ITWeb :Autonomy 'enterprise-proofs' Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server for large, global enterprise customers
Microsoft hosts Autonomy's software to meet scalability, connectivity and conceptual search requirements of most demanding deployments.
[ Cambridge, UK and San Francisco, California, 22 September 2008 ] - Autonomy Corporation (LSE: AU. or AU.L), a global leader in infrastructure software for the enterprise, today announced its information processing technology extends Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) to meet customer requirements for scalability, connectivity and conceptual search.
Autonomy's Intelligent Data Operating Layer (IDOL) software is hosted by Microsoft or deployed onsite by hundreds of large, global MOSS customers to enable SharePoint users to find and process content based on understanding the meaning of information. As an example, IDOL's highly scalable, distributed architecture is in use in one of the world's largest SharePoint retrieval projects, which consists of 400 000 users, 25 000 sites, and over one billion documents.
SharePoint's portal and collaboration capabilities have led to rapid adoption and widespread use in large, geographically dispersed organisations. IDOL's distributed and modular architecture complements MOSS by enabling users to access SharePoint files over Wide Area Networks (WANs), overcoming a major challenge for global companies with distributed servers as Shared Service Providers (SSPs) do not natively support WAN communications. Moreover, encrypted inter-machine and intra-process communication protocols are woven into the fabric of Autonomy's modular design at a fundamental level, providing secure transmission of information throughout the architecture. IDOL routinely supports millions of documents, hundreds of thousands of users, and hundreds of thousands of transactions on distributed commodity servers, with the largest installation exceeding 10 billion documents.
Autonomy further extends global MOSS scalability through its distributed, brokered architecture and "geo-efficient" design, which allows data to be automatically replicated in the most sensible location based on bandwidth, lag time, availability and demand. This enables high performance and gives users aggregated access to all enterprise information in a unified view in globally dispersed environments, while reducing bandwidth overhead. Because IDOL creates a stub, or shortcut, to the data and supports tiered storage rather than requiring that data be stored in SQL Server, organisations using IDOL with SharePoint can further benefit from dramatically reduced SQL Server licences and associated scalability limitations. In addition, large enterprises with complex deployments can take advantage of IDOL's redundancy, load balancing, mirroring and high failover to enable linear scalability, high availability and rapid performance of MOSS.
Autonomy IDOL's mature connector framework, which supports over 400 repositories, is additionally leveraged by organisations with SharePoint to avoid custom creation of IFilters and Protocol Handlers and ensure all data will be indexed. Autonomy IDOL can index and automatically analyse any piece of information from over 1 000 different content formats, unifying enterprise information to allow an unprecedented view of the organisation's information assets. This enables SharePoint to transform from a departmental collaboration solution to enterprise collaboration.
Furthermore, Autonomy's advanced conceptual search functionality supplements native MOSS capabilities to enrich the search experience. IDOL forms an understanding of the content of any given page and makes contextual associations between pages, documents, multimedia and search queries to ensure users are always provided with information that is particularly relevant to them. Using the idea behind the given words, and not just the words themselves, IDOL avoids inaccuracy and retrieves not just the most popular content, but the most pertinent.
"SharePoint delivers excellent 'interface and workflow' frameworks for productivity and content applications, but the large and growing volumes of users and rapid increases in content in SharePoint deployments necessitate the highest levels of security and scalability, which Autonomy delivers," commented Mike Lynch, chief executive officer of Autonomy. "The advanced pan-enterprise search capabilities of IDOL leverage Meaning-Based Computing technology to form a conceptual understanding of all data, regardless of what or where it is. This enables customers to capitalise on their SharePoint investments and harness the full richness of human information."
Autonomy provides Microsoft's SharePoint Server customers with:
* A conceptual understanding of the information within MOSS to proactively make connections between users, enhancing collaboration among them.
* A modular, distributed architecture supporting enterprise-class scalability for hundreds of thousands of enterprise users accessing hundreds of terabytes of data with sub-second response, indexing in excess of 110GB/hour and supporting over 470 million documents on 64-bit platforms.
* Unique Mapped Security and native support for all enterprise security models, permitting MOSS to be run within security sensitive environments, such as DOD 5015, EAL, and Bell-LaPadula.
* Extension of standard Microsoft's IFilter file support from 16 to 1 000+ file formats, including ODF and PDFX, with native support for over 400 repositories regardless of operating system.
* Over 500 advanced functions, such as expertise location, communities, implicit profiling, explicit personalisation, automatic categorisation, clustering, geo searching, automatic query guidance, and automatic hyperlinking.
Autonomy
Autonomy Corporation (LSE: AU. or AU.L) is a global leader in infrastructure software for the enterprise and is spearheading the meaning-based computing movement. Autonomy's technology allows computers to harness the full richness of human information, forming a conceptual and contextual understanding of any piece of electronic data including unstructured information, be it text, e-mail, voice or video. Autonomy's software powers the full spectrum of mission-critical enterprise applications, including information access technology, pan-enterprise search, information governance, end-to-end eDiscovery and archiving, records management, business process management, customer interaction solutions, and video and audio analysis, and is recognised by industry analysts as the clear leader in enterprise search.
Autonomy's customer base comprises of more than 17 000 global companies and organisations, including: 3, ABN AMRO, AOL, BAE Systems, BBC, Bloomberg, Boeing, Citigroup, Coca Cola, Daimler Chrysler, Deutsche Bank, Ericsson, Ford, GlaxoSmithKline, Lloyd TSB, NASA, Nestle, the New York Stock Exchange, Reuters, Shell, T-Mobile, the US Department of Energy, the US Department of Homeland Security and the US Securities and Exchange Commission. More than 350 companies OEM Autonomy technology, including BEA, Citrix, EDS, H-P, Novell, Oracle, Sybase and TIBCO, and the company has over 400 VARs and Systems Integrators. The company has offices worldwide.
Autonomy and the Autonomy logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of Autonomy Corporation plc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Gustaf's Microsoft Dynamics CRM & SharePoint Blog: The power of SharePoint
Gustaf's Microsoft Dynamics CRM & SharePoint Blog: The power of SharePoint
The power of SharePoint
Presently I am employed at Logica as a consultant and the projects I am involved in are always Dynamcis CRM centered. However, I used to work at Humandata earlier, run by the SharePoint MVP Göran Husman and I am since this time a devoted SharePoint fan.
Apart from this, it is also a great tool for running projects in. Instead of millions of post-its with all the questionsmarks in the project, we use a discussion board. Instead of impossible hierarchies of folder for SureStep documents, we use one Document Library with Meta-data describing what part of SureStep the document should be connected to. This way, documents are easier to find, easier to work with, easier to share and we get version control all for free.
The power of SharePoint
Presently I am employed at Logica as a consultant and the projects I am involved in are always Dynamcis CRM centered. However, I used to work at Humandata earlier, run by the SharePoint MVP Göran Husman and I am since this time a devoted SharePoint fan.
Apart from this, it is also a great tool for running projects in. Instead of millions of post-its with all the questionsmarks in the project, we use a discussion board. Instead of impossible hierarchies of folder for SureStep documents, we use one Document Library with Meta-data describing what part of SureStep the document should be connected to. This way, documents are easier to find, easier to work with, easier to share and we get version control all for free.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
FT.com / Digital Business / Personal view - Going for a song
FT.com / Digital Business / Personal view - Going for a song
Going for a song
By David Ford, chief executive of Securecoms Ltd
Published: September 18 2008 16:52 | Last updated: September 18 2008 16:52
Keeping confidential information secure seems to be getting harder and harder. It’s not enough to protect your own networks, computers and storage devices – you must also worry about anyone else who might hold your data.
We need to consider very carefully what happens to confidential and personal information when it’s in our possession and, importantly, when it leaves our offices. Electronic data takes on a life of its own. While photocopying paper files is a lengthy undertaking, copies of electronic data are created in moments and then cease to be accounted for. Just ask someone to look at the contents of their USB stick – almost always you’ll find documents there which should have been deleted long ago.
With scandals about sensitive data being lost, or popping up where it shouldn’t, seeming to occur daily the urgency of addressing the security implications of our ever-increasing technological capabilities has become acute. We are now exploring the security of the various devices we carry outside the office but we’re still overlooking the main route by which confidential information leaves the security of our office networks – e-mail.
Every day, highly confidential information travels round the internet insecurely. We wouldn’t dream of entering our credit card details on an insecure web page; we certainly wouldn’t conduct our online banking that way but we use e-mail to transport the majority of written business communication. Businesses of all sizes, and their advisers, send every conceivable sort of confidential information via e-mail – either contained directly in the e-mail or, increasingly, using e-mail as the conduit to send documents as attachments.
Using e-mail is like sending your communications by postcard. Actually it’s worse than that. Postcards, at least, remain in the possession of the post office until delivered. E-mails, on the other hand, travel across an insecure public network and pass through many unknown points before arriving at their destination.
We rage when we hear the latest story about a government laptop being lost or stolen, or a memory stick being mislaid, or CDs being lost in the post, yet we are all guilty of similar security lapses by sending unprotected confidential information out via e-mail.
Public companies, for example, send price-sensitive information to their various advisers during the periods before the making of announcements via e-mail. The Financial Services Authority has expressed concern that there is too much leakage of sensitive information and has reviewed the whole area of IT. However, although it recognised that external network connections should be secured by encryption (recommending the use of VPNs), it made no similar recommendations in connection with the encryption of e-mails. It made the obvious point that sensitive information should not be e-mailed to web-based e-mail accounts (presumably they meant free e-mail accounts) and that “address auto-complete” should be disabled, but didn’t devote any deep thought to the whole issue of the insecurity of e-mail.
Similarly, the Information Commissioner’s Office has not tackled the issue of insecure e-mail. The ICO accepts that sending unencrypted e-mail on open networks poses a security risk but, since its resources are stretched, it is concentrating on what it sees as more pressing problems – unencrypted laptops, disks and memory sticks. In other words it is not prepared to take a lead, preferring to react to events after they occur.
The only organisations in the UK that have made clear recommendations on this topic are the Law Society and the Bar Council. However, despite this advice from their professional bodies, more than 99 per cent of e-mails sent by solicitors and barristers are still sent insecurely.
The situation is not complicated. We have developed technologies that enable us to store and manipulate masses of personal and confidential information with ease. These capabilities impose a responsibility on us to ensure information is kept securely. We have accepted for some time that we must keep our internal networks secure.
However, now that it has become so easy to take or send information outside the secure environments we have built, we must ensure it is properly protected en route. This must be true whether information is carried on a laptop or a USB stick or sent out on a CD or an e-mail. An appropriate form of encryption is the only real security solution.
Until this simple principle is adopted by all of the main regulatory authorities and the message clearly conveyed to all of us who deal in confidences, whether our own or others, nothing will be done. Only when secure e-mail becomes an expected norm will we adopt the necessary systems to ensure that stories about yet another scandalous loss of personal data or confidential information have become a thing of the past.
David Ford is chief executive of Securecoms Ltd and former managing partner of Tarlo Lyons, the law firm
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
Going for a song
By David Ford, chief executive of Securecoms Ltd
Published: September 18 2008 16:52 | Last updated: September 18 2008 16:52
Keeping confidential information secure seems to be getting harder and harder. It’s not enough to protect your own networks, computers and storage devices – you must also worry about anyone else who might hold your data.
We need to consider very carefully what happens to confidential and personal information when it’s in our possession and, importantly, when it leaves our offices. Electronic data takes on a life of its own. While photocopying paper files is a lengthy undertaking, copies of electronic data are created in moments and then cease to be accounted for. Just ask someone to look at the contents of their USB stick – almost always you’ll find documents there which should have been deleted long ago.
With scandals about sensitive data being lost, or popping up where it shouldn’t, seeming to occur daily the urgency of addressing the security implications of our ever-increasing technological capabilities has become acute. We are now exploring the security of the various devices we carry outside the office but we’re still overlooking the main route by which confidential information leaves the security of our office networks – e-mail.
Every day, highly confidential information travels round the internet insecurely. We wouldn’t dream of entering our credit card details on an insecure web page; we certainly wouldn’t conduct our online banking that way but we use e-mail to transport the majority of written business communication. Businesses of all sizes, and their advisers, send every conceivable sort of confidential information via e-mail – either contained directly in the e-mail or, increasingly, using e-mail as the conduit to send documents as attachments.
Using e-mail is like sending your communications by postcard. Actually it’s worse than that. Postcards, at least, remain in the possession of the post office until delivered. E-mails, on the other hand, travel across an insecure public network and pass through many unknown points before arriving at their destination.
We rage when we hear the latest story about a government laptop being lost or stolen, or a memory stick being mislaid, or CDs being lost in the post, yet we are all guilty of similar security lapses by sending unprotected confidential information out via e-mail.
Public companies, for example, send price-sensitive information to their various advisers during the periods before the making of announcements via e-mail. The Financial Services Authority has expressed concern that there is too much leakage of sensitive information and has reviewed the whole area of IT. However, although it recognised that external network connections should be secured by encryption (recommending the use of VPNs), it made no similar recommendations in connection with the encryption of e-mails. It made the obvious point that sensitive information should not be e-mailed to web-based e-mail accounts (presumably they meant free e-mail accounts) and that “address auto-complete” should be disabled, but didn’t devote any deep thought to the whole issue of the insecurity of e-mail.
Similarly, the Information Commissioner’s Office has not tackled the issue of insecure e-mail. The ICO accepts that sending unencrypted e-mail on open networks poses a security risk but, since its resources are stretched, it is concentrating on what it sees as more pressing problems – unencrypted laptops, disks and memory sticks. In other words it is not prepared to take a lead, preferring to react to events after they occur.
The only organisations in the UK that have made clear recommendations on this topic are the Law Society and the Bar Council. However, despite this advice from their professional bodies, more than 99 per cent of e-mails sent by solicitors and barristers are still sent insecurely.
The situation is not complicated. We have developed technologies that enable us to store and manipulate masses of personal and confidential information with ease. These capabilities impose a responsibility on us to ensure information is kept securely. We have accepted for some time that we must keep our internal networks secure.
However, now that it has become so easy to take or send information outside the secure environments we have built, we must ensure it is properly protected en route. This must be true whether information is carried on a laptop or a USB stick or sent out on a CD or an e-mail. An appropriate form of encryption is the only real security solution.
Until this simple principle is adopted by all of the main regulatory authorities and the message clearly conveyed to all of us who deal in confidences, whether our own or others, nothing will be done. Only when secure e-mail becomes an expected norm will we adopt the necessary systems to ensure that stories about yet another scandalous loss of personal data or confidential information have become a thing of the past.
David Ford is chief executive of Securecoms Ltd and former managing partner of Tarlo Lyons, the law firm
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Improve Your Collaboration with Microsoft® SharePoint®-based Solutions
Improve Your Collaboration with Microsoft® SharePoint®-based Solutions
Information sharing, both inside and outside the enterprise, continues to be a challenge for many organizations. BearingPoint believes that distributed information management supported by a centralized management infrastructure can help address this issue. We have been collaborating with Microsoft for nearly 10 years; we’re building on that experience to create enterprise information solutions based on Microsoft® SharePoint® technology.
Microsoft® SharePoint® provides a framework that can help improve:
- Collaboration
- Business intelligence
- Business processes
- Content management
- Search capabilities
SharePoint® -based solutions can help organizations manage information seamlessly across their enterprise. This technology facilitates collaboration and distributed project management by supporting central deployment of the infrastructure needed to create and support cross-enterprise activities. The technology is non-intrusive and integrates with desktop applications. However, it is also far reaching in terms of supporting the complex workflows and information sharing that communities of interests require.
BearingPoint consultants can combine SharePoint® with other core Microsoft technologies to create customized solutions that provide rich security, document management and collaboration features. And SharePoint® -based applications can grow as your organization grows and evolves.
Learn more about SharePoint®-based Solutions. Contact Us
Information sharing, both inside and outside the enterprise, continues to be a challenge for many organizations. BearingPoint believes that distributed information management supported by a centralized management infrastructure can help address this issue. We have been collaborating with Microsoft for nearly 10 years; we’re building on that experience to create enterprise information solutions based on Microsoft® SharePoint® technology.
Microsoft® SharePoint® provides a framework that can help improve:
- Collaboration
- Business intelligence
- Business processes
- Content management
- Search capabilities
SharePoint® -based solutions can help organizations manage information seamlessly across their enterprise. This technology facilitates collaboration and distributed project management by supporting central deployment of the infrastructure needed to create and support cross-enterprise activities. The technology is non-intrusive and integrates with desktop applications. However, it is also far reaching in terms of supporting the complex workflows and information sharing that communities of interests require.
BearingPoint consultants can combine SharePoint® with other core Microsoft technologies to create customized solutions that provide rich security, document management and collaboration features. And SharePoint® -based applications can grow as your organization grows and evolves.
Learn more about SharePoint®-based Solutions. Contact Us
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Information governance – more than a guiding force? (FT.com)
Information governance – more than a guiding force?
By Mike Lynch, founder and chief executive of Autonomy
Published: September 16 2008 11:40 | Last updated: September 16 2008 11:40
Corporate attitudes to information governance are changing. The exponential growth of information that is created and cultivated within a business has in many ways become as much a liability as it has an asset.
Regulatory fines, internal fraud, and class action lawsuits, unexpected personal data leaks and loss can cost a business millions, and impact the corporate brand with a backlash of public opinion which can devastate a company for years and in some cases, such as that of Arthur Andersen, the damage can be irreversible.
In the corporate world these days the smoking gun is often found on a server and that is where the regulator has learned to look.
The two extreme policies of keeping everything, or alternatively keeping nothing, are in most industries now illegal and certainly out of date. While we may long for the days when a midnight e-mail from IT could kindly ask employees to clean up their network folders, stop using personal hard drives, or refrain from deleting germane files needed in a legal case, organisations are recognising that the potential damage from rogue (or uninformed) employees far outweighs reliance on principle alone.
These risks are driving organisations to implement strict information policies for accessing, holding and disposing of data in a timely manner to ensure compliance and avoid hefty fines or, in the worst cases, criminal prosecution.
Gone are the days when compliance used to be determined by a filing cabinet. Today more than 80 per cent of data in the enterprise is not neatly organised on shelves and resides outside the scope of structured databases on laptops, servers, and mobile devices across corporate divisions, languages and geographic boundaries.
With documents, e-mails, instant messages, blogs, and audio files being created at uncontrollable levels, and a huge influx of rich media into the business, this content has become particularly hard to retrieve, systematise and certainly govern.
Traditional approaches where companies simply preserve everything cannot be sustained. The cost of storage is far more than hardware alone, and organisations struggle to use basic search technologies to find relevant information when needed. Data protection laws may not allow retention and in any case unnecessarily retained information can cause cost and unexpected liability, for example during e-discovery for lawsuits.
The sheer volume of this unstructured data and the crude number of governing policies that can affect content have for long nourished the misconception that an organisation needs an army of professionals stationed at every digital intersection to decide the appropriate course of action: a model as unappealing as it is impractical.
True information governance goes beyond merely alerting a compliance officer to a potential set of policy violations or counting the number of privacy breaches. It includes broad control and action and does not leave enforcement to individuals who are unable to keep up with the volume and speed of modern business. This should happen in real-time with visibility into the process to foster collaboration among compliance officers, legal, and IT.
Unfortunately these challenges have led many executives to operate under the misguided notion that true information governance can only exist as a guiding force and not a proposed reality.
They fail to realise that a fundamental shift in the way computers operate enables intelligence and automation within governance. Meaning-based computing allows computers to ingest information in its native human-friendly format, form a conceptual understanding of the content, its inherent rules and security entitlements, and take action upon it.
This ability of computers to understand the meaning of data – the who, when, where and how of content – enables a fundamental shift from manual to automated, consistent, and secure governance.
Technology can now read an e-mail as it is sent, realise it is a compliance issue and prevent it being sent out. It can analyse the files on a laptop and lock down those relevant to a legal case. It can take a message and realise it concerns a national of a country that does not allow information on its citizens to be held outside its borders and route it to the right server for storage. It can take a message, read it and understand it and decide that it must be archived for seven years, while another message for only 30 days. Then after the allotted time it can automatically delete them.
By gaining a conceptual understanding of all corporate data, one is able to utilise a policy-based approach effectively to execute all processes associated with the retention, supervision and ultimate disposition of electronic information. Organisations are able to define and apply policies at the point of data creation, automating information classification based on its content, flagging any non-compliant documents, preserving data in archives and integrating disposition management systems that can honour any legal holds.
Just as we saw Sarbanes Oxley as a response to the Enron era, it is likely we will see a further acceleration of information governance regulations as a response to the events of the sub-prime crisis.
These new rules along with the consequences of the recent changes in the US Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP), Data Protection legislation, Compliance regulations and many countries’ new geographic storage rules will drive the need for companies to take a pan-enterprise view of information governance.
By automating information governance to reduce business risk, we ultimately safeguard the guiding principles that drive the vast majority of employees and officers to protect the integrity of the corporate brand, while not impeding the creativity and flexibility that drive value in modern business.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
By Mike Lynch, founder and chief executive of Autonomy
Published: September 16 2008 11:40 | Last updated: September 16 2008 11:40
Corporate attitudes to information governance are changing. The exponential growth of information that is created and cultivated within a business has in many ways become as much a liability as it has an asset.
Regulatory fines, internal fraud, and class action lawsuits, unexpected personal data leaks and loss can cost a business millions, and impact the corporate brand with a backlash of public opinion which can devastate a company for years and in some cases, such as that of Arthur Andersen, the damage can be irreversible.
In the corporate world these days the smoking gun is often found on a server and that is where the regulator has learned to look.
The two extreme policies of keeping everything, or alternatively keeping nothing, are in most industries now illegal and certainly out of date. While we may long for the days when a midnight e-mail from IT could kindly ask employees to clean up their network folders, stop using personal hard drives, or refrain from deleting germane files needed in a legal case, organisations are recognising that the potential damage from rogue (or uninformed) employees far outweighs reliance on principle alone.
These risks are driving organisations to implement strict information policies for accessing, holding and disposing of data in a timely manner to ensure compliance and avoid hefty fines or, in the worst cases, criminal prosecution.
Gone are the days when compliance used to be determined by a filing cabinet. Today more than 80 per cent of data in the enterprise is not neatly organised on shelves and resides outside the scope of structured databases on laptops, servers, and mobile devices across corporate divisions, languages and geographic boundaries.
With documents, e-mails, instant messages, blogs, and audio files being created at uncontrollable levels, and a huge influx of rich media into the business, this content has become particularly hard to retrieve, systematise and certainly govern.
Traditional approaches where companies simply preserve everything cannot be sustained. The cost of storage is far more than hardware alone, and organisations struggle to use basic search technologies to find relevant information when needed. Data protection laws may not allow retention and in any case unnecessarily retained information can cause cost and unexpected liability, for example during e-discovery for lawsuits.
The sheer volume of this unstructured data and the crude number of governing policies that can affect content have for long nourished the misconception that an organisation needs an army of professionals stationed at every digital intersection to decide the appropriate course of action: a model as unappealing as it is impractical.
True information governance goes beyond merely alerting a compliance officer to a potential set of policy violations or counting the number of privacy breaches. It includes broad control and action and does not leave enforcement to individuals who are unable to keep up with the volume and speed of modern business. This should happen in real-time with visibility into the process to foster collaboration among compliance officers, legal, and IT.
Unfortunately these challenges have led many executives to operate under the misguided notion that true information governance can only exist as a guiding force and not a proposed reality.
They fail to realise that a fundamental shift in the way computers operate enables intelligence and automation within governance. Meaning-based computing allows computers to ingest information in its native human-friendly format, form a conceptual understanding of the content, its inherent rules and security entitlements, and take action upon it.
This ability of computers to understand the meaning of data – the who, when, where and how of content – enables a fundamental shift from manual to automated, consistent, and secure governance.
Technology can now read an e-mail as it is sent, realise it is a compliance issue and prevent it being sent out. It can analyse the files on a laptop and lock down those relevant to a legal case. It can take a message and realise it concerns a national of a country that does not allow information on its citizens to be held outside its borders and route it to the right server for storage. It can take a message, read it and understand it and decide that it must be archived for seven years, while another message for only 30 days. Then after the allotted time it can automatically delete them.
By gaining a conceptual understanding of all corporate data, one is able to utilise a policy-based approach effectively to execute all processes associated with the retention, supervision and ultimate disposition of electronic information. Organisations are able to define and apply policies at the point of data creation, automating information classification based on its content, flagging any non-compliant documents, preserving data in archives and integrating disposition management systems that can honour any legal holds.
Just as we saw Sarbanes Oxley as a response to the Enron era, it is likely we will see a further acceleration of information governance regulations as a response to the events of the sub-prime crisis.
These new rules along with the consequences of the recent changes in the US Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP), Data Protection legislation, Compliance regulations and many countries’ new geographic storage rules will drive the need for companies to take a pan-enterprise view of information governance.
By automating information governance to reduce business risk, we ultimately safeguard the guiding principles that drive the vast majority of employees and officers to protect the integrity of the corporate brand, while not impeding the creativity and flexibility that drive value in modern business.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
Monday, September 15, 2008
Who will be the new king of CRM?
Who will be the new king of CRM?
By Geoff Nairn
Published: September 15 2008 14:29 | Last updated: September 15 2008 14:29
While the debate about hosted or on-premise customer relationship management software rages, Oracle claims to offer the best of both worlds. Its Oracle CRM On Demand Integration to Siebel CRM product synchronises customer data held in Oracle CRM On Demand – Oracle’s home-grown on-demand CRM offering – with Siebel CRM, which Oracle owns after acquiring Siebel Systems in 2005.
Siebel remains the undisputed king for traditional on-premises CRM but most of the growth in the CRM industry now comes from newer on-demand CRM providers such as Salesforce.com.
Improved world view
IBM has unveiled new software to help businesses make sense of their product data. InfoSphere Master Data Management Server for Product Information Server aims to provide a “single view” of all the information held on a product across geographic locations. Big Blue also added a global name recognition module for InfoSphere Information Server to improve name matching for businesses that operate in many countries.
Small and affordable
Dell is targeting small businesses in emerging markets with the four latest additions to its Vostro range of PCs launched in Beijing.
Affordability is the key selling point of the Vostro A860 and A840, two laptops that come with 15.6-inch or 14.1-inch HD screens, Celeron or Core 2 Duo processors and a choice of operating system – Ubuntu Linux or Windows Vista. There are also two desktop mini-towers, the Vostro 180 and A100 – interestingly the latter only comes with Ubuntu.
Virtual security gates
Internet security firm Check Software Technologies has introduced a virtual security gateway aimed at the growing number of businesses with virtualised IT environments.
VPN-1 Virtual Edition is optimised for VMware environments and provides similar levels of security for virtualised applications to those located on separate servers, the company claims. Pricing starts at $7,500 for five virtual machines.
Aid to compliance
Microsoft has teamed up with BearingPoint – KPMG Consulting as was – to offer a compliance product based on Microsoft’s SharePoint Server 2007. BearingPoint Enterprise Governance, Risk and Compliance helps organisations manage risk and compliance using alerts and analytical tools.
For example, if a key risk indicator is exceeded, e-mail alerts are triggered and employees guided through the necessary steps.
Red flag for danger
EMC aims to address the growing problem of identity theft with a solution comprising software and services. The catalyst for the new offering is the Facta regulations in the US which require organisations to put in place policies and procedures to address the risk of identity theft in a systematic fashion by detecting warning signs or “red flags”. EMC’s Facta Red Flags product is designed to help financial institutions and creditors meet the November 1 Facta deadline.
“Powered by Google”
Google has announced a new version of the Google Search Appliance, which integrates hardware and software is aimed at organisations that want to add a “powered by Google” sticker to their corporate intranet or website.
The appliance can index all of an organisation’s content, up to 10m documents, in a single box. It can also search the information held on leading content management systems such as EMC Documentum, IBM FileNet, OpenText Livelink and Microsoft SharePoint.
Siren call of open source
System management is the latest part of the software business to succumb to the advances of the open source movement. Fujitsu Siemens has announced that its Primergy servers can now be managed and monitored with the Nagios open source software suite.
Specialist outfit Netways has developed a downloadable plug-in that allows Nagios to monitor Fujitsu Siemens’ hardware for a wide range of variables such as network services, server resources and system temperature.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
By Geoff Nairn
Published: September 15 2008 14:29 | Last updated: September 15 2008 14:29
While the debate about hosted or on-premise customer relationship management software rages, Oracle claims to offer the best of both worlds. Its Oracle CRM On Demand Integration to Siebel CRM product synchronises customer data held in Oracle CRM On Demand – Oracle’s home-grown on-demand CRM offering – with Siebel CRM, which Oracle owns after acquiring Siebel Systems in 2005.
Siebel remains the undisputed king for traditional on-premises CRM but most of the growth in the CRM industry now comes from newer on-demand CRM providers such as Salesforce.com.
Improved world view
IBM has unveiled new software to help businesses make sense of their product data. InfoSphere Master Data Management Server for Product Information Server aims to provide a “single view” of all the information held on a product across geographic locations. Big Blue also added a global name recognition module for InfoSphere Information Server to improve name matching for businesses that operate in many countries.
Small and affordable
Dell is targeting small businesses in emerging markets with the four latest additions to its Vostro range of PCs launched in Beijing.
Affordability is the key selling point of the Vostro A860 and A840, two laptops that come with 15.6-inch or 14.1-inch HD screens, Celeron or Core 2 Duo processors and a choice of operating system – Ubuntu Linux or Windows Vista. There are also two desktop mini-towers, the Vostro 180 and A100 – interestingly the latter only comes with Ubuntu.
Virtual security gates
Internet security firm Check Software Technologies has introduced a virtual security gateway aimed at the growing number of businesses with virtualised IT environments.
VPN-1 Virtual Edition is optimised for VMware environments and provides similar levels of security for virtualised applications to those located on separate servers, the company claims. Pricing starts at $7,500 for five virtual machines.
Aid to compliance
Microsoft has teamed up with BearingPoint – KPMG Consulting as was – to offer a compliance product based on Microsoft’s SharePoint Server 2007. BearingPoint Enterprise Governance, Risk and Compliance helps organisations manage risk and compliance using alerts and analytical tools.
For example, if a key risk indicator is exceeded, e-mail alerts are triggered and employees guided through the necessary steps.
Red flag for danger
EMC aims to address the growing problem of identity theft with a solution comprising software and services. The catalyst for the new offering is the Facta regulations in the US which require organisations to put in place policies and procedures to address the risk of identity theft in a systematic fashion by detecting warning signs or “red flags”. EMC’s Facta Red Flags product is designed to help financial institutions and creditors meet the November 1 Facta deadline.
“Powered by Google”
Google has announced a new version of the Google Search Appliance, which integrates hardware and software is aimed at organisations that want to add a “powered by Google” sticker to their corporate intranet or website.
The appliance can index all of an organisation’s content, up to 10m documents, in a single box. It can also search the information held on leading content management systems such as EMC Documentum, IBM FileNet, OpenText Livelink and Microsoft SharePoint.
Siren call of open source
System management is the latest part of the software business to succumb to the advances of the open source movement. Fujitsu Siemens has announced that its Primergy servers can now be managed and monitored with the Nagios open source software suite.
Specialist outfit Netways has developed a downloadable plug-in that allows Nagios to monitor Fujitsu Siemens’ hardware for a wide range of variables such as network services, server resources and system temperature.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
Friday, September 12, 2008
The next generation gap: IT and Web 2.0 (FT.com)
The next generation gap: IT and Web 2.0
By Gerhard Eschelbeck, chief technology officer for Webroot
Published: September 12 2008 17:15 | Last updated: September 12 2008 17:15
Once, if you were “twittering” you would be nervous, and a “face book” was a catalogue of known criminals. Now, Twitter and Facebook are two of the fastest growing Web 2.0 collaboration applications. Until recently they merely kept a younger generation of technology-fluent “Generation Ys” up late at night; now they are causing sleepless nights for IT management because of the security holes they represent.
Over the past decade, many fundamental business activities – marketing, advertising, customer support, sales transactions – have become web dependent. At the same time, the web is now considered the number one delivery mechanism for malware. This poses a significant security challenge to companies due to adoption of Web 2.0 technology (blogs, video, wikis, internet messaging, social networking sites, RSS feeds and similar elements) – the communication tools of choice for Gen Y.
In the next 10 years 71m Gen Y (18-30 year-olds) will enter the workforce with their favored tools for communication, researching and collaborating. Gen Y thrives on flexibility and is used to having information a click away using Web 2.0 technology. In a recent survey by Blessingwhite of employees in the UK and Ireland, 23 per cent of Gen Y employees felt they were fully engaged and taking pride in helping the organisation achieve its goals when they felt it was aligned with their own values, goals and aspirations. This alignment is the best method for achieving sustainable employee engagement.
Even though there are a number of social software tools that IT managers can comfortably deploy within their enterprise network, such Microsoft SharePoint and IBM Lotus Connections, they don’t compare with Web 2.0 sites such as Facebook. The latest ComScore data show that Facebook’s 90m user network grew 153 per cent last year globally and by more than 303 per cent in Europe where the site recorded 37m unique visitors in June alone. Gen Y youngsters depend on social-networking to organise their lives and interact with colleagues. Blocking access or using URL filtering alone is not the answer because they don’t fully answer the problem and a restrictive corporate environment will not be appealing to these bright college graduates.
And, with 85 per cent of all threats coming from the web, and with at least 5 per cent of heavily trafficked “trusted” web sites now harbouring malware, URL filtering systems and blocking alone can’t begin to protect a network since they can’t detect or stop malware or phishing attacks.
In a recent exploit, Facebook users received a post on their “wall” to view a video. Viewers were then redirected to a fake Google site with a message telling them to download a viewer. The payload was actually a Trojan Horse that downloaded spyware and keyloggers. According to Gartner, almost 50 per cent of companies do not block access or monitor this type of activity on social networking sites. With this type of web threat, it’s no wonder that IT departments are struggling to clean up malware pouring through these gaping security holes, let alone preventing data breaches, monitoring policy and employee productivity, and minimizing corporate liability to objectionable content.
What IT managers can do:
•Only block social-networking or websites after careful review (from legal and HR departments) where there is significant corporate risk that can’t be mitigated any other way
•Employ a dynamic, perimeter web security solution that can filter inbound pages for spyware and viruses; provides URL filtering for known inappropriate sites (sexual content, violence, etc); supports outbound data leak prevention by content scanning; and, can respond instantly to changing threats
•Work with HR and Legal to update employee guidelines to support acceptable Internet use policies and guidelines
•Train users on the hazards of indiscriminate use of social-networking and web sites
•Protect mobile laptop users.
What employees should do
•When using personal web mail accounts, do not click on links in your e-mail
•When visiting social networking sites, do not download applications without checking on the vendor
•Don’t download videos without proper security against spyware and viruses
•Don’t post your profile on a public social networking site if it identifies your employer and it can have a negative impact on the company’s reputation.
•Always be sure your antispyware and antivirus protection is up to date and that your personal data is protected using a secure online backup system.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
By Gerhard Eschelbeck, chief technology officer for Webroot
Published: September 12 2008 17:15 | Last updated: September 12 2008 17:15
Once, if you were “twittering” you would be nervous, and a “face book” was a catalogue of known criminals. Now, Twitter and Facebook are two of the fastest growing Web 2.0 collaboration applications. Until recently they merely kept a younger generation of technology-fluent “Generation Ys” up late at night; now they are causing sleepless nights for IT management because of the security holes they represent.
Over the past decade, many fundamental business activities – marketing, advertising, customer support, sales transactions – have become web dependent. At the same time, the web is now considered the number one delivery mechanism for malware. This poses a significant security challenge to companies due to adoption of Web 2.0 technology (blogs, video, wikis, internet messaging, social networking sites, RSS feeds and similar elements) – the communication tools of choice for Gen Y.
In the next 10 years 71m Gen Y (18-30 year-olds) will enter the workforce with their favored tools for communication, researching and collaborating. Gen Y thrives on flexibility and is used to having information a click away using Web 2.0 technology. In a recent survey by Blessingwhite of employees in the UK and Ireland, 23 per cent of Gen Y employees felt they were fully engaged and taking pride in helping the organisation achieve its goals when they felt it was aligned with their own values, goals and aspirations. This alignment is the best method for achieving sustainable employee engagement.
Even though there are a number of social software tools that IT managers can comfortably deploy within their enterprise network, such Microsoft SharePoint and IBM Lotus Connections, they don’t compare with Web 2.0 sites such as Facebook. The latest ComScore data show that Facebook’s 90m user network grew 153 per cent last year globally and by more than 303 per cent in Europe where the site recorded 37m unique visitors in June alone. Gen Y youngsters depend on social-networking to organise their lives and interact with colleagues. Blocking access or using URL filtering alone is not the answer because they don’t fully answer the problem and a restrictive corporate environment will not be appealing to these bright college graduates.
And, with 85 per cent of all threats coming from the web, and with at least 5 per cent of heavily trafficked “trusted” web sites now harbouring malware, URL filtering systems and blocking alone can’t begin to protect a network since they can’t detect or stop malware or phishing attacks.
In a recent exploit, Facebook users received a post on their “wall” to view a video. Viewers were then redirected to a fake Google site with a message telling them to download a viewer. The payload was actually a Trojan Horse that downloaded spyware and keyloggers. According to Gartner, almost 50 per cent of companies do not block access or monitor this type of activity on social networking sites. With this type of web threat, it’s no wonder that IT departments are struggling to clean up malware pouring through these gaping security holes, let alone preventing data breaches, monitoring policy and employee productivity, and minimizing corporate liability to objectionable content.
What IT managers can do:
•Only block social-networking or websites after careful review (from legal and HR departments) where there is significant corporate risk that can’t be mitigated any other way
•Employ a dynamic, perimeter web security solution that can filter inbound pages for spyware and viruses; provides URL filtering for known inappropriate sites (sexual content, violence, etc); supports outbound data leak prevention by content scanning; and, can respond instantly to changing threats
•Work with HR and Legal to update employee guidelines to support acceptable Internet use policies and guidelines
•Train users on the hazards of indiscriminate use of social-networking and web sites
•Protect mobile laptop users.
What employees should do
•When using personal web mail accounts, do not click on links in your e-mail
•When visiting social networking sites, do not download applications without checking on the vendor
•Don’t download videos without proper security against spyware and viruses
•Don’t post your profile on a public social networking site if it identifies your employer and it can have a negative impact on the company’s reputation.
•Always be sure your antispyware and antivirus protection is up to date and that your personal data is protected using a secure online backup system.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
Magic Quadrant for Horizontal Portal Products
Magic Quadrant for Horizontal Portal Products
12 September 2008
David Gootzit, Gene Phifer, Ray Valdes
Gartner RAS Core Research Note G00160767
New entrants provide additional options for enterprises willing to consider open-source and software-as-a-service alternatives for horizontal portal functionality. To differentiate their offerings, horizontal portal vendors are incorporating support for enterprise mashups and social networking.
12 September 2008
David Gootzit, Gene Phifer, Ray Valdes
Gartner RAS Core Research Note G00160767
New entrants provide additional options for enterprises willing to consider open-source and software-as-a-service alternatives for horizontal portal functionality. To differentiate their offerings, horizontal portal vendors are incorporating support for enterprise mashups and social networking.
Friday, September 05, 2008
Microsoft SharePoint macht Enterprise 2.0 geschäftstüchtig
Microsoft SharePoint macht Enterprise 2.0 geschäftstüchtig
Microsoft liefert mit dem Office SharePoint Server 2007 in der Praxis bewährte Technologien für soziale Online-Netzwerke, Blogs, Wikis, Foto- und Video-Portale und andere Web-Dienste, die insbesondere von der Interaktion mit ihren Anwendern leben. Längst fragen sich immer mehr Unternehmen, wie sie Ideen und Anwendungen des Web 2.0 nutzen können, um ihre gesamten Informations- und Kommunikationsprozesse grundlegend zu modernisieren und zu verbessern. Genau diese Frage steht im Mittelpunkt des SharePointCommunityCamps 09.2008. Die Anwenderkonferenz findet in diesem Jahr am 15. und 16. September 2008 im NH-Hotel am Flughafen Stuttgart statt.
Microsoft liefert mit dem Office SharePoint Server 2007 in der Praxis bewährte Technologien für soziale Online-Netzwerke, Blogs, Wikis, Foto- und Video-Portale und andere Web-Dienste, die insbesondere von der Interaktion mit ihren Anwendern leben. Längst fragen sich immer mehr Unternehmen, wie sie Ideen und Anwendungen des Web 2.0 nutzen können, um ihre gesamten Informations- und Kommunikationsprozesse grundlegend zu modernisieren und zu verbessern. Genau diese Frage steht im Mittelpunkt des SharePointCommunityCamps 09.2008. Die Anwenderkonferenz findet in diesem Jahr am 15. und 16. September 2008 im NH-Hotel am Flughafen Stuttgart statt.
Friday, August 29, 2008
CMS-Spezialist e-Spirit setzt auf hochperformante Suchtechnologie von Exalead
CMS-Spezialist e-Spirit setzt auf hochperformante Suchtechnologie von Exalead
Exalead, Anbieter von Suchtechnologien für Unternehmen und das Internet, intensiviert seine Deutschlandpräsenz mit einer wichtigen Technologieallianz. Die Dortmunder e-Spirit AG erweitert ihre CMS-Suite FirstSpirit um die Exalead Intranet-Suchmaschine one:enterprise, Kunden bekommen damit einen deutlich schnelleren Zugriff auf im CMS hinterlegte Inhalte und zusätzliche Quellen wie Fileshares und Datenbanken. Mit der von Exalead bereitgestellten Enterprise-Search-Lösung begegnen beide Unternehmen den stetig steigenden Anforderungen moderner Informationsmanagement-Lösungen, die gerade bei global eingesetzten verteilten CMS-Redaktionen hohe Ansprüche an alle Software-Komponenten stellen - im Vordergrund steht dabei die einfache und effiziente Pflege aller wichtigen Redaktionsdaten sowie das schnelle Finden gewünschter Begriffe innerhalb der FirstSpirit-Inhalte.
Durch die Kopplung der Personalisierungsmodelle von Exalead und FirstSpirit können geschützte Dokumente und Seiten auch personalisiert durchsucht werden, d.h. jeder Kollege sieht auch nur die Suchtreffer, die er über seine Berechtigungsstufe auch sehen darf. Der Verkauf des Bundles erfolgt ausschließlich mit dem Produkt FirstSpirit bzw. auf dem Wege der Nachlizenzierung.
Hinweis für Journalisten: Exalead präsentiert auf der diesjährigen DMS vom 9. - 11. September in Köln auf dem Stand seines Partners e-Spirit AG in Halle 7, Stand B 019 / D018 seine umfassenden Enterprise-Lösungen. Bitte nehmen Sie bei Interesse über das beigefügte Faxback-Formular Kontakt mit uns auf.
Jörn Bodemann, Vorstand, e-Spirit AG zur neuen Partnerschaft: "Den hohen Ansprüchen unseres Unternehmens an die eigenen Produkte und auch die unserer Partner bietet die Suchtechnologie von Exalead eine perfekte Ergänzung unseres Content Management Systems. Die Integration mit FirstSpirit ist für uns von besonderem Mehrwert, da auch durch den gesamten im System eingestellten Content punktgenau zum gesuchten Ergebnis - bei Verwendung der bereits in FirstSpirit erstellten Kategorien - hindurch navigiert werden kann. Wie bei anderen Technologiepartnern auch, führt die Hinzunahme von Exalead also zu einer umfassenderen Lösung, wobei FirstSpirit den Kern darstellt und je nach Kundenwunsch weitere, so genannte "Module", hinzugefügt werden können."
Gerhard Hiller, Country Manager Exalead Deutschland, weiter: "Mit e-Spirit haben wir seit über einem Jahr einen starken Partner im für uns wichtigen CMS-Umfeld. Gerade bei großvolumigen CMS-Projekten, wie sie e-Spirit überwiegend abwickelt, kann unsere Suchtechnologie seine Stärken optimal ausspielen."
Exalead auf der DMS 2008
Im Mittelpunkt des Messeauftritts von Exalead steht one:enterprise, eine hochperformante Intranet-Suchmaschine, die in der aktuellen Version 4.6 die gerade im Unternehmensumfeld exponentiell steigenden Datenmengen leichter verwalten und vor allem schneller finden lässt. Ein weiterer Schwerpunkt des Exalead-Messeauftritts sind verfeinerte Internet-Suchtechnologien, die neben der Suche in Videos, weitreichenden Indizierungstechnologien auch Image-Search-Funktionalität mit Gesichtserkennung und vertikale Suche bietet. Speziell zur DMS 2008 werden darüber hinaus dedizierte Lösungen für Verlage (Intelligente Suche in Fachportalen), Knowledge-Management-Lösungen sowie integrierte eCommerce-Suiten gezeigt.
27.08.2008, Exalead Deutschland
Exalead, Anbieter von Suchtechnologien für Unternehmen und das Internet, intensiviert seine Deutschlandpräsenz mit einer wichtigen Technologieallianz. Die Dortmunder e-Spirit AG erweitert ihre CMS-Suite FirstSpirit um die Exalead Intranet-Suchmaschine one:enterprise, Kunden bekommen damit einen deutlich schnelleren Zugriff auf im CMS hinterlegte Inhalte und zusätzliche Quellen wie Fileshares und Datenbanken. Mit der von Exalead bereitgestellten Enterprise-Search-Lösung begegnen beide Unternehmen den stetig steigenden Anforderungen moderner Informationsmanagement-Lösungen, die gerade bei global eingesetzten verteilten CMS-Redaktionen hohe Ansprüche an alle Software-Komponenten stellen - im Vordergrund steht dabei die einfache und effiziente Pflege aller wichtigen Redaktionsdaten sowie das schnelle Finden gewünschter Begriffe innerhalb der FirstSpirit-Inhalte.
Durch die Kopplung der Personalisierungsmodelle von Exalead und FirstSpirit können geschützte Dokumente und Seiten auch personalisiert durchsucht werden, d.h. jeder Kollege sieht auch nur die Suchtreffer, die er über seine Berechtigungsstufe auch sehen darf. Der Verkauf des Bundles erfolgt ausschließlich mit dem Produkt FirstSpirit bzw. auf dem Wege der Nachlizenzierung.
Hinweis für Journalisten: Exalead präsentiert auf der diesjährigen DMS vom 9. - 11. September in Köln auf dem Stand seines Partners e-Spirit AG in Halle 7, Stand B 019 / D018 seine umfassenden Enterprise-Lösungen. Bitte nehmen Sie bei Interesse über das beigefügte Faxback-Formular Kontakt mit uns auf.
Jörn Bodemann, Vorstand, e-Spirit AG zur neuen Partnerschaft: "Den hohen Ansprüchen unseres Unternehmens an die eigenen Produkte und auch die unserer Partner bietet die Suchtechnologie von Exalead eine perfekte Ergänzung unseres Content Management Systems. Die Integration mit FirstSpirit ist für uns von besonderem Mehrwert, da auch durch den gesamten im System eingestellten Content punktgenau zum gesuchten Ergebnis - bei Verwendung der bereits in FirstSpirit erstellten Kategorien - hindurch navigiert werden kann. Wie bei anderen Technologiepartnern auch, führt die Hinzunahme von Exalead also zu einer umfassenderen Lösung, wobei FirstSpirit den Kern darstellt und je nach Kundenwunsch weitere, so genannte "Module", hinzugefügt werden können."
Gerhard Hiller, Country Manager Exalead Deutschland, weiter: "Mit e-Spirit haben wir seit über einem Jahr einen starken Partner im für uns wichtigen CMS-Umfeld. Gerade bei großvolumigen CMS-Projekten, wie sie e-Spirit überwiegend abwickelt, kann unsere Suchtechnologie seine Stärken optimal ausspielen."
Exalead auf der DMS 2008
Im Mittelpunkt des Messeauftritts von Exalead steht one:enterprise, eine hochperformante Intranet-Suchmaschine, die in der aktuellen Version 4.6 die gerade im Unternehmensumfeld exponentiell steigenden Datenmengen leichter verwalten und vor allem schneller finden lässt. Ein weiterer Schwerpunkt des Exalead-Messeauftritts sind verfeinerte Internet-Suchtechnologien, die neben der Suche in Videos, weitreichenden Indizierungstechnologien auch Image-Search-Funktionalität mit Gesichtserkennung und vertikale Suche bietet. Speziell zur DMS 2008 werden darüber hinaus dedizierte Lösungen für Verlage (Intelligente Suche in Fachportalen), Knowledge-Management-Lösungen sowie integrierte eCommerce-Suiten gezeigt.
27.08.2008, Exalead Deutschland
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Friday, August 22, 2008
CleverWorkarounds » Book Review - Essential SharePoint 2007
CleverWorkarounds » Book Review - Essential SharePoint 2007
One SharePoint book on my bookshelf is "Essential SharePoint 2007 - Delivering High Impact Collaboration", by Scott Jamison, Mauro Cardarelli and Susan Hanley.
One SharePoint book on my bookshelf is "Essential SharePoint 2007 - Delivering High Impact Collaboration", by Scott Jamison, Mauro Cardarelli and Susan Hanley.
Wednesday, August 06, 2008
FT.com / Digital Business / Web 2.0 - Web 2.0: The salvation of SMEs
FT.com / Digital Business / Web 2.0 - Web 2.0: The salvation of SMEs
Web 2.0: The salvation of SMEs
By Ivan Croxford, Head of BT Tradespace
Published: August 6 2008 12:59 | Last updated: August 6 2008 12:59
Web 2.0 offers an unparalleled opportunity for businesses to compete and thrive in a time of mounting economic difficulty – yet incredibly many have little idea of what it means.
Far too often, the concept is dismissed as a buzzword expression – and yet it could hold the key to the survival of thousands of SMEs as the slowdown kicks in.
Social media and networking sites provide the platform for companies to collaborate, share information and expertise and market their goods. Indeed, all over the web, communities of like-minded firms are supporting each other with advice, swapping internet links and trading together.
The interactivity of Web 2.0 also allows an authentic and direct line of communication between a company and its customers – invaluable any time, but essential in the light of the challenging business environment.
The tools of Web 2.0 - blogging, podcasting, photo and video sharing – have already been adopted by millions of consumers because they are simple and powerful communication methods. For that reason, they are ideal for small businesses to use in their marketing strategies.
A company that is prepared to engage in an open, honest conversation, whether it be through a blog or video, with its customers is being sensible and shrewd. In this day and age, very few consumers are prepared to just listen to announcements and one-way broadcasts without being able to give their feedback.
However, there are still far too many companies which have not tapped into the rich potential arising from the latest internet age because they either are not aware of it or feel it is irrelevant or too complicated.
This reticence may be in part explained by existing attitudes to the internet generally. The majority of SMEs are already struggling with online marketing and sales - 40 per cent do not have websites and less than 20 per cent sell online.
There are good reasons for this. Running a website can be a costly, complex business that often requires the support of third parties to build, maintain and market. The traditional net marketing strategy of larger businesses to use paid search and display ads supported by a comprehensive Search Engine Optimisation strategy to ensure a good Google rating is beyond the financial and technical reach of most SMEs.
If we put the problems of traditional online marketing alongside the growing importance of the internet as a research and purchasing medium for consumers, it becomes all too apparent that SMEs desperately need to find a better way to promote themselves online. This is where Web 2.0 is vital.
To attract customers, it is now necessary to participate in online “communities” relevant to your business whether it be a florist’s or a bespoke furniture maker. That also means engaging in an ongoing, meaningful dialogue with customers on interactive networking sites about products, prices and service.
The social web has changed the landscape of e-commerce forever. Audiences are fragmented and this means customers are harder to reach but they are surfing the web for information about goods in ever-growing numbers before buying. Some recent research from co-operative cashback website Quidco found that 62 per cent of shoppers consult online communities before making a purchase. Furthermore, only 27 per cent of consumers go directly to the retailer.
If these trends continue, then any company wishing to succeed has to embrace the interaction encapsulated by Web 2.0 to build strong, trusting relationships with its customers.
SMEs can benefit hugely from the power of social networking precisely because the tools of Web 2.0 are well suited to the personal and conversational marketing style that already works to their benefit offline.
The campaign to persuade companies to join business social networking sites has now become one of the biggest battlegrounds on the internet. Amazon, eBay, Facebook and BT are all targeting the 4.5 million SMEs in the UK to alert them to the global marketing opportunities afforded by these platforms which could transform their fortunes. There is a massive education exercise taking place to convince companies of the overwhelming merits of these sites.
The momentum is growing. Firms large and small have started to take part in social networks and internet communities but the results are mixed. Some are successfully attracting customers and boosting the bottom line, others are not. Of greater concern is that most have not taken the plunge at all with many approaching the internet in general with apprehension.
These businesses should realise that Web 2.0 offers relevant and powerful tools for them to promote themselves and build an online brand. They should stop hiding – and start using it to their advantage.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
Web 2.0: The salvation of SMEs
By Ivan Croxford, Head of BT Tradespace
Published: August 6 2008 12:59 | Last updated: August 6 2008 12:59
Web 2.0 offers an unparalleled opportunity for businesses to compete and thrive in a time of mounting economic difficulty – yet incredibly many have little idea of what it means.
Far too often, the concept is dismissed as a buzzword expression – and yet it could hold the key to the survival of thousands of SMEs as the slowdown kicks in.
Social media and networking sites provide the platform for companies to collaborate, share information and expertise and market their goods. Indeed, all over the web, communities of like-minded firms are supporting each other with advice, swapping internet links and trading together.
The interactivity of Web 2.0 also allows an authentic and direct line of communication between a company and its customers – invaluable any time, but essential in the light of the challenging business environment.
The tools of Web 2.0 - blogging, podcasting, photo and video sharing – have already been adopted by millions of consumers because they are simple and powerful communication methods. For that reason, they are ideal for small businesses to use in their marketing strategies.
A company that is prepared to engage in an open, honest conversation, whether it be through a blog or video, with its customers is being sensible and shrewd. In this day and age, very few consumers are prepared to just listen to announcements and one-way broadcasts without being able to give their feedback.
However, there are still far too many companies which have not tapped into the rich potential arising from the latest internet age because they either are not aware of it or feel it is irrelevant or too complicated.
This reticence may be in part explained by existing attitudes to the internet generally. The majority of SMEs are already struggling with online marketing and sales - 40 per cent do not have websites and less than 20 per cent sell online.
There are good reasons for this. Running a website can be a costly, complex business that often requires the support of third parties to build, maintain and market. The traditional net marketing strategy of larger businesses to use paid search and display ads supported by a comprehensive Search Engine Optimisation strategy to ensure a good Google rating is beyond the financial and technical reach of most SMEs.
If we put the problems of traditional online marketing alongside the growing importance of the internet as a research and purchasing medium for consumers, it becomes all too apparent that SMEs desperately need to find a better way to promote themselves online. This is where Web 2.0 is vital.
To attract customers, it is now necessary to participate in online “communities” relevant to your business whether it be a florist’s or a bespoke furniture maker. That also means engaging in an ongoing, meaningful dialogue with customers on interactive networking sites about products, prices and service.
The social web has changed the landscape of e-commerce forever. Audiences are fragmented and this means customers are harder to reach but they are surfing the web for information about goods in ever-growing numbers before buying. Some recent research from co-operative cashback website Quidco found that 62 per cent of shoppers consult online communities before making a purchase. Furthermore, only 27 per cent of consumers go directly to the retailer.
If these trends continue, then any company wishing to succeed has to embrace the interaction encapsulated by Web 2.0 to build strong, trusting relationships with its customers.
SMEs can benefit hugely from the power of social networking precisely because the tools of Web 2.0 are well suited to the personal and conversational marketing style that already works to their benefit offline.
The campaign to persuade companies to join business social networking sites has now become one of the biggest battlegrounds on the internet. Amazon, eBay, Facebook and BT are all targeting the 4.5 million SMEs in the UK to alert them to the global marketing opportunities afforded by these platforms which could transform their fortunes. There is a massive education exercise taking place to convince companies of the overwhelming merits of these sites.
The momentum is growing. Firms large and small have started to take part in social networks and internet communities but the results are mixed. Some are successfully attracting customers and boosting the bottom line, others are not. Of greater concern is that most have not taken the plunge at all with many approaching the internet in general with apprehension.
These businesses should realise that Web 2.0 offers relevant and powerful tools for them to promote themselves and build an online brand. They should stop hiding – and start using it to their advantage.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Alfresco Releases An Open Source SharePoint Compatible Alternative - Content Management Blog - InformationWeek
Alfresco Releases An Open Source SharePoint Compatible Alternative - Content Management Blog - InformationWeek
Alfresco, whose open source enterprise content management (ECM) software has earned it a significant following, is making more waves with the release this week of Alfresco Labs 3, an open source alternative to Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) SharePoint.
Alfresco, whose open source enterprise content management (ECM) software has earned it a significant following, is making more waves with the release this week of Alfresco Labs 3, an open source alternative to Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) SharePoint.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Bamboo Solution's Bundles Extend SharePoint Functionality - Content Management Blog - InformationWeek
Bamboo Solution's Bundles Extend SharePoint Functionality - Content Management Blog - InformationWeek
Bamboo Solutions is probably a familiar name to the IT staffs at enterprises running SharePoint. The company made headlines in couple of months ago when it released information on how to run SharePoint on a Vista box, but it's also one of the best known and most successful vendors of plug-in modules intended to enhance SharePoint's base functionality.
Bamboo Solutions is probably a familiar name to the IT staffs at enterprises running SharePoint. The company made headlines in couple of months ago when it released information on how to run SharePoint on a Vista box, but it's also one of the best known and most successful vendors of plug-in modules intended to enhance SharePoint's base functionality.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
The Forrester Blog For Information & Knowledge Management Professionals
The Forrester Blog For Information & Knowledge Management Professionals
Open Text Makes A DAM SaaS-y Move
By Stephen Powers
I'll give you five seconds to recover from your pun-induced groaning [5...4...3...2...1] Now, on to the news: Open Text announced late last week that it has acquired eMotion, a software-as-a-service digital asset management (DAM) product, from Corbis. Open Text plans to rebrand eMotion as Artesia on Demand for Marketing, complementing its full-featured, installed Artesia DAM product.
This move into SaaS DAM is a smart move by Open Text. The installed version of Artesia has a reputation as one of the top DAM solutions out there, but its functionality and price tag may be daunting for those organizations just starting to dip their toes into the DAM waters. Some enterprises don't have the need for some of the high-end functionality - management of broadcast-quality video, for example - that "Classic Artesia" offers. Instead, many enterprises exploring DAM want to use it to manage rich media assets for use in the online channel.
In addition, marketers are now driving some of the demand for DAM, and they're not excited about waiting in the IT queue for another installed content management implementation. While other components of ECM (like Web content management) may need customizations that don't lend always themselves to the SaaS model, marketing requirements for DAM tend to be more a bit more straightforward: repository, workflow, search, metadata, permissions, and hooks into delivery mechanisms.
Now, Open Text has a DAM solution that can meet mid-level needs, and customers who want SaaS - without worrying about the stability of some of the niche DAM vendors - get the benefit of the relative stability of Open Text. Plus, this acquisition has the possibility of being an effective answer to North Plains' recent release of a SaaS version of its TeleScope product. Time will tell how much tinkering Open Text needs to do with its new acquisition, but this is a good first step into the SaaS world.
Open Text Makes A DAM SaaS-y Move
By Stephen Powers
I'll give you five seconds to recover from your pun-induced groaning [5...4...3...2...1] Now, on to the news: Open Text announced late last week that it has acquired eMotion, a software-as-a-service digital asset management (DAM) product, from Corbis. Open Text plans to rebrand eMotion as Artesia on Demand for Marketing, complementing its full-featured, installed Artesia DAM product.
This move into SaaS DAM is a smart move by Open Text. The installed version of Artesia has a reputation as one of the top DAM solutions out there, but its functionality and price tag may be daunting for those organizations just starting to dip their toes into the DAM waters. Some enterprises don't have the need for some of the high-end functionality - management of broadcast-quality video, for example - that "Classic Artesia" offers. Instead, many enterprises exploring DAM want to use it to manage rich media assets for use in the online channel.
In addition, marketers are now driving some of the demand for DAM, and they're not excited about waiting in the IT queue for another installed content management implementation. While other components of ECM (like Web content management) may need customizations that don't lend always themselves to the SaaS model, marketing requirements for DAM tend to be more a bit more straightforward: repository, workflow, search, metadata, permissions, and hooks into delivery mechanisms.
Now, Open Text has a DAM solution that can meet mid-level needs, and customers who want SaaS - without worrying about the stability of some of the niche DAM vendors - get the benefit of the relative stability of Open Text. Plus, this acquisition has the possibility of being an effective answer to North Plains' recent release of a SaaS version of its TeleScope product. Time will tell how much tinkering Open Text needs to do with its new acquisition, but this is a good first step into the SaaS world.
Friday, July 11, 2008
Seize the skills and HR benefits of social networking
Seize the skills and HR benefits of social networking
By Patrice Barbedette of Jobpartners
Published: July 11 2008 10:20 | Last updated: July 11 2008 10:20
I don’t suppose that when Mark Zuckerberg invented Facebook he realised how huge it would become. Facebook and other social networking sites such as MySpace and LinkedIn have taken the world by storm.
But many of us aren’t chatting to friends and watching videos on sites such as Facebook at home during our free time – we’re doing it at work. This presents businesses with the challenge of dealing with the loss of productivity. Social networking sites also pose the potential problem of confidential information being exposed, or employees posting negative comments about their employers.
Some businesses have clamped down on the use of social networking sites by either banning them or restricting access to lunch hours. But this can stir up feelings of resentment among employees as recent cases have demonstrated. When faced with huge numbers of staff complaints, one organisation performed a U-turn after banning employees from using Facebook at work: it realised that rather than using the site for chatting with friends and downloading videos, many were also using it for work and business networking.
There are certainly many benefits that social networking sites can offer the corporate world and businesses need to be taking note. Rather than having a knee-jerk reaction to these sites, what can we learn from them and how can we use them to our advantage in the corporate world?
The technology now exists to enable organisations to create their own internal corporate social network. This provides the advantages of networking and knowledge sharing that is found on sites such as Facebook, but within the safe boundaries of the corporate environment. This means that the risk of embarrassing or confidential information reaching the public domain is greatly reduced. It also means that while employees will still spend some time chatting most of the discussion will be on company related issues.
So what can a corporate network bring to the business? As Dick Eve points out in his article, the opportunities for knowledge sharing are huge. A social network enables every employee at every level at every single office across the company to interact and share information. This means employees can operate as a community and feel involved in company decisions which helps to engage them and increase productivity. Corporate networks can also be used to get learning content to employees but more importantly, employees connected to the knowledge experts.
Improved communication is another great benefit of a corporate network especially when building a global workforce. Employees can interact more easily on a professional and personal level with staff from other offices whether they are UK based or international. They can also come into more direct contact with senior managers, the opportunity for which may not have been presented before.
Better talent management is a further significant benefit. A corporate network can enable employees to brand and market themselves within the company by posting information on their profile page about their career goals, experience and skills. This helps managers and HR to identify the skills and talent they need internally much more easily which can reduce the reliance on external recruitment. It also enables the identification of those who are hungry for new opportunities and challenges. The ability to develop a professional profile also helps the employee to take a more active role in their career development which can boost company loyalty.
As well as professional profiles, employees can create personal profiles detailing their favourite books, charitable organisations and activities. This can help employees to get to know one another outside of the confines of their job titles as well as build a broader sense of corporate social responsibility.
For new recruits, a corporate network is an excellent way of getting to know people more quickly and getting up to speed on company processes and culture. It can also be particularly effective at engaging generation Y and attracting young graduate talent.
In summary, social networks present an unforeseen way of improving communication and knowledge flow within organisations, and engaging employees. An engaged employee equals a more productive employee, which equals better business performance. And who can afford not to look at ways of boosting employee performance during these hard times?
Patrice Barbedette is founder of Jobpartners, a talent management company
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
By Patrice Barbedette of Jobpartners
Published: July 11 2008 10:20 | Last updated: July 11 2008 10:20
I don’t suppose that when Mark Zuckerberg invented Facebook he realised how huge it would become. Facebook and other social networking sites such as MySpace and LinkedIn have taken the world by storm.
But many of us aren’t chatting to friends and watching videos on sites such as Facebook at home during our free time – we’re doing it at work. This presents businesses with the challenge of dealing with the loss of productivity. Social networking sites also pose the potential problem of confidential information being exposed, or employees posting negative comments about their employers.
Some businesses have clamped down on the use of social networking sites by either banning them or restricting access to lunch hours. But this can stir up feelings of resentment among employees as recent cases have demonstrated. When faced with huge numbers of staff complaints, one organisation performed a U-turn after banning employees from using Facebook at work: it realised that rather than using the site for chatting with friends and downloading videos, many were also using it for work and business networking.
There are certainly many benefits that social networking sites can offer the corporate world and businesses need to be taking note. Rather than having a knee-jerk reaction to these sites, what can we learn from them and how can we use them to our advantage in the corporate world?
The technology now exists to enable organisations to create their own internal corporate social network. This provides the advantages of networking and knowledge sharing that is found on sites such as Facebook, but within the safe boundaries of the corporate environment. This means that the risk of embarrassing or confidential information reaching the public domain is greatly reduced. It also means that while employees will still spend some time chatting most of the discussion will be on company related issues.
So what can a corporate network bring to the business? As Dick Eve points out in his article, the opportunities for knowledge sharing are huge. A social network enables every employee at every level at every single office across the company to interact and share information. This means employees can operate as a community and feel involved in company decisions which helps to engage them and increase productivity. Corporate networks can also be used to get learning content to employees but more importantly, employees connected to the knowledge experts.
Improved communication is another great benefit of a corporate network especially when building a global workforce. Employees can interact more easily on a professional and personal level with staff from other offices whether they are UK based or international. They can also come into more direct contact with senior managers, the opportunity for which may not have been presented before.
Better talent management is a further significant benefit. A corporate network can enable employees to brand and market themselves within the company by posting information on their profile page about their career goals, experience and skills. This helps managers and HR to identify the skills and talent they need internally much more easily which can reduce the reliance on external recruitment. It also enables the identification of those who are hungry for new opportunities and challenges. The ability to develop a professional profile also helps the employee to take a more active role in their career development which can boost company loyalty.
As well as professional profiles, employees can create personal profiles detailing their favourite books, charitable organisations and activities. This can help employees to get to know one another outside of the confines of their job titles as well as build a broader sense of corporate social responsibility.
For new recruits, a corporate network is an excellent way of getting to know people more quickly and getting up to speed on company processes and culture. It can also be particularly effective at engaging generation Y and attracting young graduate talent.
In summary, social networks present an unforeseen way of improving communication and knowledge flow within organisations, and engaging employees. An engaged employee equals a more productive employee, which equals better business performance. And who can afford not to look at ways of boosting employee performance during these hard times?
Patrice Barbedette is founder of Jobpartners, a talent management company
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
How Web 2.0 is democratising innovation
How Web 2.0 is democratising innovation
By Georges Berzgal and Amal Johnson, of MarketTools
Published: July 11 2008 10:20 | Last updated: July 11 2008 10:20
Where do winning ideas come from? For most companies, the answer is from a select group of people in Research and Development, new product development (NPD), or marketing.
Today, however, a growing number of organisations are harnessing the power of the web to capitalise on the wealth of ideas among their customers and that often neglected source of inspiration, their rank and file employees. These companies are living the adage that there is “no monopoly on great ideas”, causing a shift in the direction of innovation while at the same time outsmarting the competition.
This shift could not have happened without the emergence of the internet and its evolution into what is commonly referred to as Web 2.0, a term that characterises the second wave of the internet where user-generated content and social networks drive significant activity.
The common practice in developing new products has been manufacturer-centric, highly process-driven, and limited to the domain of a small group of “experts” in the R&D and NPD departments. Companies usually start with trying to identify the “unmet needs” of their target audience. Those findings are subsequently translated by engineers and marketers into potentially new, or enhancements of existing, product concepts. These, in turn, are tested with consumers along several “stage gates” with the ultimate purpose of ending up with one or a limited number of “winning” products that can be launched in the marketplace.
Unfortunately, although this practice has been widely used for some time, its effectiveness at launching successful products has been dismal. Companies won’t openly discuss NPD failures but estimates range from 75-90 per cent depending on industry. Both direct and indirect costs, not to mention opportunity costs in terms of human capital and resources spent on failures, are substantial. An alternative model, the systematic use of broader origination of innovation, especially that involving end-customers, has been very limited and often haphazard. Until now.
The new model that is emerging is a more customer-centric model, or a variation thereof, and relies on the wisdom of crowds, rather than a handful of experts. This is a major shift in that companies are not just asking end-customers to identify their unmet needs, but they are also engaging them in helping invent new solutions to meet those needs; in essence, to be the outsourced R&D team.
This shift started, not surprisingly, in the technology industry with the open source movement that harnesses the power of hundreds (and in some cases thousands) of end-users to help develop or enhance software products. However, with the emergence and evolution of the internet to Web 2.0, and broad adoption and use of underlying technologies such as communities, chat, blogging etc by a mass market of internet users, this approach is increasingly being adopted by traditional multinationals such as Procter & Gamble, Phillips Electronics, Sara Lee, Del Monte, Lego, and Frito Lay, to mention a few.
We would suggest the pet foods division of Del Monte is a good example. The company used an online community to help develop and evolve a new product that took just six months to be launched into the trade. The community, called “I Love My Dog”, enabled Del Monte to tap into consumers’ own means of communication – blogs, chat rooms, message boards, podcasts, videos, and online groups – and bring together specific groups of people who share common interests or characteristics to create an ongoing, interactive dialogue.
The “I Love My Dog” community saves Del Monte a considerable amount of time by focusing on the ideas that their customers will most value which, in turn, gives the company a competitive edge.
Other companies, while not venturing as far afield as end-customers, are also dramatically changing the way they source, develop, and evolve new ideas by using internal crowds. PepsiCo’s snack food division, Frito Lay, has set up an employee community called an Idea Network and invited a broad swath of its employees (from marketing, finance, supply chain management and the factory floor) to join and participate in helping the company identify and develop new product ideas using, among other various tools, predictive market technology.
Frito Lay’s goal was to fill the development pipeline with great ideas. The company felt the best way to accomplish this was to rely on the collective wisdom of a crowd. Generating hundreds of innovative ideas, the company is now reviewing and refining them for strategic fit and consumer testing.
But does the democratisation of innovation mean the beginning of the end of R&D and NPD departments? Not any time soon. Despite earlier successes, there is still strong resistance from some companies to relax control of NPD, utilising end-customers, partners or employees to produce the next big idea. Additionally, there will still be a need for internal experts to drive new ideas through the development stages, and continue to apply their expertise.
However, the pioneers have come to realise that they are better served by embracing less control over the process (rather than fighting it) if it means faster innovation and the development of potentially more successful new products. The options are having 100 per cent control over an internal process that delivers a 75 per cent failure rate for new product development, or having some faith in the broader wisdom of a much larger audience.
Amal Johnson is CEO of MarketTools, an on-demand customer insight solutions provider, and Georges Berzgal is its managing director, Europe.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
By Georges Berzgal and Amal Johnson, of MarketTools
Published: July 11 2008 10:20 | Last updated: July 11 2008 10:20
Where do winning ideas come from? For most companies, the answer is from a select group of people in Research and Development, new product development (NPD), or marketing.
Today, however, a growing number of organisations are harnessing the power of the web to capitalise on the wealth of ideas among their customers and that often neglected source of inspiration, their rank and file employees. These companies are living the adage that there is “no monopoly on great ideas”, causing a shift in the direction of innovation while at the same time outsmarting the competition.
This shift could not have happened without the emergence of the internet and its evolution into what is commonly referred to as Web 2.0, a term that characterises the second wave of the internet where user-generated content and social networks drive significant activity.
The common practice in developing new products has been manufacturer-centric, highly process-driven, and limited to the domain of a small group of “experts” in the R&D and NPD departments. Companies usually start with trying to identify the “unmet needs” of their target audience. Those findings are subsequently translated by engineers and marketers into potentially new, or enhancements of existing, product concepts. These, in turn, are tested with consumers along several “stage gates” with the ultimate purpose of ending up with one or a limited number of “winning” products that can be launched in the marketplace.
Unfortunately, although this practice has been widely used for some time, its effectiveness at launching successful products has been dismal. Companies won’t openly discuss NPD failures but estimates range from 75-90 per cent depending on industry. Both direct and indirect costs, not to mention opportunity costs in terms of human capital and resources spent on failures, are substantial. An alternative model, the systematic use of broader origination of innovation, especially that involving end-customers, has been very limited and often haphazard. Until now.
The new model that is emerging is a more customer-centric model, or a variation thereof, and relies on the wisdom of crowds, rather than a handful of experts. This is a major shift in that companies are not just asking end-customers to identify their unmet needs, but they are also engaging them in helping invent new solutions to meet those needs; in essence, to be the outsourced R&D team.
This shift started, not surprisingly, in the technology industry with the open source movement that harnesses the power of hundreds (and in some cases thousands) of end-users to help develop or enhance software products. However, with the emergence and evolution of the internet to Web 2.0, and broad adoption and use of underlying technologies such as communities, chat, blogging etc by a mass market of internet users, this approach is increasingly being adopted by traditional multinationals such as Procter & Gamble, Phillips Electronics, Sara Lee, Del Monte, Lego, and Frito Lay, to mention a few.
We would suggest the pet foods division of Del Monte is a good example. The company used an online community to help develop and evolve a new product that took just six months to be launched into the trade. The community, called “I Love My Dog”, enabled Del Monte to tap into consumers’ own means of communication – blogs, chat rooms, message boards, podcasts, videos, and online groups – and bring together specific groups of people who share common interests or characteristics to create an ongoing, interactive dialogue.
The “I Love My Dog” community saves Del Monte a considerable amount of time by focusing on the ideas that their customers will most value which, in turn, gives the company a competitive edge.
Other companies, while not venturing as far afield as end-customers, are also dramatically changing the way they source, develop, and evolve new ideas by using internal crowds. PepsiCo’s snack food division, Frito Lay, has set up an employee community called an Idea Network and invited a broad swath of its employees (from marketing, finance, supply chain management and the factory floor) to join and participate in helping the company identify and develop new product ideas using, among other various tools, predictive market technology.
Frito Lay’s goal was to fill the development pipeline with great ideas. The company felt the best way to accomplish this was to rely on the collective wisdom of a crowd. Generating hundreds of innovative ideas, the company is now reviewing and refining them for strategic fit and consumer testing.
But does the democratisation of innovation mean the beginning of the end of R&D and NPD departments? Not any time soon. Despite earlier successes, there is still strong resistance from some companies to relax control of NPD, utilising end-customers, partners or employees to produce the next big idea. Additionally, there will still be a need for internal experts to drive new ideas through the development stages, and continue to apply their expertise.
However, the pioneers have come to realise that they are better served by embracing less control over the process (rather than fighting it) if it means faster innovation and the development of potentially more successful new products. The options are having 100 per cent control over an internal process that delivers a 75 per cent failure rate for new product development, or having some faith in the broader wisdom of a much larger audience.
Amal Johnson is CEO of MarketTools, an on-demand customer insight solutions provider, and Georges Berzgal is its managing director, Europe.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
FT.com / Digital Business / Web 2.0 - How Web 2.0 will change the face of business…
FT.com / Digital Business / Web 2.0 - How Web 2.0 will change the face of business…
How Web 2.0 will change the face of business…
By John Newton
Published: July 11 2008 10:20 | Last updated: July 11 2008 10:20
Technology research company Forrester predicts that by 2013, social software, the application of Web 2.0 for the enterprise, will grow at an annual rate of 43 per cent per year. This is quickly becoming the fastest growing sector in the enterprise software industry. However, many people are confused by what Web 2.0 is and its significance in the workplace and in culture, including those planning to adopt it.
Web 2.0 is best explained by defining the technologies that make it up. A collection of brands provide the metaphors for what is different in the way we use new web technologies – Google for search, YouTube for video, Flickr for photos, MySpace and Facebook for social networking and Wikipedia for wikis. These brands as metaphors become the nouns and verbs of describing Web 2.0 as a new way of socialising, communicating and sharing with each other in huge consumer-scale markets.
This is not so much a revolution in technology, more how people use technology and interact with each other as a result. The amazing technological innovations have really been happening behind the scenes with the huge build out of inter-networking and creation of new scalability technologies through open source. The open source sharing of code used to build these sites have made it possible to build and manage sites on a modest budget and deliver new content and services to anyone. This has allowed a whole new class of people to use technology that they would not previously have had access to. Consequently, websites reacted and evolved rapidly to adapt to these new users and realised that computers could be used as a medium of expression, sharing and revelation.
Users voted with their mouse for sites that appealed to their personal sense of expression. Sites that imposed constraints were quickly discarded. The ones that allowed individuals to write, edit or tag rose quickly up the internet charts of popularity. Web 2.0 became a democratic revolution with core principles of freedom of speech and freedom of assembly on the internet.
Social networking sites allow everyone to become a contributor by simply creating their home page and being compelled to enhance or adorn it in response to friends doing the same thing. Many large corporations that have skills or profile pages for their users, but even senior executives may be more likely to update their Facebook or LinkedIn profiles than corporate skills page.
Michael Lynch, CEO of Autonomy, suggested in these pages that Web 2.0 was something that needed to be tamed. Perhaps this is missing the point. Web 2.0 is not anarchic, nor is it necessarily bad for business. To try to control Web 2.0 is like trying to put one’s finger in the dyke. It is happening and there is nothing that business can do to prevent it. When companies try to restrict access, they either find that the roadblocks have been circumscribed or that potential employees go elsewhere.
Generation Y, the generation born between 1978 and now, has only known the empowerment of the internet and has become accustomed to have their vote counted. To try and control it can only disenfranchise them. To empower them yields an optimistic workforce, with conversation between stakeholders in enlightened collaboration. In addition, my generation, the Baby Boomers, are starting to retire, taking with them some of the most valuable knowledge ever accumulated. Knowledge management programs over the last two decades have failed to capture that knowledge, is Web 2.0 the last hope of retaining it?
Enterprise software vendors will get there, but only with coaxing and coaching of a new generation. Eventually they will figure out that Web 2.0 is not simply about collaboration features and interactive web technologies, but empowerment of their users and the ability to draw in a critical mass of users from outside the trusted circle.
Obviously care should be taken in what is opened up. However, rather than treating Web 2.0 content suspiciously, corporations should ring fence the information that must be controlled and open up the rest to participation. At the Enterprise 2.0 conference in June, Pfizer presented on how they were using open source technology to enable Web 2.0 collaboration. This is a brave move in the highly regulated world of pharmaceuticals, but they have clear boundaries in terms of what content needs to be regulated. They have created a vision and a reality that uses the same technology as Wikipedia to create Pfizerpedia, a wiki of process and ideas that feed into the main areas of research and manufacturing.
Change in the enterprise is likely to come from outside as well. If you are an information worker, you use Google more than any of your internal systems. These websites will set further expectations on the internal systems you use and a requirement to integrate information with these external sources of information. Web 2.0 has an answer for this with an integration technique known as “mash up”, the ability to mix information from multiple sources using the web browser itself as a point of integration. These external sources of information provide something that our internal information systems could never provide – a critical mass of opinion utilising the so-called “Wisdom of the Crowds”.
The most profound effect Web 2.0 will have is on the way we do business rather than just the technology we use. Employees will use this freedom of speech to provide valuable feedback to the business. Customers will become part of the decision-making process and allow us to design the most imaginative products and services.
As with any opportunity, there lies risk, and embracing Web 2.0 is not without its risks. However, smart businesses can already see the opportunities and are willing to take those risks.
John Newton is chief technology officer at Alfresco
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
How Web 2.0 will change the face of business…
By John Newton
Published: July 11 2008 10:20 | Last updated: July 11 2008 10:20
Technology research company Forrester predicts that by 2013, social software, the application of Web 2.0 for the enterprise, will grow at an annual rate of 43 per cent per year. This is quickly becoming the fastest growing sector in the enterprise software industry. However, many people are confused by what Web 2.0 is and its significance in the workplace and in culture, including those planning to adopt it.
Web 2.0 is best explained by defining the technologies that make it up. A collection of brands provide the metaphors for what is different in the way we use new web technologies – Google for search, YouTube for video, Flickr for photos, MySpace and Facebook for social networking and Wikipedia for wikis. These brands as metaphors become the nouns and verbs of describing Web 2.0 as a new way of socialising, communicating and sharing with each other in huge consumer-scale markets.
This is not so much a revolution in technology, more how people use technology and interact with each other as a result. The amazing technological innovations have really been happening behind the scenes with the huge build out of inter-networking and creation of new scalability technologies through open source. The open source sharing of code used to build these sites have made it possible to build and manage sites on a modest budget and deliver new content and services to anyone. This has allowed a whole new class of people to use technology that they would not previously have had access to. Consequently, websites reacted and evolved rapidly to adapt to these new users and realised that computers could be used as a medium of expression, sharing and revelation.
Users voted with their mouse for sites that appealed to their personal sense of expression. Sites that imposed constraints were quickly discarded. The ones that allowed individuals to write, edit or tag rose quickly up the internet charts of popularity. Web 2.0 became a democratic revolution with core principles of freedom of speech and freedom of assembly on the internet.
Social networking sites allow everyone to become a contributor by simply creating their home page and being compelled to enhance or adorn it in response to friends doing the same thing. Many large corporations that have skills or profile pages for their users, but even senior executives may be more likely to update their Facebook or LinkedIn profiles than corporate skills page.
Michael Lynch, CEO of Autonomy, suggested in these pages that Web 2.0 was something that needed to be tamed. Perhaps this is missing the point. Web 2.0 is not anarchic, nor is it necessarily bad for business. To try to control Web 2.0 is like trying to put one’s finger in the dyke. It is happening and there is nothing that business can do to prevent it. When companies try to restrict access, they either find that the roadblocks have been circumscribed or that potential employees go elsewhere.
Generation Y, the generation born between 1978 and now, has only known the empowerment of the internet and has become accustomed to have their vote counted. To try and control it can only disenfranchise them. To empower them yields an optimistic workforce, with conversation between stakeholders in enlightened collaboration. In addition, my generation, the Baby Boomers, are starting to retire, taking with them some of the most valuable knowledge ever accumulated. Knowledge management programs over the last two decades have failed to capture that knowledge, is Web 2.0 the last hope of retaining it?
Enterprise software vendors will get there, but only with coaxing and coaching of a new generation. Eventually they will figure out that Web 2.0 is not simply about collaboration features and interactive web technologies, but empowerment of their users and the ability to draw in a critical mass of users from outside the trusted circle.
Obviously care should be taken in what is opened up. However, rather than treating Web 2.0 content suspiciously, corporations should ring fence the information that must be controlled and open up the rest to participation. At the Enterprise 2.0 conference in June, Pfizer presented on how they were using open source technology to enable Web 2.0 collaboration. This is a brave move in the highly regulated world of pharmaceuticals, but they have clear boundaries in terms of what content needs to be regulated. They have created a vision and a reality that uses the same technology as Wikipedia to create Pfizerpedia, a wiki of process and ideas that feed into the main areas of research and manufacturing.
Change in the enterprise is likely to come from outside as well. If you are an information worker, you use Google more than any of your internal systems. These websites will set further expectations on the internal systems you use and a requirement to integrate information with these external sources of information. Web 2.0 has an answer for this with an integration technique known as “mash up”, the ability to mix information from multiple sources using the web browser itself as a point of integration. These external sources of information provide something that our internal information systems could never provide – a critical mass of opinion utilising the so-called “Wisdom of the Crowds”.
The most profound effect Web 2.0 will have is on the way we do business rather than just the technology we use. Employees will use this freedom of speech to provide valuable feedback to the business. Customers will become part of the decision-making process and allow us to design the most imaginative products and services.
As with any opportunity, there lies risk, and embracing Web 2.0 is not without its risks. However, smart businesses can already see the opportunities and are willing to take those risks.
John Newton is chief technology officer at Alfresco
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
CONTROLLING INFORMAT ION R I S K EXTENDING CONTROL TO THE EDGE: MICROSOFT SHAREPOINT PLUS NEXTPAGE
CONTROLLING INFORMATION RISK EXTENDING CONTROL TO THE EDGE: MICROSOFT SHAREPOINT PLUS NEXTPAGE
In today’s unfriendly legal climate, the astonishing rise in the power of laptop and desktop computers has created an unprecedented level of information risk. For example, over
7.5 billion Office documents are created annually, 80% of which are stored at the “edge” of the organization—on hard drives and scattered shared drives. The associated business costs and risks are important,complex and top of mind for a broad range of organizations. They include: A first step to solving these problems involves publishing and consistently enforcing document retention and disposition policies. Unfortunately, document policy compliance is abysmally low in most firms because user behavior is so difficult to dictate—especially in firms where business is primarily conducted using individually controlled laptops and desktops.
Even if your enterprise is deploying or has deployed a centralized system of record, compliance with policies such as routine disposition may be problematic. The purpose of this guide is to help you understand how Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) and NextPage can work together to address these types of challenges.
- The high costs of e-discovery
- Legal and regulatory risk associated with uncontrolled information
- Low compliance with contractually required safe handling of electronic information
HOW MOSS & NEXTPAGE WORK
TOGETHER
SharePoint centrally hosts documents and other information for both collaboration and long-term retention. NextPage tracks all document activity outside of SharePoint, including activity related directly to documents inside SharePoint. NextPage also enforces policies with coverage inside and outside of SharePoint.
Role of MOSS: Retention
Centralizes content by hosting a common set of documents, workflows, tasks lists, etc. for a team. This reduces but may not eliminate communication and content that resides in email and on individuals’ hard drives. Streamlines the process of eDiscovery.
Provides a repository of record and manages records throughout their retention period.
Exposes information via a portal interface and enterprise search.
Role of NextPage: Disposition
Tracks all documents and versions that exist outside and inside MOSS. This includes
documents that start inside MOSS and then leave the system, as well as documents that
are created outside MOSS (e.g. on a user’s hard drive). NextPage also follows documents wherever they go (e.g. email and thumb drives), and it connects all versions and copies of a document via the Digital Thread™.
Maintains document classification information,optionally from the moment of document
creation. NextPage can collect this information manually or automatically, from inside or outside of MOSS.
Enforces document policies outside of MOSS,and optionally inside. For example, policies can gather documents into MOSS or seek and destroy non-records outside of MOSS.
Monitors document policy compliance throughout the enterprise.
For more information about the NextPage platform and solutions, please visit http://www.nextpage.com.
In today’s unfriendly legal climate, the astonishing rise in the power of laptop and desktop computers has created an unprecedented level of information risk. For example, over
7.5 billion Office documents are created annually, 80% of which are stored at the “edge” of the organization—on hard drives and scattered shared drives. The associated business costs and risks are important,complex and top of mind for a broad range of organizations. They include: A first step to solving these problems involves publishing and consistently enforcing document retention and disposition policies. Unfortunately, document policy compliance is abysmally low in most firms because user behavior is so difficult to dictate—especially in firms where business is primarily conducted using individually controlled laptops and desktops.
Even if your enterprise is deploying or has deployed a centralized system of record, compliance with policies such as routine disposition may be problematic. The purpose of this guide is to help you understand how Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) and NextPage can work together to address these types of challenges.
- The high costs of e-discovery
- Legal and regulatory risk associated with uncontrolled information
- Low compliance with contractually required safe handling of electronic information
HOW MOSS & NEXTPAGE WORK
TOGETHER
SharePoint centrally hosts documents and other information for both collaboration and long-term retention. NextPage tracks all document activity outside of SharePoint, including activity related directly to documents inside SharePoint. NextPage also enforces policies with coverage inside and outside of SharePoint.
Role of MOSS: Retention
Centralizes content by hosting a common set of documents, workflows, tasks lists, etc. for a team. This reduces but may not eliminate communication and content that resides in email and on individuals’ hard drives. Streamlines the process of eDiscovery.
Provides a repository of record and manages records throughout their retention period.
Exposes information via a portal interface and enterprise search.
Role of NextPage: Disposition
Tracks all documents and versions that exist outside and inside MOSS. This includes
documents that start inside MOSS and then leave the system, as well as documents that
are created outside MOSS (e.g. on a user’s hard drive). NextPage also follows documents wherever they go (e.g. email and thumb drives), and it connects all versions and copies of a document via the Digital Thread™.
Maintains document classification information,optionally from the moment of document
creation. NextPage can collect this information manually or automatically, from inside or outside of MOSS.
Enforces document policies outside of MOSS,and optionally inside. For example, policies can gather documents into MOSS or seek and destroy non-records outside of MOSS.
Monitors document policy compliance throughout the enterprise.
For more information about the NextPage platform and solutions, please visit http://www.nextpage.com.
Friday, July 04, 2008
Managing a Web 2.0 Strategy
Managing a Web 2.0 Strategy
By Kim Jones, of Sun Microsystems
Published: July 4 2008 10:14 | Last updated: July 4 2008 10:14
There is a Japanese proverb: “None of us are as smart as all of us”. In 2004, Tim O’Reilly and MediaLive International coined the term “Web 2.0”, when they chose it as the name for a conference focused on participative web technologies.
Wikipedia, considered by many an exemplary Web 2.0 application, defines Web 2.0 as “a second generation of services available on the World Wide Web that lets people collaborate and share information online. Web 2.0 refers to a diverse set of technologies and approaches designed to capture our collective intelligence through online, two-way dialogue.
It offers a new way of doing business: one that encompasses new technologies and business models that allow organisations to collaborate, streamline and accelerate business processes between customers, employees, and partners.
Getting started is easy. Blogs and bulletin boards cost little to set up, and even if the link between the traffic on such sites and the incremental revenue generated is hard to measure, the information coming from the community provides valuable insights to the business.
Incorporating these insights back into business processes will in turn increase your value to the community. We can see this today in some of the leading Web 2.0 destinations such as Facebook, YouTube, MySpace and Google – but for most organisations, the successful incorporation of Web 2.0 remains a challenge as, in many cases, it is an adjunct to, not an integral part of the business strategy.
Companies of all sizes, from a one-person start-up to a large enterprise, will undoubtedly benefit by integrating Web 2.0 technologies as a strategic differentiator in their business strategy. A good example of this is a UK company, Favorit Limited. Blogs have become extremely popular over the last few years, with various estimates putting the number of existing sites at more than 75m. Favorit specialises in bringing social media to a mass worldwide internet audience, and works with all of the complicated content online to simplify information for their users.
We also see examples of organisations using established Web 2.0 sites to improve their operational efficiency, such as the flight crew of a major airline that has chosen to use Facebook to manage schedules and a management consultancy using Facebook for the co-ordination of a new starters’ ”onboarding” programme.
We know that strong leadership, outstanding innovation, clever branding and effective change management are the building blocks of a successful organisation, but over time the business can fail if the world changes and you are unprepared for it. In terms of interaction, the world is changing rapidly, with most of us participating on the web every single day. Smart organisations are adopting new network-centric technologies and services to understand and meet our growing expectations in order to build and maintain their competitive edge. Continued competitiveness must be a goal we all strive to achieve and Web 2.0 plays an increasingly important role.
Web 2.0 can help in two ways. First, it enables organisations to engage with customers more directly, capturing community knowledge which can be used to enhance products, processes and user experience. For example, if you have ever shopped for books or gifts online, you know that the process is enhanced by product recommendations created by combining the feedback from other shoppers.
Second, it supports the business itself through improved team communication and collaboration. Especially in our organisation, blogs, wikis and popular Web 2.0 sites such as Ning and Facebook are used alongside more traditional communications vehicles such as e-mail and collaboration sites to support the way we work.
Web 2.0 will only deliver value in a business if it emerges from the bottom-up, from the needs and wants of users, rather than being designed from the top down as is typically the case with application development projects. Businesses must first understand how Web 2.0 will fit their organisation’s culture and business models and then invest the time to understand the best way to make use of participative technologies.
So how does a company “manage a Web 2.0 strategy”? Some things to consider are:
Take your company’s culture into account – how do you communicate and interact today (both internally and externally) and how could this be enhanced through the use of participative technologies? How do you then encourage people to participate?
Realise that transparency is created with Web 2.0 applications and be prepared to listen and react to this information, both negative and positive. What new processes must you implement in order to respond to, and take advantage of, this new wealth of information?
Deploy a flexible, secure IT infrastructure to support it. This is crucial, as successful Web 2.0 applications can create exponential demand for compute power and network bandwidth. The IT architecture needs to be designed to accommodate rapid scale-out in terms of processing power and data storage and rapid scale-up in terms of the number of users it supports. There are implications on cost, space and power in the choices that you make and these need to be modelled up front. The last scenario you want is to invest in building a successful site or application, only to have to take it off-line for re-architecting when the infrastructure can’t scale to match your success.
Finally, I’d advise adhering to open standards and technologies and the incorporation of open source software where possible. Not only will this reduce the cost of your Web 2.0 project, it will give you far more flexibility and choice in the medium to long term.
In summary, Web 2.0 affects every organisation. We have only begun to see what the internet is capable of delivering. Start-up companies and Fortune 2000 customers are leveraging the network to use, enable and provide services. There are more then 1bn devices online today and more then 5bn yet to connect. For consumers and for the business landscape, there is opportunity everywhere.
Kim Jones is president and managing director for Sun Microsystems, UK & Ireland
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
By Kim Jones, of Sun Microsystems
Published: July 4 2008 10:14 | Last updated: July 4 2008 10:14
There is a Japanese proverb: “None of us are as smart as all of us”. In 2004, Tim O’Reilly and MediaLive International coined the term “Web 2.0”, when they chose it as the name for a conference focused on participative web technologies.
Wikipedia, considered by many an exemplary Web 2.0 application, defines Web 2.0 as “a second generation of services available on the World Wide Web that lets people collaborate and share information online. Web 2.0 refers to a diverse set of technologies and approaches designed to capture our collective intelligence through online, two-way dialogue.
It offers a new way of doing business: one that encompasses new technologies and business models that allow organisations to collaborate, streamline and accelerate business processes between customers, employees, and partners.
Getting started is easy. Blogs and bulletin boards cost little to set up, and even if the link between the traffic on such sites and the incremental revenue generated is hard to measure, the information coming from the community provides valuable insights to the business.
Incorporating these insights back into business processes will in turn increase your value to the community. We can see this today in some of the leading Web 2.0 destinations such as Facebook, YouTube, MySpace and Google – but for most organisations, the successful incorporation of Web 2.0 remains a challenge as, in many cases, it is an adjunct to, not an integral part of the business strategy.
Companies of all sizes, from a one-person start-up to a large enterprise, will undoubtedly benefit by integrating Web 2.0 technologies as a strategic differentiator in their business strategy. A good example of this is a UK company, Favorit Limited. Blogs have become extremely popular over the last few years, with various estimates putting the number of existing sites at more than 75m. Favorit specialises in bringing social media to a mass worldwide internet audience, and works with all of the complicated content online to simplify information for their users.
We also see examples of organisations using established Web 2.0 sites to improve their operational efficiency, such as the flight crew of a major airline that has chosen to use Facebook to manage schedules and a management consultancy using Facebook for the co-ordination of a new starters’ ”onboarding” programme.
We know that strong leadership, outstanding innovation, clever branding and effective change management are the building blocks of a successful organisation, but over time the business can fail if the world changes and you are unprepared for it. In terms of interaction, the world is changing rapidly, with most of us participating on the web every single day. Smart organisations are adopting new network-centric technologies and services to understand and meet our growing expectations in order to build and maintain their competitive edge. Continued competitiveness must be a goal we all strive to achieve and Web 2.0 plays an increasingly important role.
Web 2.0 can help in two ways. First, it enables organisations to engage with customers more directly, capturing community knowledge which can be used to enhance products, processes and user experience. For example, if you have ever shopped for books or gifts online, you know that the process is enhanced by product recommendations created by combining the feedback from other shoppers.
Second, it supports the business itself through improved team communication and collaboration. Especially in our organisation, blogs, wikis and popular Web 2.0 sites such as Ning and Facebook are used alongside more traditional communications vehicles such as e-mail and collaboration sites to support the way we work.
Web 2.0 will only deliver value in a business if it emerges from the bottom-up, from the needs and wants of users, rather than being designed from the top down as is typically the case with application development projects. Businesses must first understand how Web 2.0 will fit their organisation’s culture and business models and then invest the time to understand the best way to make use of participative technologies.
So how does a company “manage a Web 2.0 strategy”? Some things to consider are:
Take your company’s culture into account – how do you communicate and interact today (both internally and externally) and how could this be enhanced through the use of participative technologies? How do you then encourage people to participate?
Realise that transparency is created with Web 2.0 applications and be prepared to listen and react to this information, both negative and positive. What new processes must you implement in order to respond to, and take advantage of, this new wealth of information?
Deploy a flexible, secure IT infrastructure to support it. This is crucial, as successful Web 2.0 applications can create exponential demand for compute power and network bandwidth. The IT architecture needs to be designed to accommodate rapid scale-out in terms of processing power and data storage and rapid scale-up in terms of the number of users it supports. There are implications on cost, space and power in the choices that you make and these need to be modelled up front. The last scenario you want is to invest in building a successful site or application, only to have to take it off-line for re-architecting when the infrastructure can’t scale to match your success.
Finally, I’d advise adhering to open standards and technologies and the incorporation of open source software where possible. Not only will this reduce the cost of your Web 2.0 project, it will give you far more flexibility and choice in the medium to long term.
In summary, Web 2.0 affects every organisation. We have only begun to see what the internet is capable of delivering. Start-up companies and Fortune 2000 customers are leveraging the network to use, enable and provide services. There are more then 1bn devices online today and more then 5bn yet to connect. For consumers and for the business landscape, there is opportunity everywhere.
Kim Jones is president and managing director for Sun Microsystems, UK & Ireland
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
Microsoft SharePoint Popularity Comes with Issues
Microsoft's SharePoint Server 2007 may be taking off in the enterprise, but the software doesn't come without holes, warts and a variety of other issues that need to be addressed in any corporate deployment.
Monday, June 23, 2008
FT.com / Technology / Digital Business - How should organisations react to social networking tools? Embrace them, ban them, or …?
FT.com / Technology / Digital Business - How should organisations react to social networking tools? Embrace them, ban them, or …?
How should organisations react to social networking tools? Embrace them, ban them, or …?
By Dick Eve, Change Portfolio Director, for Atkins Group
Published: June 23 2008 14:02 | Last updated: June 23 2008 14:02
A truck driver approaches a bridge that has a weight limit of 5,000kg. He and his truck weigh 4,950kg so he would be able to cross it were it not for his 100kg cargo; a flock of pigeons loose in the back of the truck. He has the bright idea of banging on the side of the truck to scare all the birds into taking flight and then he quickly drives across the bridge. Does it work?
After long debate in the New Scientist one reader said: “The practical engineer’s answer is yes, of course the driver could cross! The surplus weight of 50kg translates to a 1 per cent excess over the bridge’s specified load maximum. An additional impulse force due to the truck bumping over a small stone in the road would be much greater than this 1 per cent, and any civil engineer who designs a structure of any sort with a safety margin anywhere near as small as 1 per cent deserves all the professional liability lawsuits he or she gets.”
Why do I raise this? Because it describes nicely two things about engineers: they are practical and they are (or have to be) risk averse. We are the UK’s largest engineering consultancy, and are involved in some of the world’s most high profile building, infrastructure and transport projects. The culture engendered by this – by taking on board every possible eventuality to ensure the products of our endeavours stand the test of time – inevitably puts safety and risk aversion at the heart of what we do.
What has that got to do with social networking? Well, the adoption (or not) of any software technology is more about the culture of the business than the technology itself. You cannot introduce new technology alone and expect it to be successfully adopted in any business, especially one that is resistant to change and risks.
As an example, Microsoft’s Communicator can be installed on everyone’s computer but without education and a business change programme this generates many mixed views, ranging from “I don’t know anything about it” through, “I already get too much e-mail – I am not using that too!” to users like myself who really embrace it. So I use this for communication with a small community of like-minded individuals but not the whole network. This is strengthening strong ties within my network. The next question is how far should that network extend, should I be allowed to communicate with customers or partners or should communication be restricted to internal users only?
So why would a business restrict this powerful tool to being an internal capability when more and more business is done with one or many partners?
It is probably the uncertainty of the outcome. Could it have a negative effect on the business either through someone spending all day chatting with their personal partner rather than their business partner? Maybe the risk of litigation when someone commits something to their business partner they shouldn’t. Written documents are much more formal: they are reviewed, rewritten and are clear records of events; conversations are transient and normally decisions are confirmed in writing. Social networking today sits in between. There is no real audit. What about records management? Decisions could be made with no record.
Of course, Communicator is just the tip of the iceberg. If we consider a wider range of social networking software (SNS) such as Facebook or MySpace, where I can publish a wide variety of information about my background, interests, skills and activities, there is an opportunity for even more abuse. Innocent or otherwise, the lack of regulation regarding such content could have legal ramifications. So maybe the risk outweighs the benefits.
But there seems to be evidence that weak ties and bridges between networks are increasingly important for innovation and knowledge sharing. A social networking approach can really help to develop these weak ties which will bridge the strong networks and spawn new innovations and approaches.
Our business works largely on the strong networks built over years. If you need advice or a resource you can call on a contact you worked with several years ago and be confident they will share their experience to your advantage. But are we missing a trick here? We will always get the same answers – can we use the weak ties and maybe get some new ideas and innovations, maybe SNS is a quick way to involve the new upcoming stars and help them shape the business.
And last but not least, doesn’t the next generation expect to use these tools in work as well as at home? There will come a day when new stars will not join dinosaurs who don’t offer these techniques.
So, when the business is ready and the culture is right, businesses will have to embrace social networking. Yes, of course we need to be prudent and put in the checks and balances for protection. Social Networking Solutions are now available that have been hybridised for business use which should take some of the pain away but when we do embrace it, let’s not get paranoid; too much restriction will stifle the advantages it can deliver.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
How should organisations react to social networking tools? Embrace them, ban them, or …?
By Dick Eve, Change Portfolio Director, for Atkins Group
Published: June 23 2008 14:02 | Last updated: June 23 2008 14:02
A truck driver approaches a bridge that has a weight limit of 5,000kg. He and his truck weigh 4,950kg so he would be able to cross it were it not for his 100kg cargo; a flock of pigeons loose in the back of the truck. He has the bright idea of banging on the side of the truck to scare all the birds into taking flight and then he quickly drives across the bridge. Does it work?
After long debate in the New Scientist one reader said: “The practical engineer’s answer is yes, of course the driver could cross! The surplus weight of 50kg translates to a 1 per cent excess over the bridge’s specified load maximum. An additional impulse force due to the truck bumping over a small stone in the road would be much greater than this 1 per cent, and any civil engineer who designs a structure of any sort with a safety margin anywhere near as small as 1 per cent deserves all the professional liability lawsuits he or she gets.”
Why do I raise this? Because it describes nicely two things about engineers: they are practical and they are (or have to be) risk averse. We are the UK’s largest engineering consultancy, and are involved in some of the world’s most high profile building, infrastructure and transport projects. The culture engendered by this – by taking on board every possible eventuality to ensure the products of our endeavours stand the test of time – inevitably puts safety and risk aversion at the heart of what we do.
What has that got to do with social networking? Well, the adoption (or not) of any software technology is more about the culture of the business than the technology itself. You cannot introduce new technology alone and expect it to be successfully adopted in any business, especially one that is resistant to change and risks.
As an example, Microsoft’s Communicator can be installed on everyone’s computer but without education and a business change programme this generates many mixed views, ranging from “I don’t know anything about it” through, “I already get too much e-mail – I am not using that too!” to users like myself who really embrace it. So I use this for communication with a small community of like-minded individuals but not the whole network. This is strengthening strong ties within my network. The next question is how far should that network extend, should I be allowed to communicate with customers or partners or should communication be restricted to internal users only?
So why would a business restrict this powerful tool to being an internal capability when more and more business is done with one or many partners?
It is probably the uncertainty of the outcome. Could it have a negative effect on the business either through someone spending all day chatting with their personal partner rather than their business partner? Maybe the risk of litigation when someone commits something to their business partner they shouldn’t. Written documents are much more formal: they are reviewed, rewritten and are clear records of events; conversations are transient and normally decisions are confirmed in writing. Social networking today sits in between. There is no real audit. What about records management? Decisions could be made with no record.
Of course, Communicator is just the tip of the iceberg. If we consider a wider range of social networking software (SNS) such as Facebook or MySpace, where I can publish a wide variety of information about my background, interests, skills and activities, there is an opportunity for even more abuse. Innocent or otherwise, the lack of regulation regarding such content could have legal ramifications. So maybe the risk outweighs the benefits.
But there seems to be evidence that weak ties and bridges between networks are increasingly important for innovation and knowledge sharing. A social networking approach can really help to develop these weak ties which will bridge the strong networks and spawn new innovations and approaches.
Our business works largely on the strong networks built over years. If you need advice or a resource you can call on a contact you worked with several years ago and be confident they will share their experience to your advantage. But are we missing a trick here? We will always get the same answers – can we use the weak ties and maybe get some new ideas and innovations, maybe SNS is a quick way to involve the new upcoming stars and help them shape the business.
And last but not least, doesn’t the next generation expect to use these tools in work as well as at home? There will come a day when new stars will not join dinosaurs who don’t offer these techniques.
So, when the business is ready and the culture is right, businesses will have to embrace social networking. Yes, of course we need to be prudent and put in the checks and balances for protection. Social Networking Solutions are now available that have been hybridised for business use which should take some of the pain away but when we do embrace it, let’s not get paranoid; too much restriction will stifle the advantages it can deliver.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Managing your IT portfolio – one size does not fit all
Managing your IT portfolio – one size does not fit all
By Anita Chandraker
Financial Times, 19 juni 2008
Businesses in the financial sector are essentially information businesses, so it is no surprise that they were early adopters of IT. The attraction of technology that could manage and control information was obvious. That early adoption brought significant business advantages from automation to more sophisticated products, as well as an ability to connect with both internal financial and reporting systems and external audiences.
However, while early adopters gain the initial advantages, they can face problems down the line when new developments render the initial technology obsolete or constraining, and, in order to meet ongoing demands from customers and regulators, systems have to be replaced or new functionality bolted on.
As a result, the many companies have a proliferation of new applications integrated with heavily modified legacy applications, not helped by extensive business mergers and acquisitions bringing yet more diversity and complexity to the portfolio. The result is that most large companies have a tangled web of IT systems ranging from 30 year old mainframe systems to modern browser based applications.
The responsibility for solving this puzzle lies with the CIO, who faces a continuous stream of complex decisions and challenges each of which bring financial, business and reputational risks. These decisions range from ensuring that the IT supports the ever-growing demands of regulators for compliance data, finding a way of supporting the next new product without adding yet more complication to an already complex picture. Then there are the resourcing issues around managing ageing systems, at a time when certain technology skills are rapidly disappearing. Against this backdrop, according to Harvey Nash’s recent “Strategic Insights Survey: An IT Leadership Perspective”, what Boards want technology to deliver is enhanced operational efficiency.
The obvious answer is to simplify the portfolio, but it is clear that today’s business realities mean that the costs and risks of a big bang approach are too high for most businesses to contemplate. Instead, the CIO needs a clear strategy which recognises the complexity of the current environment, the future business needs, and provides framework for decision-making that will support the goal to simplify and modernise the IT portfolio.
So what are the key elements in that strategy? The starting point needs to be to identify which elements of the portfolio are the more back room ‘routine’ elements and which are central to the business retaining its competitive edge. The former could be managed by a programme of continuous improvement, the latter are likely to justify significant investment in radical solutions. Both are important, but separating the two helps bring clarity to the overall strategy and to the drivers of investment decisions.
Within these two segments there are a number of options for improving capability in the short to medium term.
The first is to wrap multiple systems with common front ends or process layers. There are solutions available that can effectively glue existing systems together and, at the same time, create new capabilities to fill the gaps in existing applications. This may simplify things from a user perspective but also adds another layer of complexity over the existing environment.
The second approach is to augment current legacy functionality with solutions that can be bolted on to existing systems. There are products in the market that offer specific add-on solutions in new areas of need such as fraud detection, compliance and document management and production. The challenge here is to ensure integration across areas such as data and operations.
A third option lies in porting existing systems to a lower cost platform. There are service providers who will now move older systems, typically running in a mainframe environment to a more cost effective Unix or Windows platform. This can bring significant benefits by simplifying the underlying IT architecture but may not deliver a more agile environment for adding new products.
These options can deliver simplification for the end user and cost reductions but do not solve the underlying issue of complexity or support major business transformation. For that, more radical approaches are needed.
One of those radical options is to rationalise and replace major functional applications. This is not new, but the industry has a poor record on delivering major systems replacement programmes. In order to succeed, this approach cannot simply be an IT-led initiative but needs the business as a whole to embrace the opportunity for major business transformation.
A second option is to take the Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) approach. That means looking at what new common services or building blocks will be required in the future and then set out a plan to develop and integrate these as part of new initiatives, and, in this way, gradually transition towards to the new services while decommissioning the old.
Clearly these more radical options are higher risk undertakings but can solve the fundamental underlying problems of complexity if there is a business-wide commitment to change.
In the current economic climate, and with the complexity of the puzzle, the CIO’s natural response may well be to focus on short term improvement and low cost, low risk options alone. That would be a mistake. Now, more than ever, financial organisations need a clear strategy for simplifying the IT portfolio. The gap between business need and IT fit will not close by itself and businesses need to ensure they choose the right approach for each problem – recognising that no one size can fit all.
Anita Chandraker is a member of PA Consulting Group's management team.
By Anita Chandraker
Financial Times, 19 juni 2008
Businesses in the financial sector are essentially information businesses, so it is no surprise that they were early adopters of IT. The attraction of technology that could manage and control information was obvious. That early adoption brought significant business advantages from automation to more sophisticated products, as well as an ability to connect with both internal financial and reporting systems and external audiences.
However, while early adopters gain the initial advantages, they can face problems down the line when new developments render the initial technology obsolete or constraining, and, in order to meet ongoing demands from customers and regulators, systems have to be replaced or new functionality bolted on.
As a result, the many companies have a proliferation of new applications integrated with heavily modified legacy applications, not helped by extensive business mergers and acquisitions bringing yet more diversity and complexity to the portfolio. The result is that most large companies have a tangled web of IT systems ranging from 30 year old mainframe systems to modern browser based applications.
The responsibility for solving this puzzle lies with the CIO, who faces a continuous stream of complex decisions and challenges each of which bring financial, business and reputational risks. These decisions range from ensuring that the IT supports the ever-growing demands of regulators for compliance data, finding a way of supporting the next new product without adding yet more complication to an already complex picture. Then there are the resourcing issues around managing ageing systems, at a time when certain technology skills are rapidly disappearing. Against this backdrop, according to Harvey Nash’s recent “Strategic Insights Survey: An IT Leadership Perspective”, what Boards want technology to deliver is enhanced operational efficiency.
The obvious answer is to simplify the portfolio, but it is clear that today’s business realities mean that the costs and risks of a big bang approach are too high for most businesses to contemplate. Instead, the CIO needs a clear strategy which recognises the complexity of the current environment, the future business needs, and provides framework for decision-making that will support the goal to simplify and modernise the IT portfolio.
So what are the key elements in that strategy? The starting point needs to be to identify which elements of the portfolio are the more back room ‘routine’ elements and which are central to the business retaining its competitive edge. The former could be managed by a programme of continuous improvement, the latter are likely to justify significant investment in radical solutions. Both are important, but separating the two helps bring clarity to the overall strategy and to the drivers of investment decisions.
Within these two segments there are a number of options for improving capability in the short to medium term.
The first is to wrap multiple systems with common front ends or process layers. There are solutions available that can effectively glue existing systems together and, at the same time, create new capabilities to fill the gaps in existing applications. This may simplify things from a user perspective but also adds another layer of complexity over the existing environment.
The second approach is to augment current legacy functionality with solutions that can be bolted on to existing systems. There are products in the market that offer specific add-on solutions in new areas of need such as fraud detection, compliance and document management and production. The challenge here is to ensure integration across areas such as data and operations.
A third option lies in porting existing systems to a lower cost platform. There are service providers who will now move older systems, typically running in a mainframe environment to a more cost effective Unix or Windows platform. This can bring significant benefits by simplifying the underlying IT architecture but may not deliver a more agile environment for adding new products.
These options can deliver simplification for the end user and cost reductions but do not solve the underlying issue of complexity or support major business transformation. For that, more radical approaches are needed.
One of those radical options is to rationalise and replace major functional applications. This is not new, but the industry has a poor record on delivering major systems replacement programmes. In order to succeed, this approach cannot simply be an IT-led initiative but needs the business as a whole to embrace the opportunity for major business transformation.
A second option is to take the Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) approach. That means looking at what new common services or building blocks will be required in the future and then set out a plan to develop and integrate these as part of new initiatives, and, in this way, gradually transition towards to the new services while decommissioning the old.
Clearly these more radical options are higher risk undertakings but can solve the fundamental underlying problems of complexity if there is a business-wide commitment to change.
In the current economic climate, and with the complexity of the puzzle, the CIO’s natural response may well be to focus on short term improvement and low cost, low risk options alone. That would be a mistake. Now, more than ever, financial organisations need a clear strategy for simplifying the IT portfolio. The gap between business need and IT fit will not close by itself and businesses need to ensure they choose the right approach for each problem – recognising that no one size can fit all.
Anita Chandraker is a member of PA Consulting Group's management team.
Monday, June 16, 2008
Draper firm fields document tracker
NextPage
Draper firm fields document tracker
Program follows files among computers or drives, enforces policies
By Tom Harvey
The Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated: 06/16/2008 11:53:39 PM MDT
Companies are beginning to deploy new document management tools, created by NextPage of Draper, that allow them to track documents even if they are on an employee's computer, have been forwarded by e-mail or are on a USB drive.
NextPage is rolling out software that aims to solve document problems for large businesses that create millions of electronic records annually but have trouble managing them or even knowing which ones exist or where they reside. When sued or facing regulatory action, the companies often must spend millions of dollars just responding to demands that they produce relevant documents.
"Essentially the business problem we're chasing down is that today, in a highly sensitive legal and regulatory environment, the customers that we serve need to have tight control over all the documents they create," said NextPage CEO Darren Lee.
Lee, in a recent interview, cited a study by Dupont of five lawsuits in which it was involved. During the process of responding to requests for information, the company found 75 million documents.
"As they peeled back those 75 million documents, over half were documents that should never have existed," he said. "They should have been deleted or thrown away based on existing policy."
The cost of identifying and classifying those documents was $12.5 million.
Allan Bendall, president of Strategic Discovery Inc., a San Francisco company that helps companies manage documents, said NextPage offers a distinctive response to such concerns.
Most document management systems depend on centralized control, a system where everyone works out of the same server and must check in and check out documents. But such centralization often rankles employees.
"It's very difficult to get people to do that, particularly in professional services," Bendell said, citing "knowledge workers" who find such systems inefficient and tend to ignore protocols and work off the hard drives of their own computers.
Under NextPage's product, "people can continue to manage their documents independently, while offering some of the benefits of centralized control," said Bendell.
NextPage's solution is software that tracks documents into all of those areas where they might be stored.
"We would know of everything on your hard drive," said NextPage's Lee. "We would know of documents on your e-mail. We would know them on a USB. We'd know them if you sent them to someone. We know every single instance of it. We know every version of it."
That knowledge allows a company to enforce retention policies consistently through its ranks.
A study of 108 chief information officers found that more than 60 percent said that only half of employees cooperate with company retention policies. NextPage sponsored the study.
With NextPage's software, companies are able to set up policies that can range from benign e-mails telling an employee that a document should be destroyed or retained to the drastic: going into a hard drive and deleting a document.
"You can be as light or as draconian as need be" in enforcing retention policies, said Cyndi Tetro, vice president of marketing.
NextPage was started in 1999 when it created products for Internet searches. Those products were sold and the company then began work on its document management system.
tharvey@sltrib.com
Draper firm fields document tracker
Program follows files among computers or drives, enforces policies
By Tom Harvey
The Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated: 06/16/2008 11:53:39 PM MDT
Companies are beginning to deploy new document management tools, created by NextPage of Draper, that allow them to track documents even if they are on an employee's computer, have been forwarded by e-mail or are on a USB drive.
NextPage is rolling out software that aims to solve document problems for large businesses that create millions of electronic records annually but have trouble managing them or even knowing which ones exist or where they reside. When sued or facing regulatory action, the companies often must spend millions of dollars just responding to demands that they produce relevant documents.
"Essentially the business problem we're chasing down is that today, in a highly sensitive legal and regulatory environment, the customers that we serve need to have tight control over all the documents they create," said NextPage CEO Darren Lee.
Lee, in a recent interview, cited a study by Dupont of five lawsuits in which it was involved. During the process of responding to requests for information, the company found 75 million documents.
"As they peeled back those 75 million documents, over half were documents that should never have existed," he said. "They should have been deleted or thrown away based on existing policy."
The cost of identifying and classifying those documents was $12.5 million.
Allan Bendall, president of Strategic Discovery Inc., a San Francisco company that helps companies manage documents, said NextPage offers a distinctive response to such concerns.
Most document management systems depend on centralized control, a system where everyone works out of the same server and must check in and check out documents. But such centralization often rankles employees.
"It's very difficult to get people to do that, particularly in professional services," Bendell said, citing "knowledge workers" who find such systems inefficient and tend to ignore protocols and work off the hard drives of their own computers.
Under NextPage's product, "people can continue to manage their documents independently, while offering some of the benefits of centralized control," said Bendell.
NextPage's solution is software that tracks documents into all of those areas where they might be stored.
"We would know of everything on your hard drive," said NextPage's Lee. "We would know of documents on your e-mail. We would know them on a USB. We'd know them if you sent them to someone. We know every single instance of it. We know every version of it."
That knowledge allows a company to enforce retention policies consistently through its ranks.
A study of 108 chief information officers found that more than 60 percent said that only half of employees cooperate with company retention policies. NextPage sponsored the study.
With NextPage's software, companies are able to set up policies that can range from benign e-mails telling an employee that a document should be destroyed or retained to the drastic: going into a hard drive and deleting a document.
"You can be as light or as draconian as need be" in enforcing retention policies, said Cyndi Tetro, vice president of marketing.
NextPage was started in 1999 when it created products for Internet searches. Those products were sold and the company then began work on its document management system.
tharvey@sltrib.com
Monday, June 09, 2008
Don’t prepare for the world as it is – it’s the future that matters
Don’t prepare for the world as it is – it’s the future that matters
By Richard Brown of Ernst & Young
Published: June 9 2008 09:42 | Last updated: June 9 2008 09:42
We can all make predictions: the financial services world will continue to change, and there will continue to be rapid technological advances, both of which stimulate further demands and increasing expectations from all stakeholders.
Virtualisation, green IT, privacy and identity management are some of the new(ish) ones on the block while cost management, sourcing and standards have never gone away. Securing mobile devices continues to be a subject of conversation at any event where CIOs gather.
Regulatory demands are unlikely to decrease. Technologies will continue to evolve – seeking the right adoption point where they move into business-as-usual. And customers will continue to demand convenience, flexibility and privacy at the same time. Business leaders will expect more for less from IT, a demand fuelled by the desire to free up funds for further growth or simply to reduce costs. And there will undoubtedly be another financial crisis to deal with – the question being not whether but simply what and when?
In reality, CIOs in the financial services sector continue to face a multitude of competing demands from changing business models to moves to offshore business and delivering major change programmes while keeping the lights on – cost effectively, of course. On top of this, the financial services sector has had other specific challenges – increasing regulatory demands and expectations, and consumer demands for flexibility, convenience plus security, to name but a few.
Continued high profile instances of loss or compromise of personal data have caused increased interest not only from the regulators but also from business partners and consumers. The credit crunch and sub-prime are taking their toll on the sector, resulting in some rapid business decisions being made on products and services offered, and a variety of cost cutting measures. More than that, there is great uncertainty about the duration and nature of the current economic situation.
How can this mountain of individual predictions be used to create a plan for the future?
A couple of things are clear. If financial businesses continue to look at individual activities, processes and incidents in isolation, then they will face the future unprepared. Organisations also need to start learning from their experiences – even if it’s just on post-project reviews, it’s a start. And finally it is also necessary to take a hard look at people and their capabilities to help you into the future.
Why are these factors so important, when there are so many others?
Each business and IT priority justifies a major programme of activity in its own right. More important, they all bring with them a host of further considerations from risks to skills, governance, timeframe, and globalisation, which need to be looked at more broadly than the main activity itself.
So can you really see the big picture? And if you can, can you see it any time you like or just once a year at planning time? And how big does the wall have to be to hold the picture? The volume of available data and the speed of consolidation make many things possible. This could mean putting a precise value on system downtime at a precise time, on a particular day, or the opportunity to become a very fast follower.
But is IT really helping to join the dots to spot the gaps and the anomalies? Has IT grown up sufficiently that we can move seamlessly from projects to business as usual, and that asking “what if?” and “so what?” becomes a natural part of doing business?
Many organisations purport to carry out post-project reviews, but in reality some brush problems under the carpet, and sometimes even the best rarely take the lessons further than the project team. In order to get better, financial services companies need to adopt a culture that continuously learns from mistakes. If there is a struggle to learn lessons and apply them, what chance is there to learn from broader business and economic situations?
Strategies, plans, processes and governance will only get you so far. People and their capabilities is the key thing. For example does the IT management team include those who are constantly scanning the horizon? Does it include those with the vision to see potential, and have the courage to seize new opportunities without losing sight of commercial reaity? Regardless of functions and roles do your teams have the right balance of cynics and visionaries?
These may be simple questions, but the financial services industry has faced an unprecedented volume of incidents and change resulting in some knee jerk reactions and shaken confidence, leaving a great deal of uncertainty. And IT is now in a unique position where it really can make or break a business. So these questions deserve well considered responses. Will you stand up to the scrutiny?
Richard Brown is the head of technology security and risk services, Northern Europe, Middle East, India and Africa, at Ernst & Young
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
By Richard Brown of Ernst & Young
Published: June 9 2008 09:42 | Last updated: June 9 2008 09:42
We can all make predictions: the financial services world will continue to change, and there will continue to be rapid technological advances, both of which stimulate further demands and increasing expectations from all stakeholders.
Virtualisation, green IT, privacy and identity management are some of the new(ish) ones on the block while cost management, sourcing and standards have never gone away. Securing mobile devices continues to be a subject of conversation at any event where CIOs gather.
Regulatory demands are unlikely to decrease. Technologies will continue to evolve – seeking the right adoption point where they move into business-as-usual. And customers will continue to demand convenience, flexibility and privacy at the same time. Business leaders will expect more for less from IT, a demand fuelled by the desire to free up funds for further growth or simply to reduce costs. And there will undoubtedly be another financial crisis to deal with – the question being not whether but simply what and when?
In reality, CIOs in the financial services sector continue to face a multitude of competing demands from changing business models to moves to offshore business and delivering major change programmes while keeping the lights on – cost effectively, of course. On top of this, the financial services sector has had other specific challenges – increasing regulatory demands and expectations, and consumer demands for flexibility, convenience plus security, to name but a few.
Continued high profile instances of loss or compromise of personal data have caused increased interest not only from the regulators but also from business partners and consumers. The credit crunch and sub-prime are taking their toll on the sector, resulting in some rapid business decisions being made on products and services offered, and a variety of cost cutting measures. More than that, there is great uncertainty about the duration and nature of the current economic situation.
How can this mountain of individual predictions be used to create a plan for the future?
A couple of things are clear. If financial businesses continue to look at individual activities, processes and incidents in isolation, then they will face the future unprepared. Organisations also need to start learning from their experiences – even if it’s just on post-project reviews, it’s a start. And finally it is also necessary to take a hard look at people and their capabilities to help you into the future.
Why are these factors so important, when there are so many others?
Each business and IT priority justifies a major programme of activity in its own right. More important, they all bring with them a host of further considerations from risks to skills, governance, timeframe, and globalisation, which need to be looked at more broadly than the main activity itself.
So can you really see the big picture? And if you can, can you see it any time you like or just once a year at planning time? And how big does the wall have to be to hold the picture? The volume of available data and the speed of consolidation make many things possible. This could mean putting a precise value on system downtime at a precise time, on a particular day, or the opportunity to become a very fast follower.
But is IT really helping to join the dots to spot the gaps and the anomalies? Has IT grown up sufficiently that we can move seamlessly from projects to business as usual, and that asking “what if?” and “so what?” becomes a natural part of doing business?
Many organisations purport to carry out post-project reviews, but in reality some brush problems under the carpet, and sometimes even the best rarely take the lessons further than the project team. In order to get better, financial services companies need to adopt a culture that continuously learns from mistakes. If there is a struggle to learn lessons and apply them, what chance is there to learn from broader business and economic situations?
Strategies, plans, processes and governance will only get you so far. People and their capabilities is the key thing. For example does the IT management team include those who are constantly scanning the horizon? Does it include those with the vision to see potential, and have the courage to seize new opportunities without losing sight of commercial reaity? Regardless of functions and roles do your teams have the right balance of cynics and visionaries?
These may be simple questions, but the financial services industry has faced an unprecedented volume of incidents and change resulting in some knee jerk reactions and shaken confidence, leaving a great deal of uncertainty. And IT is now in a unique position where it really can make or break a business. So these questions deserve well considered responses. Will you stand up to the scrutiny?
Richard Brown is the head of technology security and risk services, Northern Europe, Middle East, India and Africa, at Ernst & Young
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
Sunday, June 08, 2008
Information technology
Information technology
Published: June 8 2008 19:07 | Last updated: June 8 2008 19:07
Who has not, when confronted by the daily exasperation of office technology, questioned the parenthood and purpose of information technology departments? Advocates of computing in “the cloud” hope to make them largely superfluous.
Instead of going to the effort of installing and maintaining computing locally, all those tricksy applications, not to mention storage and data processing, can be provided centrally from shared infrastructure. Merrill Lynch estimates that more efficient management of resources – such as servers – could provide services at a cost five to 10 times cheaper than that provided by a more traditional in-house approach.
The revolution has been a long time coming. Computing on tap as a concept was floated as far back as the 1960s. Sun Microsystems has been actively pushing grid, or utility, computing for almost a decade. What has changed is the rise of viable business models such as software-as-a-service. Salesforce.com is the most high-profile of these companies, but Oracle, Microsoft and SAP are all investing in subscription-based services aimed at small businesses – typically those with fewer than 1,500 employees.
So there are some valuable niches to exploit. On current growth rates, Saas sales should double between 2006 and 2011. And if subscription services can show real economies of scale in distribution and sales – not something that Salesforce.com has yet demonstrated – sky-high valuations for Saas companies might be justified.
But the segment’s sales of about $3bn remain a small fraction of a global $270bn software market. The impact of inertia should not be discounted either. Chief executives tend to dislike replacing equipment that still works. Mainframes were superseded by servers decades ago but IBM still makes and maintains them. Important security and regulatory questions have to be answered before large companies will consider the cost of moving any form of critical data into the cloud. To hope for more than slow, if steady, progress over several years is to build castles in the air.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
Published: June 8 2008 19:07 | Last updated: June 8 2008 19:07
Who has not, when confronted by the daily exasperation of office technology, questioned the parenthood and purpose of information technology departments? Advocates of computing in “the cloud” hope to make them largely superfluous.
Instead of going to the effort of installing and maintaining computing locally, all those tricksy applications, not to mention storage and data processing, can be provided centrally from shared infrastructure. Merrill Lynch estimates that more efficient management of resources – such as servers – could provide services at a cost five to 10 times cheaper than that provided by a more traditional in-house approach.
The revolution has been a long time coming. Computing on tap as a concept was floated as far back as the 1960s. Sun Microsystems has been actively pushing grid, or utility, computing for almost a decade. What has changed is the rise of viable business models such as software-as-a-service. Salesforce.com is the most high-profile of these companies, but Oracle, Microsoft and SAP are all investing in subscription-based services aimed at small businesses – typically those with fewer than 1,500 employees.
So there are some valuable niches to exploit. On current growth rates, Saas sales should double between 2006 and 2011. And if subscription services can show real economies of scale in distribution and sales – not something that Salesforce.com has yet demonstrated – sky-high valuations for Saas companies might be justified.
But the segment’s sales of about $3bn remain a small fraction of a global $270bn software market. The impact of inertia should not be discounted either. Chief executives tend to dislike replacing equipment that still works. Mainframes were superseded by servers decades ago but IBM still makes and maintains them. Important security and regulatory questions have to be answered before large companies will consider the cost of moving any form of critical data into the cloud. To hope for more than slow, if steady, progress over several years is to build castles in the air.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
Friday, June 06, 2008
Intelligent information comes of age
Intelligent information comes of ageBy Tom Glocer, chief executive of Thomson Reuters
Published: June 6 2008 13:43 | Last updated: June 6 2008 13:43
In his 1977 book “Global Implications of the Information Society”, the technology visionary, Marc Uri Porat, defined the information economy as occurring when labour related to the creation, processing and dissemination of information exceeds work related to the other three economic sectors – agriculture, industry and service. Based on that definition, Proat tells us that the information economy arrived in the west in 1967, when 53 per cent of labour income in the total workforce was derived from the information sector.
Forty years later, information is at the core of all economic sectors in the developed world, and an increasingly influential element in emerging markets. The amount of information, how we receive and consume it and whether or not we trust it, has been radically altered with the advent of the internet. This revolution has also created a growing global need for “intelligent” information.
What is intelligent information? It is certainly insightful and well written text, but it is also dynamic content delivered in electronic formats. It is self-describing, self-organising and action-oriented. As we pass from Web 2.0 to the semantic web envisioned for Web 3.0, intelligent information will be its common language.
Intelligent information has never been more valuable. Professionals will pay for just the right information delivered at just the right time and place in their workflow. In fact, people such as lawyers, doctors, scientists, accountants and those who power the world’s financial markets, will pay to be given less information, but precisely the right information that helps them make better decisions, faster.
None of us would pay for tomorrow’s weather forecast because the information has been commoditised, it is universally available. If you are a provider of consumer-grade weather information, you have little option other than to monetise your content via advertising. But if you provide very accurate long-range hurricane forecasts businesses such as property and casualty insurers will pay you handsomely for your professional grade information.
With the number of professionals growing, especially in emerging markets such as China and India, the global demand for intelligent information is booming. The world, in a sense, is professionalising, and doing so in real time. At the same time, physical industries are transforming into information businesses. We saw this in financial markets as currencies went off the gold standard and began trading electronically. A similar transformation is underway in the pharmaceuticals industry. Once a chemical compound discovery and manufacturing business, it is now all about decoding, analysing and manipulating the human genome.
As a result, a huge opportunity has emerged for companies that can provide access to intelligent information. The information majors are already establishing their territories. At Thomson Reuters we are staking our claim to the delivery of the kind of critical intelligent information that professional decision-makers must rely upon to do their jobs.
Businesses and professionals in the financial, legal, tax and accounting, media, scientific and healthcare markets require huge amounts of information, typically delivered in real-time, which can be consumed by machines as well as human beings.
To meet these demands, the new class of “information majors” will need to be global, highly innovative, experts in each sector they seek to serve, and able to invest in huge databases and sophisticated search and data mining capabilities.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
Published: June 6 2008 13:43 | Last updated: June 6 2008 13:43
In his 1977 book “Global Implications of the Information Society”, the technology visionary, Marc Uri Porat, defined the information economy as occurring when labour related to the creation, processing and dissemination of information exceeds work related to the other three economic sectors – agriculture, industry and service. Based on that definition, Proat tells us that the information economy arrived in the west in 1967, when 53 per cent of labour income in the total workforce was derived from the information sector.
Forty years later, information is at the core of all economic sectors in the developed world, and an increasingly influential element in emerging markets. The amount of information, how we receive and consume it and whether or not we trust it, has been radically altered with the advent of the internet. This revolution has also created a growing global need for “intelligent” information.
What is intelligent information? It is certainly insightful and well written text, but it is also dynamic content delivered in electronic formats. It is self-describing, self-organising and action-oriented. As we pass from Web 2.0 to the semantic web envisioned for Web 3.0, intelligent information will be its common language.
Intelligent information has never been more valuable. Professionals will pay for just the right information delivered at just the right time and place in their workflow. In fact, people such as lawyers, doctors, scientists, accountants and those who power the world’s financial markets, will pay to be given less information, but precisely the right information that helps them make better decisions, faster.
None of us would pay for tomorrow’s weather forecast because the information has been commoditised, it is universally available. If you are a provider of consumer-grade weather information, you have little option other than to monetise your content via advertising. But if you provide very accurate long-range hurricane forecasts businesses such as property and casualty insurers will pay you handsomely for your professional grade information.
With the number of professionals growing, especially in emerging markets such as China and India, the global demand for intelligent information is booming. The world, in a sense, is professionalising, and doing so in real time. At the same time, physical industries are transforming into information businesses. We saw this in financial markets as currencies went off the gold standard and began trading electronically. A similar transformation is underway in the pharmaceuticals industry. Once a chemical compound discovery and manufacturing business, it is now all about decoding, analysing and manipulating the human genome.
As a result, a huge opportunity has emerged for companies that can provide access to intelligent information. The information majors are already establishing their territories. At Thomson Reuters we are staking our claim to the delivery of the kind of critical intelligent information that professional decision-makers must rely upon to do their jobs.
Businesses and professionals in the financial, legal, tax and accounting, media, scientific and healthcare markets require huge amounts of information, typically delivered in real-time, which can be consumed by machines as well as human beings.
To meet these demands, the new class of “information majors” will need to be global, highly innovative, experts in each sector they seek to serve, and able to invest in huge databases and sophisticated search and data mining capabilities.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
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