Happy Holidays from Enterprise3

We will be taking some much needed time off for the holidays. We'd like to thank you for your readership and we encourage you to check back with us next year for more innovative thought, perspective and news surrounding the world of Enterprise.

We wish you a joyous holiday season!

Google's Native Client

Google's Native Client (a new open-source technology designed to complement JavaScript, Microsoft Silverlight, Adobe AIR and Flash) is geared to address the security issues inherent in leveraging native computer code in application development, helping Google bridge the performance gap between Web and desktop applications.

We see that the future will be about computers that are "clients" - pretty basic computers with small or non-existant local storage, plugging into web apps--

Netbooks are seen as a first step to that... everyone will be using apps online, etc. etc.

Now that Google has Google docs and shareware, this is the next step--but will it work?

Check out eWeek's coverage here.

Understanding CLOUD Computing

CLOUD computing can be seen as:

Common
Location-independent
Online
Utility provisioned on-
Demand.

We've covered this in the past, but I think its important to bring up and companies are searching for new ways to cut costs with enterprise computing. What do you think? A way that completely carries applicatons outside of the computer hardware--will this catch on? We'd love to hear your thoughts.

Angsuman Chakraborty's Enterprise Blog covered this as well, and the article can be seen in Ajax World Magazine.

Social Media Today: Getting Started with Enterprise Social Networking

A few great tips for starting an enterprise social networking system, thanks to headshift at Social Media Today.


Social reading and writing.

Social search and expertise location.

Social networking for collaboration.

Social networking for key client relationships.

Unified messaging.

Harnessing attention metadata.


For the rest of this article, please click here.

Barclaycard hails success of adverts across MSN portals

More than 4.6m unique users visited a Barclaycard website as part of a major push via Microsoft Advertising's first 'two-screen' takeover campaign.Barclaycard ran a major campaign to promote its contactless payment service for two weeks in November, using Microsoft Advertising's MSN Live fixed and mobile portals.The campaign was the first home page takeover across both portals and generated strong results for the brand. The site attracted 4.6m unique users and 102,000 played the related...

For the rest of this article, please click here.

Dell in Leaders Quadrant for Midrange Enterprise Storage

From Welt Online:

Research and advisory firm Gartner Inc. positioned Dell in the "Leaders Quadrant” of its Magic Quadrant for Midrange Enterprise Disk Arrays, 20081 report, Dell announced today.

Do you think that Dell is a leader? We'd like to hear your thoughts.

Read more here.

Sybase Wins Big at MobileVillage Awards

From MarketWatch:

Sybase, Inc. the largest enterprise software and services company exclusively focused on managing and mobilizing information, today announced that four of its innovative solutions received three Gold and one Silver Mobile Star Awards(TM) from MobileVillage(R), a leader in advancing mobile and wireless technology for enterprises and professionals.

This year's Mobile Star Awards winners can be found online at http://www.mobilevillage.com/awards.htm.

For more information or to read the MarketWatch article, please click here.

Internetnews.com: SSD's Next Home Could Be Enterprise Storage

Ran across this nifty article today in InternetNews.com.

The mobile market was an ideal launch point for the advent of solid state drive (SSD) technology because every one of SSD's strengths hit a point of need in mobility: they run cooler and faster than HDDs, they're smaller and draw far less power.

Because prices are coming down, people are now looking to replacement drives to store their data--hm.

What do you think? How will people store data in a cost effective way?

To view the rest of the article please go here.

GMail becomes enterprise friendly

A recent article at eWeek looks at how GMail has taken a turn to become an enterprise tool. Some relatively new items that are featured in GMail are:

-Google calendar
-Docs gadgets
-Alerts from calendars
-G Chat available on cell phones

Read the article here.

Tripwire Chosen for Oregon County Schools

Marketwatch

Tripwire, a leader in configuration assessment and change auditing for physical and virtual environments, today announced that Gwinnett County Public Schools has selected Tripwire Enterprise to help it ensure control of IT configurations across its systems. Gwinnett's IT team selected Tripwire Enterprise to ensure system availability and compliance to its change control processes.

"Gwinnett County citizens highly value the important role education plays in building a thriving, diverse community and strongly support the school system's pursuit of excellence," said Scott Futrell, CIO at Gwinnett County Public Schools. "For this reason, we chose Tripwire as our de facto standard for ensuring our IT systems attain and retain a known state. Tripwire has helped Gwinnett improve our change control processes, effectively supporting administrators, teachers and students in their pursuit of excellence in education through optimal system availability and reliability."

Tripwire Enterprise provides Gwinnett Public Schools with the ability to detect unauthorized changes to its systems, helping its IT staff to proactively avoid unplanned downtime. Gwinnett County IT staff was particularly interested in Tripwire's support for Active Directory and the ability to monitor it for changes. Undesired changes to directory services can cause serious problems including logon failure and account lockout, security and compliance-policy breaches, application failures, and service outages.

Read the rest of this post here.

Top 10 Green Gadgets for Your Office

Check out this great post over at Silcone.com, that details the must-have green gadgets for your office. Not only are these smart inventions earth friendly but they may save your company on yearly energy costs--and costs savings are where its at these days!

Our personal fave, is this nifty mobile charging unit that uses solar energy to recharge your gadgets.

Hard news from inside the company

In these hard economic times, many companies are forced to cut back. However, many of them are looking to break the news in a more personal way by blogging them. The New York Times ran a story today. Many companies are taking their time to write their story down, as many employees take time to use Twitter and blogs to share their thoughts.

One example is Cake Financial:

Steven A. Carpenter, chief executive of a two-year-old investing advice site, Cake Financial, had blogged about the company’s new weekly video show and its move to new quarters in San Francisco. On Oct. 19, the night before he laid off 30 percent of his employees, he wrote a post about the cutbacks.

The next morning, he met with the six employees he was letting go. Afterward, he clicked the button to publish his post about the “extremely sad day for all of us who have to say goodbye to a group of great people.”

“Our whole company is built on the idea of transparency in investing, so that was a reason why it was important for us to do it,” Mr. Carpenter said in an interview. He also wanted employees and outsiders to know they were each getting the same version of the story. “It let them know what we were up to in real time, so they didn’t get nervous about what was going on,” he said.

Enterprise 2.0 Tool Success

In a continuation of yesterdays post, this article from ZDNet provided an informative graph from the Forrester research report regarding the future of Enterprise 2.0. The graph depicts the success level of various forms of Enterprise 2.0, as well as how long each form will take to have an impact. As the graph shows Social Networks, and Wikis have the highest success level, especially between between the survival and growth phase. For more analysis check out the post at ZDNet.

Enterprise 2.0 Industry Reports

The Enterprise 2.0 market is expected to reach $4.6 billion by 2013. Other predictions as mentioned in ReadWriteWeb,

-predicts that social networking tools and internal wikis "will have the greatest impact on workplace collaboration"
- expects enterprise microblogs to "become a feature, not a standalone product category"
- enterprise 2.0 apps will fall dramatically in price
- "cultural resistance" to social networks will "eventually break, allowing workers to connect with like-minded colleagues and enabling a collaboration channel that previously didn't exist in the enterprise."

To see all of the expected changes in the enterprise 2.0 market check out the report here.

Enterprise Software Purchasing

This new post from ZDNet proves enlightening on the subject of enterprise software purchase. The author of the post, Michael Krigsman, quotes Barry Wilderman, VP of Business Strategy at Lawson Software, regarding points to cover with software vendors. Krigsman summary of these points, that you may also find useful, are:

1. Software license fees: A negotiated fee often involves a certain cost/named user. It is important to understand the relative usage by named user (e.g., the heads-down transaction user, the decision maker/reporting user, the self-service user) and the value that each user will deliver to the company deploying the system. An understanding of value, when the value will be delivered, and a comparison to total cost of ownership are all critical to making the right decision about software fees.
2. Implementation fees: Expect to pay one to four times the cost of the software in implementation fees. And, even if you buy third-party professional services, a best practice is to have the ERP vendor as a subcontractor (at least 20 percent).
3. Maintenance fees: This represents a significant charge – often about 20 percent of your original software charges. Make sure you are getting the kind of support you need.
4. Upgrades: How often do these upgrades occur? (A good rule of thumb is every three to four years.) What has been the history of upgrades over the past five to 10 years? Relative to the cost of going live with the software, how expensive were the upgrades to implement?
5. New modules: If the software vendor invents something, is it part of your maintenance agreement, or is it a new product for sale? Ask the vendor to show you all the new modules implemented in the past five years.
6. Post go-live sales, services and care: What are your expectations after you go-live? Do you want the vendor to have a keen understanding of your original pains and goals? Will they know enough about you to really help?

Shaking Things up With Alfresco Enterprise 3.0

Paula Rooney writes in this post on ZDNet that Alfresco will be releasing a major upgrade to its current enterprise content management system, Alfresco Enterprise 3.0, which will have many new collaboration features and services.

It is due to be released on Halloween, and it will feature Share which is a collaborative content solution that makes capturing, sharing, and accessing information across virtual teams much simpler. It will also offer support for CMIS specification as well as the Microsoft Office Sharepoint Protocol. It will be interesting to see how the enterprise will respond to Alfresco’s latest offering

LinkedIn Launches “Enterprise” Applications

Larry Dignan posted today on ZDNet that LinkedIn has recently unveiled its application platform where it allows developers to offer business-oriented software. But unlike Facebook that provides many time-wasting apps and games, LinkedIn will provide a bigger focus on business essentials.

LinkedIn will be handpicking the applications that will be available on the platform. For now, some of the developers include Amazon, Box.net, Google, Huddle, Six Apart, SlideShare, Tripit and WordPress. Although a lot of these applications are not completely focused on the enterprise, it’s off to a better start. I’m interested to see what the next couple of months will hold in store for apps on LinkedIn.

Small Business Owners and Social Media

This afternoon I came across this post on ZDNet which discusses the findings of a recent survey conducted by online payroll service SurePayroll. According to this survey, 55 percent of 120 small businesses surveyed believe that online social networking like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter are extremely beneficial to their business. One of out 5 businesses surveyed even mentioned that they have gained at least one new customer because of social media. Interesting stats…

Even smaller companies are beginning to discover that social media is not just only for personal use; it is a must for business success. The survey provides information on small businesses reaching a customer base through online communities, but where are the stats for benefits for small businesses on using social media internally? Does anyone have any input on the usage of enterprise 2.0 in small companies?

SOA Predictions for the New Year

Every year David Linthicum at InfoWorld makes his SOA predictions for the upcoming year (which he claims to be 90% right in the past few years). As detailed in this post on InfoWorld, here are his predictions in SOA for 2009. Do you agree?

1. The interest in cloud computing will drive many enterprises toward SOA.
2. The explosion in PaaS (platform-as-a-service) will leave many enterprise architects and CIOs scratching their heads.
3. The economy will recover, but most enterprises out there will focus on cost reduction.
4. There will be a larger focus on inter-domain SOA technology, or highly scalable and secure middleware technology that will provide scalable service and information access between the instances of SOAs within the enterprise, and
5. Jig will be up for poor SOA governance solutions out there.
6. Most failed SOA projects will be traced to unqualified SOA architects.
7. SOA the buzzword will become a bit less relevant and will begin to morph with concepts, such as enterprise architecture and cloud computing.

FriendFeed testing enterprise friendly function

At ZD Net, they talk about the new beta project FriendFeed started using this week. This new feature will allow new notes to be updated in real time.

The real-time feature is continually connected to FriendFeed’s servers, so that when a person posts an update in main stream or room it updates automatically in, well, real-time. It’s a bit like a chat room except it still aggregates some interesting content such as likes and comments, but it does omit the much-loved threaded conversations.

Read more here. Do you think you could use this in your quest to adapt Enterprise 2.0?

Apple's move into the enterprise scene

Don Reisinger recently wrote an article foreshadowing the possible Apple-takeover in the enterprise computing world. They've been hesitant to enter the market for years, but as he pointed out, a recent report was released about the Enterprise Desktop Alliance. So when will Apple dive into the enterprise world? What do you think?

Reisinger believes that it'll be within the next five years. He believes that the current generation of college students who are Apple "brainwashed" with their iPods, iMacs, iTunes, and iPhones will invade the enterprise thinking that desktops are inadequate and Apples are the only technology that's worth using.

Do you believe this? When do you think Mac will enter the enterprise?

Corporate Social Networks according to Robert Scoble

Ed Cone recently had a chance to sit down with Robert Scoble and discuss where web 2.0 and enterprise 2.0 have taken us today. This is just one of his responses about corporate social networks, but check out the rest here.


"A lot of enterprises are looking outward, at the public. They're customers are moving to Twitter, and they're trying to learn how to do it. Some are doing it effectively. Zappos has 400 employees on Twitter. H&R Block talked to me on Twitter while I was doing my taxes -- I twittered that I was at HYR Block getting my taxes done, someone at the company was watching for their name on Twitter, and they wrote back to say, let me know if you need anything. this was while I was in the office. It was more brand building than tax advice. It was the fact that somebody was listening. She was linking to anyone talking about taxes, starting a conversation with them about taxes and H&R Block."

"In terms of internal use of social nets, I just spoke to Cisco's employees. They asked how to use social media, office 2.0, collaborative stuff. I said, My first thought every morning would be, how do I get rid of the email? The crowd cheered. I thought, there's pain here. I touched a nerve."

"I left behind a gig and a half of email when I left NEC - I couldn't look at it, and they erased it. My former coworkers couldn't use that knowledge. A collaborative toolset helps to get information out of email into the shared social space. Sharepoint and others are working on that problem. You see productivity benefits. Now people can see where you are going, make suggestions on who to call there.

Egnyte a new way to embrace Enterprise 2.0

In a recent article published by ZD Net, they take a look at a new software that can help small companies adapt to enterprise 2.0. Some of the benefits it offers are: on demand infrastructure with increased mobility, web 2.0 sharing, virtual collaborative teams and on demand storage.

ZD Net said this about the software:
Egnyte is primarily an on-demand file server. In an ordinary on-site enterprise you’ll get sharing issues, backup issues and disaster recovery, security flaws which need patching, remote access violations and all other kinds of crap a workplace doesn’t need.

For more information, read the article here.

Web Seminar: "Core Concepts to Portal Strategy"

We invite you to watch the archived version of our webinar "Core Concepts to Portal Strategy". This webinar discussed portal strategy whether you are deploying a portal for the first time, will be upgrading to a new software version, or deciding if an enterprise portal is right for your organization. The main takeaways from the presentation are:

• Understand the primary topics involved in developing an effective portal strategy
• Information architecture as it relates to document libraries and site navigation
• Relationships between portal security, content management, and governance
• Developing consistent page layouts and iterative development
• Training and communication best practices

Watch the web seminar here: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/434218814

Near-Time Updates for Enterprise 2.0

In a recent article from MarketWatch, they announced that Near-Time has made updates to their enterprise 2.0 hosted collaboration service. The focus of the update was to combine social networking, content, and collaboration technologies. As CEO of Near-Time, Reid Conrad, explained:

"With this update, we bring the most engaging aspects of social networking and knowledge discovery into what was already the most robust on-demand collaboration solution in the marketplace. Near-Time brings social context and content together in the most agile Enterprise 2.0 platform in the market.We enable customers to transcend silos of information and achieve seamless interaction, knowledge sharing and social discovery."

Enterprise 2.0 Tools Will See Price Drop

Forrester analyst G. Oliver Young, in a new study, has indicated that the cost for business web 2.0 tools will decrease over the next five years. Price drops will be seen across the board for "blogs, wikis, social networking tools, and enterprise RSS." The sole exception is mashups, which Young predicts the cost will double. As quoted from the study, and reported in this article, the reason for the trend is that:

"Traditional software vendors have moved aggressively in the direction of web 2.0 software; however, few are offering standalone products. Instead, most, like Microsoft and SAP, are rolling web 2.0 features into existing software packages; in many cases, they are providing the technology at no extra cost...many will make use of them and offset another purchase in the process."

Enterprise Search Merged with Business Intelligence

Enterprise search and business intelligence are two enterprise concepts that people still do not quite fully understand. I came across this podcast on eWeek in which Mike Vizard talks to Sid Probstein, the CTO of Attivio, about the importance of harnessing search technology within the context of a business intelligence application. Take about 15 minutes to listen to this informative podcast.

Listen here.

Enterprise 2.0: Is it about Groups or the Individual?

Michael Idinopulos’s latest post on Transparent Office compares two different responses about Enterprise 2.0 adoption.

One of the statements being compared is from Stowe Boyd’s post:

I disagree with the notion that Enterprise 2.0 is about groups not the individual. On the contrary: Web 2.0 is based on the person and personal relationships in networks, not group membership.

The 2nd post compared is from Michael Idinopulos himself:

Enterprise 2.0 posits the group as the primary unit of activity; email posits the individual

What’s your take on it? Is enterprise 2.0 about the group or the individual?

BlackBerry Goes Touch-Screen

Larry Dignan gives us several reasons why the release of RIM’s Storm, a rival to the iPhone 3G, is so important to the market in his latest post on ZDNet. Here they are:

Why is the Storm important?

• RIM can use the Storm to rally telecom carrier support–especially among those left out of the iPhone launch.
• The Storm will define how RIM is viewed among consumers.
• The Storm may be able to thwart any enterprise momentum gained by Apple’s iPhone.

Will the release of the touch-screen Storm stop executives from asking IT for iPhone support on the corporate network? Only time will tell what effect the RIM Storm will have on enterprise practices.

IBM is Bringing Business Networking Closer with Bluehouse

This post on ComputerWorld discusses how IBM has released Bluehouse, which merges social networking features with business collaboration tools. At first, Bluehouse will be free during the initial beta period, after testing has ends the SaaS product will be subject to subscription pricing, which has not been determined yet.

Like Facebook, Bluehouse will combined many collaboration tools such as instant messaging, document sharing, profiles, and tools to build business networking opportunities. One thing that will be different from Facebook is that Bluehouse has management features to help ensure privacy, and this is a feature that businesses have been looking for. Sean Poulley, vice president of IBM's online collaboration services seems to think that the current economic situation will encourage consumers to adopt SaaS with its subscription model. What are your thoughts?

Windows Vista: An Enterprise Failure

Windows Vista has never been viewed as reliable by the public eye and also by enterprise professionals. So why exactly did Windows Vista fail? I came across this post on ZDNet that lists the top five reasons why Windows Vista was not an enterprise success. Here are the reasons:

5. Apple successfully demonized Vista
Over the past 2 years, Apple has changed the perception of Windows Vista to be buggy, boring, and difficult to use. Only recently has Microsoft responded with the “I’m a PC” campaign to empower the brand image.

4. Windows XP is too entrenched
By the year 2008, over 1.1 billion PCs worldwide and over 70% were running Windows XP. Windows XP was the most widely used operating system in the world and this would prove to be a lot of work for IT departments to consolidate.

3. Vista is too slow
Windows Vista has over 50 million lines of code, and so this software bloat would slow down computers running on Vista even if PCs had the latest and fastest hardware.

2. There wasn’t supposed to be a Vista
After the release of Windows 95 and 98, Microsoft was looking to step away from its traditional business model and start offering subscription services to consumers. It quickly abandoned this business model.

1. It broke too much stuff
Windows XP caught on quick because it was compatible with nearly everything. When Vista was released, a lot of existing hardware and software were not compatible with it.

Enterprise 2.0 could be the answers in today's stumbling economy

Recently at ZD Net, they emphasized the importance of Enterprise 2.0 tools in the volatile economy we are experiencing today. These tools an extra edge for companies that are capital-conscious.

This next generation of companywide synergy between agile systems will be key to a coherent management structure that considers enterprise 2.0 applications to be at the heart of global business efficiency rather than just multiple support tool adjuncts on the periphery.

Do you think your company will begin to depend on these tools? Which tools in specific?

Coldwell Banker embraces IPhone

Yesterday, we talked about how Nokia is turning their focus to syncing Smartphones to collaborate. In this recent article at Read Write Web, they talk about another company who has embraced the Smartphone revolution. Coldwell Banker, despite the woes on the housing market, have launched a new online version of their website for the iPhone. In this new platform, users are able to search for both homes and home values in real time. Upon reaching the Coldwell Banker website on the iPhone, users are automatically directed to the designed iPhone site.

Even in this time of economic hardship for the housing industry, this company is finding a way to cater to their customers and embrace the new type of enterprise that is rising.

How to Improve Enterprise Technology Projects

In this complimentary webinar, Jack Bergstrand, CEO, Brand Velocity, and Terry Assink, Group President, Brand Velocity, share Best Practices to Ensure your Enterprise Technology Projects are a Success. This free webinar will take place on Thursday October 2nd from 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM EDT. Mention priority code G1M2014W2BL when registering. Here’s the description for the webinar:

Facing such historical economic hard times, senior management is looking to the IT departments and business to work together to produce more measurable and innovative ways to streamline and enhance processes that will make a positive impact to the bottom line. And where IT can not contribute to a positive business outcome, the pressure is mounting to cut costs.

Unfortunately, most organizations consider their Enterprise project launches unsuccessful and non-technical business issues cause 70 percent of large enterprise technology projects to fall behind or fail completely. It is critical to rapidly identify and overcome these issues.

Executives and board members need a faster path to enterprise technology project success. Enterprise projects can be improved and accelerated using a different approach.

Jack Bergstrand and Terry Assink will share their expertise to help you and your team gain more insight to the following:

• What is the failure rate of large Enterprise technology projects?
• Who are the major players involved in a company’s technology project?
• Why do large technology projects go wrong so often?
• How can board members and CEOs recognize early warning signs that a large technology project will go or is going off track?
• What should the CEO and Board do to steer the technology project back on course?

Register for the free webinar here.
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/625744907

Smart phone is now main focus at Nokia

Nokia recently decided to drop its work with enterprise email and work with partners such as Microsoft, Cisco, and IBM to focus on collaboration between smart phones and enterprise platforms. The plan was mapped out at EWeek.

Niklas Savander, Nokia's executive vice president for services and software, had this to say abou the new focus:

"Together with them, we will use our expertise in devices, as well as the combined channel footprint and customer base, to deliver a range of unbeatable end-to-end offerings for business."

The next James Bond on Facebook?

We've seen a growing trend lately in how web 2.0 tools can be beneficial to recruiting the right people for your organization. Now, one more organization is finding its new workers through the net. In a recent article at CNet, we find out that MI6, the UK's Secret Intelligence Service, is using the networking tool to recruit their next generation of spies.

As the article points out, the job ads placed are relativly simple. Copy used in one says: "Time for a career change? MI6 can use your skills. Join us as an operational officer collecting and analysing global intelligence to protect the UK."

David and Goliath

I came across this post on ZDNet discussing how with giants in the enterprise 2.0 industry such as Oracle, is it possible for smaller startups that want to enter the fray now to succeed. I personally thought this was thought provoking since in America, many of us want to believe that it is the land of opportunity where anyone can succeed. As the author of the post recants about the enterprise 2.0 industry however,

"These are areas in which many of the startups simply cannot compete. Don’t get me wrong, there is always room for innovation. I myself work for a company that wins daily against the giants of the network security industry. I want the “little guy” to win. But is it probable?"

What do you think? Do you think in the enterprise 2.0 industry full of Giants, is it possible for little guys to succeed.

Cisco Focuses on Business Users Collaborating

Cisco, as announced in this WSJ article, that they will be releasing several new tools and products with the aim to help business users collaborate more effectively. The company has predicted that this market is worth $34 billion, and as such with this announcement, hopes to reel in a chunk of it. The start of their entry into this market space began with their acquisition of WebEx, and along with the new releases and updates to existing products, Cisco will be facing existing industry heavyweights including Microsoft and Google. Regarding this entry into a new market, the WSJ article reports:

“The offerings include Cisco WebEx Connect, an online service designed to integrate tools such as instant messaging and Web conferencing with conventional business software and newer Internet applications such as blogs and wikis, which are collaborative Web sites.”

Oracles New Enterprise 2.0 Platform: Beehive

Oracle announced their new enterprise 2.0 platform, Beehive, at their developer’s conference. This has been a 3 year “communications middleware project” created solely by the company as reported in this article from Social Computing Magazine. The purpose behind this project was to create a platform to integrate communication and collaboration within the enterprise. As the article comments, the benefits that this new platform provides includes:

- Secure Communications - Full-featured Web conferencing, instant messaging, e-mail, calendar, and team workspaces based on a unified information model and centralized security.
- Integrated Collaboration - Standards-based, hot-pluggable architecture enables organizations to embed collaboration tools into existing business applications and processes.
- Increased Security and Compliance - Built-in security including verifiable deletion, auditing, policy management, and encryption.
- Lower Total Cost of Ownership - Works with existing collaboration clients and servers on Windows, Linux, and Solaris platforms and can be deployed on premise or through Oracle On Demand.

Currently Oracle Beehive is available for a free 30 day trial.

Instant Messaging in the Enterprise: Is it Finally Here?

There has been some recent hype this past week about the Cisco’s latest purchase of Jabber, a tech startup that enables real-time text and VoIP communication over the internet.

This post on Telecommunications Industry News discusses how Cisco will be able to embed certain messaging features into its collaboration products such as the WebEx Conference system and Cisco Unified Communications. Instant messaging has long been banned by many corporate offices across the US, but could this new acquisition be the changing factor in the adoption of IM in the enterprise?

Web 2.0: An Asset and a Liability

There is a reason why companies are still hesitant in adopting web 2.0 technology within the enterprise. This post on ZDNet discusses how even though there is potential ROI from using social media in organizations, there are also pitfalls.

Security remains the main reason why companies are still skeptical. Information can still be breached if there is not a secure enough server, and for companies this can lead to malpractice and lawsuits. Privacy issues will play a major factor in the adoption of social media in the enterprise.

The Case for Collaboration

The latest post on ComputerWeekly.com makes the case that effective collaboration could have saved us from the mess that banking systems are at now. Financial institutions make an effort to analyze risk, and so why not use collaborative technology to aid in this process.

Integration of collaborative portals would given the right people access to the right knowledge, thus improving decision making within all parts of the enterprise. Ian White mentions that people should not ask when and what collaborative technology should be used for, but how can the features of the applications be used to improve the organization.

Enterprise Email is Interesting Again

Early this morning I came across this post from the Collaboration and Content Strategies Blog in which Bill Pray lists 5 reasons why the email market and enterprise messaging is getting interesting again. Here’s a summary of the reasons:

1. Choice – Microsoft and IBM had long dominated this market, but Google, Zimbra, Yahoo!, Cisco, Oracle, and Novell are all playing catch-up to these industry giants. Greater choice will foster more innovation and lower prices.
2. SaaS – Google, Yahoo!, and Cisco are all software as a service offerings for email, and that keeps them interesting. Microsoft and IBM should soon be unveiling something similar to compete with these three companies.
3. Social Software – Social media and software is making email more interesting by providing new ways to collaborate within bigger platforms and networks.
4. Mashups – There are several solutions out there that serves as email aggregators: Zenbe, Orgoo, and Fuser are just a small list of solutions that offer this feature.
5. Legal Decisions – Courts are still deciding and defining the legal status of email used within the enterprise between users. Courts will continue to add complexity to email usage.

Wiggio: Group Collaboration Made Easier

Cnet gives a great review of Wiggio, a web-based collaboration site that was recently released on Monday. This interface was built to get rid of complications associated with group projects.

A big downfall in collaboration software and interfaces is the inoperability and difficult features that less tech savvy employees have a hard time learning. Wiggio’s features, blast test messages, free conference calls, email poll to a group, and asking questions of your choice are all simple and easy to use; thus, it eliminates the long learning process that more difficult applications have.

It will be interesting to see if Wiggio can capitalize on previous mistakes made by group collaboration applications and lead the pack.

CMS Watch Presents Enterprise Portal Marketplace Going Into 2009

CMS Watch in conjunction with the IT & Business Alignment Forum presents a complimentary one hour web seminar presented by Tony Byrne. The webinar Enterprise Portal Marketplace Going Into 2009 will be presented by Tony Byrne of CMS Watch on Thursday September 25^th from 2:00 to 3:00 PM EDT. Don’t miss your chance to view this webinar free of charge, as Tony’s last webinar “Evaluating SharePoint from a Business Perspective” generated a huge response. Here’s a brief description of the webinar:

Enterprise Portal technology underpins many enterprise integration and SOA strategies. However, going into 2009 the portal marketplace is in some flux, as older technologies and platforms become deprecated while new use cases around social computing emerge. Meanwhile, the rise of Microsoft SharePoint has led to divergent reactions among traditional enterprise portal suppliers – like IBM, Oracle, and SAP – while open source portal projects continue to expand vigorously.

Please join noted analyst firm CMS Watch to learn more about where the enterprise portal marketplace is headed so you can carefully plan your 2009 investments in this critical area.

What you will learn by attending:

· How the enterprise portal marketplace is segmented today

· Shifting vendor strategies in the face of SharePoint

· What open source portal platforms bring to the table

· How Portals relate to Enterprise 2.0

· Common enterprise portal use cases

· How to go about selecting the right portal technology

Don’t miss your chance register for the webinar by clicking on this register button below:

https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/875154842

Winner of DemoJam: Enterprise Wide Spell Checking

In Las Vegas this week,SAP hosted their version of American Idol.Encouraging techies to come up with applications to suite the enterprise, seven applications made it to Las Vegas. They were:

- CN Track Inspection System: Canadian National Railways
- Improve SAP Data Quality Using Web-Based User Interfaces with Workflow Approvals and Posting: BackOffice Associates, LLC
- Enterprise-Wide Spell Checking: SAP
- ESME: Enterprise Social Messaging Experiment: Siemens SIS
- Consuming Web Services Using XML Over HTTP: Apple
- ABAP Ninja: Panaya
- iPhone-ize your SAP Data: Xact Soft

In the end, after the fanfare and festivities, Enterprise Wide Spell Checking by SAP won out. For more indepth coverage on the contest, check out ZD Net.

Enterprise 2.0 How To’s

In the past we have brought to you many posts on how to effectively utilize Enterprise 2.0 tools. Martin White provides his take regarding this topic in his paper titled: “Achieving effective Enterprise 2.0”. He comments on a recent survey conducted by the McKinsey that found only 21% of individuals were “satisfied overall with their 2.0 initiatives” and that 22% were “voicing clear dissatisfaction.” Some of the topics that White covers include: making the most of human capital, intranets and Enterprise 2.0, the challenge of social networking, and making Enterprise 2.0 work for you.

Read more here, and let me know what your thoughts are on his views.

Zoho Docs…At it again

Today I came across this post on eWeek which describes how Zoho is beating Google Apps to SaaS file management. Zoho is launching Zoho Docs, which unlike Google Apps, will be able to store files created in Zoho Writer, Zoho Sheets, and Zoho Show.

Zoho is making the productivity experience much easier for users since they can now use an online one-stop storage space for all of their files. Users will be able to edit, collaborate, share all of their files through Zoho Docs. Zoho is definitely giving Google a run for it’s money in Saas productivity apps.

LinkedIn joins forces with CNBC

Recently, CNBC announced its alliance with LinkedIn. This new partnership will allow networking functions to be integrated into CNBC and news and information shared on LinkedIn to create a forum for people to discuss current news with their professional contacts. LinkedIn will remain independent and look to grow their current user base beyond 27 million. LinkedIn will contribute consumer generated content to CNBC such as polls, and LinkedIn will have access to CNBC’s programming, articles, blogs, financial data and video content according to this article at eWeek.

Enterprise 2.0: Interesting Facts

I thought I would post today on this interesting slideshare presentation that I came across titled: Enterprise 2.0 Overview. The presentation covers interesting facts, such as “a new blog is created every second.” In addition, the presentation discovers what they call Generation C, and reminds corporations that it is important to “Implement the technology to create an ecosystem so you can deliver value.” Look over the entire presentation here, and let me know what you think!

Enterprise 2.0 Overview

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: billy middleware)

Microsoft Applications Vs. Google Apps in the Enterprise

A while back, we received a lot of buzz on this post “Microsoft Keeps on Innovating” on our front end of innovation blog. Today I came across this podcast on eWeek in which George Langan, eXpresso CEO, explains why delivering Microsoft productivity applications as a service makes a whole lot more sense in the enterprise when compared to Google applications. The podcast is 15 minutes long. What’s your take on the on-going battle in the enterprise between Microsoft and Google?

Peek brings email to mobile devices for small businesses

Peek is a mobile phone service setting out to capture an untapped portion of the mobile phone market, aiming for the small business wireless market. According to this article at EWeek, they’ll be partnering with Target to distribute this new wireless email device which is low-cost and can satisfy the email side of those working for small business, and do what the Blackberry is doing for the corporate world.

This wireless start up company decided to tap into this market for the amount of customers that haven’t been satisfied yet. Of the 32 million cell phone users, 15 million manage their email over the phone.

When developing this mobile device, Peek came up with and followed these six objectives to better meet the needs of small businesses:

1. low cost

2. wide, color display with high-contrast fonts

3. an easy-to-use QWERTY keyboard

4. easy-to-set-up access to popular e-mail portals

5. well-designed software that gives a good user experience

6. easy to buy

YouTube Exclusively for Business

Amid breaking news on Google Chrome, as we discussed here, you may have missed that the undoubtedly innovative company also launched Google Video for business. This new application allows businesses to have a YouTube like app, exclusively for their use with additional capabilities to limit access. As this article summarizes:

“Google Video for businesses is a new enterprise application that enables messaging and collaboration among employees who require more discretion in sharing video content. Google Video for businesses leverages the cloud computing infrastructure Google employs for YouTube, one of the company's core Web services.”

Also as Matthew Glotzbach, product management director for Google Enterprise, stated:

"Think of it as private-label YouTube for your domain, with security in place so you can control who has access to what video"

With the tremendous influx in messaging, and video as well as file sharing, this new app from Google will help enterprises to feel more secure while still participating in this trend. What are your thoughts on this new application? Are there benefits to be found in this for your organization?

Google Chrome: Enterprise Browser?

There’s been a buzz recently about Google Chrome, the web-browser Google is launching. Larry Dignan poses the question ‘should businesses pay attention to this move’ in this latest post on ZDNet.

It is still unsure how Google Chrome will fit in the enterprise since it is in its early beta stages. Companies will have to keep a close watch in this web browser though, as with all other Google Apps it winds up sneaking into your enterprise somehow. We all readily await the features and perks that Google’s new browser will bring to the table. I’ll be keeping a close watch on its arrival, analyzing whether the browser makes business sense.

The Possibility of Enterprise Collaboration

I found this post today on the “Be the Voice Blog” that has a podcast featuring Oliver Marks. The topic was “Is enterprise collaboration an oxymoron?” The author summarizes these main takeaways.

Summary (Oliver Marks):

- Competitive enterprises fight collaboration. People don’t like each other and they’re competing for funding for their divisions.

- An open internal and external editorial environment is necessary.

- C-level people aren’t reading blogs, but the people they trust are.

- Collaboration projects die because they don’t get the funding or credibility of the organization.

For the full article including a complete description, and to hear the podcast, click here! I hope you enjoy.

The Enterprise: Serious Games?

You might ask what does video games and employee training have to do with each other, and then most likely you would find absolutely no answer for it. I came across this post on ZDNet from Larry Dignan which discusses how Forrester Research seems to believe that ‘serious gaming’ will likely come to an enterprise near us very soon. Here’s the full report from Forrester Research. So what’s the business value derived from video games in businesses?

Forrester notes that serious gaming is being used by emergency responders training through scenarios of terrorist attacks, university staff for its business process management game, and Cisco, Hilton Inn, and Johnson & Johnson to teach things like math, customer service skills, and drug development. Interesting enough, this is what Forrester mentions regarding proving ROI:

How do you prove their business worth and ROI? This is the hardest of the five questions facing serious games. For some games, such as advergames, it’s easy to see the link to ROI: For example, Burger King’s three Xbox 360 titles developed by Blitz Games Studios ranked among the top-selling Xbox games over the winter holidays in 2006 and were credited with the company’s 41% profit increase in its second quarter. However, such a 1 to 1 relationship between a game and a desired outcome is often hard to tease out in something as nebulous as diversity training. And for those deploying games, divining whether their target audience internalized the lesson instead of just becoming good at playing the game is paramount.

What’s your take on enterprise gaming? Is there really any business value to this practice?

The current challenges of enterprise 2.0

In a recent article at Read Write Web, they take a look at the current structure of the enterprise and how Web 2.0 components are going to affect the way it runs. The most interesting part to me was the challenges the current enterprise is facing due to their rigid structures and working for decades in the same fashion.

The current challenges according to Bernard Lunn are:

- Demographic time bomb of retiring baby boomers – Now that this generation has mastered the way the enterprise works, they don’t want to change their ways. There will also be decades of lost information if their knowledge isn’t captured before they retire.

- The difficulty of bringing in Gen Y – This generation has grown up with social media, and they don’t want to conform to the rigid power structures that are given by the enterprises.

- Enterprises are all about security, structure and control – With the incoming revolution of social media, we’re seeing two completely different mentalities. As this type of structure hits the enterprise, we’ll see it make waves as the enterprise tries to adjust to this new social concept.

- Figuring out what is core and non-core is hard – With all of the new components moving into the enterprise, when current careers tend to see that most things are done in house.

Did Lunn leave out any of the challenges your company is currently facing?

Trouble Implementing Enterprise 2.0

This article from Social Computing Magazine raises this interesting point:

“It's not the technology that is the problem with adoption and implementation of Enterprise 2.0, rather is the people, culture and habits we have built up in the workplace.”

The author goes on to mention that she feels that the reason for this normally enterprises have a top down approach, however the whole enterprise 2.0 movement has been one that has come up from “grass roots”. The disconnect comes from the fact that enterprises want to utilize this systems using “order, control, and structure”, which the author argues is the opposite of how the movement was created to begin with. The author fears that without taking into account the principles of “sharing, collaboration, co-creation, and engagement”, the Enterprise 2.0 movement will fail.

What are you thoughts on this authors view? Do you think that many organizations are failing at implementing Enterprise 2.0 systems?

5 Issues IT Want to Address about Enterprise 2.0

The addition of web 2.0 tools and applications in the enterprise has put immense pressure on IT depts that require knowledge of COBOL, C, and other modern technologies. Jeremy Chone lists 5 issues that IT managers and CIO’s should let their staff be aware of before starting a modernization process in this post on ZDNet.

1. There is no history of the code: Since applications have evolved over the years through upgrades and new features, it makes the underlying code behind web 2.0 technologies a bit challenging to fully understand.
2. We don’t know exactly how many applications we have or how they all work together: Applications are being installed, updated, and ran throughout the company without notification of IT. A lot of time is spent maintaining existing codes.
3. We’re actively seeking a new job: IT turnover rate is at an average of 22%. Two factors contribute to a lapse in progress. The younger generation might not be as interested to work on older technologies and 30 percent of the legacy application experts will be eligible for retirement in three years.
4. You can’t prove the ROI: You can not talk in terms such as faster, stronger, and cheaper. You must instead prove that project skills will be enhanced and that the company will save on costs and time by employing before and after metrics.
5. You need to share your vision: IT has front-line knowledge and so being kept in the loop of future plans 5, 7, 10 years down the line can weigh in on strategy.

What other challenges and issues do IT depts face in regards to enterprise 2.0?

New Smart Phone Available

A new phone has come to the business world. We’ve already told you about the importance that cell phones are playing in the growing demand for social networking. E Week recently shed light on the newest Treo Pro to allow us to network, and more, with a new smart phone. Palm, Inc, has developed a new series of phones based on Microsoft Software, and their direct competitor will be Blackberry. New tools on this phone include WiFi, to boost internet speed where reception is low, and GPS technology. Palm, Inc, developed this phone specifically to target the 90% of the market who don’t already have smart phones.

This phone will be carried by Vodafone Group PLS and O₂ in Europe and Telstra in Australia. Although there is currently no US carrier, Palm Inc, expects to see a demand for unlocked phones that will work on any network.

Players Involved in the Enterprise and Web 2.0

I came across this interesting article in the Social Computing magazine on defining various aspects of Web 2.0 and relationships to organizations. Author Susan Scrupski, in conjunction with Jevon MacDonald, have come up with a chart, shown below depicting various individuals roles and their relationship with Web 2.0 and the enterprise.

They continue their explanation beyond this chart and have provided the definitions below on how they view these four interwoven areas:

Digital Marketers: These are the good folks who track what you're searching for and buying on the web. They create digital brand extensions of leading brands and develop imaginative ways to capture your attention online.

Social Media: This group comprises a vast group of players who are exclusively focused on how communications in the interconnected social web impacts influence. Predominantly, the people involved with monitoring social media are involved in marketing communications.

Enterprise 2.0: Within the Enterprise 2.0 area of expertise, whether it's behind the firewall or out on the open Internet, this core area specializes exclusively on delivering a business value via 2.0 technologies.

Mass collaboration: This group is more symbolic of a new way of thinking about collaboration than any specific 2.0 tool. The notion of reaching outside of your boundary (whatever it is) to co-create innovative solutions is key here.

What are your thoughts on their definitions? What are the points that agree or disagree with?

Why does Zoho Compete with Google?

The question of why and how Zoho competes with Google has been asked many times across this industry. Zoho CEO Sridhar Vembu details why Zoho competes with Google in his latest post at the Zoho Blog.

Sridhar includes an excel sheet in his post that lists revenue per employee and profit per employee between companies like Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, Adobe, Google, Yahoo, and eBay to name a few. What this sheet helps show is that all companies fall short of Google’s revenue/profit per employee metrics. Sridhar believes that even though Google has a huge market in the technologies sector, there’s no rational business incentive for Google to actively pursue the business/IT software category. Zoho already has an array of software applications like Zoho Writer, Zoho Sheet, Zoho CRM , Zoho People , and Zoho Mail just to name a few, it will be interesting to see what steps Google might take in the future to involve itself more heavily in the business software market.

What’s your take on it?

Databases moving into the clouds

According to a new report at Forrester, detailed here at EWeek, cloud databases should be paid attention to and be placed in the enterprise database management system strategies. Some companies have already started to do this, such as Microsoft with SQL Server Data Services, and Enterprise DB, the trend is moving a quick pace. It is believed that with improvements made to this software such as improved data security as well as improved performance, along with increased availability, more companies will turn to databases in the clouds in the future.

Social Networks Made Easy

Six Apart just released Movable Type 4.2 that makes building social networks easy. For corporations, these tools have value since they could be used to create company specific social networks without a hassle. ReadWriteWeb announced that this new product:

“provides DIY tools for building your own social networking platform which includes member profiles, forums, friending capabilities, rating of content, and more”

WordPress, a competitor of Six Apart is also set to launch their own version of this tool, called BuddyPress, soon as well. So, as the article asks:

Is this the future of web publishing altogether?

What are your thoughts on this? Do you think that the ease of these tools will help to introduce more web 2.0 tools into the enterprise?

Is Google Apps Enterprise Ready?

I came across this post on eWeek this morning which gathers insights from different analysts on the idea that is floating around with the recent infrastructure outages from Google Gmail and Google Apps. Does this mean that Google’s software is not yet dependable for the enterprise?

Melissa Webster, an analyst at IDC, mentions that corporate networks, and email systems have outages all the time. Abner Germanow, another analyst at IDC said that in the beginning companies are not too attached to apps, but as time goes by the level of reliability on the application increases as well. The real question lies: Is the application reliable enough to run a business on it? Can your business afford any downtime in case of outages?

Dana Gardner, founding analyst of InterArbor Solutions claims that organizations go through email outages internally regularly, it is just that users from web based apps have higher expectations than those who pay higher for internalized communication systems.

How has the recent outages of Google Apps affected the enterprise and cloud computing realm?

Distinction Between SOA and Enterprise 2.0

I came across this useful blog post that definitively provides an explanation of the distinctions between SOA, and Enterprise 2.0. The two terms are buzzwords currently in business and often times used without knowledge of the exact meaning. I hope post helps you as it did me!

SOA is not equal to Enterprise 2.0. If SOA is the complete architectural transformation to a service based information topology, Enterprise 2.0 is the new method of operating in a fully deployed SOA environment, and the set of modern applications that are largely driven by and controlled by the business. So the deployment of SOA should happen in a series of stages, moving from a core set of technical services upwards to the end vision of a full Enterprise 2.0 set of services.

Implementation of Web 2.0 in the Enterprise

I recently came across this study released from The McKinsey Quarterly titled: Building the Web2.0 Enterprise. The study itself reveals that organizations are using these tools mainly for internal use, change management practices, and organizational structures. Also IT and senior management need to be proponents for these new tools for a company to have any success at implementation.

This post from Social Media discusses the author’s opinions of this study

- Organizations are changing and may look the same externally but will operate very differently on the inside once social technology adoption reaches critical mass (i.e. a majority of employees using these tools for work purposes)

- In the near term, this may be a case where the irresistible force (i.e. web 2.0) meets the immovable object (i.e. senior management). Adoption of social computing correlates higher with younger generations...and Gen Xers aren't yet running Fortune 500 enterprises.

- Marketing, IT, HR, and Finance all need to get along...but any department's role as an order taker will be justified unless it can tie itself to business goals and objectives.

Enterprise is Moving Towards Cloud Computing

With enterprise organizations moving into cloud computing more frequently, Elastra, a startup company that hosts and runs software entirely on the internet, has decided to jump on this opportunity. This latest article in eWeek discusses how customers can save money by renting the computing power necessary to run applications, instead of purchasing their own hardware and software needed.

Kirill Sheynkman, Elastra's founder and CEO mentions:

"Enterprises are moving into the cloud and understand its financial value, but they need software that lets them deploy and manage applications that meet complex requirements."

This is why Kirill has launched the Elastra Cloud Server which allows customers to deploy applications across the internet by simply pointing and clicking their mouse. The startup is being funded both by Amazon.com and Hummer Winblad Venture Partners for a sum of $12 million. Salesforce.com, Yahoo, and Google are among some companies that already run enterprise applications for other organizations. Could Amazon reign on top with its newest cloud computing project?