Audio files: no longer too big to store nor too hard to search (FT)

We talk far more than we type. Podcasts, online video, internet radio, recordings of meetings and phone conversations – so much information today is contained in audio files. But how to index it, search it and access it?

Far from perfect, voice recognition is good enough to make audio searching a possibility.
The Blinkx search engine uses technology developed by Autonomy to index audio and video from podcasts, internet sites, broadcast television and radio; more than 4m hours of audio. As well as generating a phonetic transcript, it uses information including metadata (like the page title), words already recognised and other contextual details to improve the index. The search engine can also take the context of your search terms into account, to see if they suggest a new interpretation of a recording.

According to Suranga Chandratillake, Blinkx chief executive, accuracy varies: “It’s anything from 60 per cent to 95 per cent depending less on the accent and more on the quality of the signal. Background music is bad, fuzzy recordings are bad. Our best results are from professionally recorded, professional speakers in a studio (for example, a newscaster on bbc.co.uk), our worst from amateurs with poor audio quality and music playing in the background.”

Microsoft’s OneNote application already records audio and synchronises it with typed or handwritten notes, so users can click on what they have written to hear what was going on when they wrote it (ideal for checking whether they wrote something down correctly).

OneNote 2007, due out early next year, allows searching of audio recordings directly. It does not do voice recognition, although the speech recognition built into Windows XP Tablet Edition can be used to transcribe recordings into OneNote. Instead it converts audio to phonemes, converts search terms into phoneme equivalents and looks for a match.

The technology is not perfect, especially with low-fidelity recordings, but lead program manager Owen Braun believes it is good enough to be useful. “People have meetings and conversations every day where having an exact record would be hugely valuable, but most assume audio is too hard to capture, too big to store, and too hard to mine later for the valuable bits. With OneNote 2007 and a recent-model computer, these things simply aren’t true anymore.”

As well as making recordings in OneNote, people can import existing audio. All they need to record phone conversations is a cheap cable (and the permission of the people they are talking to). They can add call recording to a company PBX for around £2,000 with a system such as Storacall’s Intro. And if they use Skype they can record calls as MP3 files that are stored in Outlook folders with an add-in called Skylook (http://www.skylook.biz/).

Recording in OneNote means carrying a laptop or tablet PC (although Braun hopes to be able to search audio recorded on mobile phones in a future release). Luis Elizalde, a design engineer with IBM Design Consulting Services, thinks users will want much more portable devices to record almost everything.

“With all the information I have to keep up with every day, with e-mail and meetings, my social life is shrinking. Wouldn’t it be nice if I could go back in time and replay what somebody said in a meeting, replay that telephone number somebody gave me at the club the other night that I didn’t write down.”

His concept audio recorder, Magic Block, would record weeks or months of conversations on to flash memory and recognise it with IBM’s ViaVoice software. On top of that, it can learn individual voices to search for who was speaking, Elizalde suggests: “You could ask it to find everything that Jane said between June 3 and July 5, then look for keywords and keep dissecting that information.” Recordings would also preserve the emphasis and emotions lost in transcriptions.

Such a device would raise issues of privacy and confidentiality, so the Magic Block concept has a fingerprint scanner to keep recordings secure. IBM does not currently plan to manufacture the Magic Block, but Elizalde believes recording, playback, recognition and search technologies are mature enough to produce a record or to add recording and recognition features to something we already carry: the mobile phone.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006

The leading windows on the web receive a fresh polish (FT)

Remember the web browser wars? In the mid-1990s Microsoft and Netscape raced to add features to their respective browsers. Their rivalry and the race to attract "user eyeballs" led to rapid-fire advances in both Microsoft Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator.

Microsoft triumphed by bundling Internet Explorer with the Windows operating system but prompted the US government's landmark antitrust suit against the software giant.

A decade later an ageing Internet Explorer 6 still dominates but has seen its market share slip by about 10 points in the face of new competition from Mozilla's Firefox, an "open source" browser, and an updated version of Opera, another free rival browser.

Firefox in particular has won plaudits for its innovative approach to browsing, including a new "tabbed page" interface and built-in features such as search window, pop-up blockers and improved security.

These features helped Firefox capture about 9 per cent of the browser market - quite an achievement when nearly every personal computer sold comes with Internet Explorer installed along with Windows and users must download and install Firefox. The current version of Firefox - version 1.5.0.1 - is solid, fast and reliable. My favourite so far, it comes in versions that run on Windows-based PCs, Apple Macs and Linux machines.

However, the latest version of Opera's browser (Opera 9) comes with several advanced features only available in Firefox as add-ons and missing from the current version of Internet Explorer.
Now, almost five years after Internet Explorer 6 became available, Microsoft is readying its successor - the third beta (test) version of Internet Explorer (IE 7) was released last week and is available for download.

In fact, all the leading browsers - including Firefox - are due for facelifts over the next few months. These are designed to make them more flexible, secure and better able to handle the expanding range of business transactions and software applications over the internet. So I decided to take a closer look at the latest batch of browsers and how they compare.

Microsoft's update is the most eagerly awaited (www.microsoft.com). While its new browser has already been criticised by some who characterise it as a "catch-up exercise", it still represents a significant and worthwhile upgrade that will be built into Microsoft's next generation Vista operating system, due for launch later this year.

Among the new features, IE 7 includes tabbed browsing (address-book style tabs to help switch between web pages) for the first time, support for RSS (really simple syndication) technology, which delivers news feeds directly to the user's desktop, and a built-in search box on a much more attractive and streamlined toolbar. Perhaps most important, IE 7 boasts improved security including new anti-phishing technology that visually alerts users when they visit dubious "spoofed" websites.

I found the beta software easy to download and install. It imports settings, including favourites, automatically from previous versions of Internet Explorer. I would not recommend installing beta software on any mission-critical PC, but I encountered no problems with this latest "feature complete" trial version on my IBM ThinkPad portable. Note, however, that the PC must be running a valid version of Windows XP with SP2 (Service Pack 2) installed (downloads are also available for the 64-bit versions of Windows and versions of Windows Server 2003). IE 7 allows users to change the order of open page tabs just by dragging and dropping and to view thumbnail previews of open tabbed web pages. RSS feeds can now be updated all in one go.

Overall, IE 7 does a good job of catching up with its rivals and, while it lacks truly innovative features, it meets the requirements of the evolving dynamic and transaction-intensive web.
The new Opera 9 browser (www.opera.com) goes a step further by integrating Apple Mac and Yahoo-style "widgets" - small web-based applications that run within the browser but appear detached as standalone tools. Aside from standard features such as built-in search box and tabbed pages, the new browser also supports a file-sharing download technology called BitTorrent and lets users customise a wide range of personal preferences.

BitTorrent support enables savvy P2P (peer-to-peer) users who do not want to launch a separate external application to search for files on the BitTorrent network through integrated search functionality, and then use Opera's built-in transfer manager software to handle the download.

My favourite new features include the ability to delete individual cookies - bits of code that identify users when they revisit websites - and a single click option called "delete private data" that makes it easier to protect your identity while surfing the web.

Other features include integrated e-mail technology that lets users quickly send and receive e-mail without leaving the browser, and built-in support for RSS and Atom 1.0 (a newer protocol similar to RSS) newsfeeds. Another plus: Opera 9 supports 25 languages and runs on a wide range of Windows, Linux and Mac OS X-based machines where it poses a challenge to Apple's beautifully crafted Safari browser. Overall, Opera 9 is impressive and a worthy challenger for both Internet Explorer and the current version of Firefox. A beta version of Firefox 2 is due soon with a full version expected later this year.

Among its new features will be anti-phishing technology and tools that will automatically restore web pages should the browser crash or require a restart. Other features are expected to include a more advanced search box that will suggest queries as users type.

Mozilla's open source developers are already working on Firefox 3, which is due to launch next year and will enable users to run online applications without a live internet connection.

Such developments could enable Firefox to remain one step ahead of the rivals and continue to eat into Internet Explorer's dominant market position.

For most users the new IE 7 will meet most of their requirements. If not, both Firefox and Opera 9 are worth a look.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006

The Web Grows Up: What It Means for Your Enterprise (AMR)

Not so long ago, companies around the world flung open their traditional IT budgets to take advantage of the burgeoning web. This money was not always well spent. Along comes Web 2.0, and companies, jaded with the experience of the last several years, are understandably suspicious about the hype and skeptical about the impact to their business. There’s no question, though, that change has been happening under our noses. Businesses have to find fruitful ways to take advantage.

State of the Portal Market 2006 (BEA)

IBM Targets Microsoft Office Users With Sametime (Gartner)

IBM seeks to attract Microsoft Office users by broadening the target market for Sametime instant messaging and Web conferencing beyond the base of Lotus users.

State of the Portal Market 2006 - Part III (Line56/Portals.Mag.com/BEA)

Portals and the New Wisdom of the Enterprise - A Synthesis of New Original Survey Results and Recent Analyst Research on the Portal Market

Wirtschaft ist "heiß" auf Onlinenachrichten (contentmanager.de)

Es ist nie gut, zu sehr im eigenen Saft zu schmoren. Der Blick von außen kann einem oft die Augen für Dinge öffnen, die man nicht mehr wahrnimmt, da man zu sehr mit der eigenen Nabelschau beschäftigt ist. Auch der Journalismus in Deutschland ist vor dieser Gefahr nicht gefeit. Fernsehmoderatoren laden sich gegenseitig ein, eine große Tageszeitung kooperiert bei bestimmten Themen mit einem montags erscheinenden Nachrichtenmagazin und so weiter. Man kennt es von den Medizinern, wenn es um Kunstfehler geht: Eine Krähe hackt der anderen kein Auge aus. Im Handelsblatt hat der Publizist Frank A. Meyer, der für den Schweizer Ringier-Verlag tätig ist, jetzt mit dieser Routine gebrochen.

Meyer ist der Ansicht, dass die deutschen Journalisten immer recherchefauler werden und lieber am Bildschirm ihr Urteil abgeben, ohne noch in direkten Kontakt mit Bürgern, Politikern, Beamten, Arbeitern, Angestellten, Künstlern und Forschern zu treten. "Mehr und mehr lebt unser Berufsstand vom Copy & Paste. Die Journalisten kopieren sich fortwährend selbst", so Meyer. Die Medienvertreter seien zu lieb zueinander. Man kenne sich, verhelfe sich zur Prominenz, interviewe sich gegenseitig und ignoriere die Bücher der Kollegen, die aus der Reihe tanzen. Seinen negativen Eindruck vom derzeitigen Zustand der deutschen Publizistik kleidet der Autor in die Form einer Frage: "Erliege ich einer Sinnestäuschung, wenn ich mich beim Lesen deutscher Zeitungen, beim Konsum deutscher Fernseh- und Radioprogramme des Eindrucks frappierender Gleichförmigkeit nicht erwehren kann?"

Doch insbesondere die Printmedien haben noch mit ganz anderen Problemen zu kämpfen. Die Lesegewohnheiten haben sich durch den Siegeszug des Internet stark gewandelt. "Gerade junge Menschen und die so genannten Leistungsträger, die immer gut informiert seien wollen, warten nicht mehr 24 Stunden, bis sie beim morgendlichen Kaffee und Brötchen die aktuellen Nachrichten lesen können. Denn so aktuell sind die Nachrichten dann schon gar nicht mehr. Es ist der Nachteil der gedruckten Tageszeitungen, dass sie immer etwas hinterherhinken", weiß die Kommunikationsexpertin Sabine Sohn, Geschäftsführerin der Bonner PR-Agentur nic.pr. "In Zukunft werden die Printmedien mit besonders gut geschriebenen Texten und Artikeln punkten, in denen sie ein bestimmtes Problem grundsätzlicher angehen können als dies im Internet der Fall sein kann."

"Jemand, der in der Wirtschaft arbeitet und zum Beispiel die aktuellen Finanzmeldungen berücksichtigen muss, kann nicht mehr nur mit der FAZ, FTD oder dem Handelsblatt leben. Diese Medien werden nicht überflüssig, aber sie verlieren an Einfluss und Bedeutung. Der Chefredakteur des britischen Guardian sprach zurecht davon, dass die Leute beispielsweise in der Londoner City regelrecht heiß auf Onlinenachrichten seien", so Sohn. Alan Rusbridger heißt der Chefredakteur des Guardian, und in einem Essay, der im Spiegel abgedruckt wurde, erläuterte er vor kurzem seine publizistischen Vorstellungen. Der Hintergrund: Da Print mit der Aktualität des Webs nicht mithalten kann, verordnete sich der Guardian jetzt einen radikalen Schnitt. Ab sofort kommen Artikel zuerst ins Netz, dann in die Zeitung. Bisher waren die Nachrichten auf einen 24-Stunden-Zyklus zugeschnitten.Sohn hält diesen Schritt für richtig, da Rusbridger nicht in kulturkritische Larmoyanz verfalle, sondern die Chancen der neuen Entwicklung sehe und sie steuern wolle. Die Fakten sp

rächen für diese Strategie. So berichtete Silicon.de, dass die amerikanischen Unternehmen in den ersten drei Monaten dieses Jahres 38 Prozent mehr Geld für Online-Werbung ausgegeben haben als noch vor einem Jahr. Auch in Großbritannien boomten virtuelle Anzeigen. Dort werde in diesem Jahr vermutlich erstmals mehr Geld für Werbung im Internet ausgegeben als für Werbung in den nationalen Tageszeitungen.

In der Wirtschaftsberichterstattung läuft Online Print zunehmend den Rang ab, meint der Guardian-Chef: "Die wirkliche Konkurrenz für den Wirtschaftsteil einer Zeitung sind daher Online-Nachrichtenquellen wie Bloomberg und große internationale Internetseiten wie die der BBC, des Wall Street Journal und der Financial Times. Viele Wirtschaftsnachrichten erreichen die Londoner Börse in Form von Kurzmeldungen bereits um sieben Uhr morgens, so dass es zunehmend absurd ist, mit der Veröffentlichung dieser Informationen 24 Stunden zu warten." Bis zum nächsten Morgen zu warten, während andere Internetseiten diese Nachrichten bereits im Laufe des Tages veröffentlichen, bedeute, sich dem Risiko der Belanglosigkeit auszusetzen.

30.06.2006, NeueNachricht

The Demise of the Digital Economy (Line56)

How emerging global trends favor the ultimate decline and demise of the digital economy as we understand it

Americans are global consumers. Everything from the gasoline in our cars (and the cars themselves!) to our clothes and electronics comes from somewhere else, typically very far from where we live.

Turks, and most of the rest of the world, are local consumers.

In Istanbul, where I currently find myself, most goods available to me have been produced within a few hundred miles of the city. These goods are brought in to central locations, like the Grand Bazaar, where people shop for them. But shopping nodes are spread throughout the entire city. In Gungoren, my neighborhood, there is a weekly street bazaar that brings a vast selection of goods right to my doorstep. On bazaar days I can get everything from food to clothing right from my local street.

State of the Portal Market 2006 - Part II (Line56/PortalsMag.com/BEA)

Portals and the New Wisdom of the Enterprise - A Synthesis of New Original Survey Results and Recent Analyst Research on the Portal Market

EMC acquires RSA for $2.1bn (FT)

EMC, the world’s biggest maker of data storage equipment and software, on Thursday unveiled its latest acquisition when it agreed to pay $2.1bn in cash for RSA Security, a Boston-based internet security company.

Oracle's Content Management Plans (Line56)

Plenty of potential in a booming segment; other nuggets from Oracle's past quarter

State of the Portal Market 2006 - Part I (Line56/BEA)

Portals and the New Wisdom of the Enterprise - A Synthesis of New Original Survey Results and Recent Analyst Research on the Portal Market

Tomoye Becomes Microsoft Certified Partner, Achieves ISV/Software Solutions Competency (Tomoye)

Tomoye, the Community of Practice Company, today announced that it has achieved Microsoft Certified Partner status with an ISV/Software Solutions Competency, which certifies Tomoye Ecco to run on Microsoft-based infrastructure. Tomoye community of practice solutions enable organizations to integrate and extend existing investments in Microsoft productivity and collaboration tools including the Microsoft Office System and Windows SharePoint Portal Server. The company's latest offering, Tomoye Ecco was developed on the .NET platform to ensure rapid integration with Microsoft-based solutions.

Ozzie's Ascendancy at Microsoft Signals Shift to Web Focus (Gartner)

The shift in Microsoft's leadership from Bill Gates to Ray Ozzie is another sign that Microsoft is reinventing itself to respond to the challenge posed by the new Web-centric reality of the IT industry.

Microsoft TechEd: Office as Business Platform (AMR)

A few themes coming out of Microsoft’s TechEd user conference strike us as remarkable:

• Our long-held contention that Microsoft Office is evolving into a platform is coming to fruition. And for the first time, Microsoft is acknowledging this strategy.
• SharePoint, sitting at the center of Microsoft’s platform strategy, is also its route to capturing market share in numerous, formerly distinct, enterprise software markets. As such, it’s an undeniable consideration for customers of those products, and an undeniable threat to vendors specializing in those areas.

Bill Gates calls time on career at Microsoft (FT)

Bill Gates on Thursday announced his intention to leave his full-time role at Microsoft, drawing the curtain on a controversial business career that more than any other shaped the first half-century of the information age and turned him into the world’s richest man.

Oracle Adds Data Capabilities (Red Herring)

Database giant announces products for content management.

Google Signals Real Goals With Spreadsheet Offering (Gartner)

Google has added an online spreadsheet application to its portfolio of Web-based applications. Such services don't yet offer the functionality of desktop suites, but Google's short-term target is consumers.

Microsoft and Google must keep distance (FT)

Amid the fuss about competition between Microsoft and Google, it is easy to forget what sets them apart. Sometimes they seem to forget the differences themselves. That is dangerous: as Microsoft takes the next step in trying to export its personal computer-era dominance to the internet and Google races to take advantage of its search engine’s early success, both must watch where they are heading.

At heart, Microsoft is a platform software company – though Bill Gates, chairman, and Steve Ballmer, chief executive, sometimes seem unwilling to accept such limitations. Mr Ballmer said last month: “The core soul of our upbringing is really in doing great end-user experiences.” Try telling that to anyone who has marvelled at the ineptitude of its consumer software compared with the slick work of a Google, Apple or TiVo.

Rather, software “plumbing” is where Microsoft has made its mark. The Windows operating system, and the tools independent developers use to create programs to run on it, have made it the de facto standard for personal computing. Microsoft has spent six years trying to extend its platform to the internet, through a strategy dubbed .Net (pronounced “dotnet”) – technology “glue” that will bind PCs, servers and all the other computing devices connected over the internet into a coherent whole. To give Mr Ballmer his due, he concedes that building a software platform for the web remains Microsoft’s “number one investment area”.

Google is different. As a consumer services company and a digital-age advertising concern, its early success clearly stems from “great end-user experiences”. It has built one of the world’s most powerful computing bases, but this is largely a closed system, constructed to deliver an ever-widening array of Google services to Google consumers.

Yet sometimes it looks as though Google is trying to become the next Microsoft. Today, software developers will descend on Google’s headquarters to discuss ways of building applications on top of the Google Maps service. Known as “mash-ups”, these are the latest trendy idea in Silicon Valley, a way to assemble online applications out of piece-parts of other services. Meanwhile, Google last week released a test version of an online spreadsheet, the latest in a series of products that look like web-based versions of Microsoft’s Office suite of applications. At least Eric Schmidt, Google’s chief executive, seems aware of the risks of rushing into new areas. Last month he turned Google’s development effort back more towards its search engine: to lose sight of that would be to risk dissipating the company’s early lead.

To some extent, the growing overlaps are understandable. Consumer internet companies such as Google can profit from limited platform-like strategies. Take Ebay, which started down this road in 2000, before most others: some 30,000 independent developers now write software that runs on top of its site, creating new ways for sellers to list their goods on Ebay and for buyers to search for its products from other websites. This sort of limited platform approach could extend the reach of Google’s services. That is different, though, from the sort of all-purpose internet platform Microsoft is trying to build. At the same time, it helps platform companies such as Microsoft if they can create successful applications or services to run on top of the computing foundations they are laying. The symbiotic relationship between the Office suite of software applications and the Windows PC operating system lay at the heart of Microsoft’s success in the 1990s. However, as the name suggests, Office is mainly a tool for workers, and Microsoft has shown little aptitude as a true consumer services company.

As advertising becomes a more significant way to profit from internet audiences, and as search becomes a core part of online behaviour, Microsoft has no choice but to build its own algorithmic search engine and online advertising network. These are important parts of the future platform on which online businesses will seek to draw. Whatever Mr Ballmer says, though, it is unlikely to be Microsoft that creates the most successful consumer interfaces for these services.

easyWCM für das SAP NetWeaver Portal (btexx.de)

btexx easyWCM ist das perfekte Ergänzungspaket für ein spielend leichtes Web Content Management im SAP NetWeaver Portal: Texte und Bilder lassen sich schnell, unkompliziert und übersichtlich entlang der gewünschten Website-Struktur darstellen, aktualisieren und verwalten.

Die Basis: SAP NetWeaver PortalDas SAP NetWeaver Portal bildet die technologische Speerspitze für Wissenstransfer in Unternehmen: Als starke Knowledge-Management-Plattform zielt es punktgenau auf die Bedürfnisse umfangreicher interner Informations- und Applikationsverwaltung.

Google to release online spreadsheet (FT)

Google is set to launch a test version of an online spreadsheet, further extending the range of internet-based alternatives it offers to elements of the widely-used Microsoft Office suite of desktop software.

However, the internet search company said it believed its latest service would be “complementary” to Microsoft’s Excel spreadsheet, which is included in Office, rather than a rival.

“We think we’re solving a different problem,” said Jonathan Rochelle, product manager for the Google spreadsheet project. Users would turn to online spreadsheets mainly so they could share the information with other people on the web, or let others edit the information, he said.

Google’s steady move into server-based applications, accessible over the internet, has raised the prospect of growing conflict with arch-rival Microsoft, whose Office desktop applications generated nearly $8bn of operating profits on revenues of $11bn last year. One recent acquisition, of online word processing company Writely, appeared to take direct aim at Word.

Like other independent providers of online applications, Google has maintained that its services are designed to let people share information over the internet more easily rather than to act as full-featured desktop alternatives.

Open Text hat laut Gartner den größten ECM-Marktanteil (contentmanager.de)

Open Text (Nasdaq: OTEX, TSX: OTC), Anbieter von Enterprise Content Management (ECM)-Software, hat bekannt gegeben, dass das Unternehmen laut einer am 18. Mai vom Analystenhaus Gartner veröffentlichten Studie den weltweit größten Marktanteil im Bereich Enterprise Content Management (ECM) hat. In der Studie von Tom Eid "Market Share: Enterprise Content Management Software Worldwide, 2003-2005" belegt Open Text mit einem Marktanteil von 13,2 % die Spitzenposition vor elf weiteren führenden ECM-Anbietern und einer großen Anzahl kleinerer Hersteller. Gartner identifiziert mehr als 60 Anbieter auf dem ECM-Markt.

Die umfassende Studie hebt die tiefgreifenden Veränderungen hervor, die in den letzten Jahren in der ECM-Branche stattgefunden haben, und geht dabei insbesondere auf die Marktkonsolidierung ein. Des Weiteren stellt die Analyse fest, dass 51 % des Marktes, gemessen am Gesamtumsatz aus dem Softwareverkauf, von nur vier Anbietern beherrscht werden - einer davon ist Open Text. "Der ECM Markt wächst dynamisch und ist gekennzeichnet durch technologische Konsolidierung, sich stetig verbessernde Performance und Funktionalitäten sowie durch eine Veränderung der Anwender-Präferenzen von ‚best-of-breed’-Lösungen hin zu Produktsuiten", so die Studie.

Darüber hinaus sieht die Studie für einige Technologien wie Records Management, Digital Asset Management, Web Content Management und elektronische Formulare (e-forms) ein großes Wachstumspotenzial. Dasselbe gilt auch für Content Archiving, weil die Archivierung aufgrund von regulatorischen Auflagen immer mehr an Bedeutung gewinnt. Nach der Studie von Gartner "machen Unternehmen heute die Erfahrung, dass aufgrund von e-Discovery Initiativen die Anforderungen in Sachen Compliance sowie bei der Produktion von Inhalten immer komplexer werden. Content Archiving bietet ECM-Anbietern große Wachstumsmöglichkeiten. Es wird als integrative Architektur zur Verwaltung der unterschiedlichen Arten von Content in einem Unternehmen fungieren und dabei einen Großteil der bereits bestehenden Content Management-Infrastruktur verwenden.

"Dem allgemeinen Trend entsprechend, die Wertschöpfung aus dem Content zu erhöhen, unterstreicht die Studie auch die große Bedeutung von Lösungen für bestimmte Geschäftszweige und Branchen."Durch das Angebot von ECM-Lösungen für spezielle Branchen sowie für vertikal spezialisierte Prozesse erhöht sich der Gesamtwert der ECM-Software und ihre Fähigkeit, Geschäftsprozesse zu unterstützen und Inhalte einfacher an die Prozessanforderungen anzupassen."

"Wir glauben, dass die Studie von Gartner die starke Marktposition, die wir als führender Anbieter im weltweiten ECM-Markt aufgebaut haben, unterstreicht", so Kirk Roberts, Executive Vice President of Products, Solutions & Marketing bei Open Text. "Die Schlüsseltrends, die in der Studie aufgezeigt werden, decken sich mit unserer strategischen Ausrichtung. Wir konzentrieren uns auf das Angebot von ECM-Lösungen für spezielle Branchen und Geschäftszweige, um unsere Kunden bei den zunehmend komplexeren Prozess- und Compliance-Anforderungen zu unterstützen.

"Zusätzlich zum Ranking der Marktanteile, positioniert Gartner Open Text im "Leaders Quadrant" in seiner aktuellsten Studie "Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Content Management, 2005", veröffentlicht am 7. November 2005, von James Lundy und anderen. Die allgemein bekannten "Magic Quadrants" von Gartner sind grafische Darstellungen der Untersuchungsergebnisse des Analystenhauses. Dargestellt wird die Leistung von Software- und Lösungsanbietern in einem bestimmten Marktsegment, basierend auf der Vision der Anbieter und auf ihrer Fähigkeit, diese umzusetzen.

Die vollständige Studie zum ECM Markt kann unter www.gartner.com bezogen werden.

01.06.2006, Susanna Nordström, Open Text GmbH

Open Text hat laut Gartner den größten ECM-Marktanteil (contentmanager.de)

Open Text (Nasdaq: OTEX, TSX: OTC), Anbieter von Enterprise Content Management (ECM)-Software, hat bekannt gegeben, dass das Unternehmen laut einer am 18. Mai vom Analystenhaus Gartner veröffentlichten Studie den weltweit größten Marktanteil im Bereich Enterprise Content Management (ECM) hat. In der Studie von Tom Eid "Market Share: Enterprise Content Management Software Worldwide, 2003-2005" belegt Open Text mit einem Marktanteil von 13,2 % die Spitzenposition vor elf weiteren führenden ECM-Anbietern und einer großen Anzahl kleinerer Hersteller. Gartner identifiziert mehr als 60 Anbieter auf dem ECM-Markt.

BEA Systems bietet Seminare zu Portal Solutions (contentmanager.de)

Veranstaltungsreihe "Die neue Rolle von Portalen" zeigt, wie strategische Portale die Geschäftsagilität und -profitabilität steigern Unter dem Titel "Die neue Rolle von Portalen" lädt BEA Systems zu einer Seminarreihe in 14 europäischen Städten ein.

Die Veranstaltung richtet sich an Kunden, Interessenten und Partner und erklärt, wie Plattformen und Services zusammenarbeiten, um bisherige Dateninseln aufzulösen. Keynotes und Kundenberichte veranschaulichen Portalinfrastrukturen auf Basis der BEA Technologie. Diese Lösungen ermöglichen die Kollaboration in Unternehmen und erhöhen die Agilität und Profitabilität.

ECM Market Shifts With Symphony's Planned Hummingbird Buy (Gartner)

Hummingbird has agreed in principle to sell itself to Symphony Technology Group, a privately held company with no experience in the enterprise content management market. Hummingbird customers should stay alert to changes that might affect them.

Wikis, Blogs Won't Survive (Line56)

Mark Harrison of Kineo makes brave prediction; why it won't play out

Is Microsoft bad for business? (FT)

Microsoft is unquestionably the most influential player in the IT industry. Simply uttering the word Microsoft can trigger emotionally charged – and often stock – outbursts from the most sedate people.

Google’s rise and rise frightens web giants (FT)

Silicon Valley has been rife with speculation about potential mergers among the handful of companies that dominate the internet.

Behind all the talk is the rise of Google, which has used the cash thrown off by its fast-growing search advertising network to finance a push into other online activities ranging from the Froogle comparison shopping site to a new online video store.

Gartner Says Shift IT Mission from Cutting Costs to Creating High Performance Workplaces (Tekrati)

Competitive advantage will come from IT projects that enable business growth by augmenting the behaviour of key knowledge workers, according to Gartner presentations during its Symposium/ITxpo in Barcelona this week. Web 2.0 adoption will play a critical role in improving knowledge worker performance and moving towards a high performance workplace.

Web 2.0: Gemeinsam statt einsam - Gartner Symposium/ITxpo ortet Nachholbedarf für Unternehmen (contentmanager.de)

Web 2.0 als Chance für Unternehmen

Use Beta 2 to Get to Know Windows Vista and 2007 Office System (Gartner)

Microsoft's beta 2 products will give you a chance to learn about new features. If you are standardized on Windows 2000, especially, start working with Windows Vista now.

Key Microsoft products on target (FT)

Microsoft on Tuesday moved to restore faith in its ability to launch key products on schedule, releasing second test versions of its Windows Vista operating system, Office 2007 programs suite and Windows Longhorn Server software.

Stellent untermauert Führungsposition im Multi-site Management mit neuem Release von Site Studio (contentmanager.de)

Stellent stellt auf der AIIM 2006 Konferenz eine neue Version seiner preisgekrönten Multi-site Management-Applikation Stellent® Site Studio vor. Site Studio - eine Applikations-komponente der Stellent ECM-Suite - ist die Infrastruktur für Erstellung, Pflege und Publikation von Multi-Site Web-Projekten, bei denen mehrere interne und externe Websites bei einer optimalen Aufgabenverteilung innerhalb einer Organisation implementiert werden sollen.

Die neue Version von Site Studio gibt Website-Verantwortlichen - oftmals der "Zielgruppenexperte" innerhalb eines Geschäftsbereichs oder einer Abteilung- neue Möglichkeiten bei der "in-context" Erstellung und Gliederung der Website durch den neuen Site Studio Manager. Weitere Verbesserungen in Site Studio sind integrierte Nutzungsanalysen und Statistiken sowie erweiterte Suchfunktionen.

Tridion präsentiert gute finanzielle Ergebnisse über 2005 (contentmanager.de)

Gutes Umsatzwachstum durch fortlaufende Erfolge in Europa und zunehmende Nachfrage in den USA

Tridion, Anbieter von Content Management-Lösungen, hat heute seine hervorragenden Ergebnisse über 2005 bekannt gegeben. Die Verkaufszunahme hat sich seit 2004 fortgesetzt; das Unternehmen hat über das Jahr 2005 einen Rekordgewinn erzielt. Mit einem Nettogewinn von 3,6 Millionen bei einem Umsatz von 18,6 Millionen Euro konnte Tridion eine Netto-Gewinnspanne von 19 % verzeichnen. Die Bilanzen des Unternehmens bleiben mit einem Umlaufvermögen von 9,2 Millionen Euro am Ende des Jahres 2005 weiterhin stabil.

IBM Updates Lotus Notes (Line56)

Support for Open Document Format (ODF) strengthens alternative to Microsoft Office

Yahoo harnesses users’ collective knowledge (FT)

Yahoo will on Wednesday set out plans to harness the collective knowledge and interests of its 400m regular users to develop the next generation of search technology and narrow the gap with internet juggernaut Google.

The vision, to be outlined at the company’s analyst day in San Francisco, comes as Google’s growing lead in search and its steady encroachment in e-commerce and other forms of internet activity have touched off a scramble among rivals.

Terry Semel, Yahoo’s chairman, revealed last week that the company had discussed merging at least part of its search business with Microsoft, though those talks were abandoned.

But in an effort to leap ahead of Google, Yahoo has been experimenting with tapping into the collective wisdom of its users.

read the article

Gates outlines SharePoint strategy, hammers IBM (InfoWorld)

Microsoft anoints SharePoint Server 2007 as key to its collaboration future

Microsoft's Bill Gates Monday opened the first ever SharePoint Conference by anointing SharePoint Server 2007 the key to the company's collaboration future and ripping rival IBM/Lotus.

Content and Learning (Line56)

Easier access to more content complicates, not resolves, the learning problem; someone still has to do the training

ASG stellt vor: Das umfassendste Content-Managementsystem der Welt (contentmanager.de)

Total-Information-Ownership-Konzept vereint Funktionen für Business Intelligence mit dem Management von strukturierten und unstrukturierten Daten sowie von Informationen aus ERP-, CRM- und anderen Unternehmenssystemen

Untersuchungen zufolge verbringen Geschäftsleute bis zu 35 Prozent ihrer Zeit alleine mit der Suche nach den richtigen Informationen. ASG, Anbieter von Unternehmenssoftware für Global 5000-Unternehmen, bringt in Europa eine Lösung auf den Markt, die dieses Schlüsselproblem auf effektivere Weise adressiert: die "Total-Information-Ownership" (TIO)-Suite.

Microsoft joins hunt for next big thing (FT)

Steve Ballmer, chief executive officer of Microsoft, has joined a growing list of technology and media company bosses who have taken to trawling Silicon Valley in person in search of the next hot start-ups.

Softricity Buy Could Serve Microsoft's Strategy in Many Ways (Gartner)

Microsoft plans to buy Softricity and offer its virtualization technology to address application compatibility issues. But the technology could eventually support Windows Live, server virtualization and consumer markets.

The World Wide Web: Going Mobile? - Week of 05/11/2006 (Analyst Views)

The World Wide Web: Going Mobile? - Week of 05/11/2006

That cell phone use is on the rise is obvious; a recent report from the Pew Internet and American Life Project, the Associated Press, and AOL shows this in detail. From the report, "For some, the cell phone has become so central to their communications needs that they lose track of the expenses associated with their phones. Some 36 percent of cell owners say that they have been shocked from time to time at the size of their monthly bills." Along with their increased usage the application of cell phones has also expanded; cell phones now interface smoothly with Microsoft Outlook and other productivity products, allow users to send text messages, and provide access to the Internet. This last feature is one that has gotten at least its fair share of press recently, much of it in response the release of a report from Ipsos Insight.

The annual Ipsos Insight report entitled the Face of the Web, has suggested that mobile phones are poised to take over the PC as the medium for accessing the Web. Brian Cruikshank, senior vice president and managing director of Ipsos Insight's Technology and Communications practice says that, "Accessing the Internet on a wireless handheld device is no longer a novelty for consumers in the major global economies. It's becoming a common, everyday occurrence for many people." Though this may be the case on a global scale, according to Forrester Research it is far from true in North America; Forrester reports that most users in North America do not use cell phones willingly or frequently for this purpose.

However, just the fact that such an action is possible, when combined with the shear number of mobile phones in circulation, has major players in both the cell phone service and online content service arenas, sometimes hand in hand, responding. Given the money to be made this is not a surprise; according to eMarketer Inc., Internet related advertising generated $5.1 billion in 2005. The $100 million cell phone advertising in the same period may only be a fraction of the total, but according to a Wall Street Journal article, "The companies contend that even though only a small number of people currently use their phones to search for information online, there is a huge potential market with twice as many cellphones in use globally as PCs." Though mobile phones are now being used more than ever to access the Web may true, Forrester does report that even in North America more people are accessing the Web via their phones, the move from being shocked by a bill to regularly using a phone to access the Web may be more of a leap than a step. What is clear is that the first steps have been taken.

AOL is one of the players trying to position itself for the mobile Web. In July of last year AOL launched mobile search services that were similar to those available on their PC oriented site. Just last month they followed this release up with a "Surf the Web" option which reportedly removes many of the challenges encountered when trying to access the Web on a mobile device. "Surf the Web" not only returns search results formatted for the mobile device, but will perform this action for most web sites. Microsoft is also making moves; they recently purchased Paris-based MotionBridge, a company that provides search services for mobile phones. According to the Wall Street Journal, MotionBridge, "specializes in software that searches within a service provider's own branded cellphone portal." Further, at their Silicon Valley Road Show this month Microsoft unveiled a new technology named "Wild Thing" which limits the number of characters users need to enter in a search when the search is conducted on a mobile device; the software inserts 'wild cards' in an effort to lessen the aggravation of users. Yahoo! and Google are also on board with mobile services; Yahoo! has partnered with Cingular Wireless and Google is working with both Vodafone and Deutsche Telekom. Even with all they are putting into it, getting users to frequent the mobile Web may not be the end-game for the online players involved; they may have other motives for providing the services. The Wall Street Journal article mentions that, "Success on cellphones could potentially translate into increased market share for Internet services accessed from PCs."

The increased use of the mobile Web may have implications beyond just the development of business plans to capitalize on it. For example, of mobile search it has been said that it will pave the way for better search across the board. The limitations encountered when using a mobile device to search, chief among them text entry and results display, require providers to improve their service; these improvements will then be incorporated into the standard product. In addition, with technologies such as AJAX allowing what were once desktop based applications to migrate to the Web, users may be able to access and operate these applications on their phones. A case in point is Microsoft's Windows Live which offers Web-based versions of many of Microsoft's office products; according to Matt Champagne, director of MSN Mobile, "Most mobile services will be on Windows Live."

The mobile Web is here, its use is increasing, the major players are working on its development, and with the amount of money to be had in the market it is unlikely to disappear. Whether it is accessed via a phone or other portable device may not be as important to note as what it suggests, true mobile convergence is well on its way and it will incorporate and change the way information is presented and the technology used to retrieve it.

Google refocuses on search business (FT)

Google has refocused its development activities in an attempt to channel more of its resources into its core search engine, Eric Schmidt, chief executive officer, said on Wednesday.

The move is part of what the Google head described as an effort to introduce a more “systematic” approach to the company’s management as it tries to deal with headlong growth.

The shift in emphasis to put more resources into search follows a period of rapid diversification that has seen Google launch a wide range of initiatives beyond its core business, from the Google Talk instant messaging service to a WiFi service in San Francisco. The company recently carried out its first systematic analysis of its development efforts and discovered that the proportion of work dedicated to search had fallen below its long-running 70 per cent target, according to executives.

It also comes at a time when Microsoft and Yahoo! are redoubling their own efforts to claim a bigger share of the search market.

Google executives denied that the realignment of their development work had not been prompted by the threat of growing competition in their core search business. However, commenting on the Microsoft and Yahoo, Mr Schmidt said: “None of the other competitors are emphasising the 70 per cent, which is search.”

By allowing all of its development staff one day a week to work on their own projects – something known inside the company as “20 per cent cent time” – Google has become a model for other technology companies looking for ways to become more innovative. While saying that they still aimed to give engineers free reign to promote new ideas, however, company executives said that they had shifted the balance somewhat in favour of a more centralised direction.

“We’re now taking the steps to encourage people – not telling them – to focus on the 70 per cent,” Mr Schmidt said.

The realignment was part of a broader initiative to build more coherent processes into Google’s operations as it gets bigger without at the same time burdening it with a new layer of bureaucracy, he added. “The goal this year is to systematise everything at Google,” said Mr Schmidt.

The company’s earlier system of encouraging engineers to develop new products and submit these for review by more senior executives had resulted in a “traffic jam” of projects as the number of initiatives multiplied, he added. As a result, Google has shifted the balance towards a more centralised approach to product development.

“We really did a full re-ordering around not what the engineers were doing but around product investment,” Mr Schmidt said. “It’s a different model and I think it works very well.”

Portal + Database (Line56)

If you're planning an information-rich portal, don't forget the database; the case of the American Osteopathic Association

Maßgeschneiderte Enterprise CMS-Lösungen zu Konfektionspreisen (contentmanager.de)

Mit der "AxCMS.net Express Solution" bietet der Microsoft Gold Certified Partner Axinom als exklusives Angebot für seine Partner die Erstellung kompletter Enterprise CMS-Lösungen nach Kundenanforderungen an - angepasst an das vorgegebene Layout, fertig implementiert, konfiguriert und auf dem Kundenserver für die Weiterbearbeitung oder den produktiven Betrieb installiert.

Open Text ist Gründungsmitglied der SAP® Enterprise Services Community (contentmanager.de)

Open Text (Nasdaq: OTEX, TSX: OTC) ist Gründungsmitglied der neuen Enterprise Services (ES) Community von SAP. Das hat der führende Anbieter von Enterprise Content Management (ECM)-Software auf seiner Kundenkonferenz LiveLinkUp Central Europe 2006 bekannt gegeben, die heute in Köln stattfindet. Das Unternehmen ist damit einer der ersten ECM-Anbieter, die der Community beigetreten sind."

Die Enterprise Services Community ist ein einzigartiges Forum, das Partnern und Kunden die Möglichkeit bietet, Ideen auszutauschen und die Entwicklung von Enterprise Services zu beeinflussen - all dies mit dem Ziel, Unternehmen zu helfen, ihre Profitabilität zu erhöhen", sagt Zia Yusuf, Executive Vice President for SAP’s Platform Ecosystem. "Als Anbieter von ECM-Lösungen und wichtiger SAP-Partner wird Open Text eine Schlüsselrolle spielen, wenn es um die Verbindung der beiden Welten von strukturierten und unstrukturierten Inhalten in den Unternehmen geht."

Die ES Community entwickelt Ideen und Innovationen zu Enterprise Services, mit denen Unternehmen Geschäftsprozesse über einzelne Softwareanwendungen und Infrastrukturprodukte sowie über Unternehmensgrenzen hinweg modellieren können. Die Grundlage bilden die Enterprise Services Architecture (ESA), das SAP-Konzept einer Geschäftsprozesse unterstützenden, serviceorientierten Architektur (SOA), sowie die Business-orientierte, universelle Semantik der Enterprise Services. Dadurch können Softwarelösungen und Infrastrukturprodukte, die auf unterschiedlichen Systemen laufen, innerhalb ESA miteinander reibungslos kommunizieren.

Für allgemein gültige Qualitätsstandards sorgt ein spezielles Zertifizierungsprogramm. Die Community-Mitglieder können an unterschiedlichen Arbeitsgruppen teilnehmen; die so genannten Advisory Groups identifizieren die wichtigen Herausforderungen, denen sich Unternehmen heute gegenüber sehen, während die Definition Groups Enterprise Services und Best-Practice-Geschäftsprozesse festlegen, mit denen sich diese Herausforderungen meistern lassen.

"Durch die Definition von Enterprise Services übernimmt SAP eine Führungsrolle in der IT-Branche. Denn mit diesen Services lassen sich alle Geschäftsprozesse unterstützen, die von der überwiegenden Mehrzahl der Unternehmen auf der Welt angewandt werden", sagte Kirk Roberts, Executive Vice President, Products, Solutions & Marketing bei Open Text.

"Open Text verfügt über jahrelange Erfahrung mit der Bereitstellung von Lösungen, mit denen Unternehmen ihre Informationen so managen können, dass sie Compliance-Anforderungen genügen. Wir sind deshalb hoch erfreut über die Gelegenheit, zusammen mit unseren gemeinsamen Kunden sowie Systemintegratoren und Storage-Partnern SAP bei der Definition von Enterprise Services für ECM unterstützen zu können."

Open Text bietet eine komplette Suite an ECM-Funktionalitäten als Ergänzung der Lösungen von SAP. Mit der "Livelink ECM Suite for SAP® Solutions" von Open Text können Kunden Inhalte aus SAP-Systemen managen und dadurch Schüsselprozesse effizienter gestalten, Compliance-Anforderungen einhalten und IT-Kosten senken. Die Suite enthält Lösungen für die Bearbeitung von Eingangs- und Ausgangsrechnungen, Kundeninformationsmanagement, Dokumentenmanagement und Vertragsmanagement. Mit diesen Lösungen können Unternehmen SAP-Inhalte sicher und langfristig archivieren und damit komplexe Prozess- und Compliance-Anforderungen erfüllen. Die Lösungen erlauben darüber hinaus die Konsolidierung und Archivierung der Inhalte von verschiedenen SAP- und Legacy-Systemen.

Weitere Informationen zur ES Community von SAP sind unter http://esc.sap.com abrufbar.

The Active Network Acquires Content Management Provider IronPoint (DMReview)

The Active Network, Inc., a provider of application services technology and marketing services to community service organizations, has acquired Vancouver, B.C.-based IronPoint Technology, Inc.. The acquisition of IronPoint, a content management software solutions provider, will enable The Active Network to offer an integrated solution for operations management software, content management, marketing services and online technologies. Organizations will also have access to a suite of content tools to efficiently create online channels to improve internal communications, enhance customer service, and drive promotion and awareness of their services.

IronPoint's content management technology helps organizations capture, manage, store, archive and communicate information and documents critical to their operations. IronPoint serves organizations across multiple vertical markets with a government and educational customer base that includes City of San Rafael, California; University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada; Province of Ontario, Canada; and Loyola Maramount University, Los Angeles, among others.

Pondering the future for Microsoft (FT UK)

It is hardly surprising that Wall Street's heart sank at the end of last week, after the world’s largest software company revealed plans to increase its spending drastically in the coming quarters.

Microsoft takes on Google with targeted ads (FT)

Microsoft on Wednesday outlined a broad new offensive against Google as it laid out plans to insert the targeted advertising generated by its new AdCenter system into a range of digital services beyond internet search.

Windows Vista Unlikely to Ship Before 2Q07 (Gartner)

Microsoft's track record is clear; it consistently misses target dates for major operating system releases. We don't expect broad availability of Windows Vista until at least 2Q07, which is nine to 12 months after Beta 2.

Web 2.0: Ready to Go (Line56)

A response to Nicholas Carr's skepticism about emerging Web-based collaboration technologies

Speech Recognition - Week of 04/27/2006 (Publisher)

In 1997 Gartner predicted, "By 2001, speech recognition will be a standard part of the computer environment for more than 30 percent of office workers (0.7 probability)." Clearly this did not happen and in the past several months Gartner has issued reports that admit their original prediction was off. However, despite the existence of at least one major obstacle common to virtually all speech recognition applications, Gartner and other groups agree there is tremendous potential for the technology.

The recent Gartner reports identify two types of voice recognition applications. One type, known broadly as speech recognition applications, uses voice to enact commands. Speech recognition of this type is found primarily in the consumer market where it is has been used for over a decade in applications such as hands-free operation of a PCs and other digital devices, and in environments where dictation is an established practice. When Gartner made their prediction almost a decade ago, it was this type of application they were referring to, and they did so when the, seemingly, last hurdle was leaped. Back in 1997 Dragon Systems and IBM introduced "continuous speech recognition" products which allowed users to speak at natural speeds without pausing after each word. At that point the technology was good enough for Gartner to offer such a lofty prediction. Since then the technology has improved, "significantly in accuracy, usability and product functionality." Vendors are now claiming fewer errors with speech recognition than in the average person's typing and one leading vendor boasts 99 percent accuracy. Despite such credible statements Gartner now says they do not believe, "that speech recognition will become the dominant mode of text entry for at least the next decade." However, Gartner does state that, "there are several areas where speech has the potential to augment keyboard and keypad entry for a significant number of users." Two of these areas are notable.

The increase of the mobile workforce, workers who work with space and time constraints, is expected to be a key driver for speech recognition in coming years. In fact, this segment is already moving. According to Newsfactor Magazine, "Users of PDAs and smartphones are an especially attractive market for makers of speech-recognition products, because those customers already are using the devices for dictation or cell-phone calls, and many crave additional features that will spare them from typing on tiny keyboards." In this arena, top players are Ionoveo which offers a voice-based biometric lock for PDAs and Parrot Software which is making inroads into the vehicle market with hands-free phone applications for use while driving. The second key driver according to Gartner is referred to as "Application Control." "In the long run, the ability to fully control the computer (or other device) through voice, rather than simply by entering text, will be the strongest adoption driver. Voice is a natural shortcut through the complexities of menu and folder structures." Though this may be the "strongest adoption driver," it has further to go and its potential will only be realized, "when the system can respond back to users to help refine their requests through a natural language dialogue." This is a capability that has yet to be fully commercialized.

The second type of speech recognition examined by Gartner is known as speech analytics and includes applications which use voice to issue an appropriate response (this is the one all have encountered in automated telephone 'conversations'), and those that take voice data and convert it into an analyzable format. The number one segment implementing this type of application is call centers, where there is opportunity to radically improve customer service, analytics, and ultimately the bottom line. According to Tim Kraskey, vice president of Spanlink Communications, a company that develops customer-interaction tools for call centers, "Every document in your company can be tied to the IVR (Innovative Voice Response), and can be called up instantly . . . That's really powerful; it's the bleeding edge. Someone can have their call resolved accurately, quickly, and, most importantly, automatically." In the Newsfactor article mentioned above, Kevin Hegebarth, director of strategic analysis for Witness Systems, a contact-center vendor, goes a bit further, "We're really beginning to see speech recognition become intelligent enough that there's a conversational tone with a caller . . . That means we can gain insight into customer relationships instead of just routing calls where they need to go." As for the analytic side, Gartner divides their application into three categories: customer, agent, and corporate. Customer analytics provide insights into customer intent, action, and attitude; are they generally content, or are they about to switch to a competitor. Agent information can be used to see if an agent did a good job handling a call or situation. Corporate insight tends to look at the big picture such as what is generating the majority of calls. In the last instance more advanced solutions are beginning to combine their analytical insights with traditional operational data for incremental insight gains.

The scope of the term 'speech recognition' is a broad one encompassing many applications, each with unique challenges. But there are two challenges across the board which both hold a bit of irony. One of the challenges facing all in the arena is the low rate of adoption. Despite the obvious potential that the technology possesses low adoption rates are holding it in check by slowing down innovation and holding back improvements that will only come with a certain amount of standardization. However, the single greatest impediment is the user; people are still not comfortable using voice to type or operate their digital devices, all the more so in an office environment. In the end people want people on the other end of the line.

AJAX – Asynchrones JavaScript und XML (contentmanager.de)

AJAX ist die Abkürzung für Asynchrones JavaScript und XML. Dieser Ausdruck steht für eine der wichtigsten aktuellen Entwicklung des World Wide Web beziehungsweise dem, was unter Web 2 zurzeit durch die Medien geistert.

AJAX – eine kurze Vorstellung

Wenn man sich das Internet der Vergangenheit betrachtet, ist das Jahr 1990 mit der Einführung des World Wide Web einer der größten Meilensteine gewesen. Mit der Einführung des WWW ließen sich optisch ansprechend Inhalte präsentieren und vor allem Information miteinander verknüpfen. Damit war selbst technisch nicht versierten Anwendern eine Möglichkeit geschaffen worden, in einem weltweiten Netzwerk auf Information zuzugreifen. Allerdings war das World Wide Web in der Vergangenheit rein statisch. Aufgrund diverser Einschränkungen, die mit statischen Seiten verbunden sind, entwickelte sich schnell eine auf dem Client auszuführende Programmiererwelt. JavaScript, VBScript, Java-Applets, ActiveX-Controls, und diverse weitere Technologien entstanden etwa ab 1995.

Allen Technologien auf dem Client war gemeinsam, dass Sie Aktivität vom Server auf den Client verlagern sollten. Diverse Probleme mit clientseitiger Technologie führten allerdings dazu, dass etwa ab dem Jahr 2000 wieder mehr Aktivität auf den Server zurück verlagert wurde. Proprietäre Standards sowie marktpolitische Spielereien und nicht zuletzt Sicherheitsprobleme im Client reduzierten die Akzeptanz von clientseitiger Technologie. In der letzten Zeit hat sich aber die Hysterie um die Probleme clientseitiger Technologie gelegt und moderne Webapplikationen setzen sowohl clientseitige Technologie (heutzutage fast ausschließlich noch JavaScript) als auch serverseitige Technologie ein. Die Aufgaben werden so verteilt, wie es sinnvoll ist.

Wenn Sie heutzutage eine moderne Webapplikation erstellen wollen, werden sie (glücklicherweise) ein relativ homogenes Umfeld vorfinden. Das war vor nicht allzu langer Zeit definitiv nicht der Fall.

Was ist AJAX?

Das Internet basiert bezüglich der Übertragung nun auf TCP/IP. Dies steht für Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol. Dieses Transportprotokoll bezeichnet eine paketorientierte Vermittlung von Daten. Die Daten werden in kleinere Einheiten zerlegt und diese Datenpakete unabhängig voneinander vom Sender zum Empfänger geschickt. Erst beim Empfänger werden sie wieder zusammengesetzt. Das Hauptproblem bei dieser Art der Kommunikation ist, dass keine dauerhafte Verbindung existiert. Zwar ist es möglich, auf Ebene der Anwendungsprotokolle eine virtuelle Verbindung zwischen Sender und Empfänger aufrechtzuerhalten (denken Sie an Internet-Telefonie oder aber auch Fernsteuerungsmechanismen wie Telnet oder SSH), aber allein auf Ebene des Transportprotokolls ist diese Verbindung nicht gegeben.

Nun ist das Protokoll das World Wide Web – HTTP – ein verbindungsloses Protokoll. Mit anderen Worten – bei diesem Protokoll wird keine virtuelle Verbindung zwischen dem Server und dem Client aufrecht erhalten.

Bei dieser Art der zustandslosen Kommunikation kann ein Server im Grunde nicht erkennen, ob ein Browser bereits vor einer Anfrage eine Webseite angefordert hat. Sie wissen aus Ihrer Erfahrung im WWW natürlich, dass auch bei Webseiten erkannt werden kann, ob ein Client bereits vorher Seiten von einem Server angefordert hat. Dieses ist in allen Fällen zwingend notwendig, in denen man sich auf einer Seite legitimieren muss, um in einem geschlossenen Bereich Inhalte sehen zu können. Aber dies wird nicht über TCP/IP beziehungsweise HTTP gewährleistet, sondern mit darauf aufsetzenden Techniken. Zum Beispiel Cookies. Die zustandslose Kommunikation bewirkt ebenfalls, dass jeder Austausch von Informationen zwischen Client und Server die Versendung einer vollständigen neuen Webseite bedeutet.

Wie kommt jetzt AJAX ins Spiel?

AJAX ist nun ein Ansatz, dieses Problem des World Wide Web respektive HTTP zu lösen. Wenn Sie im World Wide Web eine neue Information anfordern, besteht also bei einem klassischen Zyklus der Datenkommunikation zwischen Server und Client immer die Notwendigkeit, eine vollständige neue Webseite als Antwort zu senden. Mit AJAX hingegen ist es möglich, nur den Teil einer Webseite von Server anzufordern, der auch wirklich ausgetauscht werden muss. Die Teile der Webseite, die nicht erneuert werden müssen, können dabei erhalten bleiben. Es ist offensichtlich, dass die zu versendende Datenmenge damit erheblich reduziert werden kann. Vor allen Dingen kann das Antwortverhalten von Web-Applikation bei Interaktion mit einem Anwender exorbitant beschleunigt werden.

Stellen Sie sich als Beispiel ein Webformular vor, indem der Anwender ein Autokennzeichen eingibt und nachfolgend der zugehörige Landkreis oder die zugehörige Stadt angezeigt werden soll. Bei konventionellen Web-Applikationen ist es notwendig, aufgrund der Angabe des Autokennzeichens eine vollständige neue Webseite vom Server anzufordern und dem Client anzuzeigen. Dabei müssen gegebenenfalls alte Informationen (in anderen Formularfeldern schon eingetragene Anwendereingaben zum Beispiel) erhalten bleiben. Das bedeutet, die Daten werden überflüssiger Weise zum Server geschickt und unverändert wieder zurück gesendet. Mit AJAX kann ausschließlich die neue Information vom Server angefordert und in die bestehende Webseite integriert werden.

Zwar ist es bisher schon möglich für die Fälle, in denen nur wenige Daten auf Vorrat gehalten werden müssen, diese auf Vorrat zum Client zu schicken und mit Javascript beziehungsweise DHTML in die Webseite zu integrieren. Aber für große Datenmengen ist das nicht praktikabel.

Bei AJAX fordert man Daten erst dann an, wenn sie benötigt werden und zeigt sie in der Folge über DHTML-Effekte in den gewünschten Bereichen einer Webseite an. Bei AJAX kommunizieren dazu nicht nur der Browser und der Webserver direkt miteinander, sondern unabhängig von dieser Interaktion kann ein Objekt in der Webseite mit dem Server kommunizieren. Auf dieses Objekt (XMLHttpRequest) greift man dann bei JavaScript zu. Zum Beispiel wenn über ein Eventhandler in der Webseite eine Funktion aufgerufen wird. Dieses XMLHttpRequest-Objekt ist der Dreh- und Angelpunkt der gesamten AJAX-Technologie. Dazu werden rund um AJAX XHTML beziehungsweise HTML, XML, JavaScript und Style Sheets als Kerntechnologien bezeichnet. Die auf dem Server eingesetzte Technologie ist im Rahmen des Konzepts von AJAX selbst nicht explizit festgelegt. Ob Sie dort PHP einsetzen oder ASP.NET oder Java-Servlets oder JSP. Sie sind vollkommen frei in ihrer Wahl.

Aus alt mach neu?

Wenn Sie sich die Technologien betrachten, die bei AJAX den Kern bilden, werden Sie erkennen, dass AJAX nur wenige wirklich neue Ansätze zeigt. Das beanstanden Kritiker auf der einen Seite. AJAX sei nur ein Marketingbegriff für alte Technologien. Die Befürworter hingegen argumentieren genau umgeke um den hrt. Sie sagen, da so gut wie keine neuen Technologien erforderlich sind, ließe sich AJAX ohne größere Probleme in bestehenden Umgebungen implementieren. Und wahrscheinlich haben die Befürworter Recht, wie der Erfolg von AJAX zeigt.

Welche Probleme wirft die AJAX-Technologie auf?

AJAX ist ohne Zweifel eine Revolution des World Wide Web. Webapplikationen, die sehr stark mit Anwendern interagieren, werden über AJAX in einem Maß beschleunigt, dass Sie an Desktop-Applikationen erinnern werden. Das wird das Anwenderverhalten im World Wide Web verändern. Anwender werden in Zukunft aufgrund von AJAX-Applikationen "verdorben" werden. Das soll bedeuten, Sie werden bei vielen AJAX-Applikationen ein Verhalten vorgesetzt bekommen, dass sie in Zukunft dann von allen Internet-Applikation erwarten werden. Aber selbstverständlich kann man in einem Netzwerk wie dem Internet eine konstante, fehlerfreie und schnelle Übermittlung von Daten nicht voraussetzen. Was ist, wenn das Internet "hängt "?

Ersteller von Web-Applikation werden sich neue Formen bei der Interaktion mit den Anwendern und der Benutzerführung überlegen müssen. Aber AJAX wirft auch andere Probleme auf. Das Stichwort ist barrierefreies Web. Lesegeräte kommen mit dynamisch generierten Inhalten möglicherweise nicht klar. Des Weiteren werden auch Suchmaschinen mit dynamischen Inhalten Probleme haben und nicht zuletzt wird die Funktion der Lesezeichen im Browser bei AJAX-Applikationen nicht funktionieren. Ebenfalls ist das Verhalten der Zurück-Schaltfläche des Browsers bei AJAX-Applikationen ausgehebelt.

Für diese Probleme werden Entwicklungen rund um AJAX (insbesondere AJAX-Frameworks) nach und nach Lösungen bereitstellen oder haben sie bereits bereitgestellt. Dennoch - die Verwendung von AJAX wird in der ersten Phase eine ganze Reihe von Aufgaben aufwerfen. Das Hauptproblem wird aber sein, dass AJAX nur dann funktioniert, wenn beim Client die notwendigen technischen Voraussetzungen gegeben sind. Wenn also JavaScript aktiviert ist, ein halbwegs moderner Browser eingesetzt wird, der das XMLHttpRequest-Objekt unterstützt, DHTML-Effekte sauber vom Browser unterstützt werden und der Anwender diese Techniken auch nicht deaktiviert hat. Gerade in vielen Firmen, in denen die Firewall die Verwendung von Javascript noch immer verbietet, werden AJAX-Applikationen auf Probleme stoßen.

Fazit

Probleme sind dafür da gelöst zu werden. Alles in allem ist AJAX eine der viel versprechensten Entwicklung des Webs, die in den letzten Jahren zu beobachten war. Nun ist es endlich möglich, das träge Verhalten von Web-Applikation bei der Interaktion mit Anwendern abzustellen.

AJAX mit PHP. Beschleunigte Webapplikationen für das Web 2

Ralph Steyer ist Autor des Buches "AJAX mit PHP". Das Buch behandelt alle wesentlichen Grundlagen, die für eine effektive Programmierung von AJAX-Applikationen Voraussetzung sind, einschließlich der beiden Schlüsseltechniken im AJAX-Umfeld, JavaScript und (X)HTML.

04/2006, Ralph Steyer

Ralph Steyer, Diplom Mathematiker, arbeitete nach dem Studium einige Jahre bei einer großen Versicherung im Rhein-Main-Gebiet als Programmierer. Seit 1995 Freelancer mit den Tätigkeitsgebieten: Publikation, EDV-Schulungen, Programmierung und Beratung.

"Menschliche Suchmaschine" LYCOS iQ gewinnt Innovationspreis der Initiative Mittelstand (contentmanager.de)

Als "eine der innovativsten und interessantesten Lösungen für den Mittelstand" wurde LYCOS iQ mit dem Innovationspreis 2006 der Initiative Mittelstand ausgezeichnet.

Die im Januar 2006 in Deutschland eingeführte Eigenentwicklung des Internetportals LYCOS Europe setzt auf neue Wege bei der Web-Suche. Statt rein technischer Lösungen werden dem Suchenden bei LYCOS iQ menschliche Helfer zu Seite gestellt, die gezielt und kostenlos Fragen beantworten oder die Recherche im Netz durch die Angabe passgenauer Internet-Links vereinfachen. So erhalten LYCOS iQ-Nutzer direkte Antworten auf ihre Fragen statt unüberschaubarer Trefferlisten auf Suchbegriffe wie bei herkömmlichen Suchmaschinen.

Microsoft argues EU antitrust ruling was flawed (FT)

Microsoft on Monday attacked the European Commission’s 2004 antitrust ruling as “fundamentally flawed in fact and reasoning”, and called on a panel of senior European judges to overturn the landmark decision.

But the Commission’s legal team hit back, claiming Microsoft was using dubious surveys to bolster its case and arguing forcefully that the regulator’s decision should stand.

Lawyers for the software group had earlier told the European Court of First Instance in Luxembourg that the Commission had failed properly to analyse the market for media players – one of two markets in which Microsoft was found to have violated competition rules.

Brussels argued in its March 2004 decision that by “tying” Windows Media Player to the ubiquitous Windows operating system, Microsoft had illegally undermined competition from other media players and harmed consumer choice.

The finding is crucial not just for the case currently under appeal, but also for the Commission’s future ability to conduct investigations against Microsoft.

Brussels has already raised concerns about the US software giant’s plan to package new functions and programmes – including a web search engine – into Vista, its next operating system due next year.

But Jean-Francois Bellis, a Microsoft lawyer, told the 13 judges at the opening of a one-week appeal hearing, that the Commission had committed a string of errors in its decision on Media Player.

He said Media Player was not a separate product but a vital part of the Windows operating system. Like other desktop operating systems, Windows needed the ability to play back music and film clips, so it was wrong to draw an arbitrary line between the two and force them apart.

This, Mr Bellis added, was borne out by the fact that only 1,787 versions of Windows without Media Player had been ordered since the Commission forced Microsoft to market such a product – compared with the 35m units with Media Player sold in the corresponding period.

“The failure to offer a product that nobody wants cannot be an abuse,” Mr Bellis said.

Microsoft also argued that – contrary to the Commission’s assertions – the market for media players was thriving at the time of the decision, and still thrives.

The group’s experts cited the emergence of rival products such as Adobe’s Flash and Apple’s iTunes as evidence of this.

Wikis and Blogs, Part III: Understanding and Addressing Risk (AMR Research)

Wikis and blogs—accessible, user friendly, and magnetic in their ability to garnerattention and amass information—are often characterized by viral growth. As theterm connotes, such rampant proliferation can be hazardous to enterprise health.

We’ve already explored wikis and blogs—what they are (see the AMR Research Alert article “Wikis and Blogs, Part I: Why Silly Words Mean Serious Business”) and what they’re used for in enterprises (see the Alert article “Wikis and Blogs, Part II: Make Room for Innovation”). Now we’ll look at the risks and the best ways to avoid them.

Wikis and blogs—accessible, user friendly, and magnetic in their ability to garner attention and amass information—are often characterized by viral growth. As the term connotes, such rampant proliferation can be hazardous to enterprise health.

We’ll separate the risks into two groups: Risks of Use, denoting the deliberate use of wikis and blogs by enterprises, and Risks of Existence, denoting the risks of unsanctioned use and use by constituencies outside of the enterprise’s control. The good news is that every risk comes with a reward counterpart, which we’ll discuss in Part IV of this series next week.

Risks of use
Compliance risk—Enterprises are extremely wary about adding new environments where employees are encouraged to freely and openly express themselves and communicate. Already struggling to address the high risk of e-mail and instant messaging, the introduction of wikis and blogs could further complicate the issues.
Relationship risk—Companies are rightfully fearful of alienating or angering constituencies, particularly when deploying wikis and blogs to customers. Open, ungoverned online conversations between corporate executives and customers, while well meaning, can escalate into an adversarial tone very quickly. And providing a forum where customers air their grievances can be extremely risky.
Productivity risk—Employees can get distracted by reading and participating in blogs and wikis to the detriment of their other duties and responsibilities.
Lack of adoption risk—Wikis and blogs carry a somewhat mistaken reputation for ease of use and adoption. Some communities are more likely to adopt and put them to use than others. And personal characteristics and motivations play an important role, as about half of the people introduced to wikis use them actively and adopt them quickly. The other half don’t—and it’s hard to convince them to do so.
Information proliferation risk—Do you or your employees really need another source/destination for information, one that in fact competes for their knowledge with existing systems already starved for employee use and attention? Are you creating new silos?
System redundancy and conflict risk—While they’re often implemented in parallel now, enterprise investments in wikis and blogs will either work with or against other established systems and initiatives, like portals, content management systems, collaboration platforms, and business-process-specific systems like CRM, contact center knowledge management, and collaborative design and engineering. Are you creating a wiki-blog monster, impossible to integrate and coordinate with other systems, and sapping their source of energy and power? (i.e., the people who use them)
Hidden cost risk—Wikis and blogs are new territory for enterprises, and yet to scale to widespread use, it’s painfully difficult to foresee the cost of supporting and scaling the efforts. The implications for compliance, security, privacy, IT, and business human resources are nearly impossible to predict.
Product and vendor risk—The software market is replete with small startups selling wiki and blog product and services, vendors in adjacent spaces see them as new opportunities to expand their business, and enterprise application heavyweights are promising to offer them as features in upcoming offerings. The market will surely consolidate, but when and how? Who will address issues today and still be around to address them tomorrow?

Risks of existence
Many companies are coming to realize wikis and blogs are no longer choices for the enterprise. They are a new reality of the business world.
Rogue use—Many of your employees and constituents are already using wikis and blogs, whether it’s to improve their productivity and your business benefit or not. Turning a blind eye to use of publicly available and hosted platforms for wikis and blogs will greatly exacerbate compliance and security concerns.
Reputation risk—Making web publishing more accessible to consumers and self-styled editorialists through blogs, wikis, discussion boards, and other channels raises the risk flag for many companies.
Bad news ignored—Companies can no longer ignore the external blogosphere as a source of information about potential problems. They’re being held responsible for information about product defects and such, readily available to them, as well as their customers, partners, and government watchdogs on the web. Ignorance, in the form of technical incapability to detect these problems, is no longer an excuse.
Misinformation ignored—How do you stem the enormous, irreparable damage that misinformation, unsubstantiated statements, or skewed points of view communicated in blogs and wikis can have on your products and services?

Conclusion
Lest you think that we’re trying to dissuade enterprises from using blogs and wikis, here are two points. First, we may as well dissuade the tide from rising. Like it or not, wikis and blogs—and other such gizmos under other goofy names—will be a reality of your business. Second, when wikis, blogs, and broader Web 2.0 trends are understood and more deliberately adopted, the rewards will outweigh the risks and present new opportunities for your business.
So, in Part IV of this series, we’ll discuss the reward counterpoints to each of these risks, and give some practical advice on how to effectively roll them out to your business. In Part V, with risks and rewards in mind, we’ll look at the broad landscape of wiki and blog providers.
© Copyright 2006 by AMR Research, Inc.

ASP.NET CMS contentXXL mit kostenfreier Microsoft Datenbank (contentmanager.de)

Die Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express Edition mit Advanced Services ist eine neue, kostenfreie, einfach zu benutzende Version von Microsoft SQL Server 2005. Sie beinhaltet gegenüber der bereits seit längerem verfügbaren Express Edition zusätzliche Features wie
- Volltextsuche,
- Reporting Services und die
- Benutzeroberfläche Management Studio Express.

SAP EP Business Package für FIRSTSpirit (FIRSTSpirit)

Professionelles Content Management erhält eine steigende Bedeutung vor allem in großen Unternehmen und internationalen Konzernen. Das Publizieren von Inhalten ist das Eine, das Darstellen im Rahmen eines Unternehmensportals das Andere.
Perfekte Synergieeffekte können nur dann erzielt werden, wenn eine derart tiefe Integration eines Content Management Systems in das vorhandene SAP Enterprise Portal gelingt, dass die zuständigen CMS-Redakteure bequem und automatisch ohne SAP-Kenntnisse publizieren können. Dieser Schritt ist mit dem neuen zertifizierten SAP EP Business Package for FIRSTspirit gelungen. Die Realisierung erfolgte in Zusammenarbeit mit der HLP Informationsmanagement GmbH (www.hlp.de).

OneBox Innovations Will Strengthen Google's Enterprise Strategy (Gartner)

Google's decision to open up its enterprise search appliance to programmatic interfaces is an overdue but welcome development. Enterprises and vendors should take notice.

Mobile Phone Internet Access More Popular (FinancialWire)

Mobile Phone Internet Access More Popular

April 20, 2006 (FinancialWire) As mobile phone use worldwide continues to grow, it should not be surprising that the number of people using phones to access websites such as Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) and Yahoo (NASDA: YHOO) is also climbing.

According to a recent study released by the market research firm Ipsos Insight, checking email and browsing websites is becoming a more common thing to do on one's phone, in some places replacing laptops in growth.

In Europe and Asia, widespread use of wireless networks and expanding 3G phone technologies has made the expansion more obvious. In some countries wireless phones have replaced traditional Internet access altogether.

The study found that in some Asian nations, 90% of the population owned a mobile phone, compared to about 75% usage in the US. The findings were based on a sample of 6500 adults in 12 countries.

For up-to-the-minute news, features and links click on http://www.FinancialWire.net
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The Active Network Acquires Content Management Provider IronPoint (IronPoint)

Content Management Added to Technology and Marketing Solutions For Community Service Organizations; IronPoint Tools Will Help Organizations Improve Service, Communication and Promotion of Services

Amdocs buys content billing company (InfoWorld)

Amdocs pays $275 million for Qpass

FT.com / Business Life - Skype chief’s disruptive vision

FT.com / Business Life - Skype chief’s disruptive vision

SOS for Stellent (contentmanagement365.com)

Stellent has just released Version 7.6 of its Stellent® Sarbanes-Oxley Solution, designed to help companies streamline their Section 404 and 302 processes to comply with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act 2002.

Criticism of Google Is Misguided (Forbes)

Google Inc. has provoked quite a fuss by refusing to provide profit forecasts to analysts and investors. Despite complaints that this breeds uncertainty in the market, Google is actually one of many companies that have spurned a practice that may have few benefits and multiple drawbacks.

Oracle Acquires Portal Software (Line56)

Oracle addresses hitherto neglected vertical with $220 million acquisition of revenue management vendor

Oracle to buy Portal Software (InfoWorld)

Oracle intends to make another vertical-market acquisition, announcing plans Wednesday to offer about $220 million to acquire Portal Software, a maker of billing and revenue management software for the communications and media industry.

E-mail - is it out of control? (FT)

E-mail was never designed for most of today’s purposes, yet it is the internet’s most enduring “killer application”. We can’t live without it, but we can’t manage it either. What are the alternatives, and why aren’t we using them yet?

In 2003 researchers at Xerox PARC observed staff in three organisations and noticed it had become the “habitat” of choice for most knowledge workers, who used it as their main tool for scheduling, collaborating, and transferring files. They concluded it was so overloaded and so widely co-opted for inappropriate uses that “serial-killer application” would be a better description.

It is hard to believe, but it is almost 40 years old. Unsurprisingly it has shortcomings: spam, security, archiving and asynchronicity being just a few. Yet it is still the tool most people use to communicate and collaborate at work. For its billion or more users, part of its enduring attraction is its flexibility and informality, says Nikos Drakos, a research director at Gartner, the IT research group. “People can use e-mail to reach anyone. When they’re making it available, they have a degree of control that says ‘I will only make it available to you and you’ – it’s a kind of access control mechanism. And it’s semi-private.”

E-books turning over a new leaf (FT)

Electronic books always seem to have a good story to tell but have so far failed to produce a happy ending. So travellers are still hauling hefty paperbacks around on holidays and business trips.

(...)

Netherlands-based Philips spin-off iRex Technologies will also launch an “electronic ink”-based ebook reader this spring, targeting content publishers in the news, education and professional markets who will, it is hoped, use it to distribute content to their customers, says Hans Brons, iRex chief executive.

But the historical problems with reading devices is not the only reason ebook sales have been relatively sluggish, argues the Mr Bogaty of the IPDF. The organisation’s 2006 ebook user survey revealed three significant concerns among customers.

First, they were too expensive. Second, the selection available was too small. Third, and perhaps most important, proprietary file formats and the digital rights management (DRM) technology, used to protect the ebooks from piracy, have created problems. Users are worried about the lack of interoperability between reading systems, the longevity of formats, and lack of flexibility of files once purchased. Microsoft, for example, uses its .lit format, while others include Palm Reader, Gemstar, Mobipocket and Embiid, and Adobe has its PDF format.

The IPDF developed the Open eBook format. Publishers can create ebooks in this format, which would then be easily convertible to the proprietary formats. That helps publishers by reducing the number of formats they have to support, but it doesn’t help consumers. The IPDF is hoping to update the format to be used directly by consumers, says Mr Bogaty.

But poorly handled digital rights management continues to pose a problem. For example, Adobe’s latest e-book publishing system requires users to enter passwords over the internet when they want to read a book. And you need to re-authenticate online. “If you’re not online, you just get a warning telling you that you have so much time left,” says David Stevenson, senior sales engineer at Adobe.

Open Source Portale im Vergleich (opensourceportale.com)

Open Source Portale im Vergleich

Der positive Trend für den Einsatz von Open Source Software (OSS) ist ungebrochen. IT-Analysten des Marktforschungsinstituts Gartner kürten OSS gar zu einem der fünf wichtigsten IT-Themen für 2005 und 2006. Viele Unternehmen erwägen den Einsatz von Open Source Software, stehen jedoch dem vielfältigen Angebot der Möglichkeiten hilflos gegenüber.

EMC Joins the Move to Integrated Content Archiving Platform (Gartner)

Two new offerings from EMC are a sign of growing activity in the market for integrated archiving products. Companies will need such products to help them manage growing archives of e-mail and other content.

STELLENT INTRODUCES VERSION 7.6 OF ITS SARBANES-OXLEY SOLUTION (Stellent)

Version 7.6 offers new capabilities to further expedite financial compliance initiatives across the global enterprise

Red Hat agrees to buy open-source upstart (FT)

The fast-growing open-source software industry took a big step towards the mainstream on Monday as Red Hat, the biggest distributor of the Linux computer operating system, agreed to buy upstart JBoss for up to $420m.

The acquisition creates the first open-source company able to offer a broad array of the so-called “infrastructure” software on which corporate IT systems are based. As such, it could pose a long-term challenge to companies like Oracle, IBM and Microsoft, all of which sell traditional commercial alternatives, said Rick Sherlund, software analyst at Goldman Sachs.

Microsoft readies searches to rival Google (InfoWorld)

Microsoft confirmed through its public relations firm Friday that it is readying two new searches -- Windows Live Product Search and Windows Live Academic Search

Windows on Macs (Line56)

Apple now lets you dual-boot Windows XP and MAC OS, but Gartner says it's a cumbersome user experience

Build Your Own Knowledge Base (PortalsMag)

If you think Wikipedia rocks, build your own; tapping the power of self-correcting content creation

Link

Bericht von Forrester Research zitiert Stärke von FatWire bei Web Content Management (contentmanagement.de)

FatWire Software, Anbieter von Content-Management-Lösungen zur Implementierung von Websites und inhaltszentrischen Anwendungen, gab heute bekannt, dass das Unternehmen von Forrester Research in dessen Bericht "Forrester Wave: Content-Centric Applications" zum alleinigen Marktführer für überzeugende inhaltszentrische Anwendungen ernannt wurde. Die wichtigsten Erkenntnisse dieses Berichts stimmen mit der FatWire-Strategie überein, es Organisationen zu ermöglichen, ihren Kunden, Partnern und Mitarbeitern durch die Nutzung von Inhalt ein ganz spezielles und überzeugendes Erlebnis zu liefern.

Review: Microsoft's 'Kahuna' Falls Short (Forbes)

Enter Microsoft's Hotmail overhaul - code-named "Kahuna," so-named to reflect what the company considers a big wave of innovation. For now, though, Kahuna falls short.

Google aims to track users with wi-fi (FT)

Google aims to be able to track its users to within 100-200 feet of their location through new wireless networks in order to serve them with relevant advertising from local businesses.

A Free Portal (Line56)

Liferay's open source portal isn't only free, it's flexible and backed by options like service and training download

IBM Updates Portal (Line56)

6.0 edition of WebSphere Portal hands more customization power to individual users, integrates more tightly with Microsoft

Building on Search (Line56)

Teragram offers "practical solutions to monstrous amounts of information"; it's all about the metadata

Apple Offering Lets Users Choose Their Operating System (Gartner)

The Boot Camp program will offer a safety net for consumers running Windows XP on Intel-based Macs. But dual boot is not the experience most users want. A hypervisor-based Windows offering would be more useful.

Apple plugs into the world of Windows (FT)

Steve Jobs, the chief executive of Apple Computer, is famous for making biting comments about his rivals. And since the 1980s, no rivals have loomed larger than Microsoft and its founder, Bill Gates.

The UPS PR Portal (Line56)

How UPS used a portal to help unify corporate communications with the media and add internal productivity

SAP Portal Integration der Imperia AG erfolgreich zertifiziert (contentmanager.de)

Die SAP Portal Integration der Imperia AG, die erstmalig auf der Systems 2005 präsentiert wurde, ist von der SAP AG zertifiziert worden. Das Imperia Produktangebot wurde um ein entsprechendes Business Package erweitert.

Stellent's Agents Improve Records Management and Retention (Gartner)

Stellent Universal Records Management provides comprehensive management of electronic and physical records. Its use of connector agents will help address broader demand for automated retention management of all content.

Interwoven Eyes User Content (Red Herring)

Content management company introduces system to automate marketing and services for customers.

Oracle As a Service (Line56)

COCC taps Oracle to extend e-business infrastructure and applications to small and medium-sized banks

Murdoch Will Earn A Payday From MySpace (Forbes)

NEW YORK - One of my favorite sites on the Internet is Amazon.com's little-known Alexa, a traffic-ranking site that finds out its data from a browser toolbar. This toolbar links up similar sites of interest for the user so if you went to, for example, “a pet site,” it would give you links to other popular pet sites as indicated by the behavior of other Alexa users.

Release Dates for Office 2007 Determine New Version Rights (Gartner)

Now that Microsoft has confirmed the release dates for Office 2007, Software Assurance customers should check their agreement end dates to see if they will receive rights to it.

Cool Vendors Heat Up IT Markets (Gartner)

More than 140 little-known but exciting companies offer big possibilities for the future of IT. Organizations, technology providers and investors should become familiar with these cool vendors and their offerings.

Cool Vendors in Emerging Technologies, 2006 (Gartner)

	We examine two sets of related technologies: applications that tie to massively scalable computing resources, and the hardware and software technologies that can cost-effectively deliver those resources. We also identify two breakthrough vendors with portable power solutions. Cool vendors: MotionPoint FYI
	Rackable Systems
	SprayCool
	Parallels
	Invirtus
	Transitive
	Ageia
	UltraCell
	Zinc Matrix Power

KM Blog (Line56)

Your weekly look at books, links, and questions from the world of knowledge management

Beatles take Apple to court over iPod dispute (FT)

The long-running legal tussle between The Beatles' company, Apple Corp, and technology giant Apple Computer returned to London's High Court 15:34 | Read

FileNet to showcase its enterprise content and process management solutions at FT Summit in Dubai (AME Info)

FileNet Corporation, the leading provider of Enterprise Content and Business Process Management solutions, has announced its participation in the upcoming Financial Technological (FT) Summit & Exhibition 2006, which will be held at the JW Marriot Hotel, Dubai, from April 2-4.

FatWire Software Recognized as Sole Leader in Persuasive Content-Centric Applications by Independent Research Firm (FatWire US)

Report cites FatWire's strength in Web Content Management, reporting and analytics, and multichannel content delivery

Mineola, NY - March 28, 2006 -- FatWire Software, a leading provider of content management solutions for deploying Web sites and content-centric applications, announced that it has been ranked by Forrester Research as the sole Leader in persuasive content-centric applications in its Forrester Wave: Content-Centric Applications report. The key findings of this report align with FatWire's strategy to enable enterprises to put content to work by delivering highly targeted and persuasive experiences to customers, partners, and employees.

User trends drove Microsoft to Windows Live, exec says (InfoWorld)

Microsoft has woken up to the fact that advertising is a major force, exec says

Customers' changing expectations are behind Microsoft's (Profile, Products, Articles) decision to offer some of its applications over the Web in the form of free services supported by advertising, a company executive said Monday. The change in course led to last week's management shakeup, he said.

Microsoft: Biz Apps on Track (Red Herring)

Software giant says its business products are on schedule after announcing delays in consumer products.

Microsoft Bloggers Post Gripes (Red Herring)

Postings on company blog reveal low morale over Vista delay.