SharePoint 2010 Steps Up to the ECM Plate: "SharePoint 2010 Steps Up to the ECM Plate"
26 February 2010
Mark R. Gilbert, Karen M. Shegda
Gartner RAS Core Research Note G00172077
Microsoft evolves SharePoint in the 2010 release to include richer content management functionality. Gartner expects it to compete increasingly in the traditional high-end content management market.
Overview
Microsoft has announced details of its much anticipated next release of SharePoint, SharePoint 2010, which provides improvements in scalability, content management functionality and governance. Application developers, IT planners and enterprise architects will want to assess the changes and plan their strategy for adoption or migration.
Key Findings
- SharePoint 2010 remains a horizontal content management offering. Microsoft does not appear to be targeting vertical applications or transactional (fixed) content management with this release, but rather more collaborative processes and dynamic content applications.
- This release promises improved scalability and better support for broad enterprise deployments.
- Enterprises will be better able to govern their SharePoint deployments if new features, such as policy-based information management, prove robust and effective.
- SharePoint 2010 provides a more intuitive user interface. The range of information workers who can consume and use content management therefore continues to increase, blurring more completely the distinction between user and administrator.
Recommendations
- Existing SharePoint (Windows SharePoint Services [WSS] or Microsoft Office SharePoint Server [MOSS] 2007) customers should plan for eventual migration to SharePoint 2010, although the time frame will vary based on enterprise needs and risk aversion.
- Unless enterprises have pressing needs, Gartner recommends waiting until the first service pack for SharePoint 2010 is released.
- Organizations looking to SharePoint to support large volumes of static content or transactional processes will find their needs better met through partner-built solutions extending SharePoint or competing enterprise content management (ECM) offerings.
- Understand the broader investments you may need to make for SharePoint 2010, as it will be available only with a 64-bit architecture and will require other Microsoft components.
- Test third-party applications/Web Parts that may need to be integrated for compatibility.
Analysis
Microsoft's SharePoint family has been a widely successful offering with organizations of all sizes and across all industries. Gartner inquiry and survey data indicates that approximately 50% of organizations, both large and small, have piloted or deployed WSS or MOSS 2007 as key elements of their overall information infrastructures. By delivering a broad set of functionality using a horizontal infrastructure approach, as opposed to the traditional application approach, Microsoft has changed the way organizations think about content management and collaboration — they are no longer distinct arenas. Yet, SharePoint has not been without its challenges. Through client interactions, Gartner has collected a great deal of information about the 2007 version's limitations in supporting more advanced ECM requirements. These include server replication issues, inability to support compound documents, and limited process management capabilities. SharePoint is currently best used for supporting ad hoc content management needs and collaborative content processes. (Social software issues may present additional challenges.)
Though MOSS 2007's "sweet spot" is as a portal and also for document-centric collaboration and basic content management, many organizations have pushed the boundaries with it and view it as a strategic platform on which they want to build composite content applications (see Note 1). Thus, the most often asked question from Gartner clients has been: "When will SharePoint be a full ECM system?" As Microsoft prepares to ship this fourth iteration of SharePoint, IT professionals and business leaders want to know: "Has Microsoft finally got it right?" In many ways, the answer is "Yes." Microsoft SharePoint 2010 (expected release 1H10) will offer significant improvements in many areas that have been problematic in MOSS 2007 and it will close the gap with its ECM competitors, particularly with regard to document and records management, metadata management and policy-based governance. Some ECM vendors will increasingly find themselves competing against, rather than coexisting with, SharePoint 2010.
With this release, Microsoft has focused on making SharePoint 2010 both enterprise- and people-ready. It addresses interrelated capabilities for search, social computing and ECM. However, it still does not meet some high-end needs, such as synchronization between server farms, out-of-the-box integration with other leading content management systems, and a clearly defined flexible repository and storage strategy other than SQL. Users needing these functions will require third-party tools from vendors such as Infonic, Syntergy, BlueThread Technologies, Systemware and StorSimple.
Friday, February 26, 2010
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Case Study: Microsoft Engages Employees and Creates a Self-Service Knowledge Repository
Case Study: Microsoft Engages Employees and Creates a Self-Service Knowledge Repository: "Case Study: Microsoft Engages Employees and Creates a Self-Service Knowledge Repository"
24 February 2010
Carol Rozwell
Gartner RAS Core Research Note G00174294
Many organizations struggle to reach a tipping point in the adoption of social media. This case study explains how Microsoft engaged its employees to share their expertise and, in the process, created a dynamic self-service knowledge repository.
Overview
Microsoft needed to provide employees with the knowledge they require to stay up to date with a steady stream of new product releases. Like many other firms in a dynamic business environment, it found that its training organization was strained and having difficulty keeping up with the demand for new courseware.
Key Findings
* Academy Mobile was created to evaluate whether social media concepts could be applied to let people share information directly with each other.
* Today, there are 2,000 frequent podcasters, 650 uploads/month and 125,000 page views. People use Academy Mobile as a self-service expertise network.
* As usage grew, intrinsic motivation became more important than the incentive program. The podcasters contributed their best material because they wanted to be perceived as experts.
Recommendations
* Establish a clear code of business conduct, then trust employees to do the right thing.
* Allow the community to share the knowledge it feels is most relevant and to determine which contributions are most useful.
* Seed the initial implementation but when the solution goes viral, manage with a light touch.
24 February 2010
Carol Rozwell
Gartner RAS Core Research Note G00174294
Many organizations struggle to reach a tipping point in the adoption of social media. This case study explains how Microsoft engaged its employees to share their expertise and, in the process, created a dynamic self-service knowledge repository.
Overview
Microsoft needed to provide employees with the knowledge they require to stay up to date with a steady stream of new product releases. Like many other firms in a dynamic business environment, it found that its training organization was strained and having difficulty keeping up with the demand for new courseware.
Key Findings
* Academy Mobile was created to evaluate whether social media concepts could be applied to let people share information directly with each other.
* Today, there are 2,000 frequent podcasters, 650 uploads/month and 125,000 page views. People use Academy Mobile as a self-service expertise network.
* As usage grew, intrinsic motivation became more important than the incentive program. The podcasters contributed their best material because they wanted to be perceived as experts.
Recommendations
* Establish a clear code of business conduct, then trust employees to do the right thing.
* Allow the community to share the knowledge it feels is most relevant and to determine which contributions are most useful.
* Seed the initial implementation but when the solution goes viral, manage with a light touch.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Companies must play by the Wikipedia rules
Companies must play by the Wikipedia rules
By Peter Whitehead, Digital Business editor
Published: February 17 2010 15:21 | Last updated: February 17 2010 15:21
As if companies didn’t have enough trouble just keeping their own websites in order – now, they are now being urged to look after their Wikipedia pages, too.
Wikipedia has become an important part of a company’s profile: the Wikipedia website regularly appears second or third in a list of search engine results and for many people will be the most accessible way of learning about a business.
Yet companies fight shy of interfering with what is said about them on Wikipedia – a global online encyclopedia written and edited by its users – following high-profile incidents in which organisations have amended their entries to be more favourable. Reputations were damaged once the changes were discovered and made public.
Advice on how to manage such a delicate relationship with the website, which insists on its independence and neutrality, comes from Lundquist, an Italian communications consultancy.
It has conducted research into how businesses are presented on Wikipedia. It ranked the world’s largest 500 companies according to how much information was included on the encyclopedia’s pages, its presentation and ease of navigation.
Apple came top of the list, followed by BT, Nokia, Royal Dutch Shell, Ford and Toyota.
Lundquist suggests ways in which companies can improve their Wikipedia profile without running the risk of breaking the rules when editing their own entries.
It says the popularity of social media means it is now vital that organisations take an active role in monitoring what is said about them; they must abide by Wikipedia’s rules of openness; when updating a Wikipedia entry, they should leave a note explaining the changes made; and they should engage with and help editors interested in their subjects.
“It is not recommended that companies make longer substantial edits themselves. But users can engage with a variety of groups on Wikipedia in order to solicit help with their article,“ says the Lundquist advice.
www.lundquist.it
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010. Print a single copy of this article for personal use. Contact us if you wish to print more to distribute to others.
By Peter Whitehead, Digital Business editor
Published: February 17 2010 15:21 | Last updated: February 17 2010 15:21
As if companies didn’t have enough trouble just keeping their own websites in order – now, they are now being urged to look after their Wikipedia pages, too.
Wikipedia has become an important part of a company’s profile: the Wikipedia website regularly appears second or third in a list of search engine results and for many people will be the most accessible way of learning about a business.
Yet companies fight shy of interfering with what is said about them on Wikipedia – a global online encyclopedia written and edited by its users – following high-profile incidents in which organisations have amended their entries to be more favourable. Reputations were damaged once the changes were discovered and made public.
Advice on how to manage such a delicate relationship with the website, which insists on its independence and neutrality, comes from Lundquist, an Italian communications consultancy.
It has conducted research into how businesses are presented on Wikipedia. It ranked the world’s largest 500 companies according to how much information was included on the encyclopedia’s pages, its presentation and ease of navigation.
Apple came top of the list, followed by BT, Nokia, Royal Dutch Shell, Ford and Toyota.
Lundquist suggests ways in which companies can improve their Wikipedia profile without running the risk of breaking the rules when editing their own entries.
It says the popularity of social media means it is now vital that organisations take an active role in monitoring what is said about them; they must abide by Wikipedia’s rules of openness; when updating a Wikipedia entry, they should leave a note explaining the changes made; and they should engage with and help editors interested in their subjects.
“It is not recommended that companies make longer substantial edits themselves. But users can engage with a variety of groups on Wikipedia in order to solicit help with their article,“ says the Lundquist advice.
www.lundquist.it
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010. Print a single copy of this article for personal use. Contact us if you wish to print more to distribute to others.
Monday, February 15, 2010
Mobile devices: Should you go for large, medium or small?
Mobile devices: Should you go for large, medium or small?
By Paul Taylor
Published: February 15 2010 11:40 | Last updated: February 15 2010 11:40
When Compaq Computer unveiled the first IBM-compatible portable PC at the Waldorf Hotel in New York in November 1982, it was shaped like a portable sewing machine and at 28 pounds quickly became known as “luggable” rather than portable.
It featured an Intel 4.77 MHz 8088 processor, 128KB RAM, a 9-inch monochrome monitor, one 320Kb 5.25-inch disk drive and cost $2,995 – well out of reach of most consumers and many business users.
Ten years later, Nokia launched the world’s first commercially available GSM digital phone, the Nokia 1011. The handset (195mm x 60 x 45) could hold contact names and numbers, came with a two-line monochrome screen and needed an extendible antenna.
Since then, Moore’s Law and competitive markets have worked their magic and users can now choose from a vast array of integrated portable computing and communications devices ranging from a pocket-sized smartphone such as the iPhone 3GS, Palm Pre, HTC Hero or BlackBerry Bold, to the latest netbooks, smartpads and laptops.
Today it seems there is a mobile device to suit every taste and meet every need and most are “converged devices” that combine computing, communications and entertainment.
So what are the pros and cons of different types of device and what are they best for?
By Paul Taylor
Published: February 15 2010 11:40 | Last updated: February 15 2010 11:40
When Compaq Computer unveiled the first IBM-compatible portable PC at the Waldorf Hotel in New York in November 1982, it was shaped like a portable sewing machine and at 28 pounds quickly became known as “luggable” rather than portable.
It featured an Intel 4.77 MHz 8088 processor, 128KB RAM, a 9-inch monochrome monitor, one 320Kb 5.25-inch disk drive and cost $2,995 – well out of reach of most consumers and many business users.
Ten years later, Nokia launched the world’s first commercially available GSM digital phone, the Nokia 1011. The handset (195mm x 60 x 45) could hold contact names and numbers, came with a two-line monochrome screen and needed an extendible antenna.
Since then, Moore’s Law and competitive markets have worked their magic and users can now choose from a vast array of integrated portable computing and communications devices ranging from a pocket-sized smartphone such as the iPhone 3GS, Palm Pre, HTC Hero or BlackBerry Bold, to the latest netbooks, smartpads and laptops.
Today it seems there is a mobile device to suit every taste and meet every need and most are “converged devices” that combine computing, communications and entertainment.
So what are the pros and cons of different types of device and what are they best for?
Mainstream Laptops
Windows-based laptops still command a small price-premium over desktops and if you are looking for the ultimate in performance, you might be better off with a desktop system, particularly if you plan to upgrade the system on a regular basis with the latest technology.
But for most mainstream business users, consumers and students, a standard 15-inch or widescreen laptop, such as the Lenovo ThinkPad T500, may be the best option, certainly if it is required in more than one place.
Those using a laptop regularly in one place might also invest in a docking station, a large screen monitor such as the Viewsonic VG2427wm and wireless keyboard and mouse such as Logitech’s Wireless Desktop LX310. Alternatively, a laptop stand will elevate a laptop screen to a more comfortable height for viewing.
Thin-and-light Laptops
Slim, stylish and ultra-lightweight laptops have been around for more than a decade, but the latest machines, such as Apple’s MacBook Air, Dell’s Adamo and Lenovo’s ThinkPad X301 make fewer compromises than their predecessors.
For example, Intel’s family of Core 2 Duo processors has helped deliver desktop-like performance while minimising power consumption and extending battery life. High-density hard drives are expanding portable storage capacity and solid state drives are reducing weight and power consumption still further.
Most machines in this category weigh about 3lbs and have LED backlit screens of 13 inches or larger. But these features do not come cheap and ultra-lightweight machines typically command a significant price premium over more mainstream machines. For example, the MacBook Air costs from $1,500 while the ThinkPad X301 costs from $1,890.
As a result, these machines are particularly well suited to road warriors who need lightweight, high-performance laptops. They have also become popular as executive status symbols and as technology fashion statements.
Netbooks
Netbooks are the new kids on the portable computing block. They initially evolved about two years ago as an offshoot of efforts such as One Laptop Per Child to build low-cost computing devices primarily for education in developing countries.
Most of the first netbooks, such as the EeePC designed and built by Asus, the Taiwanese consumer electronics group, were powered by Intel Atom processors, ran Linux operating systems, 10-inch or smaller screens and had limited local storage capacity.
They were designed primarily for network-based or cloud computing using a wired or wireless wi-fi connection, hence the name Netbook.
Typically, they cost $399 or less and were immediately popular as second laptops or for travellers who did not want to carry a full-size machine around.
Initially, most mainstream laptop makers shunned the new devices, arguing that they lacked the performance or usability of full-sized laptops and were not suitable for business use. Privately, they also feared that their success could threaten margins on higher priced laptops.
That left the emerging netbook market to companies such as Asus, MSI and Acer who quickly expanded the market by adding Windows XP-powered netbooks, boosting screen sizes and storage capacity.
By the end of 2008, netbooks were the fastest growing segment of the PC market and one that even the big PC makers, including Hewlett-Packard and Dell, could no longer afford to ignore.
Since then, a steady stream of netbooks has been launched that has found its way into corporate use as low-cost alternatives to laptops, with some offering higher-performance Intel Atom processors, larger screens (up to 13ins) and large hard drives.
Other “crossover” machines, such as Acer’s $600 Aspire Timeline 1810T, which has a relatively powerful dual-core Intel Ultra-Low Voltage processor and a bright 11-inch screen, come with Windows 7. Others come with built-in cellular data modems enabling them to connect to 3G cellular broadband networks as well as local wi-fi hotspots while on the move.
One of the most interesting new netbooks is the Nokia Booklet 3G, designed to be a communications and computing device for all-day use.
Smartphones
If 2008 was the year of the netbook, 2009 was the year of the smartphone. While laptops became smaller, lighter and better at wireless communications, mobile phones grew smarter and more like mini portable PCs with open operating systems, full web browsers and a wide range of downloadable third-party applications.
These converged devices, including the Apple iPhone 3GS, BlackBerry Bold 9700, Nokia N97, Palm Pre and Motorola Droid, are designed for far more than voice communications.
Most run one of a handful of smartphone operating systems such as Symbian, BlackBerry OS, Windows Mobile 6.5, Android, and Linux and take advantage of their built-in 3G radios, wi-fi and GPS chipsets to deliver a wide range of services.
Most feature cameras and many now use touchscreens as a primary user interface, or – like the Motorola Droid – combine a touchscreen with a thumb-operated Qwerty keyboard.
The first smartphones, including the early BlackBerrys, grew popular mainly because they supported push-e-mail and this remains a primary requirement for most corporate smartphone owners.
But, as Research in Motion, the Canadian manufacturer of the BlackBerry, has acknowledged, smartphones today need to appeal to both consumers and business users, and that means combining extensive multimedia and social networking features with more mainstream business features such as contact databases, mobile calendars and the ability to create, view and edit office documents.
For some, a smartphone may be a viable alternative to carrying a laptop. For others, particularly those who need to do a lot of typing, smartphones, at least for the moment, are complementary rather than laptop substitutes.
Apple’s iPad
The iPad, which will go on sale in the US towards the end of March, represents an interesting example of the convergence of technologies and devices.
It has a 9.7-inch multitouch-enabled screen, runs the iPhone operating system and comes with wi-fi and an optional 3G cellular modem and seeks to fill the gap between smartphone devices, the iPod touch digital media player, and the bottom of the laptop market.
While some analysts have characterised it as a “large screen iPod Touch”, Apple clearly envisages it providing a much broader platform enabling the delivery of a wide range of services.
Steve Jobs, Apple’s mercurial chief executive, positioned the iPad as primarily an entertainment device capable of running most of the third-party applications available in the iPhone App store. But he also highlighted its capabilities as a next generation e-Book reader that could challenge established rivals such as Amazon’s Kindle and Sony’s Reader family.
Some corporate IT directors also see a place for the iPad in business, as a “lite” portable PC, or as a display device, although, at least for the moment, the iPad’s lack of support for Adobe’s Flash technology could be a limiting factor.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010. You may share using our article tools. Please don't cut articles from FT.com and redistribute by email or post to the web.
Mainstream Laptops
Windows-based laptops still command a small price-premium over desktops and if you are looking for the ultimate in performance, you might be better off with a desktop system, particularly if you plan to upgrade the system on a regular basis with the latest technology.
But for most mainstream business users, consumers and students, a standard 15-inch or widescreen laptop, such as the Lenovo ThinkPad T500, may be the best option, certainly if it is required in more than one place.
Those using a laptop regularly in one place might also invest in a docking station, a large screen monitor such as the Viewsonic VG2427wm and wireless keyboard and mouse such as Logitech’s Wireless Desktop LX310. Alternatively, a laptop stand will elevate a laptop screen to a more comfortable height for viewing.
Thin-and-light Laptops
Slim, stylish and ultra-lightweight laptops have been around for more than a decade, but the latest machines, such as Apple’s MacBook Air, Dell’s Adamo and Lenovo’s ThinkPad X301 make fewer compromises than their predecessors.
For example, Intel’s family of Core 2 Duo processors has helped deliver desktop-like performance while minimising power consumption and extending battery life. High-density hard drives are expanding portable storage capacity and solid state drives are reducing weight and power consumption still further.
Most machines in this category weigh about 3lbs and have LED backlit screens of 13 inches or larger. But these features do not come cheap and ultra-lightweight machines typically command a significant price premium over more mainstream machines. For example, the MacBook Air costs from $1,500 while the ThinkPad X301 costs from $1,890.
As a result, these machines are particularly well suited to road warriors who need lightweight, high-performance laptops. They have also become popular as executive status symbols and as technology fashion statements.
Netbooks
Netbooks are the new kids on the portable computing block. They initially evolved about two years ago as an offshoot of efforts such as One Laptop Per Child to build low-cost computing devices primarily for education in developing countries.
Most of the first netbooks, such as the EeePC designed and built by Asus, the Taiwanese consumer electronics group, were powered by Intel Atom processors, ran Linux operating systems, 10-inch or smaller screens and had limited local storage capacity.
They were designed primarily for network-based or cloud computing using a wired or wireless wi-fi connection, hence the name Netbook.
Typically, they cost $399 or less and were immediately popular as second laptops or for travellers who did not want to carry a full-size machine around.
Initially, most mainstream laptop makers shunned the new devices, arguing that they lacked the performance or usability of full-sized laptops and were not suitable for business use. Privately, they also feared that their success could threaten margins on higher priced laptops.
That left the emerging netbook market to companies such as Asus, MSI and Acer who quickly expanded the market by adding Windows XP-powered netbooks, boosting screen sizes and storage capacity.
By the end of 2008, netbooks were the fastest growing segment of the PC market and one that even the big PC makers, including Hewlett-Packard and Dell, could no longer afford to ignore.
Since then, a steady stream of netbooks has been launched that has found its way into corporate use as low-cost alternatives to laptops, with some offering higher-performance Intel Atom processors, larger screens (up to 13ins) and large hard drives.
Other “crossover” machines, such as Acer’s $600 Aspire Timeline 1810T, which has a relatively powerful dual-core Intel Ultra-Low Voltage processor and a bright 11-inch screen, come with Windows 7. Others come with built-in cellular data modems enabling them to connect to 3G cellular broadband networks as well as local wi-fi hotspots while on the move.
One of the most interesting new netbooks is the Nokia Booklet 3G, designed to be a communications and computing device for all-day use.
Smartphones
If 2008 was the year of the netbook, 2009 was the year of the smartphone. While laptops became smaller, lighter and better at wireless communications, mobile phones grew smarter and more like mini portable PCs with open operating systems, full web browsers and a wide range of downloadable third-party applications.
These converged devices, including the Apple iPhone 3GS, BlackBerry Bold 9700, Nokia N97, Palm Pre and Motorola Droid, are designed for far more than voice communications.
Most run one of a handful of smartphone operating systems such as Symbian, BlackBerry OS, Windows Mobile 6.5, Android, and Linux and take advantage of their built-in 3G radios, wi-fi and GPS chipsets to deliver a wide range of services.
Most feature cameras and many now use touchscreens as a primary user interface, or – like the Motorola Droid – combine a touchscreen with a thumb-operated Qwerty keyboard.
The first smartphones, including the early BlackBerrys, grew popular mainly because they supported push-e-mail and this remains a primary requirement for most corporate smartphone owners.
But, as Research in Motion, the Canadian manufacturer of the BlackBerry, has acknowledged, smartphones today need to appeal to both consumers and business users, and that means combining extensive multimedia and social networking features with more mainstream business features such as contact databases, mobile calendars and the ability to create, view and edit office documents.
For some, a smartphone may be a viable alternative to carrying a laptop. For others, particularly those who need to do a lot of typing, smartphones, at least for the moment, are complementary rather than laptop substitutes.
Apple’s iPad
The iPad, which will go on sale in the US towards the end of March, represents an interesting example of the convergence of technologies and devices.
It has a 9.7-inch multitouch-enabled screen, runs the iPhone operating system and comes with wi-fi and an optional 3G cellular modem and seeks to fill the gap between smartphone devices, the iPod touch digital media player, and the bottom of the laptop market.
While some analysts have characterised it as a “large screen iPod Touch”, Apple clearly envisages it providing a much broader platform enabling the delivery of a wide range of services.
Steve Jobs, Apple’s mercurial chief executive, positioned the iPad as primarily an entertainment device capable of running most of the third-party applications available in the iPhone App store. But he also highlighted its capabilities as a next generation e-Book reader that could challenge established rivals such as Amazon’s Kindle and Sony’s Reader family.
Some corporate IT directors also see a place for the iPad in business, as a “lite” portable PC, or as a display device, although, at least for the moment, the iPad’s lack of support for Adobe’s Flash technology could be a limiting factor.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010. You may share using our article tools. Please don't cut articles from FT.com and redistribute by email or post to the web.
By Paul Taylor
Published: February 15 2010 11:40 | Last updated: February 15 2010 11:40
When Compaq Computer unveiled the first IBM-compatible portable PC at the Waldorf Hotel in New York in November 1982, it was shaped like a portable sewing machine and at 28 pounds quickly became known as “luggable” rather than portable.
It featured an Intel 4.77 MHz 8088 processor, 128KB RAM, a 9-inch monochrome monitor, one 320Kb 5.25-inch disk drive and cost $2,995 – well out of reach of most consumers and many business users.
Ten years later, Nokia launched the world’s first commercially available GSM digital phone, the Nokia 1011. The handset (195mm x 60 x 45) could hold contact names and numbers, came with a two-line monochrome screen and needed an extendible antenna.
Since then, Moore’s Law and competitive markets have worked their magic and users can now choose from a vast array of integrated portable computing and communications devices ranging from a pocket-sized smartphone such as the iPhone 3GS, Palm Pre, HTC Hero or BlackBerry Bold, to the latest netbooks, smartpads and laptops.
Today it seems there is a mobile device to suit every taste and meet every need and most are “converged devices” that combine computing, communications and entertainment.
So what are the pros and cons of different types of device and what are they best for?
By Paul Taylor
Published: February 15 2010 11:40 | Last updated: February 15 2010 11:40
When Compaq Computer unveiled the first IBM-compatible portable PC at the Waldorf Hotel in New York in November 1982, it was shaped like a portable sewing machine and at 28 pounds quickly became known as “luggable” rather than portable.
It featured an Intel 4.77 MHz 8088 processor, 128KB RAM, a 9-inch monochrome monitor, one 320Kb 5.25-inch disk drive and cost $2,995 – well out of reach of most consumers and many business users.
Ten years later, Nokia launched the world’s first commercially available GSM digital phone, the Nokia 1011. The handset (195mm x 60 x 45) could hold contact names and numbers, came with a two-line monochrome screen and needed an extendible antenna.
Since then, Moore’s Law and competitive markets have worked their magic and users can now choose from a vast array of integrated portable computing and communications devices ranging from a pocket-sized smartphone such as the iPhone 3GS, Palm Pre, HTC Hero or BlackBerry Bold, to the latest netbooks, smartpads and laptops.
Today it seems there is a mobile device to suit every taste and meet every need and most are “converged devices” that combine computing, communications and entertainment.
So what are the pros and cons of different types of device and what are they best for?
Mainstream Laptops
Windows-based laptops still command a small price-premium over desktops and if you are looking for the ultimate in performance, you might be better off with a desktop system, particularly if you plan to upgrade the system on a regular basis with the latest technology.
But for most mainstream business users, consumers and students, a standard 15-inch or widescreen laptop, such as the Lenovo ThinkPad T500, may be the best option, certainly if it is required in more than one place.
Those using a laptop regularly in one place might also invest in a docking station, a large screen monitor such as the Viewsonic VG2427wm and wireless keyboard and mouse such as Logitech’s Wireless Desktop LX310. Alternatively, a laptop stand will elevate a laptop screen to a more comfortable height for viewing.
Thin-and-light Laptops
Slim, stylish and ultra-lightweight laptops have been around for more than a decade, but the latest machines, such as Apple’s MacBook Air, Dell’s Adamo and Lenovo’s ThinkPad X301 make fewer compromises than their predecessors.
For example, Intel’s family of Core 2 Duo processors has helped deliver desktop-like performance while minimising power consumption and extending battery life. High-density hard drives are expanding portable storage capacity and solid state drives are reducing weight and power consumption still further.
Most machines in this category weigh about 3lbs and have LED backlit screens of 13 inches or larger. But these features do not come cheap and ultra-lightweight machines typically command a significant price premium over more mainstream machines. For example, the MacBook Air costs from $1,500 while the ThinkPad X301 costs from $1,890.
As a result, these machines are particularly well suited to road warriors who need lightweight, high-performance laptops. They have also become popular as executive status symbols and as technology fashion statements.
Netbooks
Netbooks are the new kids on the portable computing block. They initially evolved about two years ago as an offshoot of efforts such as One Laptop Per Child to build low-cost computing devices primarily for education in developing countries.
Most of the first netbooks, such as the EeePC designed and built by Asus, the Taiwanese consumer electronics group, were powered by Intel Atom processors, ran Linux operating systems, 10-inch or smaller screens and had limited local storage capacity.
They were designed primarily for network-based or cloud computing using a wired or wireless wi-fi connection, hence the name Netbook.
Typically, they cost $399 or less and were immediately popular as second laptops or for travellers who did not want to carry a full-size machine around.
Initially, most mainstream laptop makers shunned the new devices, arguing that they lacked the performance or usability of full-sized laptops and were not suitable for business use. Privately, they also feared that their success could threaten margins on higher priced laptops.
That left the emerging netbook market to companies such as Asus, MSI and Acer who quickly expanded the market by adding Windows XP-powered netbooks, boosting screen sizes and storage capacity.
By the end of 2008, netbooks were the fastest growing segment of the PC market and one that even the big PC makers, including Hewlett-Packard and Dell, could no longer afford to ignore.
Since then, a steady stream of netbooks has been launched that has found its way into corporate use as low-cost alternatives to laptops, with some offering higher-performance Intel Atom processors, larger screens (up to 13ins) and large hard drives.
Other “crossover” machines, such as Acer’s $600 Aspire Timeline 1810T, which has a relatively powerful dual-core Intel Ultra-Low Voltage processor and a bright 11-inch screen, come with Windows 7. Others come with built-in cellular data modems enabling them to connect to 3G cellular broadband networks as well as local wi-fi hotspots while on the move.
One of the most interesting new netbooks is the Nokia Booklet 3G, designed to be a communications and computing device for all-day use.
Smartphones
If 2008 was the year of the netbook, 2009 was the year of the smartphone. While laptops became smaller, lighter and better at wireless communications, mobile phones grew smarter and more like mini portable PCs with open operating systems, full web browsers and a wide range of downloadable third-party applications.
These converged devices, including the Apple iPhone 3GS, BlackBerry Bold 9700, Nokia N97, Palm Pre and Motorola Droid, are designed for far more than voice communications.
Most run one of a handful of smartphone operating systems such as Symbian, BlackBerry OS, Windows Mobile 6.5, Android, and Linux and take advantage of their built-in 3G radios, wi-fi and GPS chipsets to deliver a wide range of services.
Most feature cameras and many now use touchscreens as a primary user interface, or – like the Motorola Droid – combine a touchscreen with a thumb-operated Qwerty keyboard.
The first smartphones, including the early BlackBerrys, grew popular mainly because they supported push-e-mail and this remains a primary requirement for most corporate smartphone owners.
But, as Research in Motion, the Canadian manufacturer of the BlackBerry, has acknowledged, smartphones today need to appeal to both consumers and business users, and that means combining extensive multimedia and social networking features with more mainstream business features such as contact databases, mobile calendars and the ability to create, view and edit office documents.
For some, a smartphone may be a viable alternative to carrying a laptop. For others, particularly those who need to do a lot of typing, smartphones, at least for the moment, are complementary rather than laptop substitutes.
Apple’s iPad
The iPad, which will go on sale in the US towards the end of March, represents an interesting example of the convergence of technologies and devices.
It has a 9.7-inch multitouch-enabled screen, runs the iPhone operating system and comes with wi-fi and an optional 3G cellular modem and seeks to fill the gap between smartphone devices, the iPod touch digital media player, and the bottom of the laptop market.
While some analysts have characterised it as a “large screen iPod Touch”, Apple clearly envisages it providing a much broader platform enabling the delivery of a wide range of services.
Steve Jobs, Apple’s mercurial chief executive, positioned the iPad as primarily an entertainment device capable of running most of the third-party applications available in the iPhone App store. But he also highlighted its capabilities as a next generation e-Book reader that could challenge established rivals such as Amazon’s Kindle and Sony’s Reader family.
Some corporate IT directors also see a place for the iPad in business, as a “lite” portable PC, or as a display device, although, at least for the moment, the iPad’s lack of support for Adobe’s Flash technology could be a limiting factor.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010. You may share using our article tools. Please don't cut articles from FT.com and redistribute by email or post to the web.
Mainstream Laptops
Windows-based laptops still command a small price-premium over desktops and if you are looking for the ultimate in performance, you might be better off with a desktop system, particularly if you plan to upgrade the system on a regular basis with the latest technology.
But for most mainstream business users, consumers and students, a standard 15-inch or widescreen laptop, such as the Lenovo ThinkPad T500, may be the best option, certainly if it is required in more than one place.
Those using a laptop regularly in one place might also invest in a docking station, a large screen monitor such as the Viewsonic VG2427wm and wireless keyboard and mouse such as Logitech’s Wireless Desktop LX310. Alternatively, a laptop stand will elevate a laptop screen to a more comfortable height for viewing.
Thin-and-light Laptops
Slim, stylish and ultra-lightweight laptops have been around for more than a decade, but the latest machines, such as Apple’s MacBook Air, Dell’s Adamo and Lenovo’s ThinkPad X301 make fewer compromises than their predecessors.
For example, Intel’s family of Core 2 Duo processors has helped deliver desktop-like performance while minimising power consumption and extending battery life. High-density hard drives are expanding portable storage capacity and solid state drives are reducing weight and power consumption still further.
Most machines in this category weigh about 3lbs and have LED backlit screens of 13 inches or larger. But these features do not come cheap and ultra-lightweight machines typically command a significant price premium over more mainstream machines. For example, the MacBook Air costs from $1,500 while the ThinkPad X301 costs from $1,890.
As a result, these machines are particularly well suited to road warriors who need lightweight, high-performance laptops. They have also become popular as executive status symbols and as technology fashion statements.
Netbooks
Netbooks are the new kids on the portable computing block. They initially evolved about two years ago as an offshoot of efforts such as One Laptop Per Child to build low-cost computing devices primarily for education in developing countries.
Most of the first netbooks, such as the EeePC designed and built by Asus, the Taiwanese consumer electronics group, were powered by Intel Atom processors, ran Linux operating systems, 10-inch or smaller screens and had limited local storage capacity.
They were designed primarily for network-based or cloud computing using a wired or wireless wi-fi connection, hence the name Netbook.
Typically, they cost $399 or less and were immediately popular as second laptops or for travellers who did not want to carry a full-size machine around.
Initially, most mainstream laptop makers shunned the new devices, arguing that they lacked the performance or usability of full-sized laptops and were not suitable for business use. Privately, they also feared that their success could threaten margins on higher priced laptops.
That left the emerging netbook market to companies such as Asus, MSI and Acer who quickly expanded the market by adding Windows XP-powered netbooks, boosting screen sizes and storage capacity.
By the end of 2008, netbooks were the fastest growing segment of the PC market and one that even the big PC makers, including Hewlett-Packard and Dell, could no longer afford to ignore.
Since then, a steady stream of netbooks has been launched that has found its way into corporate use as low-cost alternatives to laptops, with some offering higher-performance Intel Atom processors, larger screens (up to 13ins) and large hard drives.
Other “crossover” machines, such as Acer’s $600 Aspire Timeline 1810T, which has a relatively powerful dual-core Intel Ultra-Low Voltage processor and a bright 11-inch screen, come with Windows 7. Others come with built-in cellular data modems enabling them to connect to 3G cellular broadband networks as well as local wi-fi hotspots while on the move.
One of the most interesting new netbooks is the Nokia Booklet 3G, designed to be a communications and computing device for all-day use.
Smartphones
If 2008 was the year of the netbook, 2009 was the year of the smartphone. While laptops became smaller, lighter and better at wireless communications, mobile phones grew smarter and more like mini portable PCs with open operating systems, full web browsers and a wide range of downloadable third-party applications.
These converged devices, including the Apple iPhone 3GS, BlackBerry Bold 9700, Nokia N97, Palm Pre and Motorola Droid, are designed for far more than voice communications.
Most run one of a handful of smartphone operating systems such as Symbian, BlackBerry OS, Windows Mobile 6.5, Android, and Linux and take advantage of their built-in 3G radios, wi-fi and GPS chipsets to deliver a wide range of services.
Most feature cameras and many now use touchscreens as a primary user interface, or – like the Motorola Droid – combine a touchscreen with a thumb-operated Qwerty keyboard.
The first smartphones, including the early BlackBerrys, grew popular mainly because they supported push-e-mail and this remains a primary requirement for most corporate smartphone owners.
But, as Research in Motion, the Canadian manufacturer of the BlackBerry, has acknowledged, smartphones today need to appeal to both consumers and business users, and that means combining extensive multimedia and social networking features with more mainstream business features such as contact databases, mobile calendars and the ability to create, view and edit office documents.
For some, a smartphone may be a viable alternative to carrying a laptop. For others, particularly those who need to do a lot of typing, smartphones, at least for the moment, are complementary rather than laptop substitutes.
Apple’s iPad
The iPad, which will go on sale in the US towards the end of March, represents an interesting example of the convergence of technologies and devices.
It has a 9.7-inch multitouch-enabled screen, runs the iPhone operating system and comes with wi-fi and an optional 3G cellular modem and seeks to fill the gap between smartphone devices, the iPod touch digital media player, and the bottom of the laptop market.
While some analysts have characterised it as a “large screen iPod Touch”, Apple clearly envisages it providing a much broader platform enabling the delivery of a wide range of services.
Steve Jobs, Apple’s mercurial chief executive, positioned the iPad as primarily an entertainment device capable of running most of the third-party applications available in the iPhone App store. But he also highlighted its capabilities as a next generation e-Book reader that could challenge established rivals such as Amazon’s Kindle and Sony’s Reader family.
Some corporate IT directors also see a place for the iPad in business, as a “lite” portable PC, or as a display device, although, at least for the moment, the iPad’s lack of support for Adobe’s Flash technology could be a limiting factor.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010. You may share using our article tools. Please don't cut articles from FT.com and redistribute by email or post to the web.
Does IT work?: Mobile apps making real difference in many sectors
Does IT work?: Mobile apps making real difference in many sectors
By Stephen Pritchard
Published: February 15 2010 11:40 | Last updated: February 15 2010 11:40
The market for mobile applications is growing at a frenetic rate. Gartner, the analytic company, expects revenue from applications – across all the main mobile platforms – to grow from $4.2bn in 2009 to $29.5bn in 2013.
This growth is all the more impressive, considering that a market for downloading mobile phone applications hardly existed before Apple launched its iPhone in 2007.
The vast bulk of those downloads are based around entertainment or personal productivity. But business software vendors are starting to wake up to the possibilities, as chief information officers, for example, become increasingly willing to use mobile business applications and distribute them via applications stores.
This is the approach adopted by the French arm of Generali, the life assurance provider. The company approached Accenture, the IT consultant, to write an iPhone application.
The app is aimed at self-employed financial advisers who sell Generali products. They can download the software directly from Apple’s iPhone app store and use it to track clients’ portfolios via a 3G or wi-fi connection. The app provides simple graphical representations of clients’ holdings and asset allocations.
According to Bertrand Boré, director of internet and distribution strategy at Generali France, a smartphone is simply a better tool to help advisers do business, especially when they visit clients.
“We were already quite advanced in providing online information to financial advisers,” he says. “But we were meeting a limit with the need for a wi-fi connection, and to take a laptop. If you are in a meeting with a client, it is not that easy to connect yourself, whether it is in a coffee bar or their office. So we built on the mobile concept to give advisers that information anywhere.”
In the US, Nationwide, the insurer, pursued a strategy of developing mobile applications that are not specific to a single platform. The company’s mobile staff mostly use BlackBerrys, but, says Robert Burkhart, head of technology innovation, there are also users with iPhones, the Droid (a phone from Motorola that uses the Android operating system), Symbian and Windows Mobile.
“We are now also asking whether it has to be a company-owned phone or whether it could be a personal device. We want to protect our data and our intellectual property, but we also want to ensure that we see the productivity gains associated with giving staff the information they need to do the job,” he says.
Despite the extra efforts involved, developing specific mobile business applications rather than relying on web applications pays off in improved functionality and productivity, Mr Burkhart argues.
“For the best experience, it is better not to have a web-based version [of the application] but one that is specific, depending on what the user is doing. It is about having right functionality.”
It is not just a question of designing applications so they fit on a mobile device’s smaller screen, he says, but providing the right amount of task-specific information to field-based staff. Too often, re-purposed PC or web applications produce cluttered screens, and frustrated users.
Paying close attention to mobile workers’ needs also pays dividends in industrial and blue-collar applications.
For example, JCDecaux, the outdoor advertising company, developed a field-based app for staff and subcontractors installing billboards and posters. The app allows the installers to photograph when each poster goes up, and provide a GPS location and time stamp via a smartphone.
JCDecaux customers can also view the images, taken by the Windows Mobile devices, in near real time, allowing them to track the roll-out of their campaigns.
The project, developed with PA Consulting and Vodafone, involved fine-tuning settings on the handsets, in particular to boost performance of the onboard camera in poor lighting, so crews do not need conventional cameras and do not have to load images to a PC before sending them to clients.
It is not only custom-built apps being used by business. Chevron, the oil company, is trialling an iPhone-based version of Nimbus Control, a business process management package.
This, says Jim Boots, senior BPM adviser at Chevron, will enable the company to deliver up-to-date process information to staff anywhere around its plants. The vast size of oil refineries puts a strain on conventional IT tools and connectivity. Maintenance engineers, for example, will be able to view the latest guidance on servicing or repairs directly from a device.
Modern smartphones stand out from industrial devices for their ease of use and clear screens. “We have tended to use heavy-duty devices and there are certain requirements for our environment,” says Mr Boots. “But people already use their phones here without wrecking them.”
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010. Print a single copy of this article for personal use. Contact us if you wish to print more to distribute to others.
"FT" and "Financial Times" are trademarks of the Financial Times. Privacy policy | Terms
© Copyright The Financial Times Ltd 2010.
MAKING AN APP
Read Alan Cane’s feature on creating a mobile app, plus:
• Apps and marketing;
• Wi-fi and network overload;
• A case for fibre-to-the-home
By Stephen Pritchard
Published: February 15 2010 11:40 | Last updated: February 15 2010 11:40
The market for mobile applications is growing at a frenetic rate. Gartner, the analytic company, expects revenue from applications – across all the main mobile platforms – to grow from $4.2bn in 2009 to $29.5bn in 2013.
This growth is all the more impressive, considering that a market for downloading mobile phone applications hardly existed before Apple launched its iPhone in 2007.
The vast bulk of those downloads are based around entertainment or personal productivity. But business software vendors are starting to wake up to the possibilities, as chief information officers, for example, become increasingly willing to use mobile business applications and distribute them via applications stores.
This is the approach adopted by the French arm of Generali, the life assurance provider. The company approached Accenture, the IT consultant, to write an iPhone application.
The app is aimed at self-employed financial advisers who sell Generali products. They can download the software directly from Apple’s iPhone app store and use it to track clients’ portfolios via a 3G or wi-fi connection. The app provides simple graphical representations of clients’ holdings and asset allocations.
According to Bertrand Boré, director of internet and distribution strategy at Generali France, a smartphone is simply a better tool to help advisers do business, especially when they visit clients.
“We were already quite advanced in providing online information to financial advisers,” he says. “But we were meeting a limit with the need for a wi-fi connection, and to take a laptop. If you are in a meeting with a client, it is not that easy to connect yourself, whether it is in a coffee bar or their office. So we built on the mobile concept to give advisers that information anywhere.”
In the US, Nationwide, the insurer, pursued a strategy of developing mobile applications that are not specific to a single platform. The company’s mobile staff mostly use BlackBerrys, but, says Robert Burkhart, head of technology innovation, there are also users with iPhones, the Droid (a phone from Motorola that uses the Android operating system), Symbian and Windows Mobile.
“We are now also asking whether it has to be a company-owned phone or whether it could be a personal device. We want to protect our data and our intellectual property, but we also want to ensure that we see the productivity gains associated with giving staff the information they need to do the job,” he says.
Despite the extra efforts involved, developing specific mobile business applications rather than relying on web applications pays off in improved functionality and productivity, Mr Burkhart argues.
“For the best experience, it is better not to have a web-based version [of the application] but one that is specific, depending on what the user is doing. It is about having right functionality.”
It is not just a question of designing applications so they fit on a mobile device’s smaller screen, he says, but providing the right amount of task-specific information to field-based staff. Too often, re-purposed PC or web applications produce cluttered screens, and frustrated users.
Paying close attention to mobile workers’ needs also pays dividends in industrial and blue-collar applications.
For example, JCDecaux, the outdoor advertising company, developed a field-based app for staff and subcontractors installing billboards and posters. The app allows the installers to photograph when each poster goes up, and provide a GPS location and time stamp via a smartphone.
JCDecaux customers can also view the images, taken by the Windows Mobile devices, in near real time, allowing them to track the roll-out of their campaigns.
The project, developed with PA Consulting and Vodafone, involved fine-tuning settings on the handsets, in particular to boost performance of the onboard camera in poor lighting, so crews do not need conventional cameras and do not have to load images to a PC before sending them to clients.
It is not only custom-built apps being used by business. Chevron, the oil company, is trialling an iPhone-based version of Nimbus Control, a business process management package.
This, says Jim Boots, senior BPM adviser at Chevron, will enable the company to deliver up-to-date process information to staff anywhere around its plants. The vast size of oil refineries puts a strain on conventional IT tools and connectivity. Maintenance engineers, for example, will be able to view the latest guidance on servicing or repairs directly from a device.
Modern smartphones stand out from industrial devices for their ease of use and clear screens. “We have tended to use heavy-duty devices and there are certain requirements for our environment,” says Mr Boots. “But people already use their phones here without wrecking them.”
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010. Print a single copy of this article for personal use. Contact us if you wish to print more to distribute to others.
"FT" and "Financial Times" are trademarks of the Financial Times. Privacy policy | Terms
© Copyright The Financial Times Ltd 2010.
MAKING AN APP
Read Alan Cane’s feature on creating a mobile app, plus:
• Apps and marketing;
• Wi-fi and network overload;
• A case for fibre-to-the-home
Apps aim to solve every mobility problem
Apps aim to solve every mobility problem
By Alan Cane
Published: February 15 2010 07:40 | Last updated: February 15 2010 07:40
When Apple Computer launched the iPhone 3G in 2008, it introduced a new option on its iTunes menu: the App Store.
This is a collection of software programs or applications (pieces of software that help users perform specific tasks) that can be downloaded to, and run on, a “smart” mobile phone or other mobile device.
Just over 18 months later, the expression “mobile apps” – hitherto used only by IT specialists – has become synonymous with a phenomenon comparable only to the craze for distinctive ringtones a few years ago.
The range of functions available from the App Store is bewildering: cooks can carry a library of recipes in their pockets; birdwatchers, the identifying features of every feathered creature they are likely to encounter. Many apps are meant to do no more than raise a quick laugh – an image of a glass of lager, for example, which empties as the phone is tilted.
Increasingly, however, apps are becoming serious and useful. Sccope, for example, has developed an app that allows shoppers to compare prices from a number of leading stores using a phone’s camera to scan product barcodes.
There are now 100,000 iPhone apps in the App Store, mostly free or costing only a few dollars, leaving other hardware and software manufacturers to play catch-up.
Google, which developed the Android smartphone operating system, has introduced Android Market; BlackBerry has the BlackBerry App World; and for Windows Mobile, the Windows Marketplace for Mobile.
BlackBerry’s App World, for example, offers business-focused apps that can be downloaded to its devices to perform such tasks as managing expenses claims, keeping a mobile call log and tracking vehicle mileage. The Android market includes such productivity-enhancing tools as the TooDo task reminder list and an app that gives added information about the identity of those calling your phone.
“Apple has done a really fantastic job for the mobile internet with the iPhone and the App Store because it has made people aware that they have the internet on their phones,” says Mat Diss, co-founder of Bemoko, a developer of mobile websites.
He goes on, however, to point out that the App Store is a “walled garden” – only Apple-approved apps are on offer and they are written only for the iPhone – and the iPhone has only 5 per cent of the market.
According to the consultancy Capgemini, the introduction of app stores has brought significant changes in the way mobile content is produced and accessed.
One change is that the entry cost of developing a mobile app has reduced, in theory at least, to little more than the cost of the developer’s time.
Several companies have produced online tools to simplify the task. Late last year, Golden Gekko, a mobile website development group, launched Tino, a web-based service which, it claims, will allow anybody to build a mobile application and bring it to market more quickly and cheaply than before. The cost could be as little as £100 ($157) compared with £5,000 to £10,000 that an app might still typically cost today.
“It requires no developer skills,” says Magnus Jern, Golden Gekko chief executive. But he adds drily: “To make it look good, you would need to be a fairly skilled designer.”
Mr Jern explains that organisations are becoming aware of the importance of mobile apps but lack the money or skills to create them and typically under-estimate the cost of a professionally produced app: a museum with a budget of €2,000 might ask him to develop a “mobile guide” app – something that could still cost up to 10 times as much.
According to one survey, only one in three smartphone owners keep an app on their phone for more than a day. (If they have paid for it, of course, the developer’s task has been accomplished.)
What has driven mobile apps to become the new big thing? A large factor has been Apple’s mission to persuade individuals that downloading software to a phone is simple.
Mr Jern argues that most people who own a mobile phone have played games on it – but only if the game was pre-loaded. With the iPhone and the App Store, apps became easy to find and easy to access: “If you deliver something truly useful, people will want it,” Mr Jern says.
Dan Rossner of PA Consulting argues that the arithmetic underpinning the growth of the mobile phone market is compelling: “High-speed connectivity and improved user experience has accelerated mobile internet take-up and the ubiquity of the mobile device will make it the dominant connected platform,” he says.
“Globally, the number of mobile devices exceeds desktop devices by a factor of 10. Businesses should therefore be looking at how to achieve competitive advantage through this channel in the same way if not more so than they did with the advent of online services on the PC.”
The trend towards the useful rather than trivial seems set to continue. Gartner Group, the US-based consultancy recently predicted the top 10 consumer mobile applications for 2012, leading off with money transfer followed by location-based services, mobile search and web browsing.
Of course, as Christopher David of the handset manufacturer Sony Ericsson points out, mobile apps have been around for a long time. Today, they fall into two broad categories – the stand-alone application, which lives within the phone, does one thing only and has no access to, or need of, further resources, and the networked app, where the “front end”, or “controls”, reside on the device which accesses information via the internet.
Many of the apps currently creating interest fall into the first category.
But it seems the growth of mobile apps has sparked controversy within the industry over the future of software on the go.
When asked whether the excitement was justified, Rich Holdsworth, chief technology officer of Wapple.net, a mobile web design and development company, replied: “Absolutely not.”
He argues that the future lies with mobile browser-based services: “It’s a massive step backwards. There are some quirky cool things you can do with apps but the pool is a pretty shallow one.”
The argument is essentially that developing a distinctive stand-alone app is hard and expensive and has to be repeated for each kind of mobile phone; an app written specifically for the iPhone will not run on a BlackBerry, for example.
On the other hand, browser-based services can be developed for a broad range of handsets that can all access them via the mobile internet: “The future is moving away from installed applications and towards browser-based services,” Mr Holdsworth says. “These are available anywhere, any time on any operating system and are continually refreshed and updated.”
Rob Bamforth, a consultant with the consultancy Quocirca, is also sceptical: “Apps come from mobile developers and the big question is ‘why?’. What motivates them? Many have been on the iPhone bandwagon of developing lots of IT aimed mainly at entertaining consumers, but this is low investment, back-bedroom and extremely hit or miss development.
Other industry experts are more enthusiastic. Stuart Orr of the consultancy Accenture says the sheer level of innovation and number of apps available is impressive.
“For every business, there is at least one app available that can help to solve your problem. Furthermore, these apps are available at compelling prices,” he says. “The iPhone has been the key here, as it opened the floodgates by showcasing the potential of mobile services as well as allowing small developers a low-cost route to market for some excellent business applications.”
On balance, it looks as if apps and mobile internet sites will co-exist for the foreseeable future. As Mr Holdsworth puts it: “The app brigade will tell you that mobile internet sites don’t compare with apps. From a certain point of view they are right.”
He continues: “The decision to choose either a mobile internet strategy or one based on apps will depend largely on what you want to achieve. For images of spirit levels and tilting pints of beer, it’s apps all the way.
“For anything that offers dynamic data, interactive services and user participation, then you really should give the mobile internet a go. It’s cheaper, more flexible, is more tightly integrated into your e-strategy and it will work on pretty much any connected handset.”
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010. Print a single copy of this article for personal use. Contact us if you wish to print more to distribute to others.
"FT" and "Financial Times" are trademarks of the Financial Times. Privacy policy | Terms
© Copyright The Financial Times Ltd 2010.
Read:
Apps in action: Did IT Work?
By Alan Cane
Published: February 15 2010 07:40 | Last updated: February 15 2010 07:40
When Apple Computer launched the iPhone 3G in 2008, it introduced a new option on its iTunes menu: the App Store.
This is a collection of software programs or applications (pieces of software that help users perform specific tasks) that can be downloaded to, and run on, a “smart” mobile phone or other mobile device.
Just over 18 months later, the expression “mobile apps” – hitherto used only by IT specialists – has become synonymous with a phenomenon comparable only to the craze for distinctive ringtones a few years ago.
The range of functions available from the App Store is bewildering: cooks can carry a library of recipes in their pockets; birdwatchers, the identifying features of every feathered creature they are likely to encounter. Many apps are meant to do no more than raise a quick laugh – an image of a glass of lager, for example, which empties as the phone is tilted.
Increasingly, however, apps are becoming serious and useful. Sccope, for example, has developed an app that allows shoppers to compare prices from a number of leading stores using a phone’s camera to scan product barcodes.
There are now 100,000 iPhone apps in the App Store, mostly free or costing only a few dollars, leaving other hardware and software manufacturers to play catch-up.
Google, which developed the Android smartphone operating system, has introduced Android Market; BlackBerry has the BlackBerry App World; and for Windows Mobile, the Windows Marketplace for Mobile.
BlackBerry’s App World, for example, offers business-focused apps that can be downloaded to its devices to perform such tasks as managing expenses claims, keeping a mobile call log and tracking vehicle mileage. The Android market includes such productivity-enhancing tools as the TooDo task reminder list and an app that gives added information about the identity of those calling your phone.
“Apple has done a really fantastic job for the mobile internet with the iPhone and the App Store because it has made people aware that they have the internet on their phones,” says Mat Diss, co-founder of Bemoko, a developer of mobile websites.
He goes on, however, to point out that the App Store is a “walled garden” – only Apple-approved apps are on offer and they are written only for the iPhone – and the iPhone has only 5 per cent of the market.
According to the consultancy Capgemini, the introduction of app stores has brought significant changes in the way mobile content is produced and accessed.
One change is that the entry cost of developing a mobile app has reduced, in theory at least, to little more than the cost of the developer’s time.
Several companies have produced online tools to simplify the task. Late last year, Golden Gekko, a mobile website development group, launched Tino, a web-based service which, it claims, will allow anybody to build a mobile application and bring it to market more quickly and cheaply than before. The cost could be as little as £100 ($157) compared with £5,000 to £10,000 that an app might still typically cost today.
“It requires no developer skills,” says Magnus Jern, Golden Gekko chief executive. But he adds drily: “To make it look good, you would need to be a fairly skilled designer.”
Mr Jern explains that organisations are becoming aware of the importance of mobile apps but lack the money or skills to create them and typically under-estimate the cost of a professionally produced app: a museum with a budget of €2,000 might ask him to develop a “mobile guide” app – something that could still cost up to 10 times as much.
According to one survey, only one in three smartphone owners keep an app on their phone for more than a day. (If they have paid for it, of course, the developer’s task has been accomplished.)
What has driven mobile apps to become the new big thing? A large factor has been Apple’s mission to persuade individuals that downloading software to a phone is simple.
Mr Jern argues that most people who own a mobile phone have played games on it – but only if the game was pre-loaded. With the iPhone and the App Store, apps became easy to find and easy to access: “If you deliver something truly useful, people will want it,” Mr Jern says.
Dan Rossner of PA Consulting argues that the arithmetic underpinning the growth of the mobile phone market is compelling: “High-speed connectivity and improved user experience has accelerated mobile internet take-up and the ubiquity of the mobile device will make it the dominant connected platform,” he says.
“Globally, the number of mobile devices exceeds desktop devices by a factor of 10. Businesses should therefore be looking at how to achieve competitive advantage through this channel in the same way if not more so than they did with the advent of online services on the PC.”
The trend towards the useful rather than trivial seems set to continue. Gartner Group, the US-based consultancy recently predicted the top 10 consumer mobile applications for 2012, leading off with money transfer followed by location-based services, mobile search and web browsing.
Of course, as Christopher David of the handset manufacturer Sony Ericsson points out, mobile apps have been around for a long time. Today, they fall into two broad categories – the stand-alone application, which lives within the phone, does one thing only and has no access to, or need of, further resources, and the networked app, where the “front end”, or “controls”, reside on the device which accesses information via the internet.
Many of the apps currently creating interest fall into the first category.
But it seems the growth of mobile apps has sparked controversy within the industry over the future of software on the go.
When asked whether the excitement was justified, Rich Holdsworth, chief technology officer of Wapple.net, a mobile web design and development company, replied: “Absolutely not.”
He argues that the future lies with mobile browser-based services: “It’s a massive step backwards. There are some quirky cool things you can do with apps but the pool is a pretty shallow one.”
The argument is essentially that developing a distinctive stand-alone app is hard and expensive and has to be repeated for each kind of mobile phone; an app written specifically for the iPhone will not run on a BlackBerry, for example.
On the other hand, browser-based services can be developed for a broad range of handsets that can all access them via the mobile internet: “The future is moving away from installed applications and towards browser-based services,” Mr Holdsworth says. “These are available anywhere, any time on any operating system and are continually refreshed and updated.”
Rob Bamforth, a consultant with the consultancy Quocirca, is also sceptical: “Apps come from mobile developers and the big question is ‘why?’. What motivates them? Many have been on the iPhone bandwagon of developing lots of IT aimed mainly at entertaining consumers, but this is low investment, back-bedroom and extremely hit or miss development.
Other industry experts are more enthusiastic. Stuart Orr of the consultancy Accenture says the sheer level of innovation and number of apps available is impressive.
“For every business, there is at least one app available that can help to solve your problem. Furthermore, these apps are available at compelling prices,” he says. “The iPhone has been the key here, as it opened the floodgates by showcasing the potential of mobile services as well as allowing small developers a low-cost route to market for some excellent business applications.”
On balance, it looks as if apps and mobile internet sites will co-exist for the foreseeable future. As Mr Holdsworth puts it: “The app brigade will tell you that mobile internet sites don’t compare with apps. From a certain point of view they are right.”
He continues: “The decision to choose either a mobile internet strategy or one based on apps will depend largely on what you want to achieve. For images of spirit levels and tilting pints of beer, it’s apps all the way.
“For anything that offers dynamic data, interactive services and user participation, then you really should give the mobile internet a go. It’s cheaper, more flexible, is more tightly integrated into your e-strategy and it will work on pretty much any connected handset.”
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010. Print a single copy of this article for personal use. Contact us if you wish to print more to distribute to others.
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Apps in action: Did IT Work?
Thursday, February 11, 2010
On data, information, knowledge and wisdom (Gurteen Knowledge)
On data, information, knowledge and wisdom (Gurteen Knowledge): "hallowed"
There has been much discussion on the web recently about the Data-Information-Knowledge-Wisdom or DIKW hierarchy and it is described by Patrick Lambe as "that most hallowed of mental models and glib explanations".
Here is a little bit of reading for you. I have started with Patrick as I think he provides a very balanced view of the concept. Like most diagrams of this kind so much depends on how you interpret its meaning.
Personally, I have never thought of it as a model and have never tried to use it to describe any form of process of moving from one to the other. I have simply seen it as a pretty diagram and have used it when explaining the differences between, data, information and knowledge and in recent years dropped it from my slide-set.
There has been much discussion on the web recently about the Data-Information-Knowledge-Wisdom or DIKW hierarchy and it is described by Patrick Lambe as "that most hallowed of mental models and glib explanations".
Here is a little bit of reading for you. I have started with Patrick as I think he provides a very balanced view of the concept. Like most diagrams of this kind so much depends on how you interpret its meaning.
Personally, I have never thought of it as a model and have never tried to use it to describe any form of process of moving from one to the other. I have simply seen it as a pretty diagram and have used it when explaining the differences between, data, information and knowledge and in recent years dropped it from my slide-set.
Monday, February 08, 2010
Supply Chain, Value Chain...Whatever! Does the Terminology Really Matter? | AMR Research - Supply Chain Management Experts
Supply Chain, Value Chain...Whatever! Does the Terminology Really Matter? | AMR Research - Supply Chain Management Experts: "companies"
Let me start by confessing to intentionally using the slippery quality of words to an advantage, subtly shifting from “supply chain” to “value chain” in order to make a point about the morphing role of the discipline in business. Just this past week in a webcast with E2open’s CEO Mark Woodward, I found myself drifting from one term to the next, trying to convey what best in class looks like in 2010. Mr. Woodward’s examples of multi-party collaboration among companies like IBM, LSI, and Celestica conveniently reinforced how much has changed in the high-tech industry, where sourcing has swallowed manufacturing and true value chain organizations are beginning to emerge.
My colleague David Aquino led some interesting research on supply chain talent last year, finding that fewer than 50% of the 198 companies surveyed across industries were organized with manufacturing reporting to supply chain. Most companies included sourcing, distribution, and planning in their supply chain organizations’ span of control, but only a minority had new product introduction, customer service, or technology enablement. The upshot to all this is that “value chains” are still somewhere out on the horizon for most of us.
Cisco’s living, breathing value chain
One live example of a true value chain organization, however, is at Cisco Systems, where Angel Mendez leads a group called Customer Value Chain Management (CVCM). I was in San Jose recently to get an update on this group’s strategies and results.
Customer Value Chain Management includes not only traditional supply chain functions like sourcing and supplier management as well as order management and planning, but also new product introduction, customer service and support, product reuse and recycling, and, yes, even manufacturing. The group comprises 14,000 direct report employees around the world.
Mr. Mendez’s team includes a quality function led by a former customer, Rich Goldberg, who joined Cisco from AT&T. What’s interesting about the way Customer Value Chain Management handles quality is its customer-centric view. Instead of just focusing on manufactured quality like defects, the quality group populates a Customer Experience Dashboard that’s built backward from the customer’s perspective to identify in detail how Cisco is performing in the field in software quality, hardware quality, and, the most important metric of all, reliability.
The whole exercise is overseen by a Quality Experience Board co-chaired by Randy Pond, EVP of operations, processes, and systems. It also includes senior executives from sales, development, operations, finance, and even marketing. The board meets at least once a month to drill into issues and progress across the entire customer base.
It’s not just the squeaky wheel that gets the oil
Cisco completed 111,120 customer surveys in 2009, each containing 130 answers. Any low satisfaction responses automatically triggered e-mails to sales with copies to engineering. Plus, all the data was diced and sliced using Siebel Analytics to track down common threads and root out source problems.
Having not personally surveyed Cisco’s clients systematically, I can’t say how well this is working in the field, but to the question of what is “supply chain” versus “value chain,” it’s clear this model takes customer service well past the ship-and-forget ways of old.
Innovation excellence on the fast and cheap
Even more compelling, perhaps, was what I heard about innovation in the CVCM organization. AMR Research has long emphasized the importance of not only pursuing operational excellence in the world of supply chain, but innovation excellence as well. While this doesn’t imply that pure R&D functions belong in supply chain, it does mean new product launch should absolutely fall within scope for a value chain organization.
Cisco’s approach includes a creative use of the internal venture capital model to foster disruptive innovation fast and on a shoestring budget. The group creates teams of cross-functional leaders who are pulled out of their regular jobs in a six-month rotation to fast track developments in the same super-lean way that a pre-venture startup does. Each team must present to an internal venture board that approves or denies the go-ahead for a given launch. By doing it this way, Cisco is able to dramatically lower the capital and time risk in product innovation, making more shots at the blockbuster product possible.
One example of the kind of project this approach has tackled is consumer TelePresence. For anyone who has used Cisco's TelePresence system, the experience is a breakthrough. Imagine being able to get one at Best Buy. That’s what we mean by innovation excellence: using supply chain disciplines to bring Star Trek-caliber technology to the masses.
Expect a switch
So as supply chain becomes value chain, org charts need to be redrawn. I’m reluctant to jump terminology too quickly because most business cards in my stack still say XVP of supply chain, and that’s who I aim to help. But between us, it’s all heading toward value chain, and before long, the rest of the executive suite will get wind of the shift.
I can be reached at komarah@amrresearch.com.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
© Copyright 2010 by AMR Research, Inc.
AMR Research® is a registered trademark of AMR Research, Inc.
Let me start by confessing to intentionally using the slippery quality of words to an advantage, subtly shifting from “supply chain” to “value chain” in order to make a point about the morphing role of the discipline in business. Just this past week in a webcast with E2open’s CEO Mark Woodward, I found myself drifting from one term to the next, trying to convey what best in class looks like in 2010. Mr. Woodward’s examples of multi-party collaboration among companies like IBM, LSI, and Celestica conveniently reinforced how much has changed in the high-tech industry, where sourcing has swallowed manufacturing and true value chain organizations are beginning to emerge.
My colleague David Aquino led some interesting research on supply chain talent last year, finding that fewer than 50% of the 198 companies surveyed across industries were organized with manufacturing reporting to supply chain. Most companies included sourcing, distribution, and planning in their supply chain organizations’ span of control, but only a minority had new product introduction, customer service, or technology enablement. The upshot to all this is that “value chains” are still somewhere out on the horizon for most of us.
Cisco’s living, breathing value chain
One live example of a true value chain organization, however, is at Cisco Systems, where Angel Mendez leads a group called Customer Value Chain Management (CVCM). I was in San Jose recently to get an update on this group’s strategies and results.
Customer Value Chain Management includes not only traditional supply chain functions like sourcing and supplier management as well as order management and planning, but also new product introduction, customer service and support, product reuse and recycling, and, yes, even manufacturing. The group comprises 14,000 direct report employees around the world.
Mr. Mendez’s team includes a quality function led by a former customer, Rich Goldberg, who joined Cisco from AT&T. What’s interesting about the way Customer Value Chain Management handles quality is its customer-centric view. Instead of just focusing on manufactured quality like defects, the quality group populates a Customer Experience Dashboard that’s built backward from the customer’s perspective to identify in detail how Cisco is performing in the field in software quality, hardware quality, and, the most important metric of all, reliability.
The whole exercise is overseen by a Quality Experience Board co-chaired by Randy Pond, EVP of operations, processes, and systems. It also includes senior executives from sales, development, operations, finance, and even marketing. The board meets at least once a month to drill into issues and progress across the entire customer base.
It’s not just the squeaky wheel that gets the oil
Cisco completed 111,120 customer surveys in 2009, each containing 130 answers. Any low satisfaction responses automatically triggered e-mails to sales with copies to engineering. Plus, all the data was diced and sliced using Siebel Analytics to track down common threads and root out source problems.
Having not personally surveyed Cisco’s clients systematically, I can’t say how well this is working in the field, but to the question of what is “supply chain” versus “value chain,” it’s clear this model takes customer service well past the ship-and-forget ways of old.
Innovation excellence on the fast and cheap
Even more compelling, perhaps, was what I heard about innovation in the CVCM organization. AMR Research has long emphasized the importance of not only pursuing operational excellence in the world of supply chain, but innovation excellence as well. While this doesn’t imply that pure R&D functions belong in supply chain, it does mean new product launch should absolutely fall within scope for a value chain organization.
Cisco’s approach includes a creative use of the internal venture capital model to foster disruptive innovation fast and on a shoestring budget. The group creates teams of cross-functional leaders who are pulled out of their regular jobs in a six-month rotation to fast track developments in the same super-lean way that a pre-venture startup does. Each team must present to an internal venture board that approves or denies the go-ahead for a given launch. By doing it this way, Cisco is able to dramatically lower the capital and time risk in product innovation, making more shots at the blockbuster product possible.
One example of the kind of project this approach has tackled is consumer TelePresence. For anyone who has used Cisco's TelePresence system, the experience is a breakthrough. Imagine being able to get one at Best Buy. That’s what we mean by innovation excellence: using supply chain disciplines to bring Star Trek-caliber technology to the masses.
Expect a switch
So as supply chain becomes value chain, org charts need to be redrawn. I’m reluctant to jump terminology too quickly because most business cards in my stack still say XVP of supply chain, and that’s who I aim to help. But between us, it’s all heading toward value chain, and before long, the rest of the executive suite will get wind of the shift.
I can be reached at komarah@amrresearch.com.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
© Copyright 2010 by AMR Research, Inc.
AMR Research® is a registered trademark of AMR Research, Inc.
Wednesday, February 03, 2010
Monday, January 25, 2010
From bad economies spring new media channels
From bad economies spring new media channels
By Mike DiFranza, founder and president of Captivate Network and chairman of OVAB
Published: January 25 2010 13:31 | Last updated: January 25 2010 13:31
“Progress” isn’t usually the first word that comes to mind when a recession hits, yet that’s often what recessions create.
Historical patterns suggest that recessions have given rise to transformational media, from radio to cable television. If that historical pattern holds up – and there’s no reason to believe it won’t – the current recession’s progeny will be mass acceptance of highly targeted and digital media channels.
For almost 80 years, every major economic crisis to hit the US has vaulted nascent communication mediums into prominence. The Great Depression was the catalyst for radio to evolve as a major communications medium in the 1930s.
Television took its place as the dominant national medium during the recession of the mid-1950s. Cable television moved from hotel rooms to homes during the energy crisis and subsequent recessions of the late 1970s and early 1980s.
The internet emerged from the military and academic realms into the mainstream during the 1988 recession. After the 2000 recession, online advertising growth exploded.
What is it about a struggling economy that nurtures new media?
The answer has more to do with human nature than economics, though there is some of that at work too.
People are naturally averse to change, but if they have to change to avoid risk, they will. When consumers are buying and profits are rolling in, corporate marketing organisations have no motive to risk a failed campaign by investing in an emerging medium.
But when a serious recession like the one we’re facing now hits, organisations have to reassess what is and isn’t working in their advertising programmes. John Wannamaker, founder of the US’s department-store industry, once lamented: “Half my advertising dollars work, I just don’t know which half!”
That ambiguity is not an option in today’s new economic reality. Every chief marketing officer understands that effectively engaging consumers who are capable of buying their company’s product is the top priority.
Consumer media consumption trends and technological changes accompanying the current recession portend a much larger shift in the media landscape this time around. Mobile advertising and digital place-based networks, which display content and advertising on screens in public places, are to this era what cable and radio were to years past.
Digital place-based networks turn venues such as elevators, lobbies, airport terminals and taxis, into communication channels for today’s marketers. They enable advertisers to target very specific audience segments with engaging content that draws attention to their advertising message. They are aimed at targeting consumers during the 44 per cent of the day that the consumers are actually awake and out of their homes (source: PQ Media) actively making purchase decisions.
Until recently, the public mainly consumed media in the home during predictable hours, such as evening prime time. Today, market dynamics demonstrate that a big percentage of the public gets its news, information and advertising on the go.
According to a recent BIA/Kelsey forecast, digital out-of-home advertising will grow 13.5 per cent over the next four years, outpacing the 1.4 per cent growth for home-consumed advertising. BIA/Kelsey expects advertisers to spend $2.2bn on digital out-of-home advertising this year and $3.7bn by 2013.
A poor economy, however, is only one factor setting the stage for the emergence of transformational media. The other critical element accompanying the post-recession adoption of new media channels is third-party audience measurement data.
Organisations such as the newspaper industry’s Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) and broadcast’s Nielson and Arbitron ratings provide objective credibility for circulation and viewership claims.
The Out of Home Video Advertising Bureau, the North American industry organisation, has created guidelines for calculating audience sizes of “place based” digital networks, such as lobby and elevator screens.
Digital out-of-home networks are expected to release independent third-party research over the next few quarters and will provide advertisers with the equivalent of the broadcast industry commercial ratings.
Together, those new research sources will provide advertisers with the objective measurement – and the confidence – to consider and evaluate campaigns better on digital out-of-home networks.
Neither digital place-based media nor the recession started the mass media’s market share erosion; audiences have been splintering for years into finer and more elusive pieces.
In the 1940s, viewers would watch televisions through appliance store windows. When the masses could afford televisions, advertisers followed them into their homes.
Today, consumers are on the go and advertisers must engage them out of their homes, on the road, in the air or at the office if they are to prosper in the new economic reality.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010. Print a single copy of this article for personal use. Contact us if you wish to print more to distribute to others.
By Mike DiFranza, founder and president of Captivate Network and chairman of OVAB
Published: January 25 2010 13:31 | Last updated: January 25 2010 13:31
“Progress” isn’t usually the first word that comes to mind when a recession hits, yet that’s often what recessions create.
Historical patterns suggest that recessions have given rise to transformational media, from radio to cable television. If that historical pattern holds up – and there’s no reason to believe it won’t – the current recession’s progeny will be mass acceptance of highly targeted and digital media channels.
For almost 80 years, every major economic crisis to hit the US has vaulted nascent communication mediums into prominence. The Great Depression was the catalyst for radio to evolve as a major communications medium in the 1930s.
Television took its place as the dominant national medium during the recession of the mid-1950s. Cable television moved from hotel rooms to homes during the energy crisis and subsequent recessions of the late 1970s and early 1980s.
The internet emerged from the military and academic realms into the mainstream during the 1988 recession. After the 2000 recession, online advertising growth exploded.
What is it about a struggling economy that nurtures new media?
The answer has more to do with human nature than economics, though there is some of that at work too.
People are naturally averse to change, but if they have to change to avoid risk, they will. When consumers are buying and profits are rolling in, corporate marketing organisations have no motive to risk a failed campaign by investing in an emerging medium.
But when a serious recession like the one we’re facing now hits, organisations have to reassess what is and isn’t working in their advertising programmes. John Wannamaker, founder of the US’s department-store industry, once lamented: “Half my advertising dollars work, I just don’t know which half!”
That ambiguity is not an option in today’s new economic reality. Every chief marketing officer understands that effectively engaging consumers who are capable of buying their company’s product is the top priority.
Consumer media consumption trends and technological changes accompanying the current recession portend a much larger shift in the media landscape this time around. Mobile advertising and digital place-based networks, which display content and advertising on screens in public places, are to this era what cable and radio were to years past.
Digital place-based networks turn venues such as elevators, lobbies, airport terminals and taxis, into communication channels for today’s marketers. They enable advertisers to target very specific audience segments with engaging content that draws attention to their advertising message. They are aimed at targeting consumers during the 44 per cent of the day that the consumers are actually awake and out of their homes (source: PQ Media) actively making purchase decisions.
Until recently, the public mainly consumed media in the home during predictable hours, such as evening prime time. Today, market dynamics demonstrate that a big percentage of the public gets its news, information and advertising on the go.
According to a recent BIA/Kelsey forecast, digital out-of-home advertising will grow 13.5 per cent over the next four years, outpacing the 1.4 per cent growth for home-consumed advertising. BIA/Kelsey expects advertisers to spend $2.2bn on digital out-of-home advertising this year and $3.7bn by 2013.
A poor economy, however, is only one factor setting the stage for the emergence of transformational media. The other critical element accompanying the post-recession adoption of new media channels is third-party audience measurement data.
Organisations such as the newspaper industry’s Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) and broadcast’s Nielson and Arbitron ratings provide objective credibility for circulation and viewership claims.
The Out of Home Video Advertising Bureau, the North American industry organisation, has created guidelines for calculating audience sizes of “place based” digital networks, such as lobby and elevator screens.
Digital out-of-home networks are expected to release independent third-party research over the next few quarters and will provide advertisers with the equivalent of the broadcast industry commercial ratings.
Together, those new research sources will provide advertisers with the objective measurement – and the confidence – to consider and evaluate campaigns better on digital out-of-home networks.
Neither digital place-based media nor the recession started the mass media’s market share erosion; audiences have been splintering for years into finer and more elusive pieces.
In the 1940s, viewers would watch televisions through appliance store windows. When the masses could afford televisions, advertisers followed them into their homes.
Today, consumers are on the go and advertisers must engage them out of their homes, on the road, in the air or at the office if they are to prosper in the new economic reality.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010. Print a single copy of this article for personal use. Contact us if you wish to print more to distribute to others.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Reality made larger than life
Reality made larger than life
By Alan Cane
Published: January 19 2010 16:41 | Last updated: January 19 2010 16:41
Audiences gasp at what they see: a presenter stands in front of them with nothing in his hands. Yet the large screens on either side of the stage show him holding a flower.
As he waves his clenched fist around, it is as if the flower were really there: it moves in perfect time. Then suddenly it becomes a light sabre; later, the presenter holds a model car and a helicopter, which – on the large screens – appears to fly around the lecture theatre.
A growing number of such awe-inspiring demonstrations of what is labelled “augmented reality” are appearing on the internet and businesses are being encouraged to consider the potential uses of this seamless interaction of the real and the virtual.
Advertising, product design simulation and visualisation, architect’s modelling and – importantly in today’s market – entertainment and sophisticated computer games are among the areas expected to find uses for augmented reality.
In fact, there are already some well-known examples. In televised sport, for instance, advertisers’ logos and advertisements appear on football and cricket pitches where no such logos exist in the physical world; they have been written on the pitch virtually.
Similarly, viewers can estimate how far a long jumper has progressed by comparing lines drawn digitally in the sand indicating the best jump so far, the world record and so on.
Outside sport, environmentalists can hold a pattern on a piece of paper in front of a videocamera and, on a screen, see it transformed into a three dimensional model of an electricity grid, for example.
A number of companies have already launched AR systems. Layar, for example, has combined the Global Positioning System (GPS) with a camera and a digital compass to create a system that enables users to identify their surroundings, extract information about the locality and combine it with their real-world view on the mobile device’s screen.
Metaio, a German group, has developed a product to help engineers service mechanical systems by creating a digital image that overlays the physical work in front of them through a head-mounted display. Such systems can act as real-time manuals, for example, displaying every move a mechanic needs to make to repair an engine as they work.
Other applications have yet to find public acceptance and some could prove controversial.
Daphna Steinmetz, chief innovation officer for Comverse, the telecommunications software group, describes research in her laboratory which could see an end to business cards: people would merely point their mobile phone at an individual to enable face recognition software to identify them and bring to the phone everything known about them on the internet.
“The user, with one click, will be able to see the tweets of this person or view their profile in Facebook. We would also add the ability to generate a message, create a phone call or voice message or add to an address book so that immediate communication can be created.”
The question remains whether people will be happy to have their lives exposed in this way to anyone with a mobile phone. Comverse is aware of this as it works to bring the application to market.
In essence, augmented reality is a kind of digital trompe l’oeil which overlays facts and figures from the internet and other sources on to the real world to create a combined image rich in functional benefits.
But in spite of some spectacular demonstrations, in practice, much AR is in a nascent form, awaiting technological advances to make commercial progress.
Industry watchers and investors alike, however, are excited by its potential.
AR is an old idea: the concept was first broached by a cinematographer, Morton Heilig, in 1957 and the term coined by Tom Caudell at Boeing in 1992.
It comprises two broad areas – “object level” AR, where physical objects are augmented by additional data or graphics (this would include computer screen-based AR) and “location level” AR where the users’ view of their surroundings is enriched through additional information.
The widespread development and acceptance of both, however, was hindered by a lack of appropriate technology. Kelly Dempski, director of research at Accenture’s Sophia Antipolis laboratories, points out that displays and tracking technology had been poor.
But then something happened: “The average consumer now has a piece of technology – a phone with a good screen and rich graphics, a camera and a variety of tracking mechanisms ranging from GPS to compasses to onboard image recognition.
“Suddenly everyone has an AR platform in their pocket and businesses are just beginning to find new uses for this platform.”
So the mobile phone was, it seems, the silver bullet.
The re-emergence of AR, however, depended on the maturation of a number of technologies: image sensors, video cameras, and displays – either head-mounted, handheld, fixed or spatial (the last involving the projection of digital information on to physical objects).
It also depended on an array of sensory devices – accelerometers, digital compasses, GPS sensors, wireless sensors and gyroscopes – and, crucially, communications networks and key databases. For example, the Apple iPhone 3GS, complete with compass and accelerometers, is very much the model for mobile AR.
According to Ken Blakeslee, an independent consultant who has worked with a number of AR companies, the tipping point has been reached in technological development: “We are in the very early stages of development in AR, but we can move rapidly. The key thing is that the databases exist.”
He sees potential business applications in retail, vehicle repair, safety and real estate, among others.
Retail has been an early adopter of the technology. David Grunwald of Deloitte, the consultancy, says many consumer technologies are coming together to create “a basket of readiness” for AR applications, including smartphones, Flash software, 3D bar codes and the like, as well as social media: “Together they are producing a rich and fertile set of applications for retail,” he says.
Examples include an online application from Holition, a London-based software developer, whose technology allows prospective buyers of expensive goods such as jewellery and watches to try them – even if they don’t exist. An image of the customer and the item are united on screen in a montage. It enables customers to try on items at home or in-store.
Lynne Murray, the group’s head of design, says it is working now to include clothing in the application.
Significant hurdles have yet to be overcome, however. Robin Gear, manager of the innovation unit for PA Consulting, points out that “registration” – aligning digital data with the real world view while it is moving – remains a problem, together with the interaction between the virtual image and the surrounding environment.
Rob Gonda of Sapient Interactive says this is because the processing power to superimpose digital elements on top of real time video captured on a webcam or mobile camera is not sufficient to give the illusion of a seamless image.
John Spindler of ADC, the US networking group, points to a more basic difficulty – the capacity of wireless networks to carry data in the volumes generated by AR: “You have to have the infrastructure in place from a network point of view to support these applications.”
In Mr Spindler’s view, to support AR and other data-heavy applications, US wireless carriers will have to invest heavily and create a different network topology with smaller cells.
Professor Jonathan Raper of the Information Science Department at City University London, underlines the technological questions of localisation in space and time which continue to dog development: “In my view, AR is in a waiting room, still looking for the right formula that engages the masses.”
He has no doubt, however, that most progress will be made in the immediate future in location-based AR (he is editor-in-chief of the Journal of Location Based Services) and he is generally optimistic about the future of AR technology: “The steps that AR needs now to occur are improvements in positioning integrity and positioning speed and pervasiveness of good positioning.
“The step that we can envisage making this happen is the second constellation of global positioning satellites which is expected to go live in a few years.”
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010. Print a single copy of this article for personal use. Contact us if you wish to print more to distribute to others.
By Alan Cane
Published: January 19 2010 16:41 | Last updated: January 19 2010 16:41
Audiences gasp at what they see: a presenter stands in front of them with nothing in his hands. Yet the large screens on either side of the stage show him holding a flower.
As he waves his clenched fist around, it is as if the flower were really there: it moves in perfect time. Then suddenly it becomes a light sabre; later, the presenter holds a model car and a helicopter, which – on the large screens – appears to fly around the lecture theatre.
A growing number of such awe-inspiring demonstrations of what is labelled “augmented reality” are appearing on the internet and businesses are being encouraged to consider the potential uses of this seamless interaction of the real and the virtual.
Advertising, product design simulation and visualisation, architect’s modelling and – importantly in today’s market – entertainment and sophisticated computer games are among the areas expected to find uses for augmented reality.
In fact, there are already some well-known examples. In televised sport, for instance, advertisers’ logos and advertisements appear on football and cricket pitches where no such logos exist in the physical world; they have been written on the pitch virtually.
Similarly, viewers can estimate how far a long jumper has progressed by comparing lines drawn digitally in the sand indicating the best jump so far, the world record and so on.
Outside sport, environmentalists can hold a pattern on a piece of paper in front of a videocamera and, on a screen, see it transformed into a three dimensional model of an electricity grid, for example.
A number of companies have already launched AR systems. Layar, for example, has combined the Global Positioning System (GPS) with a camera and a digital compass to create a system that enables users to identify their surroundings, extract information about the locality and combine it with their real-world view on the mobile device’s screen.
Metaio, a German group, has developed a product to help engineers service mechanical systems by creating a digital image that overlays the physical work in front of them through a head-mounted display. Such systems can act as real-time manuals, for example, displaying every move a mechanic needs to make to repair an engine as they work.
Other applications have yet to find public acceptance and some could prove controversial.
Daphna Steinmetz, chief innovation officer for Comverse, the telecommunications software group, describes research in her laboratory which could see an end to business cards: people would merely point their mobile phone at an individual to enable face recognition software to identify them and bring to the phone everything known about them on the internet.
“The user, with one click, will be able to see the tweets of this person or view their profile in Facebook. We would also add the ability to generate a message, create a phone call or voice message or add to an address book so that immediate communication can be created.”
The question remains whether people will be happy to have their lives exposed in this way to anyone with a mobile phone. Comverse is aware of this as it works to bring the application to market.
In essence, augmented reality is a kind of digital trompe l’oeil which overlays facts and figures from the internet and other sources on to the real world to create a combined image rich in functional benefits.
But in spite of some spectacular demonstrations, in practice, much AR is in a nascent form, awaiting technological advances to make commercial progress.
Industry watchers and investors alike, however, are excited by its potential.
AR is an old idea: the concept was first broached by a cinematographer, Morton Heilig, in 1957 and the term coined by Tom Caudell at Boeing in 1992.
It comprises two broad areas – “object level” AR, where physical objects are augmented by additional data or graphics (this would include computer screen-based AR) and “location level” AR where the users’ view of their surroundings is enriched through additional information.
The widespread development and acceptance of both, however, was hindered by a lack of appropriate technology. Kelly Dempski, director of research at Accenture’s Sophia Antipolis laboratories, points out that displays and tracking technology had been poor.
But then something happened: “The average consumer now has a piece of technology – a phone with a good screen and rich graphics, a camera and a variety of tracking mechanisms ranging from GPS to compasses to onboard image recognition.
“Suddenly everyone has an AR platform in their pocket and businesses are just beginning to find new uses for this platform.”
So the mobile phone was, it seems, the silver bullet.
The re-emergence of AR, however, depended on the maturation of a number of technologies: image sensors, video cameras, and displays – either head-mounted, handheld, fixed or spatial (the last involving the projection of digital information on to physical objects).
It also depended on an array of sensory devices – accelerometers, digital compasses, GPS sensors, wireless sensors and gyroscopes – and, crucially, communications networks and key databases. For example, the Apple iPhone 3GS, complete with compass and accelerometers, is very much the model for mobile AR.
According to Ken Blakeslee, an independent consultant who has worked with a number of AR companies, the tipping point has been reached in technological development: “We are in the very early stages of development in AR, but we can move rapidly. The key thing is that the databases exist.”
He sees potential business applications in retail, vehicle repair, safety and real estate, among others.
Retail has been an early adopter of the technology. David Grunwald of Deloitte, the consultancy, says many consumer technologies are coming together to create “a basket of readiness” for AR applications, including smartphones, Flash software, 3D bar codes and the like, as well as social media: “Together they are producing a rich and fertile set of applications for retail,” he says.
Examples include an online application from Holition, a London-based software developer, whose technology allows prospective buyers of expensive goods such as jewellery and watches to try them – even if they don’t exist. An image of the customer and the item are united on screen in a montage. It enables customers to try on items at home or in-store.
Lynne Murray, the group’s head of design, says it is working now to include clothing in the application.
Significant hurdles have yet to be overcome, however. Robin Gear, manager of the innovation unit for PA Consulting, points out that “registration” – aligning digital data with the real world view while it is moving – remains a problem, together with the interaction between the virtual image and the surrounding environment.
Rob Gonda of Sapient Interactive says this is because the processing power to superimpose digital elements on top of real time video captured on a webcam or mobile camera is not sufficient to give the illusion of a seamless image.
John Spindler of ADC, the US networking group, points to a more basic difficulty – the capacity of wireless networks to carry data in the volumes generated by AR: “You have to have the infrastructure in place from a network point of view to support these applications.”
In Mr Spindler’s view, to support AR and other data-heavy applications, US wireless carriers will have to invest heavily and create a different network topology with smaller cells.
Professor Jonathan Raper of the Information Science Department at City University London, underlines the technological questions of localisation in space and time which continue to dog development: “In my view, AR is in a waiting room, still looking for the right formula that engages the masses.”
He has no doubt, however, that most progress will be made in the immediate future in location-based AR (he is editor-in-chief of the Journal of Location Based Services) and he is generally optimistic about the future of AR technology: “The steps that AR needs now to occur are improvements in positioning integrity and positioning speed and pervasiveness of good positioning.
“The step that we can envisage making this happen is the second constellation of global positioning satellites which is expected to go live in a few years.”
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010. Print a single copy of this article for personal use. Contact us if you wish to print more to distribute to others.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Why customer technology will be the new battleground for retail banks
Why customer technology will be the new battleground for retail banks
By Stephen Haighton, Chordiant vice president for the Emea region
Published: January 14 2010 11:14 | Last updated: January 14 2010 11:14
For the traditional retail banking industry, competition is fiercer than ever and one of the biggest battlegrounds is likely to be the retention and acquisition of customers.
So what role does technology have to play in this fast evolving and customer-focused banking environment?
Banks have had a tough time trying to foster confidence and loyalty among their customer base against the backdrop of the recent credit crunch. At the same time, several non-banking players, such as supermarket chain Tesco in the UK, have entered the retail banking market looking to capitalise on growing consumer suspicion of traditional banks.
These new financial market players are pushing customer-centricity as a strong selling proposition for attracting new business. In turn, it seems that customers are ready to trust these non-banking institutions as they feel a more personal relationship with these brands.
At the same time, consumer needs are changing as expectations of service levels rise and more channels of communication become available.
As a result, traditional banks need to spend more time listening to their customer base across multiple channels and ensure they are being engaged in meaningful conversations.
However, the quality and relevance of a good conversation with a customer is often underestimated by financial institutions. This is exacerbated by the fact that the traditional financial institution is often encumbered with inflexible legacy systems which are not built with the customer in mind.
For example, recent research commissioned by Chordiant and conducted by Vanson Bourne found that only 57 per cent of customer representatives questioned in the UK’s high street retail banks have software that helps them suggest what products or services would be appropriate for an individual customer.
Furthermore, nearly half of those interviewed do not have software which supports them in conversations with customers who want to leave the bank.
As banks increasingly seek to place the customer at the heart of their business, they will need to deploy more sophisticated customer experience management (CEM) technology in order to maintain their position and their customer base in the market against new customer-centric banking organisations.
CEM technology enables banks to deliver intelligent conversations based upon analysis of past customer behaviour, as well as current responses and mood. This allows them to engage more effectively with customers, quickly measure how the strategy is working and change at new levels of speed and economy.
The key is to maximise the value of every conversation, consistently across every channel. Users should be able to deliver highly expressive customer experience strategies using models that predict and react to individual customer expectations, propensities and behaviours.
This behavioural segmentation is combined with powerful real-time decision-making and centrally deployed to any channel across the bank.
By implementing this kind of technology, traditional financial institutions are able to put an end to pre-scripted, inconsistent customer interactions based upon static, outdated market segmentation.
Following Next-Best-Action techniques also allows every customer interaction to become unique, appropriate and consistent. The conversation with the customer is continually guided, with actions adapting as the conversation is occurring. Recommendations are determined in real-time, based upon customer responses, mood and instant analysis of customer behaviour.
Financial institutions can also benefit from powerful Visual Command and Control capabilities to simulate different strategies and visualise their impact on customers and business metrics. Once optimised, customer strategies can be deployed at the touch of a button and changed on demand, without IT intervention.
Of course, building one-to-one relationships cannot come at the expense of profitability. Ideally, every decision a bank makes with regard to a customer should cater to that individual’s specific needs but do so in a manner that ensures profitability.
CEM takes the needs of the bank equally as seriously, so that customer offers and propositions, while tailored specifically for that customer, are also designed to support the bank’s own business goals.
The importance of banks employing this type of technology cannot be underestimated. Many of the non-banking players entering the market are already heavily customer focused and, with the absence of legacy systems to contend with, are well placed to invest in CEM solutions.
Therefore, gaining a full understanding of each customer as an individual, including their likely behaviour, and applying that to every interaction is not only critical for differentiation and loyalty, but it may be the key to survival amid increasing competition.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010. Print a single copy of this article for personal use. Contact us if you wish to print more to distribute to others.
By Stephen Haighton, Chordiant vice president for the Emea region
Published: January 14 2010 11:14 | Last updated: January 14 2010 11:14
For the traditional retail banking industry, competition is fiercer than ever and one of the biggest battlegrounds is likely to be the retention and acquisition of customers.
So what role does technology have to play in this fast evolving and customer-focused banking environment?
Banks have had a tough time trying to foster confidence and loyalty among their customer base against the backdrop of the recent credit crunch. At the same time, several non-banking players, such as supermarket chain Tesco in the UK, have entered the retail banking market looking to capitalise on growing consumer suspicion of traditional banks.
These new financial market players are pushing customer-centricity as a strong selling proposition for attracting new business. In turn, it seems that customers are ready to trust these non-banking institutions as they feel a more personal relationship with these brands.
At the same time, consumer needs are changing as expectations of service levels rise and more channels of communication become available.
As a result, traditional banks need to spend more time listening to their customer base across multiple channels and ensure they are being engaged in meaningful conversations.
However, the quality and relevance of a good conversation with a customer is often underestimated by financial institutions. This is exacerbated by the fact that the traditional financial institution is often encumbered with inflexible legacy systems which are not built with the customer in mind.
For example, recent research commissioned by Chordiant and conducted by Vanson Bourne found that only 57 per cent of customer representatives questioned in the UK’s high street retail banks have software that helps them suggest what products or services would be appropriate for an individual customer.
Furthermore, nearly half of those interviewed do not have software which supports them in conversations with customers who want to leave the bank.
As banks increasingly seek to place the customer at the heart of their business, they will need to deploy more sophisticated customer experience management (CEM) technology in order to maintain their position and their customer base in the market against new customer-centric banking organisations.
CEM technology enables banks to deliver intelligent conversations based upon analysis of past customer behaviour, as well as current responses and mood. This allows them to engage more effectively with customers, quickly measure how the strategy is working and change at new levels of speed and economy.
The key is to maximise the value of every conversation, consistently across every channel. Users should be able to deliver highly expressive customer experience strategies using models that predict and react to individual customer expectations, propensities and behaviours.
This behavioural segmentation is combined with powerful real-time decision-making and centrally deployed to any channel across the bank.
By implementing this kind of technology, traditional financial institutions are able to put an end to pre-scripted, inconsistent customer interactions based upon static, outdated market segmentation.
Following Next-Best-Action techniques also allows every customer interaction to become unique, appropriate and consistent. The conversation with the customer is continually guided, with actions adapting as the conversation is occurring. Recommendations are determined in real-time, based upon customer responses, mood and instant analysis of customer behaviour.
Financial institutions can also benefit from powerful Visual Command and Control capabilities to simulate different strategies and visualise their impact on customers and business metrics. Once optimised, customer strategies can be deployed at the touch of a button and changed on demand, without IT intervention.
Of course, building one-to-one relationships cannot come at the expense of profitability. Ideally, every decision a bank makes with regard to a customer should cater to that individual’s specific needs but do so in a manner that ensures profitability.
CEM takes the needs of the bank equally as seriously, so that customer offers and propositions, while tailored specifically for that customer, are also designed to support the bank’s own business goals.
The importance of banks employing this type of technology cannot be underestimated. Many of the non-banking players entering the market are already heavily customer focused and, with the absence of legacy systems to contend with, are well placed to invest in CEM solutions.
Therefore, gaining a full understanding of each customer as an individual, including their likely behaviour, and applying that to every interaction is not only critical for differentiation and loyalty, but it may be the key to survival amid increasing competition.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010. Print a single copy of this article for personal use. Contact us if you wish to print more to distribute to others.
Monday, January 11, 2010
Who holds the keys to your organisation’s data?
Who holds the keys to your organisation’s data?
By Tim Dunn, vice-president of CA’s security business in the Emea region
Published: January 11 2010 12:47 | Last updated: January 11 2010 12:47
Organisations have a legal duty to protect their customers’ personal data – but should we really trust them?
Incidents such as unauthorised securities trading at Société Générale and hacking of the Pentagon’s system share a common thread – they were the work of people who gained access, legitimate or otherwise, to privileged user details, in other words, the security crown jewels.
Understanding privileged user management (PUM) requires knowledge on what a privileged user is. It might seem a simple question but it is often a hurdle at which organisations fall.
A privileged user is an individual who, by virtue of function, has significantly greater system access rights than most corporate users. They will include, for example, system administrators and those with emergency accounts.
But because a privileged user has access to various IT resources, they can make use of private and sensitive data within the organisation, create new user profiles as well as add to or amend the powers and access rights of existing users. All this can give them a higher level of access to sensitive date than any other employees in the business – the equivalent to the keys to the kingdom.
The ever-increasing wave of security threats and increasing regulatory burden means it is no surprise that IT managers tend to overlook the area of privileged access granted to themselves and others to carry out their job.
But mistakes made can have serious consequences for an organisation’s brand value, customer retention, revenue and support from investors and shareholders.
A growing list of compliance initiatives is aimed at protecting organisations from malicious or inadvertent abuses. The ISO27001 security standard that is commonly used around the world advocates that the allocation and use of privileges should be restricted and controlled. For example, access privileges associated with each system product – eg operating system, database management system and each application (and the users to which they need to be allocated) should be identified.
This means that organisations need an access control policy that allocates access on a need-to-use basis, plus an authorisation process and a record of all privileges allocated.
Corporate executives are pushing their organisations to comply with these regulations or face personal liability and the threat of criminal and civil penalties.
Almost all relevant legislation centres around the principle of “least privilege”. This requires that in a particular layer of a computing environment, every module – be it a process, a user or a program – must only be able to access such information and resources that are necessary for its legitimate purpose.
When applied to users, the terms “least user access” or “least privileged user account” (LUA) are also used, referring to the concept that all users at all times should run with as few privileges as possible, and also launch applications with as few privileges as possible.
The key step in addressing this challenge is first to look at the privileged user as a major business and risk management issue. Once understood at a strategic level an organisation is in a better position to deploy tools that control, monitor and measure its privileged users and make sure the solution helps the organisation move along a proven path or “maturity model” and one that adapts to the changing needs of the business.
An organisation must also adopt best practices throughout, including securing logged files, enforce segregation of duties and introduce individual accountability to ensure privileged accounts are not shared, privileges kept updated and user activity monitored.
Awareness of the issue is growing, although a recent study by software company CA and analysts Quocirca into the behaviour and management of privileged users, revealed that the security of European organisations and the trust placed in them is at risk because of non-compliance with industry standards, poor practice and manual error.
The study found that 41 per cent of 270 European organisations confirmed that while they had adopted the ISO27001 standard, non-compliant practices such as sharing privileged user account details and retaining default privileged account user names and passwords still prevail.
More than one third (36 per cent) stated they had implemented ISO27001 and had it certified by an external auditor.
The main problem highlighted by the study was awareness. Respondents admitted to overlooking risks associated with poor PUM because other security threats, such as malware, the internet and Web 2.0 tools, ranked higher in their priority list.
While the majority of privileged users are highly trustworthy, organisations face a growing problem of managing privileged users and their access rights. Abuse is often not intentional, which means there is a need not just to protect the business from its employees, but the employees from themselves.
Clearly, it is in the interest of individual IT managers, the IT department and the overall business to have measures in place to control and monitor privileged users.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010. Print a single copy of this article for personal use. Contact us if you wish to print more to distribute to others.
By Tim Dunn, vice-president of CA’s security business in the Emea region
Published: January 11 2010 12:47 | Last updated: January 11 2010 12:47
Organisations have a legal duty to protect their customers’ personal data – but should we really trust them?
Incidents such as unauthorised securities trading at Société Générale and hacking of the Pentagon’s system share a common thread – they were the work of people who gained access, legitimate or otherwise, to privileged user details, in other words, the security crown jewels.
Understanding privileged user management (PUM) requires knowledge on what a privileged user is. It might seem a simple question but it is often a hurdle at which organisations fall.
A privileged user is an individual who, by virtue of function, has significantly greater system access rights than most corporate users. They will include, for example, system administrators and those with emergency accounts.
But because a privileged user has access to various IT resources, they can make use of private and sensitive data within the organisation, create new user profiles as well as add to or amend the powers and access rights of existing users. All this can give them a higher level of access to sensitive date than any other employees in the business – the equivalent to the keys to the kingdom.
The ever-increasing wave of security threats and increasing regulatory burden means it is no surprise that IT managers tend to overlook the area of privileged access granted to themselves and others to carry out their job.
But mistakes made can have serious consequences for an organisation’s brand value, customer retention, revenue and support from investors and shareholders.
A growing list of compliance initiatives is aimed at protecting organisations from malicious or inadvertent abuses. The ISO27001 security standard that is commonly used around the world advocates that the allocation and use of privileges should be restricted and controlled. For example, access privileges associated with each system product – eg operating system, database management system and each application (and the users to which they need to be allocated) should be identified.
This means that organisations need an access control policy that allocates access on a need-to-use basis, plus an authorisation process and a record of all privileges allocated.
Corporate executives are pushing their organisations to comply with these regulations or face personal liability and the threat of criminal and civil penalties.
Almost all relevant legislation centres around the principle of “least privilege”. This requires that in a particular layer of a computing environment, every module – be it a process, a user or a program – must only be able to access such information and resources that are necessary for its legitimate purpose.
When applied to users, the terms “least user access” or “least privileged user account” (LUA) are also used, referring to the concept that all users at all times should run with as few privileges as possible, and also launch applications with as few privileges as possible.
The key step in addressing this challenge is first to look at the privileged user as a major business and risk management issue. Once understood at a strategic level an organisation is in a better position to deploy tools that control, monitor and measure its privileged users and make sure the solution helps the organisation move along a proven path or “maturity model” and one that adapts to the changing needs of the business.
An organisation must also adopt best practices throughout, including securing logged files, enforce segregation of duties and introduce individual accountability to ensure privileged accounts are not shared, privileges kept updated and user activity monitored.
Awareness of the issue is growing, although a recent study by software company CA and analysts Quocirca into the behaviour and management of privileged users, revealed that the security of European organisations and the trust placed in them is at risk because of non-compliance with industry standards, poor practice and manual error.
The study found that 41 per cent of 270 European organisations confirmed that while they had adopted the ISO27001 standard, non-compliant practices such as sharing privileged user account details and retaining default privileged account user names and passwords still prevail.
More than one third (36 per cent) stated they had implemented ISO27001 and had it certified by an external auditor.
The main problem highlighted by the study was awareness. Respondents admitted to overlooking risks associated with poor PUM because other security threats, such as malware, the internet and Web 2.0 tools, ranked higher in their priority list.
While the majority of privileged users are highly trustworthy, organisations face a growing problem of managing privileged users and their access rights. Abuse is often not intentional, which means there is a need not just to protect the business from its employees, but the employees from themselves.
Clearly, it is in the interest of individual IT managers, the IT department and the overall business to have measures in place to control and monitor privileged users.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010. Print a single copy of this article for personal use. Contact us if you wish to print more to distribute to others.
Wednesday, December 09, 2009
Digital Business
Digital Digest – Managing Intelligence
In this multi-media Digital Business digest we examine how organisations can gather information, analyse it, and serve it up in a meaningful, usable form
Video: business intelligence in action plus panel discussions
Podcast: disparate sources – how to use data from a decentralised business in several languages The days of the Next Big Thing could be over
Maybe there will be no one idea or invention, but a wave of disruptive technologies
Does IT work? Monitoring staff requires care
Tracking workers via mobile devices raises privacy concerns
Enterprise 2.0 is vital for business
Real benefits await successful adopters of new online tools
View latest print issue and full archive
Published on December 10 2009, or download as a pdf
Related content and features
In this multi-media Digital Business digest we examine how organisations can gather information, analyse it, and serve it up in a meaningful, usable form
Video: business intelligence in action plus panel discussions
Podcast: disparate sources – how to use data from a decentralised business in several languages The days of the Next Big Thing could be over
Maybe there will be no one idea or invention, but a wave of disruptive technologies
Does IT work? Monitoring staff requires care
Tracking workers via mobile devices raises privacy concerns
Enterprise 2.0 is vital for business
Real benefits await successful adopters of new online tools
View latest print issue and full archive
Published on December 10 2009, or download as a pdf
Related content and features
Does IT work? Monitoring staff requires care
Does IT work? Monitoring staff requires care
By Stephen Pritchard
Published: December 9 2009 16:29 | Last updated: December 9 2009 16:29
New devices and faster networks are driving up productivity by giving mobile workers direct access to corporate e-mail and applications on the move.
Analysis by Research in Motion, maker of the BlackBerry, found improvements in productivity in field service and sales of more than 20 per cent – the equivalent of an additional customer visit each day.
But managing an increasingly mobile workforce poses challenges for businesses.
Tools for managing the mobile devices themselves, such as the BlackBerry Enterprise Server, Microsoft’s System Center Mobile Device Manager (SCMDM), or LogMeIn Mobile are now reasonably mature and give strong levels of control over device content management and security. But managing the staff using the devices is more complicated, and more controversial.
Smartphone and personal digital assistant technology allows businesses to monitor where employees are, at any time, via GPS (global positioning system) chips.
With more smartphones and PDAs now offering GPS to support mapping and navigation software, businesses can tap into the data via specialist software that reports employees’ locations by linking location data to a business application, or through fleet management and tracking systems.
Businesses can also monitor their employees much more accurately by looking at the workflow information produced by mobile versions of CRM, salesforce automation, or other enterprise applications.
Monitoring technology, though, raises concerns about employee privacy, as well as the impact such data collection has on workforce autonomy, incentives, and management practice.
Although the technology exists to track exactly where someone is, if not what they are doing, it is often a poor substitute for supervision by experienced foremen and managers.
“Workforce tracking is a natural outgrowth of knowing where your assets are,” says Kevin O’Marah, chief strategy officer at AMR Research, an analyst company that specialises in technology for vertical markets such as retail, distribution and manufacturing.
“Tracking [individual] people is much more sinister, but the technology makes it very obvious where people are. Most of the value in track-and-trace comes from tracing assets such as trucks, and from areas such as speed monitoring. You can find out if a truck has been racing along at 85 miles per hour, and then the driver took a long break. Companies care because of fuel efficiency.”
Drivers of vehicle and industrial plant – often with price tags of $250,000 or more – accept a certain degree of monitoring as part of their jobs. And, according to Bob Walton, president of Qualcomm Enterprise Services, the potential downsides can be offset by providing services the drivers value, such as the ability to complete paperwork and training via an in-cab console.
Use of tracking systems does become more contentious if employees are expected to carry monitored devices outside the cab; extending the technology further, to an individual’s BlackBerry or iPhone, is even more likely to raise concerns.
“It is being done, especially monitoring where people are, in order to route them to the next job,” says Nick White, telecoms director at Deloitte, the professional services firm. “But there is absolutely an issue about privacy.”
Much depends on the degree of autonomy that different types of worker need, or expect. “If you try to control a salesforce to the nth degree, you will get resistance,” says Mr White. “If it is engineering, you want the workforce to be focused on the task, not worrying about what the next job will be.”
Some people will even appreciate a degree of monitoring, for example if they work alone in potentially hazardous or dangerous areas. Lone worker monitoring has already proved popular among groups including taxi drivers, and health care workers, who appreciate the improved sense of safety it brings.
Then there is the question of making up lost time, especially for employees who work on commission.
“People cancel appointments, so a salesperson wants to know who is the next best person to call on, who are the nearest customers or perhaps, those who recently ordered from the competition,” says David Perry, a director at Cognito, a specialist mobility vendor.
Mobile device user Mitie Pest Control uses device tracking to allocate employees to jobs, to monitor how long jobs take and also to ensure customers sign for any work carried out.
Although the company does use the technology to track the productivity of individuals, managing director Peter Trotman stresses this will not work if the result is simply heavy-handed management. There has to be feedback and training for staff who perform less well.
“There was some scepticism and resistance initially, as with any technology,” he says. “But because it replaces tedious paperwork and provides more accurate information, our staff have found it helps. They accept it as a useful tool, not an inconvenient management oversight.”
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009. Print a single copy of this article for personal use. Contact us if you wish to print more to distribute to others.
By Stephen Pritchard
Published: December 9 2009 16:29 | Last updated: December 9 2009 16:29
New devices and faster networks are driving up productivity by giving mobile workers direct access to corporate e-mail and applications on the move.
Analysis by Research in Motion, maker of the BlackBerry, found improvements in productivity in field service and sales of more than 20 per cent – the equivalent of an additional customer visit each day.
But managing an increasingly mobile workforce poses challenges for businesses.
Tools for managing the mobile devices themselves, such as the BlackBerry Enterprise Server, Microsoft’s System Center Mobile Device Manager (SCMDM), or LogMeIn Mobile are now reasonably mature and give strong levels of control over device content management and security. But managing the staff using the devices is more complicated, and more controversial.
Smartphone and personal digital assistant technology allows businesses to monitor where employees are, at any time, via GPS (global positioning system) chips.
With more smartphones and PDAs now offering GPS to support mapping and navigation software, businesses can tap into the data via specialist software that reports employees’ locations by linking location data to a business application, or through fleet management and tracking systems.
Businesses can also monitor their employees much more accurately by looking at the workflow information produced by mobile versions of CRM, salesforce automation, or other enterprise applications.
Monitoring technology, though, raises concerns about employee privacy, as well as the impact such data collection has on workforce autonomy, incentives, and management practice.
Although the technology exists to track exactly where someone is, if not what they are doing, it is often a poor substitute for supervision by experienced foremen and managers.
“Workforce tracking is a natural outgrowth of knowing where your assets are,” says Kevin O’Marah, chief strategy officer at AMR Research, an analyst company that specialises in technology for vertical markets such as retail, distribution and manufacturing.
“Tracking [individual] people is much more sinister, but the technology makes it very obvious where people are. Most of the value in track-and-trace comes from tracing assets such as trucks, and from areas such as speed monitoring. You can find out if a truck has been racing along at 85 miles per hour, and then the driver took a long break. Companies care because of fuel efficiency.”
Drivers of vehicle and industrial plant – often with price tags of $250,000 or more – accept a certain degree of monitoring as part of their jobs. And, according to Bob Walton, president of Qualcomm Enterprise Services, the potential downsides can be offset by providing services the drivers value, such as the ability to complete paperwork and training via an in-cab console.
Use of tracking systems does become more contentious if employees are expected to carry monitored devices outside the cab; extending the technology further, to an individual’s BlackBerry or iPhone, is even more likely to raise concerns.
“It is being done, especially monitoring where people are, in order to route them to the next job,” says Nick White, telecoms director at Deloitte, the professional services firm. “But there is absolutely an issue about privacy.”
Much depends on the degree of autonomy that different types of worker need, or expect. “If you try to control a salesforce to the nth degree, you will get resistance,” says Mr White. “If it is engineering, you want the workforce to be focused on the task, not worrying about what the next job will be.”
Some people will even appreciate a degree of monitoring, for example if they work alone in potentially hazardous or dangerous areas. Lone worker monitoring has already proved popular among groups including taxi drivers, and health care workers, who appreciate the improved sense of safety it brings.
Then there is the question of making up lost time, especially for employees who work on commission.
“People cancel appointments, so a salesperson wants to know who is the next best person to call on, who are the nearest customers or perhaps, those who recently ordered from the competition,” says David Perry, a director at Cognito, a specialist mobility vendor.
Mobile device user Mitie Pest Control uses device tracking to allocate employees to jobs, to monitor how long jobs take and also to ensure customers sign for any work carried out.
Although the company does use the technology to track the productivity of individuals, managing director Peter Trotman stresses this will not work if the result is simply heavy-handed management. There has to be feedback and training for staff who perform less well.
“There was some scepticism and resistance initially, as with any technology,” he says. “But because it replaces tedious paperwork and provides more accurate information, our staff have found it helps. They accept it as a useful tool, not an inconvenient management oversight.”
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009. Print a single copy of this article for personal use. Contact us if you wish to print more to distribute to others.
The days of the Next Big Thing could be over
The days of the Next Big Thing could be over
By Alan Cane
Published: December 9 2009 16:29 | Last updated: December 9 2009 16:29
The main difficulty in predicting the “next big thing” – apart from the ambitious nature of the task – lies in defining just what a “big thing” is.
Is it something that will have a lasting and material impact on society – the emergence of revolutionary inventions – the transistor, for example, or the integrated circuit and the microprocessor?
Or could it be software – the Cobol programming language that changed business data processing and continues to influence its progress?
For some, systems are their “big thing” – the advent of mobile phone networks in the 1980s, followed by the internet, and with it e-mail and the world wide web. Today, many believe “the cloud”, an abstraction that represents the electronically interconnected world, fits the bill.
But as Rob Gear, manager of PA Consulting’s innovation unit points out: “Some breakthroughs will transform life for certain people in certain geographies but that same breakthrough will have little or no relevance for others. A BlackBerry or iPhone might have transformed the life of your average urban office worker but it has had little or no bearing on the life of the tribesmen of the Masai Mara.”
Mr Gear’s colleague, David Elton, however, thinks that “big things” are less rare than is believed: “These are things that have changed the way we live and work: search engines, text messaging, wikis, bar codes, RFID (radio frequency identifiers), liquid crystal displays and cheap disk storage.”
He says “market moments” – the coming together of technology, price point and market demand – define big things, giving as an example online retailing: “The first time round in 2001-2003, it was a damp squib. The second go, from 2004, took off like a train. The difference: a market moment. People wanted it, the technology was there; they just needed secure online payment mechanisms.”
Some developments have universal significance. Kishore Swaminathan, chief scientist at Accenture’s technology laboratories, believes no single thing is the answer – it is more a phenomenon, or “scale”.
“The necessity that will drive all future inventions of significance is exponential growth,” he says. “We currently understand linear but not exponential growth. Successful companies, inventions and societies will be those that master scale. Three specific areas of necessity will drive invention – energy, health and mega-cities. Scale is not the same as big. The dinosaurs were big, the internet has scale.”
Rudy Puryear, head of Bain & Company’s global IT practice, argues that businesses are facing structural shifts that will “easily trump emerging technologies as the ‘next big thing’.”
He points to IT collapsing under its own weight: “In a recovery, the fact that IT can no longer respond within a reasonable time cycle will come to the fore. We are expecting to see a surge in IT projects that actually address complexity.”
He says that chief information officers must regain the right to take centralised decisions and that outsourcing will change from cost tactic to strategic weapon: “The smartest CIOs will find ways to use outsourcing providers to do more than cut costs.”
Industry experts such as Joerg Heistermann, chief executive of the Americas Region for the business process management software group IDS Scheer, doubts that 2010 will see breakthrough technologies, arguing that existing developments such as cloud computing may offer amazing possibilities.
“Real innovation is hard,” he says. “It means the destruction of what exists today and requires that we convince people to change . . . an IT industry devoid of supposed breakthroughs would still have plenty of work to do with our bread and butter – continuous improvement.
“Connecting customers and providers, optimising supply chains, streamlining accounting or making interfaces easier to use – these recurring projects are constantly needed to improve any company’s efficiency, customer satisfaction and profitability.”
A number of experts, including Colin Bannister, head of technical sales for Computer Associates UK, also argues that there will no single “next big thing” but instead, waves of disruptive technologies “which will ebb and flow”.
“The risks around them must be managed, complexity removed and company-wide management tools made available to CIOs, if these technologies are to provide added value for businesses within today’s rapid timeframes for payback,” he predicts.
As examples, he cites service-oriented architectures, virtualisation and cloud computing, pointing out that each can increase risk and complexity unless tightly managed.
Growing complexity also worries Karl Havers, head of Ernst & Young’s European technology team, who admits to simple personal requirements: “Let me use three devices instead of a dozen connecting me through the smart grid to my home, shopping, car and family.
“Let that happen far faster than currently and when I want it. Oh, and I would like to be able to rely on simple things like mobile networks to work and not drop calls and the voice quality on my landline to be as good as it used to be when using voice over internet protocol and a remote handset.”
Mr Havers concludes: “The next big idea will be about solving the confusion and plethora of alternatives for people, making things simple and reliable.”
For a contrary view, I spoke to Josh Bernoff, senior vice-president with the consultancy Forrester Research, who says that employees and customers are already taking technology into their own hands with dramatic consequences: “No matter what company you work for, your employees have better technology than you,” he says.
“With their iPhones, their Facebook connections and cheap computing power for rent, they can solve their own problems using technology. They’re building the solutions your company will run on right now, right under the noses of your IT department staff.
“We can tell you about the marketers at Black & Decker who let salespeople use little video cameras to gain an edge on the competition. Or the guy at the US State Department who built his own teleconferencing application to spread US ideas around the world. You can embrace their problem-solving power, or you can hide in a corner,” he challenges.
In fact, an intersection between unified communications (UC) and social networking is already developing, according to Neil Louw, CIO at Dimension Data Europe: “More businesses are realising the potential to harness the burgeoning ‘unified communications mindset’ of their employees – developed through the personal use of tools common to UC and social networking, such as instant messaging, webcams and groups – by introducing enterprise-ready equivalents as part of their UC strategy.”
Cloud computing, however, is high on many lists of likely barnstormers. Hub Vandervort, chief technology officer of Progress Software, believes adoption will be faster than most analysts think because of economics: “It’s a simple empirical model: in a 1,000-machine data centre, efficiency will typically be at 20 per cent to 30 per cent. Getting a further 10 per cent from your infrastructure by moving it to the cloud will save $6m a year – and many data centres are far larger than 1,000 machines,” he says.
Andrew McGrath, commercial director for the communications group ntl:Telewest Business agrees that the benefits and efficiencies of cloud computing and server virtualisation could prove too good to ignore.
“This, in turn, will make the network underpinning these IT initiatives even more important. As a result, the next big thing for business will be the adoption of Ethernet networks. Capable of transporting huge volumes of data at great speed, they are the key to success for the adoption of technologies that rely on shared services.”
And here is a wild card: IBM believes the hottest technology trend of 2010 will be advanced analytics – software capable of making sense of the mountains of raw data companies are routinely storing these days.
IBM argues that predictive analytics will emerge as an essential tool for competitive advantage, focusing on assets – information – that companies already possess.
But even the best predictive analytics are not enough to tell us unequivocally whether they can be the “next big thing”.
On ft.com Alan Cane says: necessity will sort “hot” technologies from the cool, in his regular Perspectives column at:
ft.com/digitalbusiness
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009. Print a single copy of this article for personal use. Contact us if you wish to print more to distribute to others.
By Alan Cane
Published: December 9 2009 16:29 | Last updated: December 9 2009 16:29
The main difficulty in predicting the “next big thing” – apart from the ambitious nature of the task – lies in defining just what a “big thing” is.
Is it something that will have a lasting and material impact on society – the emergence of revolutionary inventions – the transistor, for example, or the integrated circuit and the microprocessor?
Or could it be software – the Cobol programming language that changed business data processing and continues to influence its progress?
For some, systems are their “big thing” – the advent of mobile phone networks in the 1980s, followed by the internet, and with it e-mail and the world wide web. Today, many believe “the cloud”, an abstraction that represents the electronically interconnected world, fits the bill.
But as Rob Gear, manager of PA Consulting’s innovation unit points out: “Some breakthroughs will transform life for certain people in certain geographies but that same breakthrough will have little or no relevance for others. A BlackBerry or iPhone might have transformed the life of your average urban office worker but it has had little or no bearing on the life of the tribesmen of the Masai Mara.”
Mr Gear’s colleague, David Elton, however, thinks that “big things” are less rare than is believed: “These are things that have changed the way we live and work: search engines, text messaging, wikis, bar codes, RFID (radio frequency identifiers), liquid crystal displays and cheap disk storage.”
He says “market moments” – the coming together of technology, price point and market demand – define big things, giving as an example online retailing: “The first time round in 2001-2003, it was a damp squib. The second go, from 2004, took off like a train. The difference: a market moment. People wanted it, the technology was there; they just needed secure online payment mechanisms.”
Some developments have universal significance. Kishore Swaminathan, chief scientist at Accenture’s technology laboratories, believes no single thing is the answer – it is more a phenomenon, or “scale”.
“The necessity that will drive all future inventions of significance is exponential growth,” he says. “We currently understand linear but not exponential growth. Successful companies, inventions and societies will be those that master scale. Three specific areas of necessity will drive invention – energy, health and mega-cities. Scale is not the same as big. The dinosaurs were big, the internet has scale.”
Rudy Puryear, head of Bain & Company’s global IT practice, argues that businesses are facing structural shifts that will “easily trump emerging technologies as the ‘next big thing’.”
He points to IT collapsing under its own weight: “In a recovery, the fact that IT can no longer respond within a reasonable time cycle will come to the fore. We are expecting to see a surge in IT projects that actually address complexity.”
He says that chief information officers must regain the right to take centralised decisions and that outsourcing will change from cost tactic to strategic weapon: “The smartest CIOs will find ways to use outsourcing providers to do more than cut costs.”
Industry experts such as Joerg Heistermann, chief executive of the Americas Region for the business process management software group IDS Scheer, doubts that 2010 will see breakthrough technologies, arguing that existing developments such as cloud computing may offer amazing possibilities.
“Real innovation is hard,” he says. “It means the destruction of what exists today and requires that we convince people to change . . . an IT industry devoid of supposed breakthroughs would still have plenty of work to do with our bread and butter – continuous improvement.
“Connecting customers and providers, optimising supply chains, streamlining accounting or making interfaces easier to use – these recurring projects are constantly needed to improve any company’s efficiency, customer satisfaction and profitability.”
A number of experts, including Colin Bannister, head of technical sales for Computer Associates UK, also argues that there will no single “next big thing” but instead, waves of disruptive technologies “which will ebb and flow”.
“The risks around them must be managed, complexity removed and company-wide management tools made available to CIOs, if these technologies are to provide added value for businesses within today’s rapid timeframes for payback,” he predicts.
As examples, he cites service-oriented architectures, virtualisation and cloud computing, pointing out that each can increase risk and complexity unless tightly managed.
Growing complexity also worries Karl Havers, head of Ernst & Young’s European technology team, who admits to simple personal requirements: “Let me use three devices instead of a dozen connecting me through the smart grid to my home, shopping, car and family.
“Let that happen far faster than currently and when I want it. Oh, and I would like to be able to rely on simple things like mobile networks to work and not drop calls and the voice quality on my landline to be as good as it used to be when using voice over internet protocol and a remote handset.”
Mr Havers concludes: “The next big idea will be about solving the confusion and plethora of alternatives for people, making things simple and reliable.”
For a contrary view, I spoke to Josh Bernoff, senior vice-president with the consultancy Forrester Research, who says that employees and customers are already taking technology into their own hands with dramatic consequences: “No matter what company you work for, your employees have better technology than you,” he says.
“With their iPhones, their Facebook connections and cheap computing power for rent, they can solve their own problems using technology. They’re building the solutions your company will run on right now, right under the noses of your IT department staff.
“We can tell you about the marketers at Black & Decker who let salespeople use little video cameras to gain an edge on the competition. Or the guy at the US State Department who built his own teleconferencing application to spread US ideas around the world. You can embrace their problem-solving power, or you can hide in a corner,” he challenges.
In fact, an intersection between unified communications (UC) and social networking is already developing, according to Neil Louw, CIO at Dimension Data Europe: “More businesses are realising the potential to harness the burgeoning ‘unified communications mindset’ of their employees – developed through the personal use of tools common to UC and social networking, such as instant messaging, webcams and groups – by introducing enterprise-ready equivalents as part of their UC strategy.”
Cloud computing, however, is high on many lists of likely barnstormers. Hub Vandervort, chief technology officer of Progress Software, believes adoption will be faster than most analysts think because of economics: “It’s a simple empirical model: in a 1,000-machine data centre, efficiency will typically be at 20 per cent to 30 per cent. Getting a further 10 per cent from your infrastructure by moving it to the cloud will save $6m a year – and many data centres are far larger than 1,000 machines,” he says.
Andrew McGrath, commercial director for the communications group ntl:Telewest Business agrees that the benefits and efficiencies of cloud computing and server virtualisation could prove too good to ignore.
“This, in turn, will make the network underpinning these IT initiatives even more important. As a result, the next big thing for business will be the adoption of Ethernet networks. Capable of transporting huge volumes of data at great speed, they are the key to success for the adoption of technologies that rely on shared services.”
And here is a wild card: IBM believes the hottest technology trend of 2010 will be advanced analytics – software capable of making sense of the mountains of raw data companies are routinely storing these days.
IBM argues that predictive analytics will emerge as an essential tool for competitive advantage, focusing on assets – information – that companies already possess.
But even the best predictive analytics are not enough to tell us unequivocally whether they can be the “next big thing”.
On ft.com Alan Cane says: necessity will sort “hot” technologies from the cool, in his regular Perspectives column at:
ft.com/digitalbusiness
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009. Print a single copy of this article for personal use. Contact us if you wish to print more to distribute to others.
Enterprise 2.0 is vital for business
Enterprise 2.0 is vital for business
By Andrew McAfee
Published: December 9 2009 16:29 | Last updated: December 9 2009 16:29
Every day, more companies are deploying the technologies of Web 2.0, and also adopting the approaches to teamwork and interaction that have made Wikipedia, Facebook, Twitter, and other Web 2.0 resources so phenomenally popular.
I call this trend Enterprise 2.0 (E2.0), and have made it the subject of much of my research since 2006.
Corporate executives ask three excellent questions about E2.0. What, if anything, is so novel about it? What are the benefits? And the risks?
Enterprise 2.0 is actually something new. It is enabled by technologies that were not widely available 10 or even five years ago. These include blogs, wikis, social networking software such as Facebook, and “microblogging” utilities such as Twitter.
All of these tools share three fundamental properties. First, they are “frictionless” – easy to learn and make use of.
Second, they are free-form, meaning that they do not have pre-defined workflows and do not place users into categories. Instead, everyone starts as equals, contributing to a blank slate. This sounds like a recipe for chaos, but it is not.
The third property shared by all 2.0 technologies, and the most remarkable, is the emergence of patterns and structure in a system without central co-ordination.
To make this concept concrete when I’m speaking, I ask audience members to raise their hands if their organisation’s intranet is easier to search and navigate than the public internet. Very few hands go up, even though intranets are designed and maintained by professionals whose job it is to build navigable web environments.
The internet works better because even though it is radically decentralised and unco- ordinated it is not unstructured. It has a dense structure defined by all the links between pages.
This structure changes continuously and actually becomes more refined as the net grows. It is emergent, rather than imposed. The technology- enabled communities of Enterprise 2.0 work the same way.
Beyond better intranet navigation, what benefits can an organisation expect from E2.0?
The consultancy firm McKinsey has conducted three annual surveys on this question. In the most recent, published in September, respondents reported benefits that included better access to knowledge and internal experts, greater employee and customer satisfaction, and higher rates of innovation.
The magnitude of the gains was striking, ranging from 20 per cent (innovation rates) to 35 per cent (access to internal experts).
These self-reported and subjective data must be interpreted with caution, but are still compelling. They indicate that real business benefits await successful adopters of emergent tools and work practices.
Such improvements arise because E2.0 brings much-needed technological support to the informal organisation. The formal organisation is characterised by hierarchical organisational charts and standardised, repeatable business processes.
It received a technological shot in the arm in the mid 1990s when large-scale commercial applications such as ERP and CRM became available. Research suggests these applications significantly boosted productivity and performance. They did so primarily by allowing companies to standardise best practices and by making huge amounts of structured data available for analysis.
These tools, however, did not do as much to support the less formal and structured work of an organisation. And as we all know, the informal organisation is tremendously important. It is where many exceptions are handled, questions answered, and connections made. It is also often where novel ideas are sparked and new threats and opportunities identified.
Yet until now, the informal organisation has been almost entirely unsupported by IT. E-mail works when you know who you want to send a message to, but what about when you do not – when you are not sure who has the knowledge or expertise you are looking for?
The first generation of knowledge management systems attempted to address this challenge, but they were too structured; they did not match the emergent nature of the informal organisation.
E2.0 technologies do. When they get going, it becomes easy to find a bit of knowledge, or a knowledgeable person. It also becomes easy to learn what others are working on, and to be helpful to them. And it becomes possible to float a question to the entire organisation.
As Eric Raymond, the open source software advocate, says: “With enough eyeballs all bugs are shallow.” Enterprise 2.0 delivers benefits because it brings all of a company’s eyeballs to bear on challenges and opportunities rather than assigning them only to the “proper” authorities.
Now for the final question: what are the risks of E2.0? I find that they are actually quite small. The tools themselves are comparatively cheap, so financial risk is minimal. The biggest potential threat is that people will misuse the new technologies, either by putting up inappropriate material or by inadvertently revealing secrets.
This very rarely happens in practice, however: my collection of E2.0 horror stories is essentially non-existent. There are two main reasons for this.
First, contributors in corporate environments are almost always identifiable. Without the cloak of anonymity, bad online behaviour is much less common. Second, people know how to behave at work, and most are inclined to do so.
I believe that we are in the early phases of another era of technology-fuelled business improvement. Enterprise 2.0 is bringing significant gains to companies of all sizes, and in all industries.
Given the mismatch between its benefits and risks, and given the competitive imperative to seize all possible sources of advantage, sitting this one out seems like a very bad idea.
Andrew McAfee is a principal research scientist at the Center for Digital Business at MIT. He is the author of Enterprise 2.0, published by Harvard Business Press. His blog is andrewmcafee.org/blog; his Twitter identity is @amcafee
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009. Print a single copy of this article for personal use. Contact us if you wish to print more to distribute to others.
By Andrew McAfee
Published: December 9 2009 16:29 | Last updated: December 9 2009 16:29
Every day, more companies are deploying the technologies of Web 2.0, and also adopting the approaches to teamwork and interaction that have made Wikipedia, Facebook, Twitter, and other Web 2.0 resources so phenomenally popular.
I call this trend Enterprise 2.0 (E2.0), and have made it the subject of much of my research since 2006.
Corporate executives ask three excellent questions about E2.0. What, if anything, is so novel about it? What are the benefits? And the risks?
Enterprise 2.0 is actually something new. It is enabled by technologies that were not widely available 10 or even five years ago. These include blogs, wikis, social networking software such as Facebook, and “microblogging” utilities such as Twitter.
All of these tools share three fundamental properties. First, they are “frictionless” – easy to learn and make use of.
Second, they are free-form, meaning that they do not have pre-defined workflows and do not place users into categories. Instead, everyone starts as equals, contributing to a blank slate. This sounds like a recipe for chaos, but it is not.
The third property shared by all 2.0 technologies, and the most remarkable, is the emergence of patterns and structure in a system without central co-ordination.
To make this concept concrete when I’m speaking, I ask audience members to raise their hands if their organisation’s intranet is easier to search and navigate than the public internet. Very few hands go up, even though intranets are designed and maintained by professionals whose job it is to build navigable web environments.
The internet works better because even though it is radically decentralised and unco- ordinated it is not unstructured. It has a dense structure defined by all the links between pages.
This structure changes continuously and actually becomes more refined as the net grows. It is emergent, rather than imposed. The technology- enabled communities of Enterprise 2.0 work the same way.
Beyond better intranet navigation, what benefits can an organisation expect from E2.0?
The consultancy firm McKinsey has conducted three annual surveys on this question. In the most recent, published in September, respondents reported benefits that included better access to knowledge and internal experts, greater employee and customer satisfaction, and higher rates of innovation.
The magnitude of the gains was striking, ranging from 20 per cent (innovation rates) to 35 per cent (access to internal experts).
These self-reported and subjective data must be interpreted with caution, but are still compelling. They indicate that real business benefits await successful adopters of emergent tools and work practices.
Such improvements arise because E2.0 brings much-needed technological support to the informal organisation. The formal organisation is characterised by hierarchical organisational charts and standardised, repeatable business processes.
It received a technological shot in the arm in the mid 1990s when large-scale commercial applications such as ERP and CRM became available. Research suggests these applications significantly boosted productivity and performance. They did so primarily by allowing companies to standardise best practices and by making huge amounts of structured data available for analysis.
These tools, however, did not do as much to support the less formal and structured work of an organisation. And as we all know, the informal organisation is tremendously important. It is where many exceptions are handled, questions answered, and connections made. It is also often where novel ideas are sparked and new threats and opportunities identified.
Yet until now, the informal organisation has been almost entirely unsupported by IT. E-mail works when you know who you want to send a message to, but what about when you do not – when you are not sure who has the knowledge or expertise you are looking for?
The first generation of knowledge management systems attempted to address this challenge, but they were too structured; they did not match the emergent nature of the informal organisation.
E2.0 technologies do. When they get going, it becomes easy to find a bit of knowledge, or a knowledgeable person. It also becomes easy to learn what others are working on, and to be helpful to them. And it becomes possible to float a question to the entire organisation.
As Eric Raymond, the open source software advocate, says: “With enough eyeballs all bugs are shallow.” Enterprise 2.0 delivers benefits because it brings all of a company’s eyeballs to bear on challenges and opportunities rather than assigning them only to the “proper” authorities.
Now for the final question: what are the risks of E2.0? I find that they are actually quite small. The tools themselves are comparatively cheap, so financial risk is minimal. The biggest potential threat is that people will misuse the new technologies, either by putting up inappropriate material or by inadvertently revealing secrets.
This very rarely happens in practice, however: my collection of E2.0 horror stories is essentially non-existent. There are two main reasons for this.
First, contributors in corporate environments are almost always identifiable. Without the cloak of anonymity, bad online behaviour is much less common. Second, people know how to behave at work, and most are inclined to do so.
I believe that we are in the early phases of another era of technology-fuelled business improvement. Enterprise 2.0 is bringing significant gains to companies of all sizes, and in all industries.
Given the mismatch between its benefits and risks, and given the competitive imperative to seize all possible sources of advantage, sitting this one out seems like a very bad idea.
Andrew McAfee is a principal research scientist at the Center for Digital Business at MIT. He is the author of Enterprise 2.0, published by Harvard Business Press. His blog is andrewmcafee.org/blog; his Twitter identity is @amcafee
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009. Print a single copy of this article for personal use. Contact us if you wish to print more to distribute to others.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Introducing the IT Market Clock
Introducing the IT Market Clock
By Brian Gammage, vice president and Fellow, Gartner
Published: November 26 2009 16:15 | Last updated: November 26 2009 16:15
IT is no longer an emerging set of capabilities and markets – it is a maturing business tool and must be managed as such.
Although new capabilities continue to appear in the market, their adoption and use require them to be integrated into a portfolio of existing IT assets, many of which are already mature.
Some IT assets are no longer required, or no longer deliver sufficient business value to justify the costs of maintaining them. Usually, working to budget means new IT products and services can only be adopted if existing IT assets are retired or replaced.
Every IT product and service has a finite useful life and must eventually be retired or replaced. Correct timing of this retirement/replacement is critical.
The second part of useful life, from maturity to obsolescence, must be considered when managing IT assets throughout their whole life cycles. Most organisations require more-holistic mechanisms for planning IT divestment and reinvestment activity.
Gartner’s IT Market Clock is a new framework that supports strategic investment and divestment decisions. Tools and methodologies that focus only on technology adoption are no longer sufficient to support the decisions required to manage portfolios of IT assets throughout their full lifetime of use.
Gartner’s Hype Cycle for example, which the Gartner Market Clock complements, is a buyer’s decision framework for technology adoption, but its view ends when mainstream adoption begins, which typically equates to an adoption level of between 20 and 50 per cent.
Simply, the Hype Cycle supports “technology hunting” decisions, while the IT Market Clock supports “farming” decisions for assets already in use.
The IT Market Clock uses a clock-face metaphor to represent relative market time. Each point positioned on the IT Market Clock represents an IT asset or asset class: for example, desktop PCs, packaged maintenance and support services or corporate learning systems.
Technology assets are positioned on the IT Market Clock using two parameters. The first is where they currently lie within their own useful market life, from the first time the technology product or service can be acquired and used to the last time it can be viably used.
This determines the rotational position of the asset on the Market Clock – each begins at 0 (called ”Market Start”), and moves clockwise round to 12 o’clock.
The second is relative level of commoditisation, ie the ease with which the technology product or service can be interchanged with alternatives. Relative commoditisation determines the distance from the centre of the Market Clock; assets further from the centre are more commoditised.
Commoditisation is a proxy for the balance of market power between buyers/users and suppliers. For most asset classes, relative commoditisation levels begin low, increase steadily as the market matures and then decrease again toward end of life.
The IT Market Clock is divided into quarters, each representing one of four market phases of the useful market life of an IT asset.
The Advantage quarter represents the first stage of market life, during which technologies are often proprietary or highly customised and assets provide differentiated technology, service or capability.
There will usually be limited supply options and high dependence on relevant skills. Users should focus on benefits received.
Choice is the second phase of market life, during which technology assets are subject to increasing levels of standardisation and growing supply options. Users should re-evaluate the level of required customisation, prices and supply choices periodically as assets in this phase offer the greatest scope for cost savings.
The Cost quarter is the third phase of market life, during which assets reach their highest levels of commoditisation. Differentiation between alternative sources is at its minimum level and competition centres on price. Users should focus on acquisition and switching costs and ensure minimal skill-set dependencies.
Replacement is the final phase of market life, during which assets begin to move towards end of life, usually because they comprise legacy technologies, services or capabilities.
Supply choices and access to available skill sets will be decreasing, leading to rising operational costs. Their retirement or upgrade is essential. User organisations need to monitor operating costs for IT products and services in the disfavoured phase of their market life.
Operating costs rise toward end of market life, highlighting a growing urgency for retirement or replacement. For example, the skills needed to support and maintain mainframes and business applications at end-of-life are in increasingly short supply.
Suppliers and buying organisations can move to offset these issues during the Replacement phase, as, for example, has happened in the UK, with leading financial institutions encouraging universities to place Assemble and Cobol (which is now 50 years old) back on their curriculums.
But while such moves can alleviate immediate problems, each initiative to extend useful life typically comes at higher cost.
Moreover, as more companies move off legacy technologies, the burden of responsibility for maintaining associated skill sets falls to a diminishing number of organisations. The marginal costs of continuing to use technologies as they approach the end of their useful lives will increase.
With a holistic decision framework, user organisations will be able to manage their asset portfolios proactively and determine the right time to adopt and deploy emerging or adolescent technology options, establish road map plans for replacement and upgrade of existing technology assets, and perform reviews with suppliers for best saving opportunities.
Although such a framework is focused on technology assets, the same approach could also be extended and applied to any class of business assets.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009. Print a single copy of this article for personal use. Contact us if you wish to print more to distribute to others.
By Brian Gammage, vice president and Fellow, Gartner
Published: November 26 2009 16:15 | Last updated: November 26 2009 16:15
IT is no longer an emerging set of capabilities and markets – it is a maturing business tool and must be managed as such.
Although new capabilities continue to appear in the market, their adoption and use require them to be integrated into a portfolio of existing IT assets, many of which are already mature.
Some IT assets are no longer required, or no longer deliver sufficient business value to justify the costs of maintaining them. Usually, working to budget means new IT products and services can only be adopted if existing IT assets are retired or replaced.
Every IT product and service has a finite useful life and must eventually be retired or replaced. Correct timing of this retirement/replacement is critical.
The second part of useful life, from maturity to obsolescence, must be considered when managing IT assets throughout their whole life cycles. Most organisations require more-holistic mechanisms for planning IT divestment and reinvestment activity.
Gartner’s IT Market Clock is a new framework that supports strategic investment and divestment decisions. Tools and methodologies that focus only on technology adoption are no longer sufficient to support the decisions required to manage portfolios of IT assets throughout their full lifetime of use.
Gartner’s Hype Cycle for example, which the Gartner Market Clock complements, is a buyer’s decision framework for technology adoption, but its view ends when mainstream adoption begins, which typically equates to an adoption level of between 20 and 50 per cent.
Simply, the Hype Cycle supports “technology hunting” decisions, while the IT Market Clock supports “farming” decisions for assets already in use.
The IT Market Clock uses a clock-face metaphor to represent relative market time. Each point positioned on the IT Market Clock represents an IT asset or asset class: for example, desktop PCs, packaged maintenance and support services or corporate learning systems.
Technology assets are positioned on the IT Market Clock using two parameters. The first is where they currently lie within their own useful market life, from the first time the technology product or service can be acquired and used to the last time it can be viably used.
This determines the rotational position of the asset on the Market Clock – each begins at 0 (called ”Market Start”), and moves clockwise round to 12 o’clock.
The second is relative level of commoditisation, ie the ease with which the technology product or service can be interchanged with alternatives. Relative commoditisation determines the distance from the centre of the Market Clock; assets further from the centre are more commoditised.
Commoditisation is a proxy for the balance of market power between buyers/users and suppliers. For most asset classes, relative commoditisation levels begin low, increase steadily as the market matures and then decrease again toward end of life.
The IT Market Clock is divided into quarters, each representing one of four market phases of the useful market life of an IT asset.
The Advantage quarter represents the first stage of market life, during which technologies are often proprietary or highly customised and assets provide differentiated technology, service or capability.
There will usually be limited supply options and high dependence on relevant skills. Users should focus on benefits received.
Choice is the second phase of market life, during which technology assets are subject to increasing levels of standardisation and growing supply options. Users should re-evaluate the level of required customisation, prices and supply choices periodically as assets in this phase offer the greatest scope for cost savings.
The Cost quarter is the third phase of market life, during which assets reach their highest levels of commoditisation. Differentiation between alternative sources is at its minimum level and competition centres on price. Users should focus on acquisition and switching costs and ensure minimal skill-set dependencies.
Replacement is the final phase of market life, during which assets begin to move towards end of life, usually because they comprise legacy technologies, services or capabilities.
Supply choices and access to available skill sets will be decreasing, leading to rising operational costs. Their retirement or upgrade is essential. User organisations need to monitor operating costs for IT products and services in the disfavoured phase of their market life.
Operating costs rise toward end of market life, highlighting a growing urgency for retirement or replacement. For example, the skills needed to support and maintain mainframes and business applications at end-of-life are in increasingly short supply.
Suppliers and buying organisations can move to offset these issues during the Replacement phase, as, for example, has happened in the UK, with leading financial institutions encouraging universities to place Assemble and Cobol (which is now 50 years old) back on their curriculums.
But while such moves can alleviate immediate problems, each initiative to extend useful life typically comes at higher cost.
Moreover, as more companies move off legacy technologies, the burden of responsibility for maintaining associated skill sets falls to a diminishing number of organisations. The marginal costs of continuing to use technologies as they approach the end of their useful lives will increase.
With a holistic decision framework, user organisations will be able to manage their asset portfolios proactively and determine the right time to adopt and deploy emerging or adolescent technology options, establish road map plans for replacement and upgrade of existing technology assets, and perform reviews with suppliers for best saving opportunities.
Although such a framework is focused on technology assets, the same approach could also be extended and applied to any class of business assets.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009. Print a single copy of this article for personal use. Contact us if you wish to print more to distribute to others.
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