Karen Hobert's Connecting Dots

IBM's Social Business Gambit

2012-01-25T13:34:00.000-08:00

Although I did not attend the IBM Lotusphere 2012 and Connect 2012 events in Orlando last week, I managed to wake up early enough (I'm in California) to watch the Opening General Session (OGS) and Keynote live-streams. These main "messaging" sessions are IBM's opportunity to tell its customer and partner base how it sees the current communication/collaboration/productivity IT market and what IBM plans to do about it. Largely the message includes a resolute - and not unexpected - re-branding strategy that shifts the discussion away from old themes to contemporary technology for business trends. Once again IBM is trying to keep at the front of the Business IT pack with the hope of driving the market and minds of business buyers. The idea is to start a new game, Social Business, and 2012 is the season opening.

The Gambit

gam·bit (gmbt)
n.
1. An opening in chess in which a minor piece, or pieces, usually a pawn, is offered in exchange for a favorable position.
2. A maneuver, stratagem, or ploy, especially one used at an initial stage.
3. A remark intended to open a conversation.

It's clear that IBM has spent a lot of time considering its Social Business marketing strategy and how to dovetail a re-branding of the increasingly thread-worn Lotus marque. That consideration is showing up as a more focused IBM that is betting on a branding trifecta:

Social: more seamless integration of social tools with productivity tools and enterprise information
Mobile: consistent access and experience on different devices
Connect: information and people through a range of communication and collaboration experience

Not only is this a message customers (i.e., buyers) can hang their hat on, but it's competitively targeted at IBM's rival's weaknesses. This is most evident when looking at Microsoft's 2011 strategy that has been marked by an anemic social message, the inability to disrupt the mobile market (although WM 7.5 is getting some good press traction), and siloed productivity tools.

IBM's gambit includes the sacrificing of the Lotus brand; although not dead yet, it's been relegated to the back-seat with IBM Connections at the driver's seat. Notes Mail, Quickr, and Domino applications are now playing second fiddle to Social Messaging, Content Analytics, and XPages in the IBM Social Business strategy. It's as if IBM went to the spa and came out looking like a teenager.

This isn't all bad but the proof obviously comes in how the strategy attracts customers and if the follow-through and technology meet IBM's ambition. As one attendee tweeted during the OGS: "The geek aspect of all this is great. But will non-geeks embrace the cultural implications of all this?" (@duffbert).

Raising Bars
No matter though, IBM is confident. The teenage awkwardness we've seen at previous Lotuspheres has moved into young adulthood. Although there were some rocky moments - especially around the Websphere versus everything else message - this is not the clumsy and seemingly confused IBM of the past. IBM raised many bars at this year's events that are likely to have a bolstering impact on its customer and partner base. Overall the quality level of the streamed sessions was a step up from events over the last several years.

I am pleased that IBM finally invested in live streaming of important sessions. The insular, "you gotta be here to get it" attitude, was quite frankly insulting, especially coming from a company that sold communications products. It's as if IBM really got what it means to be social. Not only that but also the quality of the IBM web sites for Lotusphere and Connect were easy to navigate and use.

IBM also brought in A-list guest speakers. Instead of parading in partner and customer honchos, although there were some, IBM also invited key industry thinkers and figures such as Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Guy Kawasaki, Manoj Saxsena (OK he's IBM but it's Watson), Bill Taylor (FAST Company). These talks gave the event a world-class feeling with TED-style lectures that inspired discussion on how new technology in business is changing how we do our work.

Lastly, as always, the IBM press and analyst team worked the media. And although there was the usual coverage with press announcements, twittering, and blog posts (ah hem), IBM managed to also get some well-timed ink with attention grabbing headlines, such as: "IBM Gives Birth to the Amazing E-mail-less Man*" (Wired) and "SharePoint is a 'document coffin,' says IBM"(Computerworld).

Game On
In the IBM realm it's "Game On!" challenging competitors to join the scrimmage with IBM's new rules. Now let's see how, or if, IBM's competitors join or if they will start or continue their own game. In competitor's circles IBM Lotus customers have become installed base point fodder as they compete among themselves. Now that the new game has begun IBM needs to stay the course and make sure it delivers quality technology that will strengthen and grow its fan base. Should IBM catch the attention of business customers and revive ties to the IBM brands enough to unsteady the competition then the Social Business gambit may be just what IBM needed.

*Although it's really not true, more like the "amazing e-mail emancipated man"

Not dead yet

2012-01-20T14:29:00.000-08:00

Yesterday's Register article, "SOPA is dead. Are you happy now?" is a sobering - and in my opinion accurate - summary on the need for intelligent Internet piracy discussion between the Tech industry and our government:

Former Mozilla CEO John Lilly captured this best, arguing, "What’s extremely discouraging to me right now is that I don’t really see how we [the tech world and the US Congress] can have a nuanced, technically-informed, respectful discussion/debate/conversation/working relationship."

Instead all we get is the media industries engaging in back room lobbying to get bad bills passed while the tech world shotguns abuse until Congress capitulates. Talk about a dysfunctional relationship.

Hear, hear! It's a must read article, along with this mentioned (and quoted) article by Andrew Orlowski, "White House shelves SOPA...Now what?". To expand the quote:

While the legislation is now moribund, the underlying concerns behind SOPA haven't gone away. No amount of bloviating is going to resolve this. The main provision of SOPA (and PIPA) is website-blocking, which has no friends here at El Reg. But SOPA will return next year, and the year after, until the issues have been tackled head on. The STOP SOPA stickers will return. It's all avoidable and getting quite tedious.

It's true. And it's not just the content industry or legislators that are covering their ears. Orlowski points out how tech is also digging in by avoiding progressive and mutual thinking.

"...if ISPs abided by a clear and open voluntary code to respect creators' rights, which required booting out the few serial offenders; if ad networks refused to support parasitic foreign companies; and if search engines shared revenue with media companies to whence they drove traffic, we wouldn't need new laws...Alas ISPs, service providers and search engines today see only risk in being socially responsible, not an opportunity.

The problem isn't going away and we all have to face it:

As Friday's exasperated joint White House statement points out, the copyright worries are justified, and entitled to some kind of enforcement - they won't go away. A property owner must be able to enforce their property rights, with legal backup, and the effective sort, or the rights become meaningless.

BTW the White House is calling for co-ordinated, voluntary action on everyone's part to combat online piracy. Read the full statement here.

Killing the Killer App

2011-12-14T11:21:00.000-08:00

Here we go again...

The CEO of Atos, Thierry Breton, made recent tech headlines for taking the radical position to ban email at his firm.

I can't help but feel jaded skepticism every time I hear the media exploit this conversation missing the most important point: in business, email is strategic. Email is a vital part of how many organizations communicate internally as well as with clients, customers, partners, and suppliers. We've come to rely on email so much in business that I've had CIOs tell me that they could live without the phone system longer than without the email system.

And we've heard it all. The horror stories of bloated email databases, inboxes that overwhelm users, the horrific ways that email interfaces support collaboration, etc. Rightfully so, users and managers are fed up with all of these issues.

Breton estimates that only 10% of the 200 messages his employees receive on an average day are useful, and that 18% is spam. Managers spend between 5 and 20 hours a week reading and writing e-mails, he says.

A tool that was built to improve productivity has become, perceived or otherwise, a drain on time and resources. A tool that too many of us turn to for all our communication out of convenience rather than how well it is suited to what we need to communicate. Face it, for all the problems, email is generally reliable, personal, familiar, and crosses organizational as well as technical boundaries so users don't have to.

So the headline making comments, e.g., "Should we ban email in the workplace?," do just that, get our attention. But the Atos approach is much more level-headed than the headlines will have you believe. It is one of careful and strategic thought about how we communicate in the workplace.

As email radical thinkers point out that turning off email isn't as easy as flipping a switch or declaring it dead. It is, however, possible to reduce our dependence on email and modify our email behavior so that it remains a useful tool rather than a burden. This weaning can't be done overnight, as Mr. Price, a representative of Atos, admits in a Pat Morrison interview on KPCC:

The original announcement goes back to earlier this year. There were studies done at the time that measured the number of emails that passed between people at that time...to identify the bad behaviors and try to cut those out and improve the way we work...to begin to introduce a rage of tools...that allow people to communicate.

Improving how people communicate, and how email is used in the workplace, requires a strategy. Understanding how employees communicate and collaborate is key to building out a communications and collaboration infrastructure to support the different ways that people communicate. It's not a bout finding a new tool to replace the old one. Mr. Price points out:

A lot of people ask is this about the movement of one technology to another technology? What it is about is finding the right communication medium for the type of communication you want to undertake.

There at better alternatives to using email for different types of communicant and collaboration. companies need to understand how their workers communicate, have a plan, build the infrastructure, and put the support in place for its users. Only then will email be useful and not a burden.

Of course there are many of us for whom this conversation isn't new. But it seems we continue to focus on finding a killer for the "killer app" when what we really need is a strategy for offering the "right communication medium for the type of communication [we] want to undertake."

The Economist's lean-back vs. Lean-froward journalism experience

2011-11-30T11:19:00.000-08:00

Great interview with Andrew Rashbass, CEO at the Economist group, on the key to successful branding of journalism. What I like is the bit about learning the difference between print and on-line, interactive journalism:

...they came to realise that there was a distinction between what he calls the "lean-back, immersive, ritual pleasure" of reading the Economist in print compared to the "lean-forward, interactive" way people used the site.

All I know is that I enjoy both the print and on-line version. There are times when I want to sit back and read and the audio articles are really handy when in traffic and while I'm in the kitchen.

More or Less

2011-11-23T10:29:00.000-08:00

For another tangent that I've always had interest in...designing user experiences. This is a great post on the dangers of complexity in your application designs. The thing to beware of, don't mistake simple design with brain dead design. I see this happening more and more, especially with internet apps and the crutch of "we can release it ad-hoc as new features are completed."

Consider the moaning that gets posted in Facebook status messages when they make seemingly random UX changes. Even the slightest, most subtle change is noticed with resounding hew and cry. Of course Facebook can regress and it's a free service anyway. So all those Facebook users out there feeling like guinea pigs might as well get used to it.

But the lesson for your enterprise-minded and software-for-sale developers there are some good lessons in this article.

Truly exceptional experiences are crafted when complexity is removed whilst the level of power and control is maintained.

Not an easy challenge and requires, dare I say it, planning. But sometimes the best planning isn't enough. You need to assess design all along the development process. Not always easiest on the developers but the best way to ensure adoption and user's preference for your product.

Digital peeping

2011-10-13T11:10:00.000-07:00

A timely article from the Atlantic Wire on government and corporate surveillance of social media. The later half of the article addresses how the Government and our outdated Electronic Communications Privacy Act, circa 1986, opens doors to government entities who want to look at e-mail content, and how service providers comply most of the time:

In the second half of 2010 alone, the government sent 4,601 such requests to Google, who complied 94 percent of the time.

Your Social Media Will be Monitored

Ethics people!

2011-09-02T11:49:00.000-07:00

Apple employees may have trouble keeping corporate secrets in their pockets, but the folks who find obviously confidential stuff seem to face a moral dilemma figuring out what to do with the things they find. A recent Gizmodo post, "Man Get Hard Drive Full of Secret Apple Documents", details how one Apple Store inadvertently gave a customer the store's back-up hard drive rather than a broken hard disk that the store replaced for the customer. Ok, ok, simple or complicated mix-up that can be blamed on "amateur hour" or "lack of adult supervision" at Apple, but the fact that the customer turns around and tries to sell the hard disk to the press is just plain stupid. Really, where are your scruples? Or at very least your sense of avoiding arrest? Semi-Bravo to Cult of Mac for telling the customer the right path, but only after publishing screen shots. Who knows if the right thing was done.

Not Again?!

2011-09-01T13:03:00.000-07:00

Cnet reports that Apple loses another unreleased iPhone. Really? Dunno, something just ain't right.

Social Business #Fail?

2011-08-25T11:52:00.000-07:00

Some very sober points on how Social Business could possibly avoid the fate of Knowledge Management.

The thing that struck me while reading this post is the fact that we seem to be backing into developing tools that really meet the requirements of their users. As my colleague Larry tweeted regarding this article:

"natural collab experience" = support my work-dont just push "social"

Although culture and change management in the enterprise play a factor in the success of collaboration within an organization, I'm also struck by the way social software is being developed in both the enterprise software and consumer spaces. As Ms. Buczek points out, collaboration in business goes beyond the firewall, and those who "get it" are turning to consumer tools to get things done. But while the consumer developers are trying to attract enterprise and figure out the "new e-mail" (which looks a lot like e-mail from 1990), enterprise software vendors are busy trying the reconstitute social media in their own style with a 1990's development model.

And so it goes, the primary ingredients that Ms. Buczek enumerates,

1. Integrated interfaces
2. Cross-organizational interaction
3. Streamlined identity
4. Device agnostic tools

fall by the wayside to serve the bipartisan consumer versus enterprise approach to software development and delivery. As Ms Buczek notes, there are lots of places we can start.

Your new job: maintaining your digital social reputation

2011-06-29T10:51:00.000-07:00

It was only a matter of time that a service would pop up to help employers do background checks on your digital social life. According to a recent Forbes article:

The FTC determined that Social Intelligence Corp. was in compliance with the Fair Credit Reporting Act. This means a search of what you’ve said or posted to Facebook/Twitter/Flickr/blogs and the Internet in general may become a standard part of background checks when you apply for a job.

The firm, Social Intelligence, keeps reports for 7 years for legal reasons but does not reuse them. This apparently allows you to clean up your digital trail. Or maybe you don't have to. I mean if you're a jerk it will come out sooner or later when you show up for work. All this does is make it easier for employers to figure that out before they hire you. Of course I'm waiting for the discrimination suit; which is most likely why Social Intelligence is keeping reports for 7 years. There are reasons why employers can't ask certain personal questions (i.e., your age) in interviews.

It is a good news is that employers need to disclose if they are doing a "social background check". I don't know about you but something about that phrase sounds really wrong. So at least there's transparency and the option to opt out of the check (and likely the job).

Since the checks can only access public information your new job might just be to make sure that privacy settings are always current on your social networks, especially if you're job hunting. The wild card is when someone else tags you or posts about you. Yet another reason to keep tabs on your social tools.

It's not always about being first

2011-05-16T16:36:00.000-07:00

NPR interview with Malcolm Gladwell on innovation. Debunking personal computing myths and how complex innovation is not always realized by the developers. In other words, sometimes it's good to make a good idea better.

BTW if you have a New Yorker subscription you can read the related article "Creation Myth:Xerox PARC, Apple, and the truth about innovation."

Why it makes sense for Microsoft to buy Skype - and why they'll have a very hard time making it their own (Andrew's Blog 05/12/2011)

2011-05-12T12:40:00.000-07:00

A very nice synopsis on the VoIP technology and why Skype works so well.

From a tech perspective, if you start by agreeing that voice and video over the internet is going to be important over the next decade, you're halfway there.

Andrew's bits at the end are very insightful:

What this means for Microsoft

With Skype, Microsoft gets the ONLY successful VoIP alternative that users have accepted, that works through firwewalls, and that can be purchased. Nobody can "own" SIP or h.323. IAX2 solves many of the problems with those other protocols but it's open source. Open source presents many problems for Microsoft because they can't just change it the way they want without sharing their changes and they can't keep competitors from duplicating their work.

Where Microsoft will get into trouble with Skype

While Skype works amazingly well from an end user perspective, that very connectivity presents problems for Corporate firewalls. First, Skype is very hard to block. ...Second, Skype's communication is a kind of peer-to-peer hybrid model. ... If you're using skype, your own system becomes part of the routing network for the global Skype data. Corporations, with their very fast (and expensive) network connections, can accidentally become "Supernodes" on the Skype network ...This kind of connectivity works extremely well in an open and free client for end users, but once Microsoft is behind it, the game changes. ... End users at home are going to resent carrying data for other people in corporations. Changing the connectivity protocols in Skype would be messing with the very thing that makes it successful.

I agree with "but once Microsoft is behind it, the game changes" comment and it will be interesting to see just how that game changes. Breaking out two Skype networks (consumer and corporate) could disrupt the efficiency of Skype today, since corporate "supernodes" are clearly a benefit. How will corporations get behind purchasing a service that uses the customer's network for other customers? Compliance and risk issues come to mind here.

While I "get" that owning all the proprietary, really-good, successful technology is a good thing for Microsoft I'm still curious how Microsoft will take a technology that is based on methodologies and architectures that are the antithesis to the design of most of its corporate technology. Of course there is the Online division, which fits better, but my brain cramp there is that Microsoft spent the last decade streamlining its platforms so they would be ubiquitous in the cloud or on-premise. If Skype only landed in Online then we get an anomaly (let alone the Lync challenge). That's smacks of an IBM Lotus acquisition. Then again, there is the Entertainment division, which I see Skype fitting into nicely.

Why it makes sense for Microsoft to buy Skype - and why they'll have a very hard time making it their own (Andrew's Blog 05/12/2011)

Does Lotus really know? And does it matter? - vowe.net

2011-04-28T11:32:00.000-07:00

The subtext on the product quality in this tread is most interesting to me:

Lotus Connections just became IBM Connections. Sametime may be next. Portal has always been WebSphere. Lotus as a brand has been toned down even at Lotusphere. And business cards now read "IBM Collaboration Solutions".

vowe.net: Does Lotus really know? And does it matter?

Adult Supervision

2011-03-30T09:44:00.000-07:00

Although it should be common sense to most technology firms, especially ones as smart as Google, apparently some adults need to step in and enforce ground rules for privacy. In a fist-time enforcement of the US-EU Safe Harbor Act by the FTC, Google has opted to settle and "put this behind' itself.

The FTC wrote in a statement, "The proposed settlement bars the company from future privacy misrepresentations, requires it to implement a comprehensive privacy program, and calls for regular, independent privacy audits for the next 20 years."

In a contrite but typically obtuse blog post Google apologized for the lack of transparency and promised to do better. There may be no monetary damages (yet), but being grounded for 20 years is pretty significant. It's a strong message to the other kids to start being careful about privacy.

Google's FTC Settlement Over Privacy Breach Makes History

Dee Hock’s 1996 Quote…via Linda Stone

2011-02-13T12:52:00.000-08:00

Succinct food for thought from Linda Stone...

Today, we are Knowledge Workers evolving into Understanding Workers. Understanding Workers use technology to anticipate, judge and act.

Enabling Participation: More Art Than Science (Collaborative Thinking)

2011-01-25T09:36:00.001-08:00

Mike's follow-on post to social media adoption in the workplace. He offers some practical approaches to fostering adoption.

I've argued the degree to which an employee participates above and beyond what their job entails is a daily decision. There are times when we can direct people to communicate, share, and collaborate. We can basically conscript some level of participation based on an employee's role, nature of their work activities, and their expectation of getting something in return (e.g., a good review, being paid, keeping their job). However, as knowledge management strategists have learned long ago, there are limits to what we can command people to do - especially when it comes to what's in their heads, and asking them to volunteer in contexts such as a social network site.Understanding the psychology and sociology behind participation remains largely unknown within the enterprise.

Having personally been involved in delivering collaborative applications for over 20 years and been admonished as a "bad dog" by end user communities that hated it when I said the words "collaboration and sharing," I can say first hand that the way to adoption is a combination of Mike's suggestions. The combination of which depends greatly on the make-up of the company, its culture, its business, and its progressiveness.

I also think for IT there's the high-road lack-of-transparency path. If you've ever seen the IT Crowd you know the deep communication gap is between IT and the user community ("...you don't want to end up in the middle of invalid memory..."). In the end, as Mike points out in his previous post, productivity and technology is not about the technology you deploy or the productivity concept you're trying to improve, it's about getting people to change their habits and creating the net effect of collaboration, communication, social enterprise, fill in the blank. As IT providers we need to become less enamored by our amazingly fun jobs. Yes, for us the end is the technology but for users the end is getting their jobs done with the least hassle. Sometimes leaving out the "you're going to collaborate" or "let's do knowledge management" or "time to be a social enterprise" is your friend. I've found huge success to adoption when I roll up my sleeves and assist users in learning how to use the tools I provide to do their jobs. That goes from the highest to the lowest rankings in the organization.

Enabling Participation: More Art Than Science (Collaborative Thinking)

Changing IT Mindsets From Deployment To Adoption (Collaborative Thinking)

2011-01-24T09:35:00.000-08:00

Hear, hear!

We should not be so enamored by what we think is our current right answer from a technology perspective that we forget the non-technological things we need to enable so that people (and the organization at large) can realize and sustain the value derived from use of the tools.

Within many organizations, the plan-build-run philosophy still frames our view of IT – once a system is implemented (i.e., deployed), the project is “over” – resources are reallocated, budgets are closed out, systems go into some type of maintenance mode or await the next release cycle of new development. We then wait and watch for the results promised by the project (e.g., ROI). Often those results are based on metrics that examine cause-effect impacts and improved business outcomes. We want benefits to be self-evident quickly. We tend to struggle when project results are subjective, can only be inferred, or correlated to improvements that take more time to emerge than anticipated.

Changing IT Mindsets From Deployment To Adoption (Collaborative Thinking)

UPDATE: Improvements to Permissions for Address and Mobile Number - Facebook Developers

2011-01-18T09:37:00.000-08:00

In a later-in-the-night (11:25 PM PT) blog post, Facebook has backed off - for now - on allowing developers to access to users contact information until it makes sure it appeases privacy wonks (like me) and users concerns.

Over the weekend, we got some useful feedback that we could make people more clearly aware of when they are granting access to this data. We agree, and we are making changes to help ensure you only share this information when you intend to do so. We’ll be working to launch these updates as soon as possible, and will be temporarily disabling this feature until those changes are ready. We look forward to re-enabling this improved feature in the next few weeks.

I applaud Facebook's willingness to re-visit a feature and disable it until they have vetted it with their customer, maybe next time they can do it without all the bad media. Of course this is attention getting and in this Web 2.0 world why not just throw it over the fence and see how rabid the dogs are instead of taking a closer look beforehand.

BUT, as I posted yesterday, we all must assume responsibility for the protection of our private information, or a Peter aptly puts it, "we are the IT department of our lives."

I must say things are getting more transparent and the privacy controls on Facebook are starting to be much more useful these days. For more useful info on how to protect your privacy on Facebook go here. To see what types of info an application has access to on Facebook watch this short video on the Application Dashboard.

Improvements to Permissions for Address and Mobile Number - Facebook Developers

Facebook: Now sharing your home address with developers | Technology | guardian.co.uk

2011-01-17T11:49:00.000-08:00

A pretty ominous perspective of recent Facebook API upgrades allowing developers access to more of your private information.

Facebook's future – if it is to meet the increasingly inflated aspirations of its 'incentivised' investors – is to use a combination of its scale and the acres of intimate information it holds about all of us to find the real money in targeted advertising. The strategy is to gradually open our personal data more and more, making open information the norm, desensitising us to any uncomfortable feelings we might have had about our personal data being released into the wild. In a few years, we'll have no qualms at all about getting our home address out there. Perhaps.

This makes Eric Schmidt's comments about being responsible for what we share more prescient. The moral of the story: if Facebook does a crappy job of enforcing access control then bad for Facebook in the long run, but it's more about our minimizing how much we share; basically the providers aren't going to make things private on your behalf. Then again I don't assume that my home address and mobile phone are not private, I'm sure they are on some public directory someplace. It's what my friend Peter O'Kelly calls social media literacy and that we are the IT department of our lives.

Facebook: Now sharing your home address with developers | Technology | guardian.co.uk

Why can't we all just get along?

2011-01-14T11:01:00.000-08:00

I shouldn't be surprised by this comment coming from someone who considers communication in a broadcasting framework but I have to react to the comments that e-mail is "not great for communication" bit. It's not great for broadcast communication or even short messaging (like IM), but it is a perfectly wonderful tool for secure communication of rich content (i.e., more than 140 characters) that is more directed to the needs of the recipients.

Email, Dorsey explained, '[is] not great for communication because it's not focused on the most important thing. The subject is the message, and that's the message. The subject is in the message in the IM. It's bringing the content to you right away.

Sometimes the subject is not the most important thing - except maybe when it has NSFW in it - but subjects like "Talking Points for Today's Meeting" don't communicate the important stuff and I'd really hate to get that info in via IM.

I'm still amazed by the denizens of Web 2.0's urge to kill e-mail. Why? It makes no sense. All information and communication is not meant to be broadcast and shared with the world (this blog post is not one of those cases). Even IM is directed to specific individuals and tends to be pretty private. So why can't we have it all?

Twitter Co-Founder Jack Dorsey On The Power Of Tweets

Burning Question: Why Do Emails Contain Legal Warnings? | Magazine

2011-01-14T10:44:00.000-08:00

Ever wonder how binding those legal disclaimers are at the bottom of corporate e-mails? Not very binding but they may demonstrate intention, which is a stickier wicket.

So why do companies bother? The sad answer is that the verbiage relieves managers’ anxieties about how easily secrets can slip through the digital firewall, even though it does nothing to stop such leaks. But since everyone’s doing it, everyone will continue doing it.

Burning Question: Why Do Emails Contain Legal Warnings? | Magazine

IBM Is (Still) the Patent King in the U.S. [Video] | Fast Company

2011-01-10T13:42:00.000-08:00

Kinda of a fluffy piece about patent trends. Of course anyone who's been employed at IBM knows IBM has always made patents serious business. I wish the article went more into trends in patenting especially with the rise of patent trolling. A couple tid-bits:

In second place in patent growth was Samsung, with 4,551--up 26% on 2009. And while Apple's patent tally only jumped up by 563 new patents, this represents a growth of 94% over the previous year...

IBM's figure last year is 20% higher than in 2009. While that's less than the overall growth of the patent archive--there were 31% more patents added in 2010 versus 2009--it isn't a bad sign for IBM at all, since the 31% growth in patent awards is the largest on record for the USPTO.

IBM Is (Still) the Patent King in the U.S. [Video] | Fast Company

Online impersonation banned starting in New Year - Santa Cruz Sentinel

2011-01-03T11:27:00.000-08:00

An interesting California precedent. Let's see how it ultimately plays out...

Falsely sourced e-mails, tweets and Web posts have become ubiquitous online, and it's not uncommon for someone to create a Facebook or MySpace account in someone else's name. If this is done to 'harm, intimidate, threaten or defraud,' according to Senate Bill 1411, it will be a misdemeanor punishable by up to a $1,000 fine and a year in jail.

Online impersonation banned starting in New Year - Santa Cruz Sentinel

iPad media apps: Stealthed hobbits thwart Google's flaming Eye • The Register

2010-12-17T10:37:00.000-08:00

Really interesting article about how the nascent tablet media applications market prevents web crawling hoarders from knowing what we are reading.

Imagine a Facebook app, a LinkedIn app, and a web world of fleeing newspaper sites as they transform into newspaper tablet apps and vanish from the Google radar. Google, Bing, Yahoo and other search sites and news aggregation sites will get the equivalent of macular degeneration; their web field of view will constrict more and more, affecting their revenue and business models from the media indexing point of view.

So this could be the start of a balkanization of web media and advertising (at very least) with premium information space going to the tablet-based apps. Really interesting times...and maybe a glimmer of hope for the 4th Estate.

iPad media apps: Stealthed hobbits thwart Google's flaming Eye • The Register

The Revolution Will Not Be Twitterized

2010-11-10T14:11:00.000-08:00

I may be a really late in piping in about this Malcolm Gladwell article in the New Yorker, Small Change (Oct 12, 2010). I actually started writing this post and then forgot to finish it. I also decided not to say much at the time it was published to avoid the blogisphere kerfuffle about whether or not Mr. Gladwell dissed social networking sacred cows. Now that some time has passed I want to say that I feel the criticism was unwarranted and that Mr. Gladwell actually did some good in his attempt to set the record straight on the difference between activism and networking.

Yes, Mr. Gladwell comes on strong with the "we seem to have forgotten what activism is" argument. Still the article does a fine job of pinpointing the real value of social networks. That social networks are loose links and are great at creating communities. But if you want to bring that community to action then you need stronger links with clear direction, purpose and leadership, something social networks aren't built to do.

This goes back to an argument I've used many times, decide what you want to do first, then pick the technology that will support it. In other words, communication can be loose or specific, and some ways of communicating are more effective at bringing a group to action over others. The fact that there are new forms of communication does not exclude other forms. The article quotes historian Robert Darnton:

"The marvels of communication technology in the present have produced a false consciousness about the past—even a sense that communication has no history, or had nothing of importance to consider before the days of television and the Internet.”

In my mind this is really accurate and it sets up Mr. Gladwells premise: That there are many forms of communication that hold importance for what it can do for us. Confusing the ability to network more effectively with activism is doing both activism and social networks a disservice. Both have great value in this world but they are not the same thing.

Twitter, Facebook, and social activism : The New Yorker

BBC News - How ID card database will be destroyed

2010-11-10T08:47:00.000-08:00

Meanwhile, back in the States we're handing out our personal information (address, date of birth, credit card info to match our official IDs) to every airline we book a flight on. Who knows how many files, machines, databases that info lands in.

This BBC article demonstrates the difference in attitudes toward privacy in the England versus here in the US. When it comes to destroying personal data the government takes personal data destruction seriously. As one document explains what the British government needs to do to destroy personal information it collected for an ID card system that is now discontinued:

It reads like a toxic waste disposal log, as any machine that has ever come into contact with the personal details contained on the database is either cleansed of its contents or fed into the shredder.

I was talking with a friend form England the other day about this situation. In England there is no assumption of privacy - given all the cameras and surveillance going on there - but they demand (legally) that collected information be treated as private and must be destroyed when it is no longer needed. In the US it's more the opposite. We assume privacy (undeservedly) and feel that if we aren't overtly being watched then the information isn't being collected. Yet we do not demand that the information be treated as private and who knows how it is managed or where it ends up.

BBC News - How ID card database will be destroyed

Dawn of a New Day « Ray Ozzie

2010-10-25T18:48:00.000-07:00

I finally had some time today to read - with full attention - Ray Ozzie's Dawn of a New Day memo. I'm sure you've seen this floating around today, especially if you hang around the tech world of Lotus and Office. I actually had a few reactions that may be different from the rest of the blogisphere:

Its is increasingly clear the commoditization of devices (the PC-less future) is boiling down to the individual and will get harder for the enterprise (maybe not the small business) to navigate. Good news for Apple. The real Steve Jobs seems to get this, and the numbers seem to prove consumer markets are big money. See the blog posts I made on Friday about iPad apps traction and Apple deprecating Java (if you haven't already).
The birth of a new meme, "continuously connected." Ray's status as a tech visionary means that many of his words enter the tech lexicon once he's uttered them. I predict heavy use of these words or this term when talking enterprise tech.
Despite Ray's visionary status I doubt his equivalent of the "Space Race" rally cry will ripple outside of the tech cloud. (Pun intended). It will reach the edges for sure. Ray expects that too based on his edges commentary:

But the power and responsibility to truly effect transformation exists in no small part at the edge. Within those who, led or inspired, feel personally and collectively motivated to make; to act; to do.

In taking the time to read this, most likely it’s you.

But will it cross over into the public mind without a Time cover? Bill Gates can get that coverage but Ray is still relegated to the covers of tech media (despite the fact I think Ray has contributed more to IT than many IT folk who have graced cover of Time or Wired). Actually I think this idea is at the foundation of FSJ's reaction to the memo; techies can over-think things. I laughed out loud when I read the FSJ commentary...too bad he didn't read the whole post; I suspect that he really did for his day job.

BTW If you have only been reading about Ray's memo in the blogisphere, don't be a FSJ! Take time to read it all the way through. The blogisphere gets a bad rap for distilling information into bit-sized chunks for us, which can be handy, but please make your opinions after you've actually read it.

Overall I think it's compelling to read, and while I don't think the PC-less future is coming all that quickly, the idea that we can consider one does make interesting design decisions. Personally I like reading stuff like Ray's memo, but then again I'm in the club. ;-)

Dawn of a New Day « Ray Ozzie

One-third of iPad fanbois don't download apps • The Register

2010-10-22T10:17:00.000-07:00

Some interesting stats, especially for those interested in the apps biz...

"Almost two-thirds of iPad owners have already downloaded a paid app," concludes The Nielsen Company's survey of over 5,000 "connected device" owners entitled "The Increasingly Connected Consumer: Connected Devices" (PDF).

Doing the math:

According to the latest report from the app-watchers at Distimo, the average price of the top 10 iPad apps is $4.49. If those 2.4 million download virgins had downloaded just one of those top 10, that'd be over $10.7m, of which Apple's take would have been about $3.2m.

Which is chump change to a company that raked in $20.34bn last quarter — about five one-hundredths of one per cent of that haul, to be specific.

So if you're an Apple fanboi — or, more important, an Apple investor — don't worry even a smidgen about those 32 per cent of iPad owners who aren't downloading apps. Although $3.2m may seem like a hefty chunk of change to us mere mortals, it doesn't even qualify as a itty-bitty bedbug bite to the world's second-largest company.

One-third of iPad fanbois don't download apps • The Register

Google 2.4% Rate Shows How $60 Billion Lost to Tax Loopholes - Bloomberg

2010-10-22T10:09:00.000-07:00

Not surprising from a company that loves to crunch numbers. Heck these are they guys that convinced its investors that providing free lunch saved money by calculating the time lost while people waited in line to pay.

Google’s income shifting -- involving strategies known to lawyers as the “Double Irish” and the “Dutch Sandwich” -- helped reduce its overseas tax rate to 2.4 percent, the lowest of the top five U.S. technology companies by market capitalization, according to regulatory filings in six countries.

Still an interesting read of how it's done by the big guys (not just Google).

Google 2.4% Rate Shows How $60 Billion Lost to Tax Loopholes - Bloomberg

Apple deprecates Java

2010-10-22T09:40:00.000-07:00

In its typical hyperbolic yet truthful manner, The Republic reports this Wednesday's Apple announcement to deprecate Java on the new Mac OS.

On Wednesday, as Apple cult leader Steve Jobs unveiled a future Mac OS incarnation dubbed 'Lion' and a new Mac App Store, the company released a Java update for Mac OS X 10.6 — and the release notes revealed that the platform isn't long for Jobs' world. 'As of the release of Java for Mac OS X 10.6 Update 3, the version of Java that is ported by Apple, and that ships with Mac OS X, is deprecated,' the notes read.

And,

In an obviously related move, Jobs also banned Java apps from the upcoming Mac App Store. 'Apps that use deprecated or optionally installed technologies (e.g., Java, Rosetta) will be rejected,' the store's developer guidelines say.

The Republic does not see this as a coincidence pointing out that the biggest loser in this move will be developers since they potentially won't be able to run Eclipse in future versions of the Mac OS. The main impetus looks like a strategic block of Android, as one interviewee states:

I guess Steve really, really doesn't like Android, does he?

More salient is whether or not this continued balkanization of third party run times on Mac operating systems will radicalize developers and IT decision makers. Clearly the consumer market has been good to Apple and it will continue to sell its shiny, sexy stuff, but what does that do for the businesses and users that want to use shiny, sexy stuff AND have cross platform functionality?

Apple threatens Java with death on the Mac • The Register

Password Reuse

2010-09-13T19:20:00.000-07:00

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/password_reuse.png

Not really so funny

2010-08-26T12:48:00.001-07:00

Recently I posted my thoughts regarding Eric Schmidt's comments about on-line privacy and his prediction that we'll eventually have to change our identities to get away from on-line indiscretions. In a related WSJ article Mr. Schmidt explains how Google will be able to predict what we want because Google knows:

'...roughly who you are, roughly what you care about, roughly who your friends are.' Google also knows, to within a foot, where you are.

So again, if Google knows all of this it then shouldn't it d be able to help us get rid of it? Granted we might not be able to delete every shred of information, but getting to the bulk of it is a good start.

With all its irony this bit by Stephen Colbert makes the point very eloquently:

Of course, there is one other answer. Google and Facebook could stop invasively data-mining and selling our private lives to the highest bidder. But that would be asking them to change who they are. And that's not fair.

Tipper might rate this NSFW although it is safe for Comedy Central.

The Colbert Report

Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

The Word - Control-Self-Delete

www.colbertnation.com

Colbert Report Full Episodes

2010 Election

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15 Facts About Net Neutrality

2010-08-24T09:34:00.000-07:00

Here's a handy infographic from Online MBA on the current state of Net Neutrality.

Via: Online MBA Programs

The user formerly known as Karen Hobert

2010-08-18T10:54:00.000-07:00

The BBC World News Hour presented this report (Chapter 10) in reaction to Google CEO Eric Schmidt's recent comments about personal privacy:

"I don't believe society understands what happens when everything is available, knowable and recorded by everyone all the time," he told the Wall Street Journal. "I mean we really have to think about these things as a society."

Really? You're telling us now that you're hording everything that we're posting on-line and you're giving us no way to retract it? That it's entirely up to us to make sure we don't compromise ourselves - or to trust others not to (hint: it's much harder) - and it's Society's responsibility to ensure that we don't end up looking over our shoulders all the time? That services like Google have no responsibility in the matter to help us to protect our identities? That our only recourse is to change our identities (which BTW violates at least Facebook's policy)?

This is the 800 pound gorilla in the on-line privacy room and the ultimate blame shift. There are some nuggets in the BBC report including comments by Andrew Orlowski, Editor of one of my favorite on-line techzines The Register:

It's an incredibly naive idea but unfortunately it's common in the digital culture of Silicon Valley...In my view, technology should create tools that people use the way they actually want to use them...We shouldn't have (sic) to erase our identities...

There's a paradox here because he [Eric Schmidt] depends on users contributing this information but then doesn't take responsibility for this...this is almost a statement of desperation saying 'Look you have to change who you are, you have to do all the work yourself, and we're not going to help you.'

We should demand we are sovereign in everything we do...One thing that would help enormously is that a lot of this data exchange is done because the services are free...If we pay or the services it would make us a lot more demanding.

The irony is not lost here, especially since this blog is on Blogger, a Google owned service.

Open Internet != Net Neutrality

2010-08-09T13:24:00.000-07:00

Ok, in my time covering technology markets I've lived first-hand how vendors tend to use different terminology to talk about the same ideas. The goal is to make something sound unique enough and create a sort of smoke and mirrors effect when it comes to comparing features with the competition. The ideas and concepts essentially become a sort of branding. You can usually tell who's in which camp based on the terminology they use. For example, Microsoft uses the term "information Worker" and IBM uses the term "Knowledge Worker." They are essentially the same thing but with vendor specific twists.

It's the twists that count. The subtle nuances that support the understanding of how the technology/concept works. Of course that is the competitive advantage for the vendor. If they can define what something is, let's say "open" broadband service, in the minds of the customers then half the selling battle is done. Customers are expecting something based on their understanding of what that something is. Anyone selling something else is at a deficit, meaning that they have to educate customers as to why they want something else.

I've been going through the coverage of Google's and Verzion's "Open Internet" agreement today. To me this is clearly a play to tell the US market (and the FCC) in what we can expect from these two service providers by re-defining, -naming, and -branding "Net Neutrality" as "Open Internet." I find it disconcerting that it's just these two providers defining the new "net neutrality" and what the FCC will regulate. Letting two providers the size of Google and Verizon define how much openness and neutrality we can expect for broadband delivery will have a fox watching the hen house effect.

All of this, not surprisingly, comes on the heels of last week's abandoned efforts by the FCC to come up with an agreement on "Net Neutrality" rules. Usher in "Open Internet" that parses broadband into wireline and wireless network, and proposes rules for the public Internet. One can assume that there will be a private Internet to go with the public one, and that's what consumers and business have been fearing. According to today's Google's Public Policy Blog entry, the agreement with Verizon makes provisions for innovation and "other" networks:

Therefore, our proposal would allow broadband providers to offer additional, differentiated online services, in addition to the Internet access and video services (such as Verizon's FIOS TV) offered today. This means that broadband providers can work with other players to develop new services. It is too soon to predict how these new services will develop, but examples might include health care monitoring, the smart grid, advanced educational services, or new entertainment and gaming options. Our proposal also includes safeguards to ensure that such online services must be distinguishable from traditional broadband Internet access services and are not designed to circumvent the rules.

So how does this work now? Is this just an end-run around the FCC and this is what we get? At least we know how Google and Verizon see the broadband business in the US and what we can expect from them if the FCC doesn't come up with anything better.

For more in the "What do they know?" department...

2010-08-09T12:46:00.001-07:00

I shared with you last week Google's Social Circle, to demonstrate how Google maps you're social network. You can also see all the data Google keeps on you here. Make of it what you will.

Robin Sage revisited

2010-08-09T12:15:00.000-07:00

I recently blogged about a ComputerWorld interview with Tom Ryan who posed as cyber-hacking ingenue, Robin Sage, to see what kind of friends Robin could connect to in the intelligence business. This experiment, while unscientific, had the potential to reveal some interesting data points on how people connect, trust, and accept identities.

Accordingly, Mr. Ryan delivered his findings at the BlackHat conference a couple of weeks ago. My friends over at SecurityCurve posted a disappointed review of the talk.

It’s not that the discussion didn’t lay out how Tom Ryan did what he did – oh sure, there was plenty of that. He even had the woman whose picture he pilfered in attendance. But at the end of the day, the discussion was very heavy on the titillation factor: from the girl he exploited to the practitioner he embarrassed via their connection to a wife swapping site. But why do we care? So he tricked some people into friending him… And (surprise, surprise) Facebook and Twitter make it easy to link together various information about someone – that’s the point. So if you went into that talk wondering why you should care, you came out of it the same way.

It's really too bad Mr. Ryan didn't dig a bit deeper into the security ramifications of the ease in creating relationships on-line. BTW Diana at SecurityCurve told me that the name Robin Sage is likely to be a red flag for anyone trained in covert operations, which is probably why no one in the CIA or FBI accepted the friend request.

Still, despite the anemic analysis of the Robin Sage experiment, the issue still stands; what are the criteria that people use to make on-line connections and how deep does that trust go? Clearly Mr. Ryan experienced more than a cute face and a blue-chip pedigree gets you connected. His final comment in the CW interview points to the fact that it was Robin's contacts that got noticed:

Toward the end of the experiment, there was this massive influx of Arabs from overseas that were trying to get on the Robin page where all the military stuff was. I didn't really care for it. That was a bit scary.

I'm a Google social butterfly

2010-08-07T15:46:00.000-07:00

Check out your Social Circle to see who Google links you to. This info is complied using:

Direct connections from your Google chat buddies and contacts (3, 3 with content)
Direct connections from links that appear on your Google profile (0)
Secondary connections (282) that are publicly associated with your direct connections

For the full link URL : http://www.google.com/s2/u/0/search/social#socialcircle

The Business of Online Ads and Browsers

2010-08-02T13:32:00.000-07:00

The Wall Street Journal recently published a few articles on Online Privacy issues. In "Microsoft Quashed Effort to Boost Online Privacy," the article points out that today's browser business is primarily in support of advertising sales:

As online advertising grows more sophisticated, companies playing prominent roles in consumers' online experiences have discovered they have access to a valuable trove of information. In addition to Microsoft, such companies include search-engine giant Google Inc., iPhone maker Apple Inc., and Adobe Systems Inc., whose Flash software makes much of the Internet's video, gaming and animation possible. These companies now have a big say in how much information can be collected about individual users.

The article details the internal struggle at vendors who are in the business of producing browsers and online advertising solutions. Big stakes for all, basically putting the consumer in charge of their privacy. As if we had a clue. This was the topic of a conversation I was having with Diana Kelley at SecurityCurve this morning; consumers have little to no idea what's being tracked or how. We trust the vendors and the providers that they have our best interests in mind when in fact they have their own best interests in mind. That usually involves making as much money as they can giving away free stuff to consumers.

For more insight on what is tracked and by whom, check out WSJ's article "What They Know."

Will the real Robin Sage please stand up?

2010-08-02T12:41:00.000-07:00

"I had access to e-mail and bank accounts. I saw patterns in the kind of friends they had. The LinkedIn profiles would show patterns of new business relationships."

This is a quote from a ComputerWorld interview with Thomas Ryan, a security professional who created a fake persona to see how much information he could access via social networks. He stacked the deck by creating a young, cute, and highly intelligent woman, Robin Sage, and put her out on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. The flirtatious cybergeek was able to make a few hundred friends in Intelligence and Government circles and gained access to sensitive information. It's an interesting lesson based on common sense: "The big takeaway is not to friend anybody unless you really know who they are." Like the recent Soviet Spy discovery, a cute face with a smarty pants background goes a long way in how we "trust" someone.

Fake femme fatale shows social network risks - Computerworld

Anntomy of a meme and partnering nightmares

2010-07-23T17:28:00.000-07:00

Interesting article in Wired on the acrimonious relationship between Apple and AT&T at the root iPhone customer dissatisfaction. The first part of the story gets into how a meme like #attfail grew out of AT&T's control. An interesting read on its own. The second part gets in the to meat of the issue, one that was pretty obvious from the outset of the Apple/AT&T partnership.

What is clear is that AT&T’s role will always be that of parsimonious gatekeeper, dictating to its customers how much data they can have and how much they’ll pay for it. It is precisely the role the company hoped to avoid, the reason that carriers long refused to give phone manufacturers and software developers the kind of influence that Apple now wields. In a fate that will soon befall the rest of the wireless carriers, AT&T has become a mere toll-taker on the digital highway, an operator of dumb pipes that cost a fortune to maintain but garner no credit for innovation or customer service. Meanwhile, the likes of Apple and Google will continue to pump out products that push the limits of what the carriers can provide, training customers to use more and more data. The carriers will be locked into a grim series of adjustments — continually raising prices or invoking ever more stringent data usage caps.

And every time they do, they can expect to be the targets of customer rage...#attfail.

It's like a Chinese finger trap, anything AT&T tries to do makes it look worse. Of course AT&T has itself to blame. I live in LA and AT&T service has always been terrible. I switched from AT&T to Verizon pre-smarphone. I tried AT&T 3G broadband for my computer in the early days only to drop it for Verizon's. I'd switch to Verizon today for my iPhone in a heartbeat, if it was available, willingly paying the highway robbery Verizon data prices. I remember shortly after the release of the iPhone, when about everyone in Hollywood had bought an iPhone, AT&T canceled its contracts with cellular partners literally causing production schedules to stop abruptly in a collective dropped call. After that you saw iPhone users talking on the phone outside their house. Good thing it doesn't rain much here.

Still it is the consumer that's losing here. When other nations are leveraging the full capabilities of smartphones (e.g., tethering, video messaging, faster bandwidth) the US wireless/cell carriers (not just AT&T) are still nickle and diming customers. And while carriers and device providers bicker in board rooms, little progress is being made to improve bandwidth issues or the reasons our phones are being hobbled. At least I get to pay top price for a devices I can only use 2/3rds of and only get a break if I promise to stay with an abusive carrier for at least 2 years.

In a small victory for the customer: a friend in NYC got $49 back (i.e., credit) from AT&T when they were caught lying about their service coverage in her neighborhood. AT&T told customers that it had 4 cell towers in her hood when there were only 2. Small victories!

Bad Connection: Inside the iPhone Network Meltdown | Magazine

National Security Inc. | washingtonpost.com

2010-07-21T08:59:00.000-07:00

I've been following this fantastic investigative series on the business of National Security being published by the Washington Post this week. They have published 3 stories so far and have put together a web site with supporting information and media. Lots of food for thought, at many different levels.

For a short synopsis of the work listen to NPR's Kai Rysdall interview with the author of the articles, Dana Priest, on Marketplace.

National Security Inc. | washingtonpost.com

Microsoft shares (officially) its future BPOS plans | ZDNet

2010-07-20T12:08:00.000-07:00

Mary Jo Foley at ZDNet brings us the latest BPOS roadmap announced at Mictosoft's Worldwide Partner Conference last week. The emphasis on selling SaaS is gaining ground at Microsoft, including free BPOS for partners, and more likely good deals for customers:

Microsoft showcased at the show this week a number of its partners who’ve already jumped on the BPOS bandwagon. To encourage others to start selling the suite, Microsoft announced that it will offer partners 250 BPOS seats for their own use.

Microsoft shares (officially) its future BPOS plans | ZDNet:

Reports of blogging's death have been greatly exaggerated | Cory Doctorow | Technology | guardian.co.uk

2010-07-13T12:38:00.000-07:00

Nice little piece by Cory Doctorow in the Guardian on parsing media and its use.

What's left behind at each turn isn't less, but more: the stories we tell on the stage today are there not because they must be, but because they're better suited to the stage than they are to any other platform we know about. This is wonderful for all concerned – the audience numbers might be smaller, but the form is much, much better.

He explains well how we're in a stage of broadcasting evolution where the tools are becoming refined for specific use cases. This is why I hate all those "E-mail is Dead" proclamations. It's not dead, it's use is being optimized.

Reports of blogging's death have been greatly exaggerated | Cory Doctorow | Technology | guardian.co.uk:

Amazon, Woot, and You: But Mostly Woot

2010-06-30T21:11:00.000-07:00

A funny and enlightened (sort of) memo on being acquired...

Amazon, Woot, and You: But Mostly Woot

Death by Gadget in Congo - NYTimes.com

2010-06-28T15:11:00.000-07:00

I am complicit in this. As most who know me know my love for gadgets and technology. I try, however, to keep in mind the social issues that come from that habit, such as toxic waste, and this, "conflict minerals." Or more bluntly "blood phones." Here is an impassioned and thoughtful op-ed by Nicholas Kristof of the NYT on the issue:

An ugly paradox of the 21st century is that some of our elegant symbols of modernity — smartphones, laptops and digital cameras — are built from minerals that seem to be fueling mass slaughter and rape in Congo...Warlords finance their predations in part through the sale of mineral ore containing tantalum, tungsten, tin and gold...used to make electrical capacitors that go into phones, computers and gaming devices.

As he points out, the solution to this problem starts with awareness and pressure on tech firms to play a more responsible role in purchasing minerals for their products. It looks like the message is being heard in DC too, with congress voting to keep a Conflict Minerals amendments in the Financial Reform Bill this last week. And for something a little cuter:

Op-Ed Columnist - Death by Gadget in Congo - NYTimes.com

Social Media usage by Fortune 100 firms

2010-06-10T16:01:00.000-07:00

A few stats on Social Media use in Fortune 100 companies courtesy of iStrategy:

Fortune 100 Social Media Statistics: key takeaways

79% of the Fortune 100 are present and listening, using at least of one of the main social platforms to communicate with their customers.
20% of Companies are using all four of the main social technologies (Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and Blogs)
82% of the Fortune 100 update and engage with customers on their Twitter account per week.
Fortune 100 Companies on average post 3.6 wall posts to their Facenbook page per week
50% of the Fortune 100 have a YouTube account and upload 10 videos on average a month

Herre we go again...

2010-05-21T09:36:00.000-07:00

Sigh, this is classic for anyone who's worried about data privacy when developing web-based apps. The WSJ reports today that:

The practice, which most of the companies defended, sends user names or ID numbers tied to personal profiles being viewed when users click on ads. After questions were raised by The Wall Street Journal, Facebook and MySpace moved to make changes. By Thursday morning Facebook had rewritten some of the offending computer code.
Advertising companies are receiving information that could be used to look up individual profiles, which, depending on the site and the information a user has made public, include such things as a person's real name, age, hometown and occupation.

So if you click on an ad from your profile page, the referring URL is sent to the advertiser without being scrubbed. Looks like steps are being/have been taken by at least Facebook, but this is a rookie mistake. To ameliorate the sting of yet another Facebook privacy smack-down, other social networks are doing the same:

In addition to Facebook and MySpace, LiveJournal, Hi5, Xanga and Digg also sent advertising companies the user name or ID number of the page being visited. (MySpace is owned by News Corp., which also owns The Wall Street Journal.) Twitter—which doesn't have ads on profile pages—also was found to pass Web addresses including user names of profiles being visited on Twitter.com when users clicked other links on the profiles.

And don' tell me advertisers armed with URL referrers back to user profile pages are making sure they are getting user's consent before looking at the profiles.

Facebook said its practices are now consistent with how advertising works across the Web. The company passes the "user ID of the page but not the person who clicked on the ad," the company spokesman said. "We don't consider this personally identifiable information and our policy does not allow advertisers to collect user information without the user's consent."

A URL referrer (i.e., user ID of the page) is a technicality; if it goes back to the user's profile page then it is a breach of a policy not to divulge personally identifiable information to 3rd parties.

I repeat myself, I'm glad all of this is happening. The social media is growing up and it's the consumers that are ensuring that things are getting safer out there. Apparently when experts expose security issues the fixes languish:

The sharing of users' personally identifiable data was first flagged in a paper by researchers at AT&T Labs and Worcester Polytechnic Institute last August. The paper, which drew little attention at the time, evaluated practices at 12 social networking sites including Facebook, Twitter and MySpace and found multiple ways that outside companies could access user data.

I know it's hip to buck the established/academic technology world in social media tech circles, but sometimes these smarty-pants can actually help to prevent some embarrassing moments.

Facebook, MySpace Confront Privacy Loophole - WSJ.com

Privacy in the news

2010-05-19T10:59:00.000-07:00

Its been an interesting couple weeks for raising privacy awareness. As Facebook gets hammered by its users and the media on privacy concerns (see my earlier post), Google is finding itself in hotter water with German officials and potentially the US FTC with investigations over collecting private data.

I've been watching this story unfold for the last few weeks. German prosecutors are investigating Google's apparent 3 year practice of collecting unsecured WiFi data with its Street View cars. On Friday May 14th Google admitted and apologized on its blog for the "mistaken" collection of private network data. This was after they denied the allegations in an earlier blog post. In the May 14th post Google explains how they inadvertently left experimental WiFi network data collection code in the Street View car code and sent it on the road. An honest mistake, says Google, with no bad or nefarious intentions. Google also made sure to say that it is taking steps to cooperate with officials and remove any offended data. Good.

True this can happen with code, but I'm particularly concerned about the lack of adult supervision that would allow Google to end up in this position. Yes, it is the maverick frontier of Web X.0 and stuff like this happens. But, there are lots of technologist who could have told Google this could happen and helped to protect itself from something like this. They would have also checked the code before posting a denial, to make sure there wasn't any mistake to correct.

Thing is, Google has a lot to lose today, with its foray into enterprise and the fact that is starting to charge for business grade services. It's one thing when you offer your services for free and then muck around with privacy settings (like Facebook). It can really annoy users but hey, they aren't paying for consistency. Its another thing, however, when you're trying to break into the skittish business market, get them to change their thinking about the Web, and trust that you have robust respect and technology for data protection and privacy.

Personally, I'm glad to see all this kerfuffle about privacy. Social networks the size of Facebook and data hoarders like Google are good things but there are risks. As consumers become more educated about those risks the more pressure can be placed on technology providers to mitigate those risks. I remember when cars didn't have to have seat belts or children didn't need to ride in car seats. These are good things that consumers demanded. As more and more people get connected to the Internet, safety should be a leading concern for all Internet providers.

Which company is more social?

2010-05-19T10:33:00.000-07:00

Nice graphics and details on the use of social media at top firms. I find the IBM numbers low, probably because IBM has so many private social networks which would not be reflected in these charts. So does that mean that Microsoft personnel use public social networks more because the company hasn't establish strong private social networks? Or is IBMs lower use of public networks a sign of weaker ties to external connections?

Click here to full chart.

The Evolution of Privacy on Facebook

2010-05-14T11:56:00.000-07:00

Seems that Facebook is the latest privacy poster-child highlighting the strains that come between a service provider seeking a way to cash-in on our desire to socialize and the responsibility the provider assumes to protect its users.

Recent blog posts and articles have recently come out on the (de)evolution of privacy on Facebook since 2005. Kurt Opsahl of the EFF provides an handy timeline of changes to Facebook's Terms of Service through the years. This posting prompted Matt McKeon at IBM Research's Center for Social Software to create a more specific timeline and interactive chart (click on image below for link to interactive chart and blog post).

Matt points out on his blog:

However, Facebook hasn't always managed its users' data well. In the beginning, it restricted the visibility of a user's personal information to just their friends and their "network" (college or school). Over the past couple of years, the default privacy settings for a Facebook user's personal information have become more and more permissive. They've also changed how your personal information is classified several times, sometimes in a manner that has been confusing for their users. This has largely been part of Facebook's effort to correlate, publish, and monetize their social graph: a massive database of entities and links that covers everything from where you live to the movies you like and the people you trust.

In a May 13th blog post, Ken Opsahl continues his coverage and urges Facebook to "follow its own Principles." According to Opsahl, Facebook's current privacy practices coupled with Elliot Scrage's (Facebook's VP for Public Policy) flippant responses in a recent NYT readers' question and answer piece, amount to a boatload of double-speak coming out of Palo Alto when it comes to user data privacy.

Social software wants to be open by nature. Which is crux of the current Facebook privacy kerfuffle. Without openness connections can't be made. However, with any social group there are implied rules for who can participate, what gets shared, and how. From a user's point of view, social wants to be open, but not that open.

A third party, who's purpose it is to facilitate, moderate, and monetize social activity, can be at odds to the purpose of the user. It is the third purpose of the service provider, making money, that creates the tailspin. Today Facebook takes the point of view that the act of registering for a Facebook account is implicit permission for Facebook to use any information a user posts for Facebooks own purposes (we're talking about making money here). Facebook is not just there to facilitate the connections that users want to make. After all, Facebook isn't free for Facebook.

If you look at Matt's interactive chart big changes happened between 2007 and 2009. Yea, I know a whole year, but I suspect 2008 would show some other interesting data, like jumps in numbers of users, increased numbers of applications, and even increased investment into Facebook. In other words Facebook's business changed and the opening up of user data provided the means for creating monetary value in Facebook.

Social networking has reached a tipping point where the "trust" levels are diminishing as usage rises. As more people and applications use the information we post in social networks, the more skittish we become. Not without reason, the rise in spam/malware attacks, bullying, "checking-up on" by employers/neighbors/creditors, and identity theft on social media is an indication of how valuable the social media dirt is to others. Of course users want more protections with consistent policies and experiences. But maybe we're gonna have to pay for that luxury.

How Much is Your E-mail Worth?

2010-04-28T15:59:00.000-07:00

CSG has published another report!

How Much is Your E-mail Worth?: Quantifying the Total Value Investment (TVI) of SaaS E-mail to Small and Medium Businesses

CSG members Pete Lindstrom and Karen Hobert conducted and authored this study on quantifying the Total Value Assessment of SaaS E-mail. A worthwhile read if you're trying to figure out how much your e-mail options will really cost you.

You can download the white paper here or go to our Research page.

IBM's Blog Muse

2010-04-23T10:41:00.000-07:00

This Press Release jogged my blogging block...

Nicknamed 'Blog Muse,' it solicits suggestions from a pool of prospective readers, proposes them to potential writers, alerts readers upon publication of the requested post, and encourages comment. Topic ideas can go viral and build audience interest ahead of publication, as prospective readers can see which suggested topics are the most popular. The tool can also generate topic suggestions automatically.

The cynic in me is having a party; "IBM is now gonna tell us what to blog?" However I can see the practicality of "Blog Muse", especially if you're taking a marketing view on the purpose of a blog. The idea of crowdsourcing for blog topics to write about is pretty nested when you come down to it. I think the real value is the network effects of linking topics to people who would like to read bout them. Once things start rolling I suspect you'd get some stronger connections to readers. Then again, it could get too contrived, so I hope bloggers don't forget their personalities, which is a huge factor in why people read the most popular blogs.

IBM Press room - 2010-04-21 Made in IBM Labs: Writer's Block? IBM Researchers Have the Cure - United States

Robert H. Smith School of Business - University of Maryland, College Park

2010-03-18T14:35:00.000-07:00

Some nice stats on Social Software traction in SMB. For more details and the full report go to Network Solutions' Grow Smart Business site.

The third wave of the Small Business Success Index™ (SBSI), sponsored by Network Solutions® and the Center for Excellence in Service at the University of Maryland’s Smith School of Business, reports social media adoption by small businesses has doubled from 12% to 24% in the last year.

Robert H. Smith School of Business - University of Maryland, College Park

Collaborative Content Archiving Web and Podcasts

2010-03-15T19:17:00.000-07:00

I recently completed a webcast and followup Q&A podcast on building an archiving strategy for Notes/Domino content. You can find the recordings via the following links:

Webcast: "Building a Comprehensive Notes/Domino Archiving Strategy"
Podcast: "Archiving Strategies for Collaborative Environments in Notes/Domino" with Matt Gervais, Editor SearchDomino

Although the topics specifically mention Notes/Domino content, many of the archiving concepts and strategy tips covered in the recordings are applicable to any collaborative environment.

State of the Internet

2010-03-01T13:49:00.000-08:00

Nice reality check.

JESS3 / The State of The Internet from Jesse Thomas on Vimeo.

I've seen Buzz from both sides now

2010-02-26T11:28:00.000-08:00

I know these are another one of those cheesy slide-deck articles - but the HuffPo recently posted decks for The 9 Worst Features About Google Buzz and The Best Features About Google Buzz. I found the rankings, especially of the worst things, quite interesting. The number #1 worst thing wasn't privacy but "No Chronological Feeds". It seems that in its attempt to make aggregating and filtering social media content a personalized experience, Google's launch version of Buzz fell short. Buzz did well to integrate with web technologies and offer nice interfaces to pictures, entering endless status posts, or navigate content. However, Buzz failed to make it a useful for individual preferences like privacy, collapsing comments, or creating lists. There are some contradictions (or seemingly) between the best and worst - such as Finding People to Follow ends up on both lists. The devil is in the details and as with all social tools the number of people participating. I suspect finding people will get easier if more people use Buzz.

Facebook Just Patented The Feed – What Does That Mean For Everyone That Uses Them?

2010-02-26T11:14:00.000-08:00

How's this for timing?

Facebook in 2006 filed for a patent covering ‘the feed,’ as it is known among the tech world. That patent was just granted. Something to note, Facebook filed this before feeds were in vogue, before some social darlings were even born.

Next Web cites what the patent covers and has a link to the full patent. As the author points out, it remains to be seen what Facebook will do - likely something that involves royalties - but it's "probably going to get ugly."

How feeds are able to help people filter, sort, and keep up with multiple information channels is very timely. I recently linked to a Clay Shirky lecture on re-framing the information overload conundrum. Feeds seem to be part of the answer, witnessed by the recent launching of Google Buzz - despite it's not-ready-for-prime-time functionality. Considering these trends the timing of this patent award is uncanny.

I've found little commentary in the regular media but some bloggers have jumped in. All Facebook has some interesting details on the patent - that they are continuing to update - such as the patent does not include status feeds. I can hear the collective "Phew" coming from Twitter.

Facebook Just Patented The Feed – What Does That Mean For Everyone That Uses Them?

FriendFeed Goes Down Hard. Both Remaining Users Pissed.

2010-02-26T10:32:00.000-08:00

Interesting sing of t he times, Twitter activity gauges adoption - or lack there-of.

FriendFeed is down right now. It has been down for the past 30 minutes or so. Sadly, that’s not news anymore. Not because, like Twitter of old, it’s down all the time, but rather, because it seems like no one really uses it anymore. Case in point, it’s been down for over 30 minutes and there are maybe 50 total tweets about it (and several are from the same users).

FriendFeed Goes Down Hard. Both Remaining Users Pissed.

Ironic Sans: They Don't Make Computer Manuals Like They Used To

2010-02-25T12:45:00.000-08:00

When computer manuals were funny.

The Ace 100 manual goes on to describe three categories of crooks in the computer world. The first category is “Them,” the computer salespeople who overhype their products with advertising gimmicks. The second category is “You.” Franklin isn’t actually calling you a crook, but they say that software manufacturers will treat you like one:

The last category of crooks is “US”:

Ironic Sans: They Don't Make Computer Manuals Like They Used To

WARNING: Google Buzz Has A Huge Privacy Flaw

2010-02-11T11:02:00.000-08:00

Chekcing out Google Buzz? Check this out first.

WARNING: Google Buzz Has A Huge Privacy Flaw

Clay Shirky on information overload versus filter failure Boing Boing

2010-02-01T12:47:00.000-08:00

Nice - 24 min - lecture by Clay Shirky exploring the issues of filtering information overload. Good food for thought:

Some of it is going to be around re-thinking social norms...when you feel yourself getting too much information, I think the discipline is not to say to yourself 'what's happened to the information?', but rather 'what filter just broke? What was I relying on before that stopped functioning?'

Clay Shirky on information overload versus filter failure Boing Boing

SnappFiles for the iPhone

2010-01-29T14:34:00.000-08:00

A shameless plug for some good friends and programmers:

SnappFiles™ for IBM® Lotus® Quickr™ is a free app for iPhone and iPod Touch that allows you to access your Quickr places and files directly from your iPhone. No modifications to your server are required at all; just point to the server, log in, and start browsing.

Mitigating Risk and Finding Opportunity in Software as a Service E-mail for Small and Medium Businesses

2010-01-18T10:52:00.000-08:00

Announcing the latest CSG publication, "Mitigating Risk and Finding Opportunity in Software as a Service E-mail for Small and Medium Businesses." You can download the white paper here or go to the CGS Research page.

Software as a Service (SaaS) e-mail offerings provide some operational productivity benefits at lower prices, although it is not a silver bullet, and should not be considered a compromise to existing solutions. SaaS e-mail service bundles can provide capabilities not previously available with existing e-mail solutions especially with operational aspects of managing an e-mail infrastructure. Although total cost of ownership (TCO) is a leading driver for choosing SaaS e-mail, customers should approach SaaS e-mail options based on how the solution will improve the e-mail experience and increase user and operational productivity as well as mitigate risks.

How to Destroy the Book, by Cory Doctorow | theVARSITY.ca

2010-01-06T15:33:00.000-08:00

A radical, peoples-approach speech on copyright and books!

Anyone who claims that readers can’t and won’t and shouldn’t own their books are bent on the destruction of the book, the destruction of publishing, and the destruction of authorship itself. We must stop them from being allowed to do it. The library of tomorrow should be better than the library of today. The ability to loan our books to more than one person at once is a feature, not a bug. We all know this. It’s time we stop pretending that the pirates of copyright are right. These people were readers before they were publishers before they were writers before they worked in the legal department before they were agents before they were salespeople and marketers. We are the people of the book, and we need to start acting like it.

Note: "pirates of copyright "= "anti-copyright activists out there who are trying to destroy the book. These pirates would destroy copyright, and they have no respect for our property."

In the 2nd half he states:

As the elegy reminds us, publishers have set out to sever this emotional connection by getting this licensing fever, by saying that ownership is something that can’t exist in the 21st century, that readers have no business owning their book.

In summary (repeat after me) - "DRM is bad for the customer."

How to Destroy the Book, by Cory Doctorow | theVARSITY.ca

The battle for your email in 2009 | Software as Services | ZDNet.com

2009-12-18T17:56:00.000-08:00

Nice post on e-mail in the cloud and 2009 trends.

Looking back, it’s obvious that one titanic struggle has loomed large over the SaaS and cloud landscape: the battle for your email.

I give Google kudos for getting its name into the top 3 e-mail vendors. Consistently in 2009 when I asked enterprises and SMBs about their e-mail vendor choices - without going into delivery models, costs, operations, and risks - the top three systems were listed as Microsoft, IBM, and Google. Since GMail's beta release in April 2004 and general availability in early 2007, Google has become a leading e-mail consideration. That's powerful stuff.

I agree that collaboration is the stuff the web was made for. Should be an interesting 2010.

The battle for your email in 2009 | Software as Services | ZDNet.com

How Google became Microsoft: A decade of hits, misses and gaffes • The Register

2009-12-18T13:22:00.000-08:00

Fun article from The Register on the decade of IT.

During the first decade of the millennium, it goes without saying that computing has changed in a big way, becoming cheaper, easier to use, more mobile, and - in the words of the Mountain View Chocolate Factory - more 'webby.' But it should also go without saying that the decade included its fair share of spectacular snafus.

How Google became Microsoft: A decade of hits, misses and gaffes

Philip K. Dick's kid howls over Googlephone handle • The Register

2009-12-18T13:21:00.000-08:00

Yea, it's a nice nod to a favorite SciFi hero...

On Saturday, Google confirmed that it has developed a new phone around the semi-open-source mobile operating system it calls Android, and according to press reports, the company intends to sell the device under the name 'Nexus One.'

The Philip K. Dick novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? concerns a bounty hunter charged with tracking down a group of escaped robots tagged with the name Nexus-6. These are said to be the sixth generation in a line of, yes, androids, and, well, you get the picture.

"In my mind, there is a very obvious connection to my father’s novel," said Isa Dick Hackett, president of the Dick estate outfit that handles licensing of his work. "We were never consulted, no requests were made, and we didn’t grant any sort of permissions."

...but you still gotta get permission - at very least. It gets harder when you get big to do fun things like name your products after a favorite character or creative work; even if it's a cool "in-joke." Being ironically hip will get you in hot water when you're making big bucks and don't offer royalties or get permission from the artist, owner, or estate.

In this digital age artists need to be - and are - more vigilant on how their creative works are used or exploited. Breaking down barriers to accessibility tends to water down the notion that a work is the creation of the artist and has ownership. The result is the impression that everything is public source.

Call it arrogance, the naivete of a boundary-pushing company, or idiocracy, one thing is for sure, Google knows enough about the value of a name to file a trademark. There's still time for Google to do the right thing or got to "Plan B."

Philip K. Dick's kid howls over Googlephone handle

Yahoo's How-To Guide For Big Brother Leaks (YHOO, NWS)

2009-12-07T10:49:00.000-08:00

If you're wondering what service providers do when the police ask for your personal information, check out these documents.

Given all the controversy over copyright infringement, Internet child predators, and even simple cyber security, its obvious these companies had to create these documents. We suppose Yahoo and MySpace rivals Facebook, Google, AOL and all the rest hand out documents just like these to law enforcement.

Go to the linked page to see samples from the Yahoo! and MySpace policy documents.

Yahoo's How-To Guide For Big Brother Leaks (YHOO, NWS)

Understanding scam victims: seven principles for systems security

2009-11-30T17:54:00.000-08:00

Interesting University of Cambridge paper on how scams work and the psychological factors behind them. The authors essentially cover common scams and the reasons why they work but also take some time to explain how administrators need to consider these factors when designing system security.

For example, one of the seven principles of a successful scam is called the Dishonesty principle, whereby a scam goes unreported because the mark would have to admit some dishonest act in order to expose the fraud. The paper's authors offer some wise advice on creating corporate policy that will encourage reporting of fraud without fear of retribution.

The security engineer needs to be aware of the Dishonesty principle. A number of attacks on the system will go unreported because the victims don’t want to confess to their “evil” part in the process. When a corporate user falls prey to a Trojan horse program that purported to offer, say, free access to porn, he will have strong incentives not to cooperate with the forensic investigations of his system administrators to avoid the associated stigma, even if the incident affected the security of the whole corporate network. Executives for whom righteousness is not as important as the security of their enterprise might consider reflecting such priorities in the corporate security policy—e.g. guaranteeing discretion and immunity from “internal prosecution” for victims who cooperate with the forensic investigation.

The authors note that well designed security should make it easy for users to "authenticate" the validity of the system they are entering sensitive information into.

Much of systems security boils down to “allowing certain principals to perform certain actions on the system while disallowing anyone else from doing them”; as such, it relies implicitly on some form of authentication—recognizing which principals should be authorized and which ones shouldn’t. The lesson for the security engineer is that the security of the whole system often relies on the users also performing some authentication, and that they may be deceived too, in ways that are qualitatively different from those in which computer systems can be deceived. In online banking, for example, the role of verifier is not just for the web site (which clearly must authenticate its customers): to some extent, the customers themselves should also authenticate the web site before entering their credentials, otherwise they might be phished. However it is not enough just to make it “technically possible”: it must also be humanly doable by non-techies. How many banking customers check (or even understand the meaning of) the https padlock?

The verification must be easy enough for mortals. Likewise, any mechanism used to authenticate users should not be overly draconian since users will circumvent the system. An interesting example of this effect concerns e-mailbox quotas. When administrators limit attachment sizes to accommodate small mailbox quotas they run the risk of data leakage because users turn to consumer messaging systems, systems administrators have no control over such as Gmail, to send large file attachments to co-workers and customers.

Understanding scam victims: seven principles for systems security

Search engines are source of learning

2009-11-27T12:50:00.000-08:00

Search can make you smarter...

The researchers sought to discover the cognitive processes underlying searching. They examined the search habits of 72 participants while conducting a total of 426 searching tasks. They found that search engines are primarily used for fact checking users' own internal knowledge, meaning that they are part of the learning process rather than simply a source for information. They also found that people's learning styles can affect how they use search engines.

Search engines are source of learning

Cisco Raises Its Bid for Tandberg of Norway - NYTimes.com

2009-11-16T09:11:00.000-08:00

Cisco going big on video for the UC as collaboration market. That was evident from John Chambers keynote last week (see my post).

The network equipment maker Cisco on Monday raised its bid for Norwegian videoconferencing equipment maker Tandberg. The increase was backed by holders of more than 40 percent of Tandberg’s shares, few of whom had warmed to Cisco’s previous bid.

I am reminded of Mike Gotta's work a couple years ago on different approaches IBM and Microsoft are taking to the UC market*; IBM being more partner-friendly, focusing on the software side of UC and working well on other's equipment, versus Microsoft's more all-or-nothing approach to building UC solutions including soft-PBXs and equipment (e.g., Roundtable). Cisco's approach takes a network- and video-centric approach to UC, preferring to rely on its strong network roots as the the backbone to delivering high quality communications and collaboration. It's all a matter of perspective.

Cisco Raises Its Bid for Tandberg of Norway - NYTimes.com

*Logically each vendor's approach has evolved over the last couple years, with Microsoft taking on partnerships of convenience and IBM's subtle movements toward its own PBX server (Sametime Unified Telephony) as a less aggressive market play (or market safety net) while telephony vendors begin to struggle to stay alive.

Windows Mobe Marketplace sets its stall out • The Register

2009-11-13T09:47:00.000-08:00

When It Comes To In-App Purchases On The iPhone, Games, Social Networking, And Books Rule

2009-11-10T10:06:00.000-08:00

An interesting view of the mobile apps market. The upsell market looks like entertainment and socializing are the big winners...

Games, social networking, and book apps are doing the best job upselling consumers from free apps to paid enhancements. Music, news, and finance apps, not so much.

Makes some sense, we want to keep renewing that type of content. Except the punchline....

People just don’t want to pay for songs, news, or stock quotes.

Songs? We want our songs for free or do we consider that we've already bought the songs before and are not willing to pay again.

This is an interesting snapshot of the times, especially when vendors like IBM, Microsoft and others are considering the dowloaded apps model as a new venture for selling/distributing mobile as well as web-based applications that support their business collaboration and social software platforms.

When It Comes To In-App Purchases On The iPhone, Games, Social Networking, And Books Rule:

Cisco throws a collaboration party

2009-11-09T18:24:00.000-08:00

Cisco detailed it's Collaboration Strategy and emerging product line for collaboration at it's Collaboration Summit on Monday afternoon. Chairman and CEO John Chambers outlined Cisco's vision and plan which includes technologies from its collaboration and unified communications portfolio.

Cisco today announced significant product introductions across all categories of its collaboration portfolio. The company also announced its entrance into two new markets, enterprise social software and hosted email, with the goal of bringing the collaborative power of online social communities to businesses.

Some of the strategy is based on years of acquiring front-end technologies such as PostPath for e-mail and WebEx for online meetings and combining them with back-end platform services that support secure federation of directory information and media exchange. The Cisco collaboration platform combines real-time and asynchronous communications and collaboration with some twists. For example, Cisco's dedicated to Video (communications and content) as a core technology for collaboration.

Many of the ideas that Mr. Chambers presented on how collaboration is key to innovation are not ground breaking if you've been around the collaboration space for any time. He mostly reiterated the value proposition that electronic communications and collaboration have offered for years. However it's been a long awaited conversation from Cisco and all the talking points are on mark. Like most vendors the semantics and strategy is slightly different; collaboration, for example, in the Cisco vision leans more to the socialization of content and group interactions and real-time communications supported by TelePresence (i.e., presence awareness) and video technologies. This is a contemporary perspective that includes social feeds and threading of information based on tags and/or meta-data that many older collaboration solutions are currently retrofitting into their products.

The product announcements are broken into three lines: Cisco TelePresence, Cisco Unified Communications, and Cisco WebEx solutions. A strong connection to real-time communications over different modes, devices, and networks using open-source technologies are common threads in the strategy. In addition to providing services and presentation layer interfaces Cisco reiterated its dedication to extranets and federation of key service information, like federated presence awareness or directory information.

It's finally good to know what has happened to PostPath. Over a year after acquiring the open-source Exchange alternative, Cisco has subsumed PostPath into it's WebEx product line and released a SaaS-based e-mail package called WebEx Mail. They are still riding on the value proposition that WebEx Mail is 100% Outlook compatible and built on open-source technology that makes it easier to extend and manage. While the Outlook point might be valid, management and extensibility is likely only a benefit to Cisco now that it's a hosted solution. The offering seems to be along industry standards with 25GB of mailbox space. Details on data centers and risk management are limited and Cisco relies on it's hosted IronPort solution for in-the-cloud content filtering.

The social software and collaboration efforts are even more nascent with only choice customers getting beta access to the service for the next three to six months. Again the offering will be delivered as a SaaS model. There are some demos on the Cisco site that illustrate it's social, Cisco Pulse, and ad-hoc teaming solution, Show and Share. We'll have to wait to see more on how customers will respond to the tools.

So will this be disruptive to the collaboration market? Cisco definitely has strong technology and the high-definition video interfaces will be attractive to many customers who rely on teleconferencing. Cisco's strategy is a network centric vision - which is to be expected. Large global companies that want to create their own secure networks will likely be very interested in the Cisco solution. Although Cisco points out that it's platform is extensible, like most collaboration providers, the idea of a single platform for the most fidelity is strong here. Of course for e-mail and collaboration customers will need to weigh the cloud risks, which is still a tough subject when considering the regulatory and legal complexities that global firms face. What I think these offerings do is add yet another better defined platform solution to the choice matrix for customers, which for Cisco did not exist in a coherent form until now.

For more details on the Collaboration Summit with lots of resources go to Cisco's Community Central.

Cisco Breaks Down Barriers to Business-to-Business Collaboration -> Cisco News

Microsoft Announces Exchange Server 2010 Availability and Wave of Innovations at Tech•Ed Europe 2009: Exchange 2010, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 help customers realize better productivity, efficiency and potential cost savings up to 70 percent.

2009-11-09T16:11:00.000-08:00

Exchange 2010 goes into General Availability today. If you want to follow announcements and the technology check out the TechEd Europe 2009 press room for sessions and keynotes.

Microsoft Announces Exchange Server 2010 Availability and Wave of Innovations at Tech•Ed Europe 2009: Exchange 2010, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 help customers realize better productivity, efficiency and potential cost savings up to 70 percent.

Judge jettisons lawsuit challenging Gartner's Magic Quadrant | NetworkWorld.com Community

2009-11-05T14:36:00.000-08:00

It's all a matter of opinion, even when the opinion is very influential.

In essence, this case boiled down to a question of whether the Magic Quadrant is an objective presentation of quantifiable facts, or -- as Gartner argued and should be obvious to all -- simply Gartner's opinion based on its research.

Judge jettisons lawsuit challenging Gartner's Magic Quadrant | NetworkWorld.com Community

Design Criteria Defaults: SaaS

2009-11-04T11:53:00.001-08:00

Yesterday I wrote about vendors making mobility a primary design criteria when developing collaboration platform interfaces, today I want to focus on the SaaS.

Still in it's 20o9 rage, the Cloud continues to pose issues for customers and vendors alike. Since late 2006 we've seen traditional software vendors, including IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, and Cisco, throw their hat and products into the Cloud and offering SaaS-based delivery of many of their popular solutions. Spurred on by Google's ambitions in the the enterprise market, each vendor has come up with their own approach to SaaS and the Cloud. Some have made it out of beta to deliver ready for prime time offerings (Microsoft Online, LotusLive), some have pulled back to only providing private offerings (Oracle), others are emerging through building on top of consumer-based acquisitions (IBM Lotus and Cisco), and others are working on configuring the right architecture (Cicso).

Bottom line, updating existing products and systems and building a hosting operation is not simple. It's not easy to transform an installed, on-premise system - like e-mail or collaboration - into a multi-tenant, scalable, and secure SaaS offering. The migration of back-end servers to support larger loads and parsing out multiple domains can take time. Once that's in place modifying other supporting services like Directory or Search to support the complex security and permissions also takes time. Finally, designing the presentation layer to provide secure functionality also requires a change in attitude and development assumptions.

As with mobility, vendors need to consider hosting capabilities as an primary design criteria for all new system software. Microsoft has done well in coming closer to this goal in its SharePoint and Office 2010 designs, but still some of their forthcoming BI servers are still treating the hosting part as a follow-on job. IBM Lotus on the other hand appears to be approaching things differently, developing on-premise solutions separately from it's LotusLive offerings, many of which consist of acquired hosted products like Outblaze's e-mail or the Unyte hosted meetings.

It's not a foregone conclusion that all on-premise platforms need to be retro-fitted or upgraded for SaaS delivery. Designing for hosting will likely help in the integration department and make hybrid on-premise/Cloud delivery easier for both the vendor and the customer.

Design Criteria Defaults: Mobility

2009-11-04T11:26:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago I wrote and article for SearchDomino on IBM Lotus' continued expansion into mobility. One of my predictions was that we'd "see increased dedication from IBM Lotus and other vendors to make designing for mobility a primary consideration when building future versions of software tools." As my article points out, the current state of the mobile device OS market means that are lots of moving parts for vendors to keep track of and strategic partnerships appear to be the preferred approach for vendors when tackling mobility. Recent smartphone developments are swaying the market to the downloaded, device-specific application model (which vendors have to address on a platform-by-platform basis) rather than web-based software interfaces optimized mobile browser support (which vendors have more control over).

While IBM Lotus is doubling down on mobility it appears that Microsoft is not, at least not in the collaboration arena. Having just returned from Microsoft's SharePoint Conference, little focus was spent on mobility. The one session I attended on mobility consisted of an advert for the latest Windows Mobile version and a look at .NET APIs for making mobile applications. Using SharePoint on a mobile device is still, even in the 2010 release, relegated to adding a "/m" to the end of a SharePoint URL. Considering the promise of SharePoint 2010 as a content management and reach collaborative solution, it is likely that many users will find typing long URLs into mobile browsers sub-optimal.

Dedication to designing for mobility is one thing, execution is another. Mobility should be part of the design process in the earliest stages these days. IBM Lotus has revealed their mobility intentions and now it remains to be seen how they will execute. Microsoft has yet to take a stand on mobility for it's next generation of productivity and collaboration tools.

Mobility in Domino article

2009-10-22T10:27:00.000-07:00

Just published: Lotus makes mobile partnership and Notes Traveler top priorities

Another SearchDomino article by your narrator.

Hierarchy of digital distraction

2009-09-08T17:21:00.001-07:00

Information is Beautiful is amazing site on visualizing information. Today's post is s a fantastic taxonomy on how we communicate based on the quality of the conversation. The author admits he did't include instant messaging in the mix - it's too distracting - although texting, twitter, and Skype messages suffice.

Article: IBM Lotus to end Notes/Domino 7.x support

2009-08-28T11:20:00.000-07:00

Here's a recent article I wrote for SearchDomino:

http://searchdomino.techtarget.com/generic/0,295582,sid4_gci1366069,00.html

Collaborative Strategy Guild on NPR!

2009-08-21T12:19:00.000-07:00

Collaborative Strategy Guild member, Pete Lindstrom, is interviewed by Bill Radke on the APR Marketplace Morning Report for August 18, 2009:

Pete Lindstrom, research director at Spire Security, talks with Bill Radke about what consumers can do to keep their credit cards secure

Audio: Will electronic money transactions ever be secure?

Gauging the Real Value of SaaS E-mail

2009-07-28T23:46:00.000-07:00

I'm pleased to announce the publication of "Gauging the Real Value of Software as a Service (SaaS) E-mail for Small and Medium Businesses," a Collaborative Strategy Guild white paper on SaaS E-mail and productivity. You can download the paper via the CSG site. Here's the abstract:

The e-mail market is rapidly evolving as new business-grade software as a service (SaaS) e-mail options become a viable alternative to the traditional on-site e-mail by competing on price and value. Information Technology (IT) decision makers are pressured to reduce costs, so they’re considering a move to SaaS e-mail solutions, which is driving businesses to scrutinize current e-mail strategies. Making a SaaS e-mail decision depends upon the unique needs of the business and how available options not only offer cost savings, but also productivity value.
In this paper, Collaborative Strategy Guild founding member, Karen Hobert, focuses on the SaaS e-mail market, its impact on small and medium businesses (SMBs), and how to find the real value in different product offerings.

Spam Works

2009-07-20T08:15:00.000-07:00

Wondering why you get so much spam? Because it works. A recent Register article reports the following from a Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG) survey on email usage and spam:

Almost a third of consumers admit responding to messages that might be spam emails. Some acted out of curiosity or by mistake but a puzzling 96 from a sample of 800 (12 per cent) said they clicked because they interested in the product or service advertised in junk mail messages.

Filtering helps, a lot, but accordingly people would rather slog through the spam than prevent it:

While half of those surveyed said they never click on suspected spam, around one in five (21 per cent) fail to use email filtering software or services.

For more interesting facts on email usage and spam see the MAAWG study, "A Look at Consumers' Awareness of Email Security and Practices, " Part I and Part II.

Google Beachhead

2009-07-14T09:32:00.001-07:00

Google continues to bolster its beachhead on the enterprise email market. Today it announced it is providing free of charge to Google Apps Premier and Education customers a "plug-in" that will migrate Notes mail and personal directory information to Google Apps.

The new tool lets customers migrate mail, calendar and contacts from Notes to Google Apps. The syncing tool, which Google says is a native Notes application, can be installed and configured in less than 30 minutes, for multiple users at once. The tool has already been tested with 40 of Google’s enterprise clients, including JohnsonDiversey (10K users) and Valeo (32K users). The tool is free for Google Apps Premier and Edu customers.

The aggressive ramp up to enterprise-grade solutions hasn't always been as successful as Google has hoped. Changing the mind-set of enterprise IT decision makers who tend to follow established software delivery methods and practices is still a hard practice. In recent weeks Google has capitulated to some of these customer attitudes such as removing the "beta" label from the Google Apps tools. The more clumsy release of the Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook connector has been met with criticism for not offering pair-wise functionality with Outlook and disabling Microsoft Desktop Search, the search mechanism for Outlook. A July 10, 2009 PC World (IDG News Service) article puts it this way:

So Google embarked -- probably grudgingly -- down the path that other e-mail vendors have traveled with little success: trying to replicate the Outlook-Exchange experience with their back-end e-mail server and Outlook. Here was Google apparently getting dragged into the Microsoft way of doing things, creating -- gasp! -- a piece of PC software: an Outlook plug-in. The problems and complaints started immediately.

Right away, industry analysts cautioned CIOs and IT managers to examine the Google tool closely, warning them that it couldn't fully replicate in Gmail the functionality of the Outlook-Exchange combination, lacking basic features like the ability to synchronize Outlook notes and tasks, for example.

A tough market indeed. Clearly Google wants it enough to put so much effort into lowering the barriers to enterprise interest. In its campaign to grease the migration skids and polish the consumer-come-enterprise perception Google is waging a fierce battle that will require formidable reinforcements to back up.

What's in a word?

2009-07-07T09:45:00.001-07:00

Google has lifted the "beta" label from Gmail and other Google Apps, Google Calendar, Google Docs and Google Talk. Google makes it clear in its Official Google Blog announcement that they are making the move because enterprises are having a hard time getting around the "traditional definition" of the "beta" software label.

We're often asked why so many Google applications seem to be perpetually in beta. For example, Gmail has worn the beta tag more than five years. We realize this situation puzzles some people, particularly those who subscribe to the traditional definition of "beta" software as not being yet ready for prime time.

I'm not sure Google ever did a good enough job of telling us what the non-traditional definition of beta is. Apparently it wasn't all that hard to remove but I'm wondering why with so much press-bashing on the label it took Google so long to draw the line and say things are done. Google isn't being as transparent on how it determined that the code is final, for now.

Of course this brings up the argument that I think Google has been trying to convince us of all along. That traditional software development cycles are impossible to keep with such rapid evolution of code and to draw a line in the sand would be ironic if they kept releasing new features on an ongoing basis. If that's the case then "beta" should never have ended up in the logo to begin with. One of the benefits of a leased SaaS software delivery model is that the customer has the power to stay or go with little penalty. The onus is on the provider to continue to innovate to add more value for the customer at the same price. Google has embraced this concept by continually reminding its customers it can, and should, apply patches, changes, and upgrades whenever it feels the need. It's "beta" cause the work is never done. Still convincing a market that is accustomed to "beta" meaning "test code" was harder than expected.

Oh, BTW, if you're not comfortable without the "beta" (depending on how you define "beta") you can put it back on the logo via the Gmail Labs settings:

Media in the 21st Century

2009-07-06T11:02:00.000-07:00

June 2009 TED video of Clay Shirky on the transformation of media in the 21st Century. I like the way he makes these ideas so clear and understandable.

Things don't get socially interesting until they get technologically boring.

Is Your IT Guy Reading Your Email? - Digits - WSJ

2009-06-11T11:06:00.000-07:00

Ouch!

In a survey of more than 400 senior IT professionals in the U.S. and the United Kingdom, Cyber-Ark Software, a Newton, Mass.-based security-software company, found that 35% of IT administrators admitted to accessing corporate information like human-resources records, customer databases and M&A plans, up from 33% a year ago.

Moreover, if fired, 47% of the staffers surveyed said that they would take company financial reports and M&A plans with them, a sixfold increase from the previous year’s survey. About 46% said that they would snag CEO passwords and R&D plans, a fourfold increase.

Is Your IT Guy Reading Your Email? - Digits - WSJ

Publish Post

Official Google Blog: The state of cloud computing

2009-06-10T12:40:00.000-07:00

The whole thing with email is that IT is stuck balancing very touchy user needs with operations. Reducing operational overhead and costs are a key value proposition of Google Apps Premier Edition (GAPE), which Google is now simply calling "Premier." The hurdle to get users to use the Gmail interface after using Outlook for so many years has been a big problem for Google.

Of course, when big companies like Morgans move all their employees from Microsoft Exchange to Google Apps, there are often a few folks who aren't ready to give up Microsoft Outlook right away. To help them make the transition, today we also introduced Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook to our Premier and Education edition customers. It lets Outlook work easily with Apps and — like offline Gmail and the Google Apps Connector for BlackBerry® Enterprise Server — is another example of how we're making it dead simple to switch to Google Apps.

This is not a new model, PostPath (now owned by Cisco) made it a business and sales model, others like Zimbra (Yahoo) have been doing this for a while, and even Oracle Beehive is coming out of the gate touting this capability. So while radical for Google, it is business model that other SaaS email competitors are also up to.

Of course this tool on syncs GAPE mail, contacts and calendar with Outlook and does not integrate other GAPE tools with the rest of the Office suite. According to Google's data sheet the following benefits come with GASMO (I'm sorry about that):

Email, calendar, and contact sync
Free/busy and Global Address look up
Simple, user-driven data migration

Note: The following features will continue to be available in Outlook, but will not be
synchronized by Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook in Google Apps: user
delegation, public folders, and syncing of notes, tasks, journals, and distribution lists.

The migration feature is a nice bonus.

This demonstrates how the front lines of the Google and Microsoft competition is email. Taking the front-end (i.e., client) argument out of the email decision picture will make it easier for customers to compare the back-end side of hosted messaging. I don't think it will make the decision any easier by itself - especially for enterprises - but it could eliminate one strong objection and put the focus onto operational concerns.

Official Google Blog: The state of cloud computing

AP Reporter Reprimanded For Facebook Post; Union Protests | Threat Level | Wired.com

2009-06-10T09:59:00.000-07:00

Remember when email flaming was all the ..er..rage? It took a while for people to learn to turn off the caps lock. Surely there is a learning curve with social sites. In the meantime the stakes are pretty high, like losing your job.

The minidrama is an increasingly familiar one as companies and workers navigate the landscape defined by sites like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. Firings and reprimands over postings to social networking sites have become commonplace over the last year.

Surely, as individuals, we'll eventually learn to balance who we "let in" to our social networks, how we reveal our thoughts, and consider who might see what we say or do. I wonder how tolerance levels for "past deeds" will play out in the future. I think we'll become more tolerant when just about everyone has had the experience of putting too much out there. It's like traffic in LA (I get to say this cause I'm from LA); the best excuse when you're late for a meeting is to blame it on traffic, everyone commiserates with you especially if there was an accident on the freeway. For an interesting read on putting stuff out there take a look at this New York Times article from 2007 (funny how this article keeps coming up).

But the answer does not solely lie with the end user. Companies need to frequently communicate with their employees on what they will tolerate and not just rely on draconian measures after the fact. What's the phrase, "an ounce of prevention..."? Most companies have some sort of policy on cyber-flaming; although it's probably obtusely named something like Electronic Communications Agreement that employees my need to sign (but not re-read) once a year. Usually the agreement includes broadly written rules that only do well to serve as blunt instruments when it's needed or is useful. Typically signing the agreement is made part of employment terms but the rules are dictated rather than communicated. When was the last time you read the entire licensing agreement when you installed a piece of software? And do you think of it every time you use the software? Same idea. If a company wants to avoid embarrassment and leaked information then it should take measures to help employees understand what is tolerated and help them to do the right thing.

AP Reporter Reprimanded For Facebook Post; Union Protests | Threat Level | Wired.com

Twitter Blog: Not Playing Ball

2009-06-08T10:24:00.000-07:00

More on the Twitter identity front. According to the Twitter blog, Twitter is launching a beta program for verifying account holders. I'm not sure how they'll deal with all the John Smith's of the cyberworld. I guess as long as you don't pretend to be someone or entity that you are not then it's on a "first come" basis. Does that mean my favorite @MarsPhoenix will be shut down? ;-) Likely not.

Impersonation violates Twitter's Terms of Service and we take the issue seriously. We suspend, delete, or transfer control of accounts known to be impersonation. When alerted, we took action in this regard on behalf of St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa.

Bottom line, if you think someone is impersonating you on Twitter, complain to tech support and they will shut down the impostor.

Twitter Blog: Not Playing Ball

Bosses and Workers Disagree on Social Network Privacy - Digits - WSJ

2009-05-20T10:42:00.000-07:00

A very interesting article on the battle between the bosses and the employees. I suspect there would be different results outside the US where privacy laws and attitudes are very different than in US firms - favoring more or less employee privacy and tolerance depending on where you go.

The survey was conducted in April with about 2,000 U.S. adults. Of the 500 respondents with managerial job titles (vice president, CIO, partner, board member, etc.), 299, or 60%, agreed that businesses have a right to know how employees portray themselves or their companies on sites like Facebook and MySpace.

But 53% of employee respondents said their profiles are none of their employers’ business, and 61% said that they wouldn’t change what they were doing online even if their boss was monitoring their activities.

It's a hard reality to consider that the boss thinks they have every right to monitor all data that you produce and perceive the employee as a liability - especially in these days of record breaking layoffs. It's true, the Internet's lowered opportunity costs for individual global self-expression poses a huge risks to companies in forms of safety, lost information, and disclosed secrets. The relationship of employer and employee becomes increasingly adversarial.

Both employer and employee play a part in solving this problem. As the article points out in a quote by Sharon Allen, rather than draconian rules, employers should communicate "guidelines focused on company principles and ethical behavior, and to offer to help workers understand privacy settings on these sites." Yet, according to the Deloitte survey, "roughly a quarter (26%) of employees said they knew of specific guidelines as to what they could and couldn’t post."

Employees aren't off the hook either and need to recognize that usage policies are conditions of employment and should be mindful to follow those guidelines. That may mean more work on the individual to make clear distinctions between what they represent about their jobs in personal social realms. Which is increasingly harder to do; as we create stronger bonds with people through channels that help us to keep in touch over time and distance the line of who's a colleague and who's a friend becomes more blurred.

Since this is all social there's plenty of nuance for conflict and mis-communication. As Ms Allen points out there is the potential conflict of employer versus employee "branding" and is open for broad interpretation. It's a fine line to walk. When so many people identify themselves with what they do for work it's very hard to separate the dos and don'ts.

Despite all the risk, keep in mind that the boss actually likes social software. The last paragraph of the article demonstrates that while employees currently find social software more burdensome, employers see a benefit:

Another difference of opinion expressed in the survey was how social networks affect work-life balance. Less than a third of employees (31%) agreed with the statement “Using social-networking sites helps me achieve better work-life balance,” with 19% strongly disagreeing. More than half (56%) of executives said a little Facebook time improves work-life, however.

Bosses and Workers Disagree on Social Network Privacy - Digits - WSJ

Google Says “Googlefail” Outages Are Over - Digits - WSJ

2009-05-19T11:23:00.000-07:00

Phew. Anyone else out there skeptical about this?

“The issue affecting some Google services has been resolved,” a spokesman said. “We’re sorry for the inconvenience, and we’ll share more details soon.”

Kudos to Google for working hard to solve their problems and continue to improve their services. Still you never know what's around the corner. I can't blame Google for doing the positive PR spin since they've been getting hit hard for outages by the press, blogisphere, and twitterati lately. Announcing the good news of a fix with confidence in the future is a necessary.

Google Says “Googlefail” Outages Are Over - Digits - WSJ

The Exploding Digital Universe - Digits - WSJ

2009-05-19T10:37:00.000-07:00

World data volume reality check...

In 2008 alone, IDC says the world created 487 billion gigabytes of information, up 73% from 2007. That was 3% more than it forecast at the beginning of the year.

The Exploding Digital Universe - Digits - WSJ

Daydreaming? You're actually solving complex problems • The Register

2009-05-15T08:40:00.000-07:00

Someone needs to call my 3rd grade teacher.

They found that daydreaming 'is an important cognitive state where we may unconsciously turn our attention from immediate tasks to sort through important problems in our lives'.
...
The upshot of the research is that, if you're struggling to solve a complex problem, you might be better off switching to something less taxing and letting your mind wander.

Daydreaming? You're actually solving complex problems • The Register

Microsoft's software pipeline set to burst - Microsoft, sharepoint, TechEd, Windows 7 - Computerworld

2009-05-15T08:22:00.000-07:00

Nice take-away from TechEd 2009 from Network World's John Fontana.

If there was one revelation at this week's Microsoft TechEd conference it was that the company's product pipeline is stuffed with new software timed for release in the next seven to 12 months that will force corporate IT to deftly plan and strategize how it wants to deal with the onslaught.

Read the full article for more of his thoughts on how this may impact customers.

Disclosure: I'm quoted in the article.

Microsoft's software pipeline set to burst - Microsoft, sharepoint, TechEd, Windows 7 - Computerworld

Oracle's Grand Collaboration Ambitions - Information Management Blog - InformationWeek

2009-05-07T09:30:00.000-07:00

More on Oracle Beehive. The author goes on to provide analysis on how the strategy might work. The Zen moment is in his statement:

From a vendor perspective, the smart money should assume a strong Microsoft presence somewhere along the axis of e-mail, IM/presence and collaboration, and be prepared to play nicely with it.

This is extremely valid point. My bets are on e-mail in that formula. Vendors can't just rely on integrating their own solutions (or other products they offer) and ignore the 800 pound gorilla. Having a strategy for delivering tools that integrate with Microsoft desktop and productivity applications is vital to answering the needs of customers that don't want to overhaul their entire IT infrastructure. You'd have to have a pretty compelling value proposition to displace everything, and there are so many good enough alternatives in the marketplace today, so why not play nicely?

Oracle's Grand Collaboration Ambitions - Information Management Blog - InformationWeek

Sizing up the Exchange 2010 Integrated Archives

2009-05-05T12:16:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago I posted information on Microsoft's Exchange 2010 beta announcement. Since this is Microsoft's first foray into email archiving as a product, let alone an integrated feature of Exchange, I was curious about the implementation and what customers could expect. I've now got some more answers and it looks like the new service falls somewhere between a local personal archive and an centralized email archival and records management system.

Bottom line, the Exchange 2010 integrated archiving is a feature of the mailbox server role and builds email archives on the same server as the live mailbox. The archive is stored in centrally managed Exchange message store that allows administrative access to archived message content and ediscovery capabilities. The end user experience in the mailbox is a separate folder for the archived messages. The archive does not support SIS or stubbing, and there is no tiered storage management or records management for archive disposition other than the global mailbox purge, retention and hold features introduced in Exchange 2007. As far as existing local personal archive PSTs, users can drag and drop existing archives to the server based store from their desktops (probably requires Outlook).

So far Microsoft is looking at the beta program to gain more insight on how this new feature will impact server performance and number of mailboxes the server can support. Exchange 2007 brought economies of scale by increasing the number of mailboxes supported by a single server and I'm curious how the increased archiving might impact that performance. I suppose this is more of a storage issue than a messaging service issue; storage will likely need to be increased on mailbox servers to support the archives.

One of the questions I have is how disruptive the integrated archiving will be on the current email archiving market and whether it will put partners out of business. In general, if customers need more robust archiving and records management the Exchange 2010 archiving will not be sufficient, but for remedying problems associated with personal archives and errant PST files the solution will likely be popular. At this point, customers that require heavy lifting with storage and records management they will continue to look to third parties that offer more control over the archives.

Agile working saves money | Gulliver | Economist.com

2009-05-05T11:48:00.000-07:00

A short example of how unified communications (UC) help save money.

BRITISH TELECOM is saving itself £238m ($355m) a year through efficient use of conferencing... As a result of recent efforts to curtail unnecessary travel and focus ever harder on conferencing, BT says it’s reduced its expenditure on air travel and accommodation by around 70% in the last 12 months.

Although UC requires planning, up front expenditures, and bringing together traditionally separate teams (namely telecommunications and IT), the benefits are clearly worth it.

Agile working saves money | Gulliver | Economist.com