Mobile networks: The race is on to keep the data flowing
By Stephen Pritchard
Published: June 16 2010 01:02 | Last updated: June 16 2010 01:02
Smartphones – such as Apple’s iPhone or Research In Motion’s BlackBerry – have given mobile operators a much needed boost during the recession. Sales of these high-end, usually higher margin handsets have continued to grow.
Research by US-based analysts comScore, found that smartphone sales in Europe’s five largest markets grew 32 per cent in 2009, and by a staggering 70 per cent in the UK.
Internal data compiled by Nokia Siemens Networks, the cellular equipment vendor, found that 11 per cent of consumers said they accessed the internet using a mobile handset in 2008; by last year, the figure was 33 per cent.
As a result, mobile networks are starting to show the strain from far greater numbers of more sophisticated users and handsets. Smartphones, with their “always on” connections and data-intensive applications, are rapidly using up scarce radio spectrum, with one chief technology officer calling it “the iPhone problem”.
The problem is not, of course, restricted to smartphones: 3G dongles, 3G-equipped laptops and even devices such as satellite navigation sets or Amazon’s Kindle, which downloads data in the background, are causing capacity shortages.
According to research carried out by analysts at Exane BNP Paribas, an investment bank, for WiFi operator The Cloud, mobile networks are likely to run out of data capacity within the next three years – and in some areas, as soon as a year.
The typical mobile network subscriber will use two to three times as much data in 2012 as they do today, the research predicts. But the aggregate increase in data traffic – combining both subscriber growth and those subscribers each using more data – could see network data traffic increasing 10-fold year on year.
Some operators are certainly seeing phenomenal growth. At the CTIA Wireless event in Las Vegas in March, AT&T reported a 500 per cent rise in data traffic. AT&T is the exclusive US carrier for the iPhone, as well as for the Palm Pre.
“There are three main problems,” explains Ed Marsden, partner in the telecommunications practice at Deloitte. “The first is the volume of devices using the network. There are now 600m mobile broadband connections, and smartphones have overtaken PCs.
“The second factor is how consumers are using these devices. With ‘all you can eat’ data plans, we’ve gone from under-utilisation to congestion. One large US operator has identified a 5,000 per cent increase in data growth in the past three years.
“The third is our level of understanding of, and the optimisation of, networks. Some smartphones strain the network: they generate eight times the signal load of a mobile broadband [dongle] connection. It’s about understanding how the network is being used and where the pinch-points are.”
There is little doubt that the mobile data industry is becoming a victim of its own success. But as yet, it seems unable to agree on a solution, nor on the likely threat of mobile network congestion to business users of data services.
At the network level, some operators are pinning their hopes on a move to a fourth-generation technology known as Long Term Evolution, or LTE, which promises more efficient use of the radio spectrum, especially for data traffic. The greater spectrum range should allow more users to connect at maximum bandwidth at the same time.
Even vendors of fourth-generation equipment, however, acknowledge that LTE might be too little and too late to solve the network capacity problem.
Operators have been conserving cash during the downturn, so the first large-scale LTE deployments, such as that of US carrier Verizon – will only start in earnest this year.
Moreover, few devices currently support LTE, and for an operator to make full use of the spectrum, it will need to move significant numbers of users to the new radio technology.
As an interim measure, operators are starting to look at alternative radio technologies, including WiFi, WiMax, and even multicast transmission technologies, such as Qualcomm’s MediaFlo, to handle some of the data traffic.
On a more localised level, operators are looking at femtocells to add capacity. These small cellular base stations plug into a business or home user’s broadband line, and route traffic via that connection to the operator’s network. Larger, picocells could be used in public areas.
Samir Khazaha, a senior director at Qualcomm, the cellular technology vendor, says: “Networks are going to rely on more picocells and femtocells, and a proliferation of antennae, so wherever users are, there is one nearby.”
Although almost all smartphones are equipped with multi-radio chips, which can operate over both WiFi and 3G connections, not all handsets manage the transition to WiFi with ease. As a result, operators would need to develop software that switches phones to the nearest available connection without the need for user intervention.
Unfortunately, outside some very busy areas, such as airports and railway stations, WiFi rarely provides seamless coverage.
To fill in these gaps, operators would need to persuade private businesses or even individual broadband subscribers to open up their access points to wireless traffic. As yet, there is no proven business model for this.
Sylvain Fabre, a research director at Gartner, the industry analyst, says: “WiFi is not ubiquitous, so it won’t allow operators to offload everything they need to offload.”
Nor does better local radio coverage solve all the operators’ problems; they will also need to upgrade their core networks.
“Operators will have to build a core network that supports any type of traffic and have the technique to monitor traffic in real time,” explains Thierry Maupilé, head of strategy and business development at Starent, a Cisco company.
Such networks, he suggests, will have to prioritise traffic depending on who the user is and what they are trying to do.
A “gold” tier business user might have traffic routed over a connection with a guaranteed service level; a standard-rate consumer might receive a “best efforts” service, but pay rather less.
This could, ultimately, offer the best solution to operators needing to manage capacity and constrain capital expenditure: to restrict demand.
It might be hard, or even impossible, to wean consumers from flat-rate data pricing, but that need not mean they have to receive the same service as higher-value, business users.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010. Print a single copy of this article for personal use. Contact us if you wish to print more to distribute to others.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Design technologies: Flying off the digital drawing board
By Sarah Murray
Published: June 16 2010 01:02 | Last updated: June 16 2010 01:02
Launching an athlete-endorsed sports shoe on the US market used to be a long process. Designs on paper would be sent to Asia, a local manufacturer would create a mock-up and ship it back to the US for the athlete to endorse. Changes to the design would then be sent back and forth and it might be months before the shoe would appear on store shelves.
Digital technology has changed all that. A shoe would now be designed on a screen and a physical mock-up would be created using a three-dimensional printer, painted up in the appropriate colours and couriered to the athlete for approval.
DESIGNING THE CITY
Hear how technology will change life in the world’s cities, in our latest podcast
“That’s now a two-week process,” says Joan Lockhart, vice-president of marketing at SensAble Technologies, which develops 3D touch-enabled technology for the design of consumer, medical and industrial products.
“Athletic footwear is a fashion industry where there used to be two seasons a year. Now there are seven – and that’s an incredibly rapid pace of design enhancement.”
The way “rapid prototype 3D printers” work is by building a physical object one layer at a time using data fed to them by a computer. While they may take several hours to print out a full object in three dimensions, this is far less than is needed to construct most physical prototypes.
“Designing and developing products with 3D technology makes a difference to companies.
“It allows new levels of consumer interaction to be established, enabling earlier feedback, reducing product risks and speeding development cycles,” says Peter Bambridge of Dassault Systèmes’ consumer and retail business in the northern Europe, Middle East and Africa (Emea) region.
“If a picture is worth a thousand words, a 3D model is worth a million.”
However, accelerating the speed of execution is not the only way 3D and other digital tools are changing the way products are designed and manufactured. Computerisation also radically cuts the waste generated during the design-to-production cycle.
“If you think about a physical prototype, it’s scrap, and companies throw it away at the end of the process,” says Michael Bloor, North American chief operating officer for ESI, which provides digital simulation software for prototyping and manufacturing processes. “Simulating the manufacturing processes for components, parts and products reduces scrap.”
When this principle is applied to buildings, the reduction in waste becomes significant. The construction industry, which has been known for over-use of materials, is now able to assess more accurately what will be needed for each project.
Many more of the parts of a building can be pre-fabricated offsite, which also cuts waste, and by making laser scans of the existing site, companies can recycle more of the demolished materials.
“You can get a better understanding of the amounts of materials that are required for construction,” says Richard Scott-Smith, an engineer and design tools manager at Atkins, the engineering design services provider. “Fewer errors are made and so there’s less need for rework in both the design and construction.”
In addition, computer-based modelling gives architects a clearer picture of how to design buildings that consume less energy, since they can simulate the impact of natural light and heat on the building at different times of day and in different seasons.
This helps architects make greater use of natural light and introduce elements such as natural shading, which reduces the need for air-conditioning.
For example, Autodesk, the 2D and 3D design, engineering and entertainment software company, makes Ecotect analysis software, which helps architects simulate a building’s performance in the context of its environment, including calculating the amount of daylight present when the sun is at different positions throughout the day.
“It allows you to produce a conceptual model that provides instant feedback as to the thermal performance of that building,” says Pete Baxter, Autodesk senior director for Northern Europe.
“If you increase thermal overhangs and natural shading [in the virtual design], it gives you feedback on the resulting comfort level in the building.”
While helping to limit environmental damage and reduce consumption of resources, IT tools are also affecting the bottom line, cutting costs from the process of producing and refining new products and allowing companies to reduce wasted materials.
For HTC, a Swedish industrial floor maintenance equipment manufacturer, the savings associated with using technology in the design process were considerable.
A single physical prototype for HTC’s machines costs $500,000 to make, and at one time the company needed to produce up to five of them for every new product being developed.
Using digital prototyping technology from Autodesk, HTC has been able to build products based on a single physical prototype. “And that prototype was so close to the original requirement that they could sell it,” says Mr Baxter. “So there’s massive cost and time savings.”
Meanwhile, digital design supports the increasingly global nature of complex engineering assets such as chemical plants and power stations, allowing real-time engineering data to be shared between all the contractors working on the project.
“Those organisations have their own disciplines and geographies,” says Mat Truche-Gordon, senior vice-president of business strategy at Aveva, the engineering software group.
“So it’s crucial for the primary contractor to be able to organise the information between the multiple disciplines and the multiple contractors during that design phase.”
In the engineering industry, lasergrammetry – surveying by 3D laser scanner – allows a virtual “walk through” of every aspect of a plant to be conducted remotely. The system captures visual details of an object such as a pump and links them to information about its specifications, sources of spare parts and maintenance procedures, as well as its real-time performance and service history.
Yet, if a piece of industrial infrastructure is a complex ecosystem, so is the human body. The challenge for the healthcare industry is designing products that fit inside a human body. Now, using body scans and digital design technology, medical device manufacturers can customise implants such as hip replacements to individual patients.
“In the past, if you needed a hip implant, you could pick from small, medium or large,” says Ms Lockhart. “Now we’re making patient-specific implants.”
In the consumer products sector, companies armed with digital technology can make greater use of feedback from customers in the design of their goods.
The ability to experience designs before they are manufactured through visualisation software and rapid prototyping 3D printers means physical objects can be refined, enhanced and tested in focus groups at a far earlier stage in the process.
Digital design technology brings together visualisation, simulation and analysis, says Autodesk’s Mr Baxter. “That allows the design team to make informed decisions at the conceptual stage and continually refine the design through all stages of the process.”
This leads to more accurate designs and products that can respond more closely to the demands of the market.
As with the example of the sports shoes, this has important implications for consumer products manufacturers, for whom innovation, time to market and ability to respond swiftly to changing consumer demand are critical.
However, Olof Schybergson, founder and chief executive of Fjord, a digital design agency, sounds a note of caution. The sheer speed at which technology allows designs to become reality, he argues, can lead to companies spending insufficient time thinking through a new product.
“Analytical tools are not the answer to everything,” he says. “They could help you build a better functioning building, but it might have been a bad idea to put a building in that area in the first place.”
In their haste to get new products to market, the ability to create new forms with complex structures using new materials can lead manufacturers to sidestep the processes not based on technology.
“This can lead to the wrong design being marketed,” says Mike Paton, an expert in technology and innovation at PA Consulting Group. “The tools must be used as part of a concurrent development and evaluation process.”
Yet, if the speed of design now possible means that companies need to do more research before rushing into the development of new products, digital technology also creates a level playing field, allowing smaller companies to innovate as rapidly as larger ones.
“Today, the ability of a company to push back the boundaries is based on the processing power of the computer on their desk,” says Mr Baxter.
“Cloud computing makes access to processing power easier, and that means all companies can do many hundreds of iterations of a design to optimise the product,” he says.
With processing power in their hands, far greater numbers of companies will be able to enter the design market.
For established players that can only mean one thing – the emergence of a far more competitive business landscape.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010. Print a single copy of this article for personal use. Contact us if you wish to print more to distribute to others.
Published: June 16 2010 01:02 | Last updated: June 16 2010 01:02
Launching an athlete-endorsed sports shoe on the US market used to be a long process. Designs on paper would be sent to Asia, a local manufacturer would create a mock-up and ship it back to the US for the athlete to endorse. Changes to the design would then be sent back and forth and it might be months before the shoe would appear on store shelves.
Digital technology has changed all that. A shoe would now be designed on a screen and a physical mock-up would be created using a three-dimensional printer, painted up in the appropriate colours and couriered to the athlete for approval.
DESIGNING THE CITY
Hear how technology will change life in the world’s cities, in our latest podcast
“That’s now a two-week process,” says Joan Lockhart, vice-president of marketing at SensAble Technologies, which develops 3D touch-enabled technology for the design of consumer, medical and industrial products.
“Athletic footwear is a fashion industry where there used to be two seasons a year. Now there are seven – and that’s an incredibly rapid pace of design enhancement.”
The way “rapid prototype 3D printers” work is by building a physical object one layer at a time using data fed to them by a computer. While they may take several hours to print out a full object in three dimensions, this is far less than is needed to construct most physical prototypes.
“Designing and developing products with 3D technology makes a difference to companies.
“It allows new levels of consumer interaction to be established, enabling earlier feedback, reducing product risks and speeding development cycles,” says Peter Bambridge of Dassault Systèmes’ consumer and retail business in the northern Europe, Middle East and Africa (Emea) region.
“If a picture is worth a thousand words, a 3D model is worth a million.”
However, accelerating the speed of execution is not the only way 3D and other digital tools are changing the way products are designed and manufactured. Computerisation also radically cuts the waste generated during the design-to-production cycle.
“If you think about a physical prototype, it’s scrap, and companies throw it away at the end of the process,” says Michael Bloor, North American chief operating officer for ESI, which provides digital simulation software for prototyping and manufacturing processes. “Simulating the manufacturing processes for components, parts and products reduces scrap.”
When this principle is applied to buildings, the reduction in waste becomes significant. The construction industry, which has been known for over-use of materials, is now able to assess more accurately what will be needed for each project.
Many more of the parts of a building can be pre-fabricated offsite, which also cuts waste, and by making laser scans of the existing site, companies can recycle more of the demolished materials.
“You can get a better understanding of the amounts of materials that are required for construction,” says Richard Scott-Smith, an engineer and design tools manager at Atkins, the engineering design services provider. “Fewer errors are made and so there’s less need for rework in both the design and construction.”
In addition, computer-based modelling gives architects a clearer picture of how to design buildings that consume less energy, since they can simulate the impact of natural light and heat on the building at different times of day and in different seasons.
This helps architects make greater use of natural light and introduce elements such as natural shading, which reduces the need for air-conditioning.
For example, Autodesk, the 2D and 3D design, engineering and entertainment software company, makes Ecotect analysis software, which helps architects simulate a building’s performance in the context of its environment, including calculating the amount of daylight present when the sun is at different positions throughout the day.
“It allows you to produce a conceptual model that provides instant feedback as to the thermal performance of that building,” says Pete Baxter, Autodesk senior director for Northern Europe.
“If you increase thermal overhangs and natural shading [in the virtual design], it gives you feedback on the resulting comfort level in the building.”
While helping to limit environmental damage and reduce consumption of resources, IT tools are also affecting the bottom line, cutting costs from the process of producing and refining new products and allowing companies to reduce wasted materials.
For HTC, a Swedish industrial floor maintenance equipment manufacturer, the savings associated with using technology in the design process were considerable.
A single physical prototype for HTC’s machines costs $500,000 to make, and at one time the company needed to produce up to five of them for every new product being developed.
Using digital prototyping technology from Autodesk, HTC has been able to build products based on a single physical prototype. “And that prototype was so close to the original requirement that they could sell it,” says Mr Baxter. “So there’s massive cost and time savings.”
Meanwhile, digital design supports the increasingly global nature of complex engineering assets such as chemical plants and power stations, allowing real-time engineering data to be shared between all the contractors working on the project.
“Those organisations have their own disciplines and geographies,” says Mat Truche-Gordon, senior vice-president of business strategy at Aveva, the engineering software group.
“So it’s crucial for the primary contractor to be able to organise the information between the multiple disciplines and the multiple contractors during that design phase.”
In the engineering industry, lasergrammetry – surveying by 3D laser scanner – allows a virtual “walk through” of every aspect of a plant to be conducted remotely. The system captures visual details of an object such as a pump and links them to information about its specifications, sources of spare parts and maintenance procedures, as well as its real-time performance and service history.
Yet, if a piece of industrial infrastructure is a complex ecosystem, so is the human body. The challenge for the healthcare industry is designing products that fit inside a human body. Now, using body scans and digital design technology, medical device manufacturers can customise implants such as hip replacements to individual patients.
“In the past, if you needed a hip implant, you could pick from small, medium or large,” says Ms Lockhart. “Now we’re making patient-specific implants.”
In the consumer products sector, companies armed with digital technology can make greater use of feedback from customers in the design of their goods.
The ability to experience designs before they are manufactured through visualisation software and rapid prototyping 3D printers means physical objects can be refined, enhanced and tested in focus groups at a far earlier stage in the process.
Digital design technology brings together visualisation, simulation and analysis, says Autodesk’s Mr Baxter. “That allows the design team to make informed decisions at the conceptual stage and continually refine the design through all stages of the process.”
This leads to more accurate designs and products that can respond more closely to the demands of the market.
As with the example of the sports shoes, this has important implications for consumer products manufacturers, for whom innovation, time to market and ability to respond swiftly to changing consumer demand are critical.
However, Olof Schybergson, founder and chief executive of Fjord, a digital design agency, sounds a note of caution. The sheer speed at which technology allows designs to become reality, he argues, can lead to companies spending insufficient time thinking through a new product.
“Analytical tools are not the answer to everything,” he says. “They could help you build a better functioning building, but it might have been a bad idea to put a building in that area in the first place.”
In their haste to get new products to market, the ability to create new forms with complex structures using new materials can lead manufacturers to sidestep the processes not based on technology.
“This can lead to the wrong design being marketed,” says Mike Paton, an expert in technology and innovation at PA Consulting Group. “The tools must be used as part of a concurrent development and evaluation process.”
Yet, if the speed of design now possible means that companies need to do more research before rushing into the development of new products, digital technology also creates a level playing field, allowing smaller companies to innovate as rapidly as larger ones.
“Today, the ability of a company to push back the boundaries is based on the processing power of the computer on their desk,” says Mr Baxter.
“Cloud computing makes access to processing power easier, and that means all companies can do many hundreds of iterations of a design to optimise the product,” he says.
With processing power in their hands, far greater numbers of companies will be able to enter the design market.
For established players that can only mean one thing – the emergence of a far more competitive business landscape.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010. Print a single copy of this article for personal use. Contact us if you wish to print more to distribute to others.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Microsoft Office 2010 gets connected
Microsoft Office 2010 gets connected
By Paul Taylor
Published: June 10 2010 22:51 | Last updated: June 10 2010 22:51
When I first got a personal computer – an Apple II, nearly 30 years ago – I played Pong for fun, used WordStar for word processing and put numbers into VisiCalc, the pioneering spreadsheet program.
Eventually most so-called personal productivity applications coalesced into heavy-duty software suites such as Microsoft Office, WordPerfect Office, Apple’s iWork and the open-source Open Office. Today, one of their biggest challenges is to compete directly with web- or cloud-based versions, such as Google Docs .
On Tuesday, the latest version of Microsoft’s flagship office productivity suite, Office 2010, goes on sale to the public. I have been running the “beta”, or trial, version of Office 2010 for six months, and the final code since it was made available to corporate customers a month ago.
For the first time, Office 2010 includes slimmed-down versions of Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote – under the umbrella term Office Web Apps – that allow users to view, edit and share documents online, something I have found particularly useful whenever I am away from my home PC, and help make Office users more connected.
The Web Apps – accessed via the Windows Live service – complement their desktop counterparts rather than compete directly with rivals such as Google Docs or Zoho Office, which generally offer richer features. Nevertheless, Microsoft clearly introduced Office Web Apps to try to halt defections to free or low-cost online alternatives to Office.
Microsoft has also priced Office 2010 aggressively – you can download the basic Home and Student version, which includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote, for $149 (£110 in the UK), or buy it loaded on a new PC for as little as $119 (£90). Boxed retail versions cost more.
Although Office Web Apps are one of the most dramatic additions, there are also plenty of small improvements and tweaks to the main desktop apps that, taken together, represent a significant upgrade.
The verdict
Microsoft Office 2010
Pros: Significant but low-cost upgrade to Office 2007; lots of new features to improve productivity; adds web-based apps.
Cons: Somewhat cumbersome.
Unlike Office 2007, when Microsoft introduced the controversial “ribbon” interface along the top of most of its desktop apps, there is just one big interface change in the latest version: the inclusion of the ribbon on Outlook, Microsoft’s e-mail, contact management and calendar desktop app, making it feel much more integrated into the Office suite. Office 2010 users can now customise the menu ribbon in all the desktop apps to assemble the commands they use most often – which should help satisfy critics who felt the ribbon lacked the simplicity of the old Office menu bar.
Overall, Office 2010 will feel familiar to anyone who uses Office 2007, and the version of the software available on Tuesday is very similar to the beta version, which was Microsoft’s most extensive software trial to date. More than 5.5m users downloaded the beta code, which expires in October.
The competition
WordPerfect Office X5
Pros: Rival manufactured by Corel, which commands a significant minority following; clean interface; file-compatible with Microsoft Office.
Cons: Relatively pricey.
OpenOffice 3.2.1
Pros: Free, open-source office suite that is mostly compatible with its rivals.
Cons: Occasional compatibility issues.
Google Docs
Pros: Free, web-based productivity suite that includes word processor, spreadsheet and presentation apps; clean and easy to use.
Cons: Requires internet connection.
But there are also enough nifty new features and productivity enhancements to keep potential buyers interested. My favourites include PowerPoint’s Broadcast Slide Show, which enables users to show a presentation remotely to anyone who has a web browser, while another PowerPoint option called Video Tools enabled me to pull in, edit and trim video clips from within the application.
I also like a new feature, the Backstage view, which includes several new options for creating, printing, saving and sharing a document as well as information about recent versions of the document and the “permissions” (who can do what) associated with it .
Among the core Office components of Word, Excel and PowerPoint, the latest version of Word has new features that make it easier to create visually exciting documents, while new tools in Excel make it easier to visualise complex data.
However, it is Outlook that has undergone the most dramatic – and long overdue – changes.
Some, such as the option to view all messages in an e-mail thread, rather than in purely chronological order, match those already available in Google’s Gmail. Others make it easier to manage, delete and organise messages (including deleting a whole e-mail thread), add new e-mail accounts and configure automatic “Out of Office” replies.
I also like the new Quick Steps feature, which makes it easy to create e-mail rules that apply to specific messages – for example, I got it to forward all messages from the boss to my personal e-mail. Other tweaks make it quicker to create a team calendar or set up meetings. Another new tool, Social Connector, enables users to connect to popular social and business networks, including Microsoft SharePoint, Windows Live and third-party social networking services such as Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace.
Overall, these changes transform Outlook from an ageing desktop e-mail app into a modern communications-management tool that can compete with the best of the rest, including applications such as Mozilla Thunderbird and Gmail.
It is difficult to argue that Office 2010 is a “must-have” upgrade for Microsoft Office users because, for the most part, the Office 2007 components work reasonably well.
If, however, you are a particularly heavy Outlook user or rely on Office to run a home business, then Office 2010 is worth the investment.
paul.taylor@ft.com
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010. Print a single copy of this article for personal use. Contact us if you wish to print more to distribute to others.
By Paul Taylor
Published: June 10 2010 22:51 | Last updated: June 10 2010 22:51
When I first got a personal computer – an Apple II, nearly 30 years ago – I played Pong for fun, used WordStar for word processing and put numbers into VisiCalc, the pioneering spreadsheet program.
Eventually most so-called personal productivity applications coalesced into heavy-duty software suites such as Microsoft Office, WordPerfect Office, Apple’s iWork and the open-source Open Office. Today, one of their biggest challenges is to compete directly with web- or cloud-based versions, such as Google Docs .
On Tuesday, the latest version of Microsoft’s flagship office productivity suite, Office 2010, goes on sale to the public. I have been running the “beta”, or trial, version of Office 2010 for six months, and the final code since it was made available to corporate customers a month ago.
For the first time, Office 2010 includes slimmed-down versions of Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote – under the umbrella term Office Web Apps – that allow users to view, edit and share documents online, something I have found particularly useful whenever I am away from my home PC, and help make Office users more connected.
The Web Apps – accessed via the Windows Live service – complement their desktop counterparts rather than compete directly with rivals such as Google Docs or Zoho Office, which generally offer richer features. Nevertheless, Microsoft clearly introduced Office Web Apps to try to halt defections to free or low-cost online alternatives to Office.
Microsoft has also priced Office 2010 aggressively – you can download the basic Home and Student version, which includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote, for $149 (£110 in the UK), or buy it loaded on a new PC for as little as $119 (£90). Boxed retail versions cost more.
Although Office Web Apps are one of the most dramatic additions, there are also plenty of small improvements and tweaks to the main desktop apps that, taken together, represent a significant upgrade.
The verdict
Microsoft Office 2010
Pros: Significant but low-cost upgrade to Office 2007; lots of new features to improve productivity; adds web-based apps.
Cons: Somewhat cumbersome.
Unlike Office 2007, when Microsoft introduced the controversial “ribbon” interface along the top of most of its desktop apps, there is just one big interface change in the latest version: the inclusion of the ribbon on Outlook, Microsoft’s e-mail, contact management and calendar desktop app, making it feel much more integrated into the Office suite. Office 2010 users can now customise the menu ribbon in all the desktop apps to assemble the commands they use most often – which should help satisfy critics who felt the ribbon lacked the simplicity of the old Office menu bar.
Overall, Office 2010 will feel familiar to anyone who uses Office 2007, and the version of the software available on Tuesday is very similar to the beta version, which was Microsoft’s most extensive software trial to date. More than 5.5m users downloaded the beta code, which expires in October.
The competition
WordPerfect Office X5
Pros: Rival manufactured by Corel, which commands a significant minority following; clean interface; file-compatible with Microsoft Office.
Cons: Relatively pricey.
OpenOffice 3.2.1
Pros: Free, open-source office suite that is mostly compatible with its rivals.
Cons: Occasional compatibility issues.
Google Docs
Pros: Free, web-based productivity suite that includes word processor, spreadsheet and presentation apps; clean and easy to use.
Cons: Requires internet connection.
But there are also enough nifty new features and productivity enhancements to keep potential buyers interested. My favourites include PowerPoint’s Broadcast Slide Show, which enables users to show a presentation remotely to anyone who has a web browser, while another PowerPoint option called Video Tools enabled me to pull in, edit and trim video clips from within the application.
I also like a new feature, the Backstage view, which includes several new options for creating, printing, saving and sharing a document as well as information about recent versions of the document and the “permissions” (who can do what) associated with it .
Among the core Office components of Word, Excel and PowerPoint, the latest version of Word has new features that make it easier to create visually exciting documents, while new tools in Excel make it easier to visualise complex data.
However, it is Outlook that has undergone the most dramatic – and long overdue – changes.
Some, such as the option to view all messages in an e-mail thread, rather than in purely chronological order, match those already available in Google’s Gmail. Others make it easier to manage, delete and organise messages (including deleting a whole e-mail thread), add new e-mail accounts and configure automatic “Out of Office” replies.
I also like the new Quick Steps feature, which makes it easy to create e-mail rules that apply to specific messages – for example, I got it to forward all messages from the boss to my personal e-mail. Other tweaks make it quicker to create a team calendar or set up meetings. Another new tool, Social Connector, enables users to connect to popular social and business networks, including Microsoft SharePoint, Windows Live and third-party social networking services such as Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace.
Overall, these changes transform Outlook from an ageing desktop e-mail app into a modern communications-management tool that can compete with the best of the rest, including applications such as Mozilla Thunderbird and Gmail.
It is difficult to argue that Office 2010 is a “must-have” upgrade for Microsoft Office users because, for the most part, the Office 2007 components work reasonably well.
If, however, you are a particularly heavy Outlook user or rely on Office to run a home business, then Office 2010 is worth the investment.
paul.taylor@ft.com
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010. Print a single copy of this article for personal use. Contact us if you wish to print more to distribute to others.
Social CRM: is it hype – or fundamental to managing customer relationships?
Social CRM: is it hype – or fundamental to managing customer relationships?
By Graeme Foux, chief executive of Knexus
Published: June 10 2010 19:24 | Last updated: June 10 2010 19:24
Brand owners need to distinguish between real value and fool’s gold – but into which category does social customer relationship management fit? What is it – and where has it come from?
Social CRM has emerged from the shifting balance of power between organisations and their customers. Via the internet, social networks, blogs and online communities have enabled people to connect easily and quickly with like-minded individuals and groups to share interests.
One impact has been to cut organisations out of the loop, losing control of the customer relationship. Consumers have tasted freedom to connect, share and talk, benefiting from more timely, relevant and trusted interactions.
This is a profound change, leaving companies with little (or more likely no) hope of wresting back control and re-establishing previous levels of influence.
No wonder social media monitoring tools are red-hot, as companies scramble to re-engage with the disparate conversations taking place on the web about them, but not with them.
Social CRM is about companies attempting to get back into the conversations controlled by the customer – listening and engaging to build trust and value.
It also gives companies the opportunity to stimulate conversations with and between customers and use these to build relationships sooner than would traditionally have taken place, managing a pipeline of opportunities more effectively and producing a higher return.
Social CRM is an integral component of an overall CRM strategy. However, it is also different in the sense that traditional CRM has been about structuring and controlling data to help manage relationships more effectively, whereas social is unstructured and far more difficult to categorise.
So is social CRM a source of real business value or simply fool’s gold? Breaking down ”social” into several categories can be a helpful way to remove confusion and determine where to focus business resources. I like the definitions used by social CRM consultant Esteban Kolsky, as follows:
● Social Media is about tools and tactics, you can never set a strategy for it, and it has very short-term life and results.
● Social CRM is about strategically setting long-term goals for working better with your clients (customers), and improving your organisation in the process.
● Social business is the long-term, strategic process of reinventing your organisation to collaborate with employees, partners, and customers.
This separation is very helpful because it starts to create clarity around social and, for example, highlights the role of a PR firm in managing a brand’s reputation through social media channels, versus the deep strategic importance of having a social business strategy to make a business relevant and competitive in the 21st century.
Kolsky argues that social CRM is much closer to social business, sitting under the category of strategically important initiatives that will directly impact revenue and profitability.
If we revert back to our earlier acknowledgment that companies have lost control of their customer relationships, who could argue that this isn’t strategically relevant?
As such, social CRM is profoundly important.
It is true that many companies remain either in denial over the power shift, hoping a Facebook page and some Tweeting will sooth away the issue, or are still bogged down with getting the fundamentals of their CRM strategy right, and therefore unable to innovate.
But the writing is on the wall and those companies able to apply clear thinking on “social” and embrace social CRM are stealing a highly profitable competitive lead for the new business cycle that has just begun – and beyond.
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By Graeme Foux, chief executive of Knexus
Published: June 10 2010 19:24 | Last updated: June 10 2010 19:24
Brand owners need to distinguish between real value and fool’s gold – but into which category does social customer relationship management fit? What is it – and where has it come from?
Social CRM has emerged from the shifting balance of power between organisations and their customers. Via the internet, social networks, blogs and online communities have enabled people to connect easily and quickly with like-minded individuals and groups to share interests.
One impact has been to cut organisations out of the loop, losing control of the customer relationship. Consumers have tasted freedom to connect, share and talk, benefiting from more timely, relevant and trusted interactions.
This is a profound change, leaving companies with little (or more likely no) hope of wresting back control and re-establishing previous levels of influence.
No wonder social media monitoring tools are red-hot, as companies scramble to re-engage with the disparate conversations taking place on the web about them, but not with them.
Social CRM is about companies attempting to get back into the conversations controlled by the customer – listening and engaging to build trust and value.
It also gives companies the opportunity to stimulate conversations with and between customers and use these to build relationships sooner than would traditionally have taken place, managing a pipeline of opportunities more effectively and producing a higher return.
Social CRM is an integral component of an overall CRM strategy. However, it is also different in the sense that traditional CRM has been about structuring and controlling data to help manage relationships more effectively, whereas social is unstructured and far more difficult to categorise.
So is social CRM a source of real business value or simply fool’s gold? Breaking down ”social” into several categories can be a helpful way to remove confusion and determine where to focus business resources. I like the definitions used by social CRM consultant Esteban Kolsky, as follows:
● Social Media is about tools and tactics, you can never set a strategy for it, and it has very short-term life and results.
● Social CRM is about strategically setting long-term goals for working better with your clients (customers), and improving your organisation in the process.
● Social business is the long-term, strategic process of reinventing your organisation to collaborate with employees, partners, and customers.
This separation is very helpful because it starts to create clarity around social and, for example, highlights the role of a PR firm in managing a brand’s reputation through social media channels, versus the deep strategic importance of having a social business strategy to make a business relevant and competitive in the 21st century.
Kolsky argues that social CRM is much closer to social business, sitting under the category of strategically important initiatives that will directly impact revenue and profitability.
If we revert back to our earlier acknowledgment that companies have lost control of their customer relationships, who could argue that this isn’t strategically relevant?
As such, social CRM is profoundly important.
It is true that many companies remain either in denial over the power shift, hoping a Facebook page and some Tweeting will sooth away the issue, or are still bogged down with getting the fundamentals of their CRM strategy right, and therefore unable to innovate.
But the writing is on the wall and those companies able to apply clear thinking on “social” and embrace social CRM are stealing a highly profitable competitive lead for the new business cycle that has just begun – and beyond.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2011. Print a single copy of this article for personal use. Contact us if you wish to print more to distribute to others.
.."FT" and "Financial Times" are trademarks of the Financial Times. Privacy policy | Terms
© Copyright The Financial Times Ltd 2011.
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