became incredibly valuable, with businesses swiftly snapping them up at great expense to utilise their skills and, hopefully, educate other employees.
After a few years, it became obvious that these elite employees are still a big company overhead. Eventually, as more members of the IT department advanced to at least a reasonable standard with the new systems, businesses looked for another method to perform many of the tasks associated with the new technology, especially those that were more mundane and could easily be automated.
Using management tools to take over these everyday tasks greatly reduced the amount of work that required multi-skilled staff. Companies no longer needed to hire such a broad skill-set, allowing them to exist with fewer highly skilled workers or a larger pool of specialists. Either way, the cost savings were substantial.
The main mistake companies made previously was waiting to implement these management tools until the new technology had been active for some time. Unless organisations act now, these mistakes could easily be repeated as virtualisation technology becomes pervasive within the IT environment.
IT directors should be looking to bring in new skills to ensure proper governance around the implementation and use of virtualisation technology. However, at the same time they should be looking at management tools that can reduce the need for these skills.
Essentially, they need to balance new skills with management tools to ensure they are dealing with the proliferation of virtualisation technology in the most efficient way. Tools can be used to take care of the everyday mundane, but important, tasks of managing virtualisation, leaving highly skilled professionals in virtualisation to focus on the strategy and governance of this new technology.
As with technologies in the past and technology yet to come, the march to virtualisation appears to be inevitable. Skills need to be developed and modified in order to deal with this, but that shouldn’t require knee-jerk moves to acquire expensive personnel.
By seeking tools to take care of the easily-automated parts of a new skill set, businesses can adapt to new technology at their own pace rather than forging blindly ahead, progressing through small steps rather than giant leaps into the unknown.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Why IT skills need to be sold to girls (FT.com)
Why IT skills need to be sold to girls
By Kate Craig-Wood, managing director of web hosting company, Memset,
Published: November 13 2008 11:33 | Last updated: November 13 2008 11:33
A few weeks ago I became the first woman to tandem-skydive past Everest. Why, you might ask, would any sane person wish to subject themselves to a freefall at 140mph from higher than the world’s tallest peak in temperatures of minus 40C?
My life has taken a different path to most women: I am transexual, which means that during gestation my body differentiated into one gender (male) and my brain differentiated into the opposite (female).
One result of my condition was that I, a female, was brought up and socialised as a boy, and was actively encouraged to take part in stereotypically male activities. Many, such as football, I disliked but I did find a fondness for computing, and from the age of 12 started to learn to program my BBC Master microcomputer. There were not many computer games so I had to write my own, and I enjoyed the creative aspects of the hobby.
My sister, meanwhile, was, if anything, encouraged away from such activities, both at home and at school, even though I believe we are both equally capable. Today I see this same trend being repeated, perhaps unconsciously, by parents and teachers.
I am now a modestly successful IT entrepreneur, and with my brother Nick I have created Memset Ltd, an internet hosting company and I have a powerful conviction that I was advantaged at a young age when compared with my sister: I believe if I had been born in a female body then I would not have been given the same opportunities to develop a successful IT career. Moreover, I believe that a large part of Memset’s success is down to the good gender balance we have at the top.
I therefore think IT is a good career for girls and that girls are good for the IT industry – and that is partly why I jumped out of an aircraft at 29,500ft. I used the Everest skydive to raise money for Computer Clubs 4 Girls, a volunteer-run e-skills initiative which operates after-hours in 2,500 UK schools to encourage 10-14 year old girls to get involved with IT.
The IT industry’s gender balance is in dire shape. Only 18 per cent of technology workers are female, down from 22 per cent in just five years. The gender pay gap (23 per cent in IT compared with 17 per cent in other sectors) and a female-unfriendly culture in many companies are causing many women to leave their IT career, but my focus is on getting more women into IT. There, too, the situation is bad – during my last round of interviews for a technical post a mere 3 per cent of the applicants were female.
Last September, Tim Berners-Lee, known as “father of the web” said: “The IT profession needs more women, greater diversity and to be more inclusive.” I agree. There is a very sound business case for getting more women into the IT profession:
● Improved creativity and innovation. I fulfil, for example, the stereotypically female role of the inclusive/collaborative manager and communicator, which has helped maximise the innovation potential of our staff.
● Access to the widest talent pool. Recruiting girls can help address this shortfall.
● Improved financial performance. Companies with the most gender-balanced top management teams perform over 30 per cent better for both return on equity shareholder return. (Catalyst, 2005)
This matters because the IT sector will be more important to economic prosperity in the next decade.
First, IT is a key enabler of business process efficiency, which enhances national competitiveness. Second, the only way a developed nation such as the UK can compete in exports is to be smarter, and that is the domain of science & technology.
Finally, in the current crisis the previous tax cash-cows (retailing, property and financial services) have been crippled. The IT industry is one of the best hopes to replace those engines of economic growth, and to plug the hole in government tax revenues.
The UK needs a healthy IT industry and the sector needs more women, therefore we need parents and teachers to be telling their female charges that IT is an exciting and rewarding career that they should seriously consider.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
By Kate Craig-Wood, managing director of web hosting company, Memset,
Published: November 13 2008 11:33 | Last updated: November 13 2008 11:33
A few weeks ago I became the first woman to tandem-skydive past Everest. Why, you might ask, would any sane person wish to subject themselves to a freefall at 140mph from higher than the world’s tallest peak in temperatures of minus 40C?
My life has taken a different path to most women: I am transexual, which means that during gestation my body differentiated into one gender (male) and my brain differentiated into the opposite (female).
One result of my condition was that I, a female, was brought up and socialised as a boy, and was actively encouraged to take part in stereotypically male activities. Many, such as football, I disliked but I did find a fondness for computing, and from the age of 12 started to learn to program my BBC Master microcomputer. There were not many computer games so I had to write my own, and I enjoyed the creative aspects of the hobby.
My sister, meanwhile, was, if anything, encouraged away from such activities, both at home and at school, even though I believe we are both equally capable. Today I see this same trend being repeated, perhaps unconsciously, by parents and teachers.
I am now a modestly successful IT entrepreneur, and with my brother Nick I have created Memset Ltd, an internet hosting company and I have a powerful conviction that I was advantaged at a young age when compared with my sister: I believe if I had been born in a female body then I would not have been given the same opportunities to develop a successful IT career. Moreover, I believe that a large part of Memset’s success is down to the good gender balance we have at the top.
I therefore think IT is a good career for girls and that girls are good for the IT industry – and that is partly why I jumped out of an aircraft at 29,500ft. I used the Everest skydive to raise money for Computer Clubs 4 Girls, a volunteer-run e-skills initiative which operates after-hours in 2,500 UK schools to encourage 10-14 year old girls to get involved with IT.
The IT industry’s gender balance is in dire shape. Only 18 per cent of technology workers are female, down from 22 per cent in just five years. The gender pay gap (23 per cent in IT compared with 17 per cent in other sectors) and a female-unfriendly culture in many companies are causing many women to leave their IT career, but my focus is on getting more women into IT. There, too, the situation is bad – during my last round of interviews for a technical post a mere 3 per cent of the applicants were female.
Last September, Tim Berners-Lee, known as “father of the web” said: “The IT profession needs more women, greater diversity and to be more inclusive.” I agree. There is a very sound business case for getting more women into the IT profession:
● Improved creativity and innovation. I fulfil, for example, the stereotypically female role of the inclusive/collaborative manager and communicator, which has helped maximise the innovation potential of our staff.
● Access to the widest talent pool. Recruiting girls can help address this shortfall.
● Improved financial performance. Companies with the most gender-balanced top management teams perform over 30 per cent better for both return on equity shareholder return. (Catalyst, 2005)
This matters because the IT sector will be more important to economic prosperity in the next decade.
First, IT is a key enabler of business process efficiency, which enhances national competitiveness. Second, the only way a developed nation such as the UK can compete in exports is to be smarter, and that is the domain of science & technology.
Finally, in the current crisis the previous tax cash-cows (retailing, property and financial services) have been crippled. The IT industry is one of the best hopes to replace those engines of economic growth, and to plug the hole in government tax revenues.
The UK needs a healthy IT industry and the sector needs more women, therefore we need parents and teachers to be telling their female charges that IT is an exciting and rewarding career that they should seriously consider.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
Monday, November 10, 2008
Why is interest in technology waning in our schools? Does this matter and how can we reverse this trend? (FT.com)
Why is interest in technology waning in our schools? Does this matter and how can we reverse this trend?
By Karen Price, chief executive of e-skills UK
Published: November 10 2008 10:34 | Last updated: November 10 2008 10:34
Today’s young people are tomorrow’s technology specialists, inventors and entrepreneurs; they are tomorrow’s business leaders managing IT-enabled change; and they are tomorrow’s users of technology-based products and services. They will be your company’s competitors, customers and employees.
And it seems fewer and fewer of them want to learn about technology.
IT and telecommunications represent the engine of future growth and are key to increasing productivity and competitiveness. Half of Europe’s productivity gains in recent years can be attributed to investments in IT. IT and telecoms already contribute £51.9bn to the UK economy every year – 5 per cent of the total UK economy – and provide jobs for one in 20 of the UK’s workforce.
The potential for future benefits are even more dramatic. According to recent e-skills UK research, fully exploiting technology is the single most important step the UK can take to improve productivity across the economy, generating an additional £35bn for the UK economy over the next decade.
But the long term strength of the UK’s technology sector, and of increasingly technology-enabled sectors such as financial services and biotechnology, is threatened by two worrying trends: a massive decline in the number of young people choosing to study technology at school and university, and a disconnect between the skills young people learn and the skills employers need.
The statistics make grim reading: the number of people taking the more technical A-level in Computing has fallen by 50 per cent since 2003, and just 9.5 per cent of candidates this year were female. This year also saw a drop of 14 per cent on 2007 in the number of people taking a GCSE in ICT (which focuses on the use of IT). UK applications to IT-related degrees have fallen by 50 per cent in the last five years.
Where is it all going wrong? Technology should be one of the most exhilarating subjects to study. It underpins every aspect of our lives and plays an increasingly pivotal role in everything from healthcare and entertainment to banking and sport. Today’s young generation has grown up with technology: they are “digital natives”. Yet somehow the enthusiasm and excitement young people have for their personal technology such as mobile phones, virtual networks and games consoles is not translating into the classroom.
Research by e-skills UK has revealed two main drivers behind this lack of interest. First, a negative image of the way in which the subject is taught at school, and, second, widespread misconceptions about the reality of a career in IT.
So what can and should be done about this?
In the first instance, we need a radical review of all technology curriculums. Technology education needs to inform and inspire young people about technology. Young people need opportunities to see cutting edge technology in action in order to discover for themselves the excitement and relevance of a career in IT. This is one area where the new Diploma in IT will make a real and very positive difference.
In addition, technology education needs to help young people develop the increasingly sophisticated blend of technical, business and communications skills they will require for an IT professional or business career. The UK’s IT industry operates in a global labour market. Many IT activities are now being sourced from outside the UK – for example, from countries such as India and China which produce ever-increasing numbers of highly qualified technology graduates – while IT professional job roles in the UK are increasingly focused on highly skilled, business-focused and customer-facing roles. This places considerable demands on the UK’s education system and on what is required from young people entering technology careers.
A technology education benefits all young people regardless of their ultimate career choice – it helps to develop numerate and creative graduates who can add real value in a wide range of roles where logical thinking and problem solving are cherished.
At e-skills UK we are working hard to reverse these negative trends. Through a number of pioneering programmes we are bringing together employers, government and academia to help inspire and invigorate technology education and transform young people’s attitudes towards IT. There are many opportunities for business to get involved.
Young people are our future. We can help to give them the start they need to succeed in a technology-enabled world.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
By Karen Price, chief executive of e-skills UK
Published: November 10 2008 10:34 | Last updated: November 10 2008 10:34
Today’s young people are tomorrow’s technology specialists, inventors and entrepreneurs; they are tomorrow’s business leaders managing IT-enabled change; and they are tomorrow’s users of technology-based products and services. They will be your company’s competitors, customers and employees.
And it seems fewer and fewer of them want to learn about technology.
IT and telecommunications represent the engine of future growth and are key to increasing productivity and competitiveness. Half of Europe’s productivity gains in recent years can be attributed to investments in IT. IT and telecoms already contribute £51.9bn to the UK economy every year – 5 per cent of the total UK economy – and provide jobs for one in 20 of the UK’s workforce.
The potential for future benefits are even more dramatic. According to recent e-skills UK research, fully exploiting technology is the single most important step the UK can take to improve productivity across the economy, generating an additional £35bn for the UK economy over the next decade.
But the long term strength of the UK’s technology sector, and of increasingly technology-enabled sectors such as financial services and biotechnology, is threatened by two worrying trends: a massive decline in the number of young people choosing to study technology at school and university, and a disconnect between the skills young people learn and the skills employers need.
The statistics make grim reading: the number of people taking the more technical A-level in Computing has fallen by 50 per cent since 2003, and just 9.5 per cent of candidates this year were female. This year also saw a drop of 14 per cent on 2007 in the number of people taking a GCSE in ICT (which focuses on the use of IT). UK applications to IT-related degrees have fallen by 50 per cent in the last five years.
Where is it all going wrong? Technology should be one of the most exhilarating subjects to study. It underpins every aspect of our lives and plays an increasingly pivotal role in everything from healthcare and entertainment to banking and sport. Today’s young generation has grown up with technology: they are “digital natives”. Yet somehow the enthusiasm and excitement young people have for their personal technology such as mobile phones, virtual networks and games consoles is not translating into the classroom.
Research by e-skills UK has revealed two main drivers behind this lack of interest. First, a negative image of the way in which the subject is taught at school, and, second, widespread misconceptions about the reality of a career in IT.
So what can and should be done about this?
In the first instance, we need a radical review of all technology curriculums. Technology education needs to inform and inspire young people about technology. Young people need opportunities to see cutting edge technology in action in order to discover for themselves the excitement and relevance of a career in IT. This is one area where the new Diploma in IT will make a real and very positive difference.
In addition, technology education needs to help young people develop the increasingly sophisticated blend of technical, business and communications skills they will require for an IT professional or business career. The UK’s IT industry operates in a global labour market. Many IT activities are now being sourced from outside the UK – for example, from countries such as India and China which produce ever-increasing numbers of highly qualified technology graduates – while IT professional job roles in the UK are increasingly focused on highly skilled, business-focused and customer-facing roles. This places considerable demands on the UK’s education system and on what is required from young people entering technology careers.
A technology education benefits all young people regardless of their ultimate career choice – it helps to develop numerate and creative graduates who can add real value in a wide range of roles where logical thinking and problem solving are cherished.
At e-skills UK we are working hard to reverse these negative trends. Through a number of pioneering programmes we are bringing together employers, government and academia to help inspire and invigorate technology education and transform young people’s attitudes towards IT. There are many opportunities for business to get involved.
Young people are our future. We can help to give them the start they need to succeed in a technology-enabled world.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
SharePoint Proving a Goldmine for Microsoft Partners
About 80 percent of businesses are expected to be using SharePoint by 2010, according to Gartner. That means for the Microsoft channel community, SharePoint is a potential goldmine, a repeat revenue generator, and customer relationship builder – if you get it right.
Monday, November 03, 2008
Autonomy automation (FT.com)
Autonomy automation
Autonomy, the search specialist, has unveiled Autonomy ControlPoint, a compliance solution for organisations running Microsoft Office SharePoint Server. It is designed to automate the otherwise cumbersome process of searching for documents stored in SharePoint and tagging them to comply with corporate, legal and regulatory standards for document retention. ControlPoint can understand more than 1,000 different file types and can search across all the SharePoint servers and other repositories located on a corporate network.
Autonomy, the search specialist, has unveiled Autonomy ControlPoint, a compliance solution for organisations running Microsoft Office SharePoint Server. It is designed to automate the otherwise cumbersome process of searching for documents stored in SharePoint and tagging them to comply with corporate, legal and regulatory standards for document retention. ControlPoint can understand more than 1,000 different file types and can search across all the SharePoint servers and other repositories located on a corporate network.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Magic Quadrant for Horizontal Portal Products
Magic Quadrant for Horizontal Portal Products
In the 2008 Portal Magic Quadrant, Microsoft remained in the Leaders quadrant, moving a great deal towards the right on the vision axis and closing the gap between us and IBM. We were placed on the same level for the ability to execute axis as last year. We are also ahead of Oracle and SAS in both vision and ability to execute, exhibiting momentum against them as well.
Gartner gives Microsoft credit for the explosive demand SharePoint has experienced over the past year, listing SharePoint’s significant adoption by enterprises as a strength. In fact, SharePoint’s explosive growth is also referenced in the market overview section, offering yet another proof point of the significant impact the product has made in the industry.
Gartner also calls out that Microsoft is successfully fostering deployments through Enterprise licensing agreements, use as team-based collaboration document management driving use for other initiatives, as well as SharePoint Online as a SaaS horizontal portal as being key strengths for the company.
http://mediaproducts.gartner.com/reprints/microsoft/vol6/article2/article2.html
In the 2008 Portal Magic Quadrant, Microsoft remained in the Leaders quadrant, moving a great deal towards the right on the vision axis and closing the gap between us and IBM. We were placed on the same level for the ability to execute axis as last year. We are also ahead of Oracle and SAS in both vision and ability to execute, exhibiting momentum against them as well.
Gartner gives Microsoft credit for the explosive demand SharePoint has experienced over the past year, listing SharePoint’s significant adoption by enterprises as a strength. In fact, SharePoint’s explosive growth is also referenced in the market overview section, offering yet another proof point of the significant impact the product has made in the industry.
Gartner also calls out that Microsoft is successfully fostering deployments through Enterprise licensing agreements, use as team-based collaboration document management driving use for other initiatives, as well as SharePoint Online as a SaaS horizontal portal as being key strengths for the company.
http://mediaproducts.gartner.com/reprints/microsoft/vol6/article2/article2.html
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Microsoft looks to cloud to open new windows
Microsoft looks to cloud to open new windows
By Richard Waters in San Francisco
Published: October 23 2008 19:43 | Last updated: October 23 2008 21:43
After years of hesitation, Microsoft is finally ready to take a big leap into the world of internet-based computing.
That, at least, has been the message for much of this year from senior executives, including chief executive Steve Ballmer.
The wraps are set to be taken off at a conference that the company is throwing for software developers in Los Angeles that starts on Monday.
Depending on what it has up its sleeve, Microsoft’s move could propel it into a new internet-based approach to computing that has become all the talk of the tech world.
Known as “cloud computing”, this involves a greater centralisation of processing power and information storage in large networks of datacentres.
Rather than relying on computing power from corporate servers or desktop PCs, applications and services created in this new “cloud” are delivered over the internet and often accessed through a simple web browser.
If Microsoft fails to lay out a compelling plan for how it will adapt to this new world, however, it would add to a nagging concern among investors and customers that the company is falling behind in the biggest transition to hit information technology in years – and could further open the door to rivals.
“The market is going to look for something big,” said Frank Gens, a technology analyst at IDC.
“If they do it in dribs and drabs, if they come out with a half-hearted ‘cloud’ deployment, it will open the way for IBM, or for Amazon and Google.”
The software company has already hinted at what it has up its sleeve.
Mr Ballmer recently promised that next week will bring an “operating system that runs in the internet” – something he dubbed “Windows Cloud”.
The clear message: having dominated the PC-era of computing, Microsoft believes it is now ready to move to a new arena.
Microsoft’s attempt to reposition its core software reflects a broader change that is forcing all the big tech companies to rethink their approach.
“Platform shifts like this come along every 15 or 20 years,” said Sean Poulley, vice-president of cloud services for IBM’s software division.
Tech executives argue over how new this trend really is or how quickly it will take hold, but generally agree on its significance.
In the consumer world, advertising-supported internet services like those offered by Google have already won a big following.
Corporate IT departments, which account for the lion’s share of the tech business, have started to inch towards a similar approach.
About 4 per cent of IT budgets are currently spent on the business applications, infrastructure software, servers and storage technologies that support cloud computing, according to IDC.
But by 2012, with the share up to 9 per cent, spending on this new approach to technology will account for a quarter of the annual growth in technology spending, making it an important new market for the entire industry.
Much of the attention around cloud computing so far has focused on services, such as Google’s online word-processing service or the corporate applications from Salesforce.com.
Microsoft’s announcement next week, however, will shift the focus back to the guts of the technology behind this shift: the infrastructure of datacentres that supports it, and the software “operating system” that supports online services, in much the way that the current Windows PC operating system supports applications that run on a PC.
The scramble to win a piece of this new market is in its early stages. “There will be a number of years when there will be a lot of competition and confusion,” said Nick Carr, author of The Big Switch, a recent book about the coming transition. “Over time, I think it will resolve to a small number of platforms.”
Big IT suppliers like IBM on the one hand, and internet companies like Amazon have already dipped their toe in this water.
As the technology industry’s pre-eminent “platform” company, Microsoft’s promised move has attracted considerable anticipation.
The biggest question that has hung over Microsoft, and the one to which next week’s event may provide an answer: how far, and how fast, will the company push as it reorientates its business around the web?
This is largely an economic decision.
Microsoft’s current highly lucrative business relies on sales of PC and server software, mainly to business customers.
If these customers turn away from that computing approach and instead buy services delivered from the “cloud”, often at low monthly subscription rates based on how much they use, it could undermine the company’s core business model, said Mr Gens.
To compensate for that, Microsoft will have to run fast to create new markets for cloud-based services, for instance among small businesses and consumers, as well as in emerging markets, he added.
Oracle dismisses development as a fad
Larry Ellison, the outspoken head of Oracle, recently dismissed cloud computing as little more than a fad.
Many of the technologies included under these latest buzz words, he said, have long been in use.
“The computer industry is the only industry that is more fashion-driven than women’s fashion,” Mr Ellison said, though he added Oracle would adopt the phrase in its own marketing if it helped sales.
His cynicism points to two commonly-held complaints about cloud computing.
One is that this is merely a new term for a vision that has been around for years – even decades.
“Thin” computing, utility computing, application service providers, on demand computing, software-as-a-service: plenty of jargon has been invented before to describe the long-promised shift of computing on to a more efficient infrastructure of centralised servers.
The second complaint is that in the past, all of these supposedly revolutionary advances have come up short.
Computing still takes place as much on local “clients” – principally PCs – as on servers.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
By Richard Waters in San Francisco
Published: October 23 2008 19:43 | Last updated: October 23 2008 21:43
After years of hesitation, Microsoft is finally ready to take a big leap into the world of internet-based computing.
That, at least, has been the message for much of this year from senior executives, including chief executive Steve Ballmer.
The wraps are set to be taken off at a conference that the company is throwing for software developers in Los Angeles that starts on Monday.
Depending on what it has up its sleeve, Microsoft’s move could propel it into a new internet-based approach to computing that has become all the talk of the tech world.
Known as “cloud computing”, this involves a greater centralisation of processing power and information storage in large networks of datacentres.
Rather than relying on computing power from corporate servers or desktop PCs, applications and services created in this new “cloud” are delivered over the internet and often accessed through a simple web browser.
If Microsoft fails to lay out a compelling plan for how it will adapt to this new world, however, it would add to a nagging concern among investors and customers that the company is falling behind in the biggest transition to hit information technology in years – and could further open the door to rivals.
“The market is going to look for something big,” said Frank Gens, a technology analyst at IDC.
“If they do it in dribs and drabs, if they come out with a half-hearted ‘cloud’ deployment, it will open the way for IBM, or for Amazon and Google.”
The software company has already hinted at what it has up its sleeve.
Mr Ballmer recently promised that next week will bring an “operating system that runs in the internet” – something he dubbed “Windows Cloud”.
The clear message: having dominated the PC-era of computing, Microsoft believes it is now ready to move to a new arena.
Microsoft’s attempt to reposition its core software reflects a broader change that is forcing all the big tech companies to rethink their approach.
“Platform shifts like this come along every 15 or 20 years,” said Sean Poulley, vice-president of cloud services for IBM’s software division.
Tech executives argue over how new this trend really is or how quickly it will take hold, but generally agree on its significance.
In the consumer world, advertising-supported internet services like those offered by Google have already won a big following.
Corporate IT departments, which account for the lion’s share of the tech business, have started to inch towards a similar approach.
About 4 per cent of IT budgets are currently spent on the business applications, infrastructure software, servers and storage technologies that support cloud computing, according to IDC.
But by 2012, with the share up to 9 per cent, spending on this new approach to technology will account for a quarter of the annual growth in technology spending, making it an important new market for the entire industry.
Much of the attention around cloud computing so far has focused on services, such as Google’s online word-processing service or the corporate applications from Salesforce.com.
Microsoft’s announcement next week, however, will shift the focus back to the guts of the technology behind this shift: the infrastructure of datacentres that supports it, and the software “operating system” that supports online services, in much the way that the current Windows PC operating system supports applications that run on a PC.
The scramble to win a piece of this new market is in its early stages. “There will be a number of years when there will be a lot of competition and confusion,” said Nick Carr, author of The Big Switch, a recent book about the coming transition. “Over time, I think it will resolve to a small number of platforms.”
Big IT suppliers like IBM on the one hand, and internet companies like Amazon have already dipped their toe in this water.
As the technology industry’s pre-eminent “platform” company, Microsoft’s promised move has attracted considerable anticipation.
The biggest question that has hung over Microsoft, and the one to which next week’s event may provide an answer: how far, and how fast, will the company push as it reorientates its business around the web?
This is largely an economic decision.
Microsoft’s current highly lucrative business relies on sales of PC and server software, mainly to business customers.
If these customers turn away from that computing approach and instead buy services delivered from the “cloud”, often at low monthly subscription rates based on how much they use, it could undermine the company’s core business model, said Mr Gens.
To compensate for that, Microsoft will have to run fast to create new markets for cloud-based services, for instance among small businesses and consumers, as well as in emerging markets, he added.
Oracle dismisses development as a fad
Larry Ellison, the outspoken head of Oracle, recently dismissed cloud computing as little more than a fad.
Many of the technologies included under these latest buzz words, he said, have long been in use.
“The computer industry is the only industry that is more fashion-driven than women’s fashion,” Mr Ellison said, though he added Oracle would adopt the phrase in its own marketing if it helped sales.
His cynicism points to two commonly-held complaints about cloud computing.
One is that this is merely a new term for a vision that has been around for years – even decades.
“Thin” computing, utility computing, application service providers, on demand computing, software-as-a-service: plenty of jargon has been invented before to describe the long-promised shift of computing on to a more efficient infrastructure of centralised servers.
The second complaint is that in the past, all of these supposedly revolutionary advances have come up short.
Computing still takes place as much on local “clients” – principally PCs – as on servers.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
A culture of security (FT.com)
A culture of security
By Lee Hezzlewood
Published: October 21 2008 15:55 | Last updated: October 21 2008 15:55
Data loss by major organisations keeps on happening. Why? The simple answer is that many organisations don’t have a “culture of security”.
Virtually all have passwords or biometric security to control access to systems, and swipe cards and high fences to control physical access, plus vetting of staff to check backgrounds and criminal connections. But not enough engender a culture of security with all staff, encouraging them to be aware of how security interacts with their day-to-day role, how they have a responsibility for the security of the information they work with, and how to protect that information and themselves.
As an IT security consultant, I am constantly assessing the security implications of a particular course of action – will this change affect the security of a system, does that person or role need that information, does the data need to be sanitised before being distributed, and so on.
While staff within an organisation should not go around constantly looking over their shoulders, organisations should be proactive in educating their staff about security. Teaching staff the basics should be as important as showing them the fire escapes and the canteen.
So why not add a security awareness element to staff induction processes? The program should be informative, educational, fun, and interactive for it to make an impact. Merely getting to staff to read and sign security policies is not enough. Few people will remember them and even fewer are unlikely ever to review them.
Existing staff need to go through a similar process on a regular basis as part of their annual review to ensure everyone has the same security grounding and a mechanism for continual improvement and assessment.
Hold open workshops or intranet forums designed to promote a security culture and raise awareness of specific topics. Make them interactive and encourage open and frank debate. Get staff to recommend improvements in security and have topical discussions on relevant news items. Try discussing how your organisation could fall victim to a security incident and what steps you could take to stop it happening.
It is vital, though, not to bore staff or patronise them. But educating them about security will raise their awareness of the risks and threats to them and the organisation and reduce your risk profile. A regular programme will keep the knowledge fresh and ensure staff are informed of new issues or changes to procedures.
Staff are the eyes and ears on the ground. With the right education and encouragement they can provide a valuable resource in preventing security incidents and perhaps reduce the chances of their organisation being the next news headline.
Lee Hezzlewood is an IT security consultant with Pentest Limited
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
By Lee Hezzlewood
Published: October 21 2008 15:55 | Last updated: October 21 2008 15:55
Data loss by major organisations keeps on happening. Why? The simple answer is that many organisations don’t have a “culture of security”.
Virtually all have passwords or biometric security to control access to systems, and swipe cards and high fences to control physical access, plus vetting of staff to check backgrounds and criminal connections. But not enough engender a culture of security with all staff, encouraging them to be aware of how security interacts with their day-to-day role, how they have a responsibility for the security of the information they work with, and how to protect that information and themselves.
As an IT security consultant, I am constantly assessing the security implications of a particular course of action – will this change affect the security of a system, does that person or role need that information, does the data need to be sanitised before being distributed, and so on.
While staff within an organisation should not go around constantly looking over their shoulders, organisations should be proactive in educating their staff about security. Teaching staff the basics should be as important as showing them the fire escapes and the canteen.
So why not add a security awareness element to staff induction processes? The program should be informative, educational, fun, and interactive for it to make an impact. Merely getting to staff to read and sign security policies is not enough. Few people will remember them and even fewer are unlikely ever to review them.
Existing staff need to go through a similar process on a regular basis as part of their annual review to ensure everyone has the same security grounding and a mechanism for continual improvement and assessment.
Hold open workshops or intranet forums designed to promote a security culture and raise awareness of specific topics. Make them interactive and encourage open and frank debate. Get staff to recommend improvements in security and have topical discussions on relevant news items. Try discussing how your organisation could fall victim to a security incident and what steps you could take to stop it happening.
It is vital, though, not to bore staff or patronise them. But educating them about security will raise their awareness of the risks and threats to them and the organisation and reduce your risk profile. A regular programme will keep the knowledge fresh and ensure staff are informed of new issues or changes to procedures.
Staff are the eyes and ears on the ground. With the right education and encouragement they can provide a valuable resource in preventing security incidents and perhaps reduce the chances of their organisation being the next news headline.
Lee Hezzlewood is an IT security consultant with Pentest Limited
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Outlook upbeat for Autonomy (FT.com)
Outlook upbeat for Autonomy
By Philip Stafford
Published: October 15 2008 18:02 | Last updated: October 15 2008 18:02
Mike Lynch, chief executive of Autonomy, predicted business for the search software company would remain strong for the rest of the year in spite of the economic slowdown.
As the group unveiled earnings at the top of expectations, Mr Lynch said most purchases were made due to regulatory-driven demand from banks and financial authorities, with both often gearing up for potential lawsuits.
“After death and taxes, the next best bet is litigation,” Mr Lynch joked. “We’re seeing sales up 300 per cent there.” He added that he was “comfortable” with the group’s outlook.
Autonomy had already announced it expected record third-quarter results as it benefited from a US legal decision at the start of the year, which ruled that lawyers had just 99 days to decide what electronic data could be used as evidence in a lawsuit. Autonomy’s products help businesses archive and retrieve materials such as e-mails and phone calls. The financial crisis and consolidations of banks during the past six weeks had helped business, Mr Lynch added.
Like many companies in the IT sector, shares in Autonomy have been hit by concerns of a broader economic slowdown.
But Rajeev Bahl, an analyst at Piper Jaffray, said: “The stock has everything you’d want, from revenue growth to rising margins, strong cash flow and a decent backlog – it ticks all the boxes.
“It’s just that the multiple the market is willing to pay for growth stocks has come down.”
Third-quarter revenues to September 30 rose 42 per cent to $127m. Pre-tax profit increased 162 per cent to $47.8m, while earnings per share rose from $0.06 to $0.16.
The average selling price for Autonomy’s technology was $395,000, up from $375,000. Shares in the company closed up 1p at 829p.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
By Philip Stafford
Published: October 15 2008 18:02 | Last updated: October 15 2008 18:02
Mike Lynch, chief executive of Autonomy, predicted business for the search software company would remain strong for the rest of the year in spite of the economic slowdown.
As the group unveiled earnings at the top of expectations, Mr Lynch said most purchases were made due to regulatory-driven demand from banks and financial authorities, with both often gearing up for potential lawsuits.
“After death and taxes, the next best bet is litigation,” Mr Lynch joked. “We’re seeing sales up 300 per cent there.” He added that he was “comfortable” with the group’s outlook.
Autonomy had already announced it expected record third-quarter results as it benefited from a US legal decision at the start of the year, which ruled that lawyers had just 99 days to decide what electronic data could be used as evidence in a lawsuit. Autonomy’s products help businesses archive and retrieve materials such as e-mails and phone calls. The financial crisis and consolidations of banks during the past six weeks had helped business, Mr Lynch added.
Like many companies in the IT sector, shares in Autonomy have been hit by concerns of a broader economic slowdown.
But Rajeev Bahl, an analyst at Piper Jaffray, said: “The stock has everything you’d want, from revenue growth to rising margins, strong cash flow and a decent backlog – it ticks all the boxes.
“It’s just that the multiple the market is willing to pay for growth stocks has come down.”
Third-quarter revenues to September 30 rose 42 per cent to $127m. Pre-tax profit increased 162 per cent to $47.8m, while earnings per share rose from $0.06 to $0.16.
The average selling price for Autonomy’s technology was $395,000, up from $375,000. Shares in the company closed up 1p at 829p.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
Outlook upbeat for Autonomy (FT.com)
Outlook upbeat for Autonomy
By Philip Stafford
Published: October 15 2008 18:02 | Last updated: October 15 2008 18:02
Mike Lynch, chief executive of Autonomy, predicted business for the search software company would remain strong for the rest of the year in spite of the economic slowdown.
As the group unveiled earnings at the top of expectations, Mr Lynch said most purchases were made due to regulatory-driven demand from banks and financial authorities, with both often gearing up for potential lawsuits.
“After death and taxes, the next best bet is litigation,” Mr Lynch joked. “We’re seeing sales up 300 per cent there.” He added that he was “comfortable” with the group’s outlook.
Autonomy had already announced it expected record third-quarter results as it benefited from a US legal decision at the start of the year, which ruled that lawyers had just 99 days to decide what electronic data could be used as evidence in a lawsuit. Autonomy’s products help businesses archive and retrieve materials such as e-mails and phone calls. The financial crisis and consolidations of banks during the past six weeks had helped business, Mr Lynch added.
Like many companies in the IT sector, shares in Autonomy have been hit by concerns of a broader economic slowdown.
But Rajeev Bahl, an analyst at Piper Jaffray, said: “The stock has everything you’d want, from revenue growth to rising margins, strong cash flow and a decent backlog – it ticks all the boxes.
“It’s just that the multiple the market is willing to pay for growth stocks has come down.”
Third-quarter revenues to September 30 rose 42 per cent to $127m. Pre-tax profit increased 162 per cent to $47.8m, while earnings per share rose from $0.06 to $0.16.
The average selling price for Autonomy’s technology was $395,000, up from $375,000. Shares in the company closed up 1p at 829p.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
By Philip Stafford
Published: October 15 2008 18:02 | Last updated: October 15 2008 18:02
Mike Lynch, chief executive of Autonomy, predicted business for the search software company would remain strong for the rest of the year in spite of the economic slowdown.
As the group unveiled earnings at the top of expectations, Mr Lynch said most purchases were made due to regulatory-driven demand from banks and financial authorities, with both often gearing up for potential lawsuits.
“After death and taxes, the next best bet is litigation,” Mr Lynch joked. “We’re seeing sales up 300 per cent there.” He added that he was “comfortable” with the group’s outlook.
Autonomy had already announced it expected record third-quarter results as it benefited from a US legal decision at the start of the year, which ruled that lawyers had just 99 days to decide what electronic data could be used as evidence in a lawsuit. Autonomy’s products help businesses archive and retrieve materials such as e-mails and phone calls. The financial crisis and consolidations of banks during the past six weeks had helped business, Mr Lynch added.
Like many companies in the IT sector, shares in Autonomy have been hit by concerns of a broader economic slowdown.
But Rajeev Bahl, an analyst at Piper Jaffray, said: “The stock has everything you’d want, from revenue growth to rising margins, strong cash flow and a decent backlog – it ticks all the boxes.
“It’s just that the multiple the market is willing to pay for growth stocks has come down.”
Third-quarter revenues to September 30 rose 42 per cent to $127m. Pre-tax profit increased 162 per cent to $47.8m, while earnings per share rose from $0.06 to $0.16.
The average selling price for Autonomy’s technology was $395,000, up from $375,000. Shares in the company closed up 1p at 829p.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
Friday, October 10, 2008
Liferay Leads Market as Visionary in Gartner's Magic Quadrant
Leading Open Source Portal Recognized for its Completeness of Vision
Magic Quadrant for Horizontal Portal Products, September 2008
New entrants provide additional options for enterprises willing to consider open-source and software-as-a-service alternatives for horizontal portal functionality. To differentiate their offerings, horizontal portal vendors are incorporating support for enterprise mashups and social networking.
Magic Quadrant for Information Access Technology, September 2008
This Magic Quadrant assesses vendors with capabilities that go beyond enterprise search to encompass a range of technologies. Their capabilities include search; federated search, content classification, categorization and clustering; fact and entity extraction; taxonomy creation and management; information presentation (for example, visualization) to support analysis and understanding; and desktop search to address user-controlled repositories in order to locate and "invoke" documents, data, e-mail and intelligence.
We consider all enterprise search vendors to be information access technology vendors. However, those that only offer search capabilities (frequently called "keyword search") are neither Visionaries nor candidates for the Leaders quadrant, although they are part of the market. Finding information, and acting on it intelligently, demands increasingly sophisticated and innovative strategies and technologies.
We recommend that large commercial and government enterprises select at least an information access platform vendor for the majority of future projects. Platform vendors offer modular architectures, wide varieties of relevance modeling, multiple vertical applications and significant customizability. These enterprises should also typically have a tactical vendor to increase agility for short-term and quick-start projects. Tactical vendors may lack architectural sophistication and customizability, but their products are quicker to deploy and easier to understand. Often, enterprises obtain search as part of a different product, such as a portal or enterprise content management (ECM) application. In such cases, these enterprises may choose to make this embedded search a target for federation. Large enterprises must also recognize the need to explore more specialized products for certain important projects, such as e-discovery, e-commerce search and research science support.
Information access technologies access applications such as document management, Web content management and relational database management systems to provide users with insight into their contents. Increasingly, information access technology is also expected to include results from enterprise applications, such as customer relationship management (CRM) and legacy systems. In addition, it increasingly looks outside enterprises as well, to premium sources of information, Web sites and elements of the social Web. Information access technology is often acquired as an embedded aspect of other applications, and OEM arrangements are significant for information access vendors. Portal, ECM, business application and other vendors frequently include enterprise search as part of their products.
We consider all enterprise search vendors to be information access technology vendors. However, those that only offer search capabilities (frequently called "keyword search") are neither Visionaries nor candidates for the Leaders quadrant, although they are part of the market. Finding information, and acting on it intelligently, demands increasingly sophisticated and innovative strategies and technologies.
We recommend that large commercial and government enterprises select at least an information access platform vendor for the majority of future projects. Platform vendors offer modular architectures, wide varieties of relevance modeling, multiple vertical applications and significant customizability. These enterprises should also typically have a tactical vendor to increase agility for short-term and quick-start projects. Tactical vendors may lack architectural sophistication and customizability, but their products are quicker to deploy and easier to understand. Often, enterprises obtain search as part of a different product, such as a portal or enterprise content management (ECM) application. In such cases, these enterprises may choose to make this embedded search a target for federation. Large enterprises must also recognize the need to explore more specialized products for certain important projects, such as e-discovery, e-commerce search and research science support.
Information access technologies access applications such as document management, Web content management and relational database management systems to provide users with insight into their contents. Increasingly, information access technology is also expected to include results from enterprise applications, such as customer relationship management (CRM) and legacy systems. In addition, it increasingly looks outside enterprises as well, to premium sources of information, Web sites and elements of the social Web. Information access technology is often acquired as an embedded aspect of other applications, and OEM arrangements are significant for information access vendors. Portal, ECM, business application and other vendors frequently include enterprise search as part of their products.
Friday, October 03, 2008
Autonomy expects to top forecasts
Autonomy expects to top forecasts
By Philip Stafford
Published: October 3 2008 18:56 | Last updated: October 3 2008 18:57
Autonomy , the search software company, bucked the gloomy prognosis for IT groups as burgeoning demand for its compliance-related software meant third-quarter earnings would be “significantly” ahead of market estimates.
The group expects to report record third-quarter results, with both revenue and earnings per share either ahead of consensus estimates or above the top end of the range. Organic growth was also accelerating, Autonomy said.
The group has felt the benefit of a US legal decision at the start of the year ruling that lawyers had just 99 days to decide what electronic data could be examined for evidence in a lawsuit.
Autonomy’s products help businesses archive and retrieve materials such as e-mails and phone calls. Its software discovered inconsistencies in the trading records of Jerome Kerviel, the rogue trader at SocGen.
Mike Lynch, chief executive, told the Financial Times that the group still had a high backlog of work “that gives us a much higher level of confidence about 2009”. He also said Autonomy had experienced “waves of interest” from insurers in the wake of AIG’s rescue to struggling hedge funds.
“Our take is that the statement is pointing us towards $125m-$128m (£70m-£72m) of revenue and 17 cents of EPS,” said David Toms, an analyst at Numis Securities.
However, the shares fell 39½p to 890½p on continued concerns that the market for business software had slowed recently amid the wider banking global crisis.
The stock has dropped 20 per cent since re-entering the FTSE 100 for the first time in seven years in mid-September.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
By Philip Stafford
Published: October 3 2008 18:56 | Last updated: October 3 2008 18:57
Autonomy , the search software company, bucked the gloomy prognosis for IT groups as burgeoning demand for its compliance-related software meant third-quarter earnings would be “significantly” ahead of market estimates.
The group expects to report record third-quarter results, with both revenue and earnings per share either ahead of consensus estimates or above the top end of the range. Organic growth was also accelerating, Autonomy said.
The group has felt the benefit of a US legal decision at the start of the year ruling that lawyers had just 99 days to decide what electronic data could be examined for evidence in a lawsuit.
Autonomy’s products help businesses archive and retrieve materials such as e-mails and phone calls. Its software discovered inconsistencies in the trading records of Jerome Kerviel, the rogue trader at SocGen.
Mike Lynch, chief executive, told the Financial Times that the group still had a high backlog of work “that gives us a much higher level of confidence about 2009”. He also said Autonomy had experienced “waves of interest” from insurers in the wake of AIG’s rescue to struggling hedge funds.
“Our take is that the statement is pointing us towards $125m-$128m (£70m-£72m) of revenue and 17 cents of EPS,” said David Toms, an analyst at Numis Securities.
However, the shares fell 39½p to 890½p on continued concerns that the market for business software had slowed recently amid the wider banking global crisis.
The stock has dropped 20 per cent since re-entering the FTSE 100 for the first time in seven years in mid-September.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Microsoft SharePoint gets search, file sharing features
Add-ons let users search on document images and securely extend file creation and sharing across corporate boundaries.
John Fontana (Network World) 30/09/2008 09:11:00
Data capture vendor Captaris and security software developer Epok had developed add-ons to Microsoft's SharePoint Server 2007 that let users search on document images and securely extend file creation and sharing across corporate boundaries.
Captaris, best known for its RightFax software for distributing faxes, recently introduced the TIFF iFilter for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007.
The iFilter takes an image, scans it using optical character recognition (OCR) technology, and then stores it in SharePoint along with all its meta data. The resulting file is then available for discovery by SharePoint's search engine.
IFilter components are used by Microsoft Indexing Service and other Microsoft Search-based products, such as SharePoint Portal Server, Windows SharePoint Services, Exchange Full Text Search and SQL Server FTS.
Captaris, which is in the process of being acquired by OpenText, thinks paper-centric industries benefit the most from its TIFF iFilter such as insurance, governments, health care and financial services.
The iFilter supports Windows Server 2003 and 2008 and works on both 32- and 64-bit versions of the Windows OS, SharePoint Server, and SQL Server.
The Captaris TIFF iFilter comes in three editions: Standard (for two core systems), Pro (four core systems) and Enterprise (unlimited cores).
Standard is priced starting at US$299. Pro starts at $499, and Enterprise pricing will be announced before the end of the year.
SharePoint is Microsoft's fastest growing enterprise software in its history and the company counts 100 million licenses and more than a US$1 billion in revenue, according to figures released this summer. The platform also is attracting third-party vendors driven to plug some of the gaps in the platform.
Earlier versions of SharePoint had support for TIFF images, but it was dropped in the 2007 version of SharePoint. Microsoft released a Filter Pack for SharePoint in Dec. 2007, and specifically made apologies for the absence of the TIFF filter in the release.
Experts have also said that SharePoint has gaps in its access control story.
Epok in particular is attacking that need with an update to its cross-organization access management software called Epok Edition for SharePoint version 2.4. The platform extends user authentication to a company's partners.
The 2.4 version breaks the restriction that only a user within a SharePoint domain can use Microsoft Office to create, edit, and then save documents directly into SharePoint.
Epok extends that capability to any Office user in any domain as long as they have the needed access rights.
The upgrades also include a reporting system that can show such facts as who has access to a document and when the document expires. And a mouse over feature on user icons shows additional access details and expiration dates.
Epok can automatically enforce those expiration data on a user's access to certain documents while maintaining the user's overall access rights.
"SharePoint is creating a control problem and what we see is a huge demand wave for extranet access," says Nigel Simmons, vice president of product management.
Epok also takes maintenance of permissions for access controls out of the hands of IT and put them in the hands of business users.
In addition, the system can be configured to require users to view and/or acknowledge certain contractual obligations related to data such as non-disclosure agreements.
The Epok Edition for SharePoint version 2.4 is priced at US$25,000 per server.
John Fontana (Network World) 30/09/2008 09:11:00
Data capture vendor Captaris and security software developer Epok had developed add-ons to Microsoft's SharePoint Server 2007 that let users search on document images and securely extend file creation and sharing across corporate boundaries.
Captaris, best known for its RightFax software for distributing faxes, recently introduced the TIFF iFilter for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007.
The iFilter takes an image, scans it using optical character recognition (OCR) technology, and then stores it in SharePoint along with all its meta data. The resulting file is then available for discovery by SharePoint's search engine.
IFilter components are used by Microsoft Indexing Service and other Microsoft Search-based products, such as SharePoint Portal Server, Windows SharePoint Services, Exchange Full Text Search and SQL Server FTS.
Captaris, which is in the process of being acquired by OpenText, thinks paper-centric industries benefit the most from its TIFF iFilter such as insurance, governments, health care and financial services.
The iFilter supports Windows Server 2003 and 2008 and works on both 32- and 64-bit versions of the Windows OS, SharePoint Server, and SQL Server.
The Captaris TIFF iFilter comes in three editions: Standard (for two core systems), Pro (four core systems) and Enterprise (unlimited cores).
Standard is priced starting at US$299. Pro starts at $499, and Enterprise pricing will be announced before the end of the year.
SharePoint is Microsoft's fastest growing enterprise software in its history and the company counts 100 million licenses and more than a US$1 billion in revenue, according to figures released this summer. The platform also is attracting third-party vendors driven to plug some of the gaps in the platform.
Earlier versions of SharePoint had support for TIFF images, but it was dropped in the 2007 version of SharePoint. Microsoft released a Filter Pack for SharePoint in Dec. 2007, and specifically made apologies for the absence of the TIFF filter in the release.
Experts have also said that SharePoint has gaps in its access control story.
Epok in particular is attacking that need with an update to its cross-organization access management software called Epok Edition for SharePoint version 2.4. The platform extends user authentication to a company's partners.
The 2.4 version breaks the restriction that only a user within a SharePoint domain can use Microsoft Office to create, edit, and then save documents directly into SharePoint.
Epok extends that capability to any Office user in any domain as long as they have the needed access rights.
The upgrades also include a reporting system that can show such facts as who has access to a document and when the document expires. And a mouse over feature on user icons shows additional access details and expiration dates.
Epok can automatically enforce those expiration data on a user's access to certain documents while maintaining the user's overall access rights.
"SharePoint is creating a control problem and what we see is a huge demand wave for extranet access," says Nigel Simmons, vice president of product management.
Epok also takes maintenance of permissions for access controls out of the hands of IT and put them in the hands of business users.
In addition, the system can be configured to require users to view and/or acknowledge certain contractual obligations related to data such as non-disclosure agreements.
The Epok Edition for SharePoint version 2.4 is priced at US$25,000 per server.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
HostReview : Web Hosting Guides : Apps4Rent: Why Windows SharePoint Services?
HostReview : Web Hosting Guides : Apps4Rent: Why Windows SharePoint Services?
Windows SharePoint Services is a versatile technology that organizations and business units of all sizes can use to increase the efficiency of business processes and improve team productivity. With tools for collaboration that help people stay connected across organizational and geographic boundaries, Windows SharePoint Services gives people access to information they need.
Windows SharePoint Services is a versatile technology that organizations and business units of all sizes can use to increase the efficiency of business processes and improve team productivity. With tools for collaboration that help people stay connected across organizational and geographic boundaries, Windows SharePoint Services gives people access to information they need.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
SharePoint: Improving Performance : Beyond Search
SharePoint: Improving Performance : Beyond Search
In my opinion, SharePoint is a slow poke. Among the reasons:
SQL Server bottlenecks
My old pal IIS
Churning when complex pages experience latency because needed data are scattered far and wide across the SharePoint landscape.
In what has to be the most amazing description of sluggish performance, Microsoft has released SharePoint Performance Optimization: How Microsoft IT Increases Availability and Decreases Rendering Time of SharePoint Sites . This is a 27 page Word document, which I was able to download here.
I scanned the white paper. I did not dig through it. The good stuff appears after the boilerplate about how to find out what part of the SharePoint system is the problem. In my experience, it’s not “one part”. Performance issues arise when there are lots of users, complex “sites”, and when some of the other required servers are tossed into the stew.
A happy quack to Nick MacKechnie who pointed to this Microsoft white paper in his Web log here.
Stephen Arnold, September 23, 2008
In my opinion, SharePoint is a slow poke. Among the reasons:
SQL Server bottlenecks
My old pal IIS
Churning when complex pages experience latency because needed data are scattered far and wide across the SharePoint landscape.
In what has to be the most amazing description of sluggish performance, Microsoft has released SharePoint Performance Optimization: How Microsoft IT Increases Availability and Decreases Rendering Time of SharePoint Sites . This is a 27 page Word document, which I was able to download here.
I scanned the white paper. I did not dig through it. The good stuff appears after the boilerplate about how to find out what part of the SharePoint system is the problem. In my experience, it’s not “one part”. Performance issues arise when there are lots of users, complex “sites”, and when some of the other required servers are tossed into the stew.
A happy quack to Nick MacKechnie who pointed to this Microsoft white paper in his Web log here.
Stephen Arnold, September 23, 2008
Redmond Developer News | Alfresco Gets SharePoint Savvy
Redmond Developer News | Alfresco Gets SharePoint Savvy
Alfresco Software’s open source enterprise content management system presents a new challenge to SharePoint.
Alfresco Software’s open source enterprise content management system presents a new challenge to SharePoint.
ITWeb :Autonomy 'enterprise-proofs' Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server for large, global enterprise customers
ITWeb :Autonomy 'enterprise-proofs' Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server for large, global enterprise customers
Microsoft hosts Autonomy's software to meet scalability, connectivity and conceptual search requirements of most demanding deployments.
[ Cambridge, UK and San Francisco, California, 22 September 2008 ] - Autonomy Corporation (LSE: AU. or AU.L), a global leader in infrastructure software for the enterprise, today announced its information processing technology extends Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) to meet customer requirements for scalability, connectivity and conceptual search.
Autonomy's Intelligent Data Operating Layer (IDOL) software is hosted by Microsoft or deployed onsite by hundreds of large, global MOSS customers to enable SharePoint users to find and process content based on understanding the meaning of information. As an example, IDOL's highly scalable, distributed architecture is in use in one of the world's largest SharePoint retrieval projects, which consists of 400 000 users, 25 000 sites, and over one billion documents.
SharePoint's portal and collaboration capabilities have led to rapid adoption and widespread use in large, geographically dispersed organisations. IDOL's distributed and modular architecture complements MOSS by enabling users to access SharePoint files over Wide Area Networks (WANs), overcoming a major challenge for global companies with distributed servers as Shared Service Providers (SSPs) do not natively support WAN communications. Moreover, encrypted inter-machine and intra-process communication protocols are woven into the fabric of Autonomy's modular design at a fundamental level, providing secure transmission of information throughout the architecture. IDOL routinely supports millions of documents, hundreds of thousands of users, and hundreds of thousands of transactions on distributed commodity servers, with the largest installation exceeding 10 billion documents.
Autonomy further extends global MOSS scalability through its distributed, brokered architecture and "geo-efficient" design, which allows data to be automatically replicated in the most sensible location based on bandwidth, lag time, availability and demand. This enables high performance and gives users aggregated access to all enterprise information in a unified view in globally dispersed environments, while reducing bandwidth overhead. Because IDOL creates a stub, or shortcut, to the data and supports tiered storage rather than requiring that data be stored in SQL Server, organisations using IDOL with SharePoint can further benefit from dramatically reduced SQL Server licences and associated scalability limitations. In addition, large enterprises with complex deployments can take advantage of IDOL's redundancy, load balancing, mirroring and high failover to enable linear scalability, high availability and rapid performance of MOSS.
Autonomy IDOL's mature connector framework, which supports over 400 repositories, is additionally leveraged by organisations with SharePoint to avoid custom creation of IFilters and Protocol Handlers and ensure all data will be indexed. Autonomy IDOL can index and automatically analyse any piece of information from over 1 000 different content formats, unifying enterprise information to allow an unprecedented view of the organisation's information assets. This enables SharePoint to transform from a departmental collaboration solution to enterprise collaboration.
Furthermore, Autonomy's advanced conceptual search functionality supplements native MOSS capabilities to enrich the search experience. IDOL forms an understanding of the content of any given page and makes contextual associations between pages, documents, multimedia and search queries to ensure users are always provided with information that is particularly relevant to them. Using the idea behind the given words, and not just the words themselves, IDOL avoids inaccuracy and retrieves not just the most popular content, but the most pertinent.
"SharePoint delivers excellent 'interface and workflow' frameworks for productivity and content applications, but the large and growing volumes of users and rapid increases in content in SharePoint deployments necessitate the highest levels of security and scalability, which Autonomy delivers," commented Mike Lynch, chief executive officer of Autonomy. "The advanced pan-enterprise search capabilities of IDOL leverage Meaning-Based Computing technology to form a conceptual understanding of all data, regardless of what or where it is. This enables customers to capitalise on their SharePoint investments and harness the full richness of human information."
Autonomy provides Microsoft's SharePoint Server customers with:
* A conceptual understanding of the information within MOSS to proactively make connections between users, enhancing collaboration among them.
* A modular, distributed architecture supporting enterprise-class scalability for hundreds of thousands of enterprise users accessing hundreds of terabytes of data with sub-second response, indexing in excess of 110GB/hour and supporting over 470 million documents on 64-bit platforms.
* Unique Mapped Security and native support for all enterprise security models, permitting MOSS to be run within security sensitive environments, such as DOD 5015, EAL, and Bell-LaPadula.
* Extension of standard Microsoft's IFilter file support from 16 to 1 000+ file formats, including ODF and PDFX, with native support for over 400 repositories regardless of operating system.
* Over 500 advanced functions, such as expertise location, communities, implicit profiling, explicit personalisation, automatic categorisation, clustering, geo searching, automatic query guidance, and automatic hyperlinking.
Autonomy
Autonomy Corporation (LSE: AU. or AU.L) is a global leader in infrastructure software for the enterprise and is spearheading the meaning-based computing movement. Autonomy's technology allows computers to harness the full richness of human information, forming a conceptual and contextual understanding of any piece of electronic data including unstructured information, be it text, e-mail, voice or video. Autonomy's software powers the full spectrum of mission-critical enterprise applications, including information access technology, pan-enterprise search, information governance, end-to-end eDiscovery and archiving, records management, business process management, customer interaction solutions, and video and audio analysis, and is recognised by industry analysts as the clear leader in enterprise search.
Autonomy's customer base comprises of more than 17 000 global companies and organisations, including: 3, ABN AMRO, AOL, BAE Systems, BBC, Bloomberg, Boeing, Citigroup, Coca Cola, Daimler Chrysler, Deutsche Bank, Ericsson, Ford, GlaxoSmithKline, Lloyd TSB, NASA, Nestle, the New York Stock Exchange, Reuters, Shell, T-Mobile, the US Department of Energy, the US Department of Homeland Security and the US Securities and Exchange Commission. More than 350 companies OEM Autonomy technology, including BEA, Citrix, EDS, H-P, Novell, Oracle, Sybase and TIBCO, and the company has over 400 VARs and Systems Integrators. The company has offices worldwide.
Autonomy and the Autonomy logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of Autonomy Corporation plc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
Microsoft hosts Autonomy's software to meet scalability, connectivity and conceptual search requirements of most demanding deployments.
[ Cambridge, UK and San Francisco, California, 22 September 2008 ] - Autonomy Corporation (LSE: AU. or AU.L), a global leader in infrastructure software for the enterprise, today announced its information processing technology extends Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) to meet customer requirements for scalability, connectivity and conceptual search.
Autonomy's Intelligent Data Operating Layer (IDOL) software is hosted by Microsoft or deployed onsite by hundreds of large, global MOSS customers to enable SharePoint users to find and process content based on understanding the meaning of information. As an example, IDOL's highly scalable, distributed architecture is in use in one of the world's largest SharePoint retrieval projects, which consists of 400 000 users, 25 000 sites, and over one billion documents.
SharePoint's portal and collaboration capabilities have led to rapid adoption and widespread use in large, geographically dispersed organisations. IDOL's distributed and modular architecture complements MOSS by enabling users to access SharePoint files over Wide Area Networks (WANs), overcoming a major challenge for global companies with distributed servers as Shared Service Providers (SSPs) do not natively support WAN communications. Moreover, encrypted inter-machine and intra-process communication protocols are woven into the fabric of Autonomy's modular design at a fundamental level, providing secure transmission of information throughout the architecture. IDOL routinely supports millions of documents, hundreds of thousands of users, and hundreds of thousands of transactions on distributed commodity servers, with the largest installation exceeding 10 billion documents.
Autonomy further extends global MOSS scalability through its distributed, brokered architecture and "geo-efficient" design, which allows data to be automatically replicated in the most sensible location based on bandwidth, lag time, availability and demand. This enables high performance and gives users aggregated access to all enterprise information in a unified view in globally dispersed environments, while reducing bandwidth overhead. Because IDOL creates a stub, or shortcut, to the data and supports tiered storage rather than requiring that data be stored in SQL Server, organisations using IDOL with SharePoint can further benefit from dramatically reduced SQL Server licences and associated scalability limitations. In addition, large enterprises with complex deployments can take advantage of IDOL's redundancy, load balancing, mirroring and high failover to enable linear scalability, high availability and rapid performance of MOSS.
Autonomy IDOL's mature connector framework, which supports over 400 repositories, is additionally leveraged by organisations with SharePoint to avoid custom creation of IFilters and Protocol Handlers and ensure all data will be indexed. Autonomy IDOL can index and automatically analyse any piece of information from over 1 000 different content formats, unifying enterprise information to allow an unprecedented view of the organisation's information assets. This enables SharePoint to transform from a departmental collaboration solution to enterprise collaboration.
Furthermore, Autonomy's advanced conceptual search functionality supplements native MOSS capabilities to enrich the search experience. IDOL forms an understanding of the content of any given page and makes contextual associations between pages, documents, multimedia and search queries to ensure users are always provided with information that is particularly relevant to them. Using the idea behind the given words, and not just the words themselves, IDOL avoids inaccuracy and retrieves not just the most popular content, but the most pertinent.
"SharePoint delivers excellent 'interface and workflow' frameworks for productivity and content applications, but the large and growing volumes of users and rapid increases in content in SharePoint deployments necessitate the highest levels of security and scalability, which Autonomy delivers," commented Mike Lynch, chief executive officer of Autonomy. "The advanced pan-enterprise search capabilities of IDOL leverage Meaning-Based Computing technology to form a conceptual understanding of all data, regardless of what or where it is. This enables customers to capitalise on their SharePoint investments and harness the full richness of human information."
Autonomy provides Microsoft's SharePoint Server customers with:
* A conceptual understanding of the information within MOSS to proactively make connections between users, enhancing collaboration among them.
* A modular, distributed architecture supporting enterprise-class scalability for hundreds of thousands of enterprise users accessing hundreds of terabytes of data with sub-second response, indexing in excess of 110GB/hour and supporting over 470 million documents on 64-bit platforms.
* Unique Mapped Security and native support for all enterprise security models, permitting MOSS to be run within security sensitive environments, such as DOD 5015, EAL, and Bell-LaPadula.
* Extension of standard Microsoft's IFilter file support from 16 to 1 000+ file formats, including ODF and PDFX, with native support for over 400 repositories regardless of operating system.
* Over 500 advanced functions, such as expertise location, communities, implicit profiling, explicit personalisation, automatic categorisation, clustering, geo searching, automatic query guidance, and automatic hyperlinking.
Autonomy
Autonomy Corporation (LSE: AU. or AU.L) is a global leader in infrastructure software for the enterprise and is spearheading the meaning-based computing movement. Autonomy's technology allows computers to harness the full richness of human information, forming a conceptual and contextual understanding of any piece of electronic data including unstructured information, be it text, e-mail, voice or video. Autonomy's software powers the full spectrum of mission-critical enterprise applications, including information access technology, pan-enterprise search, information governance, end-to-end eDiscovery and archiving, records management, business process management, customer interaction solutions, and video and audio analysis, and is recognised by industry analysts as the clear leader in enterprise search.
Autonomy's customer base comprises of more than 17 000 global companies and organisations, including: 3, ABN AMRO, AOL, BAE Systems, BBC, Bloomberg, Boeing, Citigroup, Coca Cola, Daimler Chrysler, Deutsche Bank, Ericsson, Ford, GlaxoSmithKline, Lloyd TSB, NASA, Nestle, the New York Stock Exchange, Reuters, Shell, T-Mobile, the US Department of Energy, the US Department of Homeland Security and the US Securities and Exchange Commission. More than 350 companies OEM Autonomy technology, including BEA, Citrix, EDS, H-P, Novell, Oracle, Sybase and TIBCO, and the company has over 400 VARs and Systems Integrators. The company has offices worldwide.
Autonomy and the Autonomy logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of Autonomy Corporation plc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
Gustaf's Microsoft Dynamics CRM & SharePoint Blog: The power of SharePoint
Gustaf's Microsoft Dynamics CRM & SharePoint Blog: The power of SharePoint
The power of SharePoint
Presently I am employed at Logica as a consultant and the projects I am involved in are always Dynamcis CRM centered. However, I used to work at Humandata earlier, run by the SharePoint MVP Göran Husman and I am since this time a devoted SharePoint fan.
Apart from this, it is also a great tool for running projects in. Instead of millions of post-its with all the questionsmarks in the project, we use a discussion board. Instead of impossible hierarchies of folder for SureStep documents, we use one Document Library with Meta-data describing what part of SureStep the document should be connected to. This way, documents are easier to find, easier to work with, easier to share and we get version control all for free.
The power of SharePoint
Presently I am employed at Logica as a consultant and the projects I am involved in are always Dynamcis CRM centered. However, I used to work at Humandata earlier, run by the SharePoint MVP Göran Husman and I am since this time a devoted SharePoint fan.
Apart from this, it is also a great tool for running projects in. Instead of millions of post-its with all the questionsmarks in the project, we use a discussion board. Instead of impossible hierarchies of folder for SureStep documents, we use one Document Library with Meta-data describing what part of SureStep the document should be connected to. This way, documents are easier to find, easier to work with, easier to share and we get version control all for free.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
FT.com / Digital Business / Personal view - Going for a song
FT.com / Digital Business / Personal view - Going for a song
Going for a song
By David Ford, chief executive of Securecoms Ltd
Published: September 18 2008 16:52 | Last updated: September 18 2008 16:52
Keeping confidential information secure seems to be getting harder and harder. It’s not enough to protect your own networks, computers and storage devices – you must also worry about anyone else who might hold your data.
We need to consider very carefully what happens to confidential and personal information when it’s in our possession and, importantly, when it leaves our offices. Electronic data takes on a life of its own. While photocopying paper files is a lengthy undertaking, copies of electronic data are created in moments and then cease to be accounted for. Just ask someone to look at the contents of their USB stick – almost always you’ll find documents there which should have been deleted long ago.
With scandals about sensitive data being lost, or popping up where it shouldn’t, seeming to occur daily the urgency of addressing the security implications of our ever-increasing technological capabilities has become acute. We are now exploring the security of the various devices we carry outside the office but we’re still overlooking the main route by which confidential information leaves the security of our office networks – e-mail.
Every day, highly confidential information travels round the internet insecurely. We wouldn’t dream of entering our credit card details on an insecure web page; we certainly wouldn’t conduct our online banking that way but we use e-mail to transport the majority of written business communication. Businesses of all sizes, and their advisers, send every conceivable sort of confidential information via e-mail – either contained directly in the e-mail or, increasingly, using e-mail as the conduit to send documents as attachments.
Using e-mail is like sending your communications by postcard. Actually it’s worse than that. Postcards, at least, remain in the possession of the post office until delivered. E-mails, on the other hand, travel across an insecure public network and pass through many unknown points before arriving at their destination.
We rage when we hear the latest story about a government laptop being lost or stolen, or a memory stick being mislaid, or CDs being lost in the post, yet we are all guilty of similar security lapses by sending unprotected confidential information out via e-mail.
Public companies, for example, send price-sensitive information to their various advisers during the periods before the making of announcements via e-mail. The Financial Services Authority has expressed concern that there is too much leakage of sensitive information and has reviewed the whole area of IT. However, although it recognised that external network connections should be secured by encryption (recommending the use of VPNs), it made no similar recommendations in connection with the encryption of e-mails. It made the obvious point that sensitive information should not be e-mailed to web-based e-mail accounts (presumably they meant free e-mail accounts) and that “address auto-complete” should be disabled, but didn’t devote any deep thought to the whole issue of the insecurity of e-mail.
Similarly, the Information Commissioner’s Office has not tackled the issue of insecure e-mail. The ICO accepts that sending unencrypted e-mail on open networks poses a security risk but, since its resources are stretched, it is concentrating on what it sees as more pressing problems – unencrypted laptops, disks and memory sticks. In other words it is not prepared to take a lead, preferring to react to events after they occur.
The only organisations in the UK that have made clear recommendations on this topic are the Law Society and the Bar Council. However, despite this advice from their professional bodies, more than 99 per cent of e-mails sent by solicitors and barristers are still sent insecurely.
The situation is not complicated. We have developed technologies that enable us to store and manipulate masses of personal and confidential information with ease. These capabilities impose a responsibility on us to ensure information is kept securely. We have accepted for some time that we must keep our internal networks secure.
However, now that it has become so easy to take or send information outside the secure environments we have built, we must ensure it is properly protected en route. This must be true whether information is carried on a laptop or a USB stick or sent out on a CD or an e-mail. An appropriate form of encryption is the only real security solution.
Until this simple principle is adopted by all of the main regulatory authorities and the message clearly conveyed to all of us who deal in confidences, whether our own or others, nothing will be done. Only when secure e-mail becomes an expected norm will we adopt the necessary systems to ensure that stories about yet another scandalous loss of personal data or confidential information have become a thing of the past.
David Ford is chief executive of Securecoms Ltd and former managing partner of Tarlo Lyons, the law firm
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
Going for a song
By David Ford, chief executive of Securecoms Ltd
Published: September 18 2008 16:52 | Last updated: September 18 2008 16:52
Keeping confidential information secure seems to be getting harder and harder. It’s not enough to protect your own networks, computers and storage devices – you must also worry about anyone else who might hold your data.
We need to consider very carefully what happens to confidential and personal information when it’s in our possession and, importantly, when it leaves our offices. Electronic data takes on a life of its own. While photocopying paper files is a lengthy undertaking, copies of electronic data are created in moments and then cease to be accounted for. Just ask someone to look at the contents of their USB stick – almost always you’ll find documents there which should have been deleted long ago.
With scandals about sensitive data being lost, or popping up where it shouldn’t, seeming to occur daily the urgency of addressing the security implications of our ever-increasing technological capabilities has become acute. We are now exploring the security of the various devices we carry outside the office but we’re still overlooking the main route by which confidential information leaves the security of our office networks – e-mail.
Every day, highly confidential information travels round the internet insecurely. We wouldn’t dream of entering our credit card details on an insecure web page; we certainly wouldn’t conduct our online banking that way but we use e-mail to transport the majority of written business communication. Businesses of all sizes, and their advisers, send every conceivable sort of confidential information via e-mail – either contained directly in the e-mail or, increasingly, using e-mail as the conduit to send documents as attachments.
Using e-mail is like sending your communications by postcard. Actually it’s worse than that. Postcards, at least, remain in the possession of the post office until delivered. E-mails, on the other hand, travel across an insecure public network and pass through many unknown points before arriving at their destination.
We rage when we hear the latest story about a government laptop being lost or stolen, or a memory stick being mislaid, or CDs being lost in the post, yet we are all guilty of similar security lapses by sending unprotected confidential information out via e-mail.
Public companies, for example, send price-sensitive information to their various advisers during the periods before the making of announcements via e-mail. The Financial Services Authority has expressed concern that there is too much leakage of sensitive information and has reviewed the whole area of IT. However, although it recognised that external network connections should be secured by encryption (recommending the use of VPNs), it made no similar recommendations in connection with the encryption of e-mails. It made the obvious point that sensitive information should not be e-mailed to web-based e-mail accounts (presumably they meant free e-mail accounts) and that “address auto-complete” should be disabled, but didn’t devote any deep thought to the whole issue of the insecurity of e-mail.
Similarly, the Information Commissioner’s Office has not tackled the issue of insecure e-mail. The ICO accepts that sending unencrypted e-mail on open networks poses a security risk but, since its resources are stretched, it is concentrating on what it sees as more pressing problems – unencrypted laptops, disks and memory sticks. In other words it is not prepared to take a lead, preferring to react to events after they occur.
The only organisations in the UK that have made clear recommendations on this topic are the Law Society and the Bar Council. However, despite this advice from their professional bodies, more than 99 per cent of e-mails sent by solicitors and barristers are still sent insecurely.
The situation is not complicated. We have developed technologies that enable us to store and manipulate masses of personal and confidential information with ease. These capabilities impose a responsibility on us to ensure information is kept securely. We have accepted for some time that we must keep our internal networks secure.
However, now that it has become so easy to take or send information outside the secure environments we have built, we must ensure it is properly protected en route. This must be true whether information is carried on a laptop or a USB stick or sent out on a CD or an e-mail. An appropriate form of encryption is the only real security solution.
Until this simple principle is adopted by all of the main regulatory authorities and the message clearly conveyed to all of us who deal in confidences, whether our own or others, nothing will be done. Only when secure e-mail becomes an expected norm will we adopt the necessary systems to ensure that stories about yet another scandalous loss of personal data or confidential information have become a thing of the past.
David Ford is chief executive of Securecoms Ltd and former managing partner of Tarlo Lyons, the law firm
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Improve Your Collaboration with Microsoft® SharePoint®-based Solutions
Improve Your Collaboration with Microsoft® SharePoint®-based Solutions
Information sharing, both inside and outside the enterprise, continues to be a challenge for many organizations. BearingPoint believes that distributed information management supported by a centralized management infrastructure can help address this issue. We have been collaborating with Microsoft for nearly 10 years; we’re building on that experience to create enterprise information solutions based on Microsoft® SharePoint® technology.
Microsoft® SharePoint® provides a framework that can help improve:
- Collaboration
- Business intelligence
- Business processes
- Content management
- Search capabilities
SharePoint® -based solutions can help organizations manage information seamlessly across their enterprise. This technology facilitates collaboration and distributed project management by supporting central deployment of the infrastructure needed to create and support cross-enterprise activities. The technology is non-intrusive and integrates with desktop applications. However, it is also far reaching in terms of supporting the complex workflows and information sharing that communities of interests require.
BearingPoint consultants can combine SharePoint® with other core Microsoft technologies to create customized solutions that provide rich security, document management and collaboration features. And SharePoint® -based applications can grow as your organization grows and evolves.
Learn more about SharePoint®-based Solutions. Contact Us
Information sharing, both inside and outside the enterprise, continues to be a challenge for many organizations. BearingPoint believes that distributed information management supported by a centralized management infrastructure can help address this issue. We have been collaborating with Microsoft for nearly 10 years; we’re building on that experience to create enterprise information solutions based on Microsoft® SharePoint® technology.
Microsoft® SharePoint® provides a framework that can help improve:
- Collaboration
- Business intelligence
- Business processes
- Content management
- Search capabilities
SharePoint® -based solutions can help organizations manage information seamlessly across their enterprise. This technology facilitates collaboration and distributed project management by supporting central deployment of the infrastructure needed to create and support cross-enterprise activities. The technology is non-intrusive and integrates with desktop applications. However, it is also far reaching in terms of supporting the complex workflows and information sharing that communities of interests require.
BearingPoint consultants can combine SharePoint® with other core Microsoft technologies to create customized solutions that provide rich security, document management and collaboration features. And SharePoint® -based applications can grow as your organization grows and evolves.
Learn more about SharePoint®-based Solutions. Contact Us
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Information governance – more than a guiding force? (FT.com)
Information governance – more than a guiding force?
By Mike Lynch, founder and chief executive of Autonomy
Published: September 16 2008 11:40 | Last updated: September 16 2008 11:40
Corporate attitudes to information governance are changing. The exponential growth of information that is created and cultivated within a business has in many ways become as much a liability as it has an asset.
Regulatory fines, internal fraud, and class action lawsuits, unexpected personal data leaks and loss can cost a business millions, and impact the corporate brand with a backlash of public opinion which can devastate a company for years and in some cases, such as that of Arthur Andersen, the damage can be irreversible.
In the corporate world these days the smoking gun is often found on a server and that is where the regulator has learned to look.
The two extreme policies of keeping everything, or alternatively keeping nothing, are in most industries now illegal and certainly out of date. While we may long for the days when a midnight e-mail from IT could kindly ask employees to clean up their network folders, stop using personal hard drives, or refrain from deleting germane files needed in a legal case, organisations are recognising that the potential damage from rogue (or uninformed) employees far outweighs reliance on principle alone.
These risks are driving organisations to implement strict information policies for accessing, holding and disposing of data in a timely manner to ensure compliance and avoid hefty fines or, in the worst cases, criminal prosecution.
Gone are the days when compliance used to be determined by a filing cabinet. Today more than 80 per cent of data in the enterprise is not neatly organised on shelves and resides outside the scope of structured databases on laptops, servers, and mobile devices across corporate divisions, languages and geographic boundaries.
With documents, e-mails, instant messages, blogs, and audio files being created at uncontrollable levels, and a huge influx of rich media into the business, this content has become particularly hard to retrieve, systematise and certainly govern.
Traditional approaches where companies simply preserve everything cannot be sustained. The cost of storage is far more than hardware alone, and organisations struggle to use basic search technologies to find relevant information when needed. Data protection laws may not allow retention and in any case unnecessarily retained information can cause cost and unexpected liability, for example during e-discovery for lawsuits.
The sheer volume of this unstructured data and the crude number of governing policies that can affect content have for long nourished the misconception that an organisation needs an army of professionals stationed at every digital intersection to decide the appropriate course of action: a model as unappealing as it is impractical.
True information governance goes beyond merely alerting a compliance officer to a potential set of policy violations or counting the number of privacy breaches. It includes broad control and action and does not leave enforcement to individuals who are unable to keep up with the volume and speed of modern business. This should happen in real-time with visibility into the process to foster collaboration among compliance officers, legal, and IT.
Unfortunately these challenges have led many executives to operate under the misguided notion that true information governance can only exist as a guiding force and not a proposed reality.
They fail to realise that a fundamental shift in the way computers operate enables intelligence and automation within governance. Meaning-based computing allows computers to ingest information in its native human-friendly format, form a conceptual understanding of the content, its inherent rules and security entitlements, and take action upon it.
This ability of computers to understand the meaning of data – the who, when, where and how of content – enables a fundamental shift from manual to automated, consistent, and secure governance.
Technology can now read an e-mail as it is sent, realise it is a compliance issue and prevent it being sent out. It can analyse the files on a laptop and lock down those relevant to a legal case. It can take a message and realise it concerns a national of a country that does not allow information on its citizens to be held outside its borders and route it to the right server for storage. It can take a message, read it and understand it and decide that it must be archived for seven years, while another message for only 30 days. Then after the allotted time it can automatically delete them.
By gaining a conceptual understanding of all corporate data, one is able to utilise a policy-based approach effectively to execute all processes associated with the retention, supervision and ultimate disposition of electronic information. Organisations are able to define and apply policies at the point of data creation, automating information classification based on its content, flagging any non-compliant documents, preserving data in archives and integrating disposition management systems that can honour any legal holds.
Just as we saw Sarbanes Oxley as a response to the Enron era, it is likely we will see a further acceleration of information governance regulations as a response to the events of the sub-prime crisis.
These new rules along with the consequences of the recent changes in the US Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP), Data Protection legislation, Compliance regulations and many countries’ new geographic storage rules will drive the need for companies to take a pan-enterprise view of information governance.
By automating information governance to reduce business risk, we ultimately safeguard the guiding principles that drive the vast majority of employees and officers to protect the integrity of the corporate brand, while not impeding the creativity and flexibility that drive value in modern business.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
By Mike Lynch, founder and chief executive of Autonomy
Published: September 16 2008 11:40 | Last updated: September 16 2008 11:40
Corporate attitudes to information governance are changing. The exponential growth of information that is created and cultivated within a business has in many ways become as much a liability as it has an asset.
Regulatory fines, internal fraud, and class action lawsuits, unexpected personal data leaks and loss can cost a business millions, and impact the corporate brand with a backlash of public opinion which can devastate a company for years and in some cases, such as that of Arthur Andersen, the damage can be irreversible.
In the corporate world these days the smoking gun is often found on a server and that is where the regulator has learned to look.
The two extreme policies of keeping everything, or alternatively keeping nothing, are in most industries now illegal and certainly out of date. While we may long for the days when a midnight e-mail from IT could kindly ask employees to clean up their network folders, stop using personal hard drives, or refrain from deleting germane files needed in a legal case, organisations are recognising that the potential damage from rogue (or uninformed) employees far outweighs reliance on principle alone.
These risks are driving organisations to implement strict information policies for accessing, holding and disposing of data in a timely manner to ensure compliance and avoid hefty fines or, in the worst cases, criminal prosecution.
Gone are the days when compliance used to be determined by a filing cabinet. Today more than 80 per cent of data in the enterprise is not neatly organised on shelves and resides outside the scope of structured databases on laptops, servers, and mobile devices across corporate divisions, languages and geographic boundaries.
With documents, e-mails, instant messages, blogs, and audio files being created at uncontrollable levels, and a huge influx of rich media into the business, this content has become particularly hard to retrieve, systematise and certainly govern.
Traditional approaches where companies simply preserve everything cannot be sustained. The cost of storage is far more than hardware alone, and organisations struggle to use basic search technologies to find relevant information when needed. Data protection laws may not allow retention and in any case unnecessarily retained information can cause cost and unexpected liability, for example during e-discovery for lawsuits.
The sheer volume of this unstructured data and the crude number of governing policies that can affect content have for long nourished the misconception that an organisation needs an army of professionals stationed at every digital intersection to decide the appropriate course of action: a model as unappealing as it is impractical.
True information governance goes beyond merely alerting a compliance officer to a potential set of policy violations or counting the number of privacy breaches. It includes broad control and action and does not leave enforcement to individuals who are unable to keep up with the volume and speed of modern business. This should happen in real-time with visibility into the process to foster collaboration among compliance officers, legal, and IT.
Unfortunately these challenges have led many executives to operate under the misguided notion that true information governance can only exist as a guiding force and not a proposed reality.
They fail to realise that a fundamental shift in the way computers operate enables intelligence and automation within governance. Meaning-based computing allows computers to ingest information in its native human-friendly format, form a conceptual understanding of the content, its inherent rules and security entitlements, and take action upon it.
This ability of computers to understand the meaning of data – the who, when, where and how of content – enables a fundamental shift from manual to automated, consistent, and secure governance.
Technology can now read an e-mail as it is sent, realise it is a compliance issue and prevent it being sent out. It can analyse the files on a laptop and lock down those relevant to a legal case. It can take a message and realise it concerns a national of a country that does not allow information on its citizens to be held outside its borders and route it to the right server for storage. It can take a message, read it and understand it and decide that it must be archived for seven years, while another message for only 30 days. Then after the allotted time it can automatically delete them.
By gaining a conceptual understanding of all corporate data, one is able to utilise a policy-based approach effectively to execute all processes associated with the retention, supervision and ultimate disposition of electronic information. Organisations are able to define and apply policies at the point of data creation, automating information classification based on its content, flagging any non-compliant documents, preserving data in archives and integrating disposition management systems that can honour any legal holds.
Just as we saw Sarbanes Oxley as a response to the Enron era, it is likely we will see a further acceleration of information governance regulations as a response to the events of the sub-prime crisis.
These new rules along with the consequences of the recent changes in the US Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP), Data Protection legislation, Compliance regulations and many countries’ new geographic storage rules will drive the need for companies to take a pan-enterprise view of information governance.
By automating information governance to reduce business risk, we ultimately safeguard the guiding principles that drive the vast majority of employees and officers to protect the integrity of the corporate brand, while not impeding the creativity and flexibility that drive value in modern business.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
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