Argh Matey, it's a business model!

I just finished reading a great Vanity Fair article on Internet piracy and how Hollywood just isn't getting it. If you get through the first part where author Steve Daly amusingly chronicles his piracy - including some handy tips - you get the low-down on the raiding of the Pirate Bay offices in May of 2006 and the Hollywood puppet-masters behind what has turned out to be a Swedish political nightmare.

Apparently Anne Sweeney, President of Disney-ABC, in her 2006 MIPCON address, hits the nail on the head by calling piracy a business model and that it "exists to serve a need in the market". Right-on! Now there's someone in this town who gets it. While I'm not endorsing piracy, it certainly is a model for easily acquiring content that may be harder to access using traditional media distribution models.

Daly wraps up the article with the following query:

So, the question remains: Will Hollywood adapt and survive, or will it continue to escalate its apparently futile battle against the collective intelligence of a million resourceful and highly motivated computer geeks worldwide? (The kind of people who recently unlocked the supposedly resilient copy protection on Hollywood's new HD DVD format.) Once again, the situation was adroitly summed up in the words of Anne Sweeney, no matter how unpalatable they may have been to the lunchtime crowd at the Ivy. In her 2006 MIPCOM speech, Sweeney plaintively stated, "We want to go wherever our viewers are. Viewers have control and show no sign of giving it back.''

It's article like these that encourage me to renew my VF subscription, even after I angrily swore it off when they published the TomKatSuri photo-sploitation. But hey, I don't need the print publication, I can avoid the nauseating perfume ads and just get the good content on-line! Arrrrggghhh!

Pirates of the Multiplex: On The Web: vanityfair.com

E-mail and records management

Last week I participated in a seminar on e-discovery that the Burton Group held in Chicago. I've been immersed in the subject lately, specifically with regard to tools that support the archiving and records management of e-mail content and how they  can support e-discovery. My analysis of the current market will be detailed in forthcoming report on e-mail records retention, so please stay tuned.

My colleague Craig Roth posted his notes and impressions on the topic from that morning: 

This was just my first taste of a topic I hadn’t been exposed to before. Just as we had three groups in the room - legal, IT security, and IT communication/collaboration/content - many organizations need to build bridges between these groups before e-discovery issues come to a head.

E-Discovery: What’s in That E-Mail? « KnowledgeForward

Craig's comments shed some light on the complex situation that all enterprises face when dealing with e-discovery. The bottom line is that all corporate records are subject to e-discovery, including, but not limited to content that comes into the organization through electronic channels such as e-mail, Instant Messaging (IM), and web-based collaboration or communication tools.

If asked today what is their most important desktop application, most information workers and organizations would say e-mail. However, most companies do a poor job of managing e-mailbox content and many of the policies for retaining e-mail deal with recovery/restoration concerns over corporate records management concerns. Putting aside the e-discovery and compliance sticks, what carrots are being kept out of reach by not having the content of such a valuable resource managed in a way that makes it easy to search and store? What about user productivity when trying to recreate correspondence with a client or being able to search all records to that pertain to a particular project, including how decisions were made?

It's Information Management 101 in the 21st century. Organizations can benefit greatly by treating e-mail (and other unstructured content such as IM or even blogs) as corporate records and implementing tools that move e-mail content into records management systems. Not only will they be shifting the costs of e-discovery and compliance to earlier, less expensive stages of the process, but they will also benefit from being able to find the information for other business related activities. As my colleague Trent Henry said the other day, don't make e-discovery the goal of your system, rather make e-discovery a requirement of the system. This may mean going back and looking at the corporate information management architecture to reconsider how to optimize it to support new channels of information.

Messaging News Magazine - May/June 2007 - Cover Story: Calendaring: Why Isn't It Just Like Email?

I am quoted in this great cover story by Michael Sampson regarding the state of Calendaring options today. 

Since the widespread adoption in the 1990s of the various Internet standards for email, we have been able to quickly, cheaply and easily send messages to anyone. We can choose whatever email client we want to use, with little or no reference to the email clients that others select. Plus we can change between email clients at the drop of a hat. Unfortunately that is not the case with calendars, but the situation is changing. The lack of interoperability has been a problem for many years, and in our hyper-connected world it has become a critical problem.

Messaging News Magazine - May/June 2007 - Cover Story: Calendaring: Why Isn't It Just Like Email?

Presidential Records Act and e-Mail retention

 Some very interesting results so far in the congressional investigation.

The Presidential Records Act requires the President to “take all such steps as may be necessary to assure that the activities, deliberations, decisions, and policies that reflect the performance of his constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties are adequately documented … and maintained as Presidential records.” To implement this legal requirement, the White House Counsel issued clear written policies in February 2001 instructing White House staff to use only the official White House e-mail system for official communications and to retain any official e-mails they received on a nongovernmental account.

I see parallels with organizations and the new FRCP regulations over electronic information, which includes e-mail. Without making judgements, the current situation does not look good for the "we deleted that e-mail" argument. Certainly judges have also been unconvinced as evidenced by the $2.75M US sanction in the US v Phillip Morris case or the $29M US jury award in Zubalake v UBS Warberg LLC. Both were the result of the defendant not retaining or producing e-mail records per court orders. Read the committee's findings about not putting measures into place to preserve records. My gut reaction is that if you have any skepticism in reaction to this, what do you think a judge will think if you try to use the same argument?

The Use of RNC E-Mail Accounts by White House Officials :: Committee on Oversight and Government Reform :: United States House of Representatives

Domino or SharePoint?

A recent post in the CIO Advice forum asked the following:

 

 

I find myself with a tough decision to make. Do I take my group forward utilizing Domino or SharePoint? I have the infrastructure for both. Any ideas? I would love feed back from anyone who is using either. Thanks in advance!

Below is my reply:

To reiterate what previous commentators have pointed out, it's very hard to make a blanket statement as to which is better. Part of the problem is that Domino and SharePoint are two different animals with many similar spots. It's hard to do a point by point comparison of the two.

This reflects the different approaches to the market that IBM Lotus and Microsoft are taking. Both vendors are making platform plays for the communication, collaboration, and content management (3Cs) market, they are just going about it differently. The 3Cs market has converged from separate application silos to platform infrastructure with integrated services, resulting in looser coupling of clients from platform services and more contextual interfaces. This convergence of technologies is opening up new opportunities for customers as well as vendors to take part in a market that was once dominated by IBM Lotus. Not only has Microsoft delivered on their collaboration promise with SharePoint 2007 products and technologies, other detractors (e.g., Oracle and Adobe) as well as open source (e.g., Zimbra, SiteScape) and consumer vendors such as Google, Yahoo!, and Cisco/WebEx, are making entries into the market with strong offerings. These new market realities are a bonus for customers who can leverage the competitive market to their advantage.

So the real issue boils down to, as my predecessors have pointed out, making an informed decision. Good news is that there is a lot of information to be found in a competitive market. There's also a lot of opportunity to try things out before you buy. New delivery models in the SaaS market are proving to be very attractive to many customers who are concerned with support, cost, and consolidation issues.

Getting back to IBM vs Microsoft, as I mentioned both vendors are making a platform play, it just depends on how deeply embedded you want to get with the technologies. As I pointed out, the two vendors are taking different approaches to the market:

• IBM Lotus is taking a top-down approach refocusing on existing products and technologies (Notes/Domino, Sametime, and WebSphere Portal), offering Unified Communications and Collaboration (UC2) through a common extensible client, and  introducing two new Web 2.0-standards based solutions for team-based collaboration(Quickr) and social software (Lotus Connections) in the business. IBM Lotus has taken some daring steps with its new product announcements which, if they can deliver a compelling value proposition, will likely bring new customers to IBM Lotus. This product-centric approach is focused on providing solutions that can support different systems (e.g., Windows, Linux, Mac) and interfaces (e.g., desktop, browser, mobile) with mix-and-match capabilities. Even IBM Lotus' development model is focused on composite applications over platform specific applications. There is some overlap in the feature sets of some of the products, which IBM will need to figure out how to clarify, however with standards-based interfaces offers multiple options for customers.
• Microsoft's is taking a bottom up approach where 3Cs services are provided on a single platform architecture built around Microsoft technologies, specifically Windows Server, SQLServer, Exchange Server, Office Communications Server (which is due to ship later this year) and Office 2007. All technologies support a common programming framework, .NET Framework, for application customization and integration. The Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 is essentially a Windows 2003 server with Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) that have been extended to provide portal, search, business intelligence, and content management capabilities. Its a holistic approach, where organizations that deploy all of these technologies will get the most benefit. Its also a commitment to Microsoft technologies - from the browser to the desktop and mobile device - in order to get the most fidelity and bang for your buck.

2007 is a pivotal year for both IBM Lotus and Microsoft with new offerings across the board for 3Cs. I'd say Microsoft is executing well with their strategy, go-to-market with both on-premises and SaaS offerings, and has made a very compelling value proposition. IBM Lotus still has a lot of ground to cover and catch up after its devastating Workplace product walkabout from 2000 to 2005. Right now, IBM Lotus has been focused on its install-base rather than taking on new blood. Still the new products - Quickr and Lotus Connections - could be IBM Lotus' lucky charm, but that all depends on how successful IBM Lotus is at bringing the products to market in the coming months.

It's never been a better time for the 3Cs market and the question is very timely. All enterprises with existing 3Cs solutions or those with interest in 3Cs should be asking the same questions. Given the nature of the go-to-market approach for both vendors, the decision boils down to a platform decision, and those decisions cannot be made in a vacuum. Organizations must plan ahead and deploy according to their business requirements. They should avoid using a technology (e.g., wiki, blog, workspaces) for the sake of the technology. Rather, enterprises need to examine their business requirements and apply the technology that will serve those processes the best. Customers may find that some technologies they thought they needed just aren't necessary, now or ever. Knowing these answers will help enterprises to decide which product, vendor, or solution will be best for their organization.