collaboration tools

Microsoft eyeing Notes customers

Paul Mah — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 06:24:36 -0400

Microsoft has thrown down the gauntlet and declared that it is seeking five million Lotus Notes customers to switch to Microsoft's own collaboration tools. According to COO Kevin Turner, the software giant hopes to achieve this in its fiscal 2009 year. This figure is not just a wistful thinking either--Microsoft has "sold in" eight million seats to Lotus Notes accounts in the last two years. Underscoring the importance of SharePoint, Turner noted, the tool "is the hottest single product in the history of Microsoft, the fastest to a billion dollars." Turner added that "it gives us a very good arsenal as it relates to competing in the commercial business. We are going to keep pushing and driving."

For more about the report:
- check out this NetworkWorld article

CIOs tout collaboration tools

Tue, 27 May 2008 06:59:58 -0400

A number of top CIOs got together recently at the MIT Sloan CIO Symposium in Cambridge, MA, to discuss some basic IT workplace issues. But the CIOs quickly focused on a new hot topic; how to tap the creativity of employees using collaboration tools ranging Skype to $500,000 Cisco TelePresence suites.

At Adobe Systems, every employee from the CEO on down is given a virtual room so they can invite each other to meetings, make presentations, collaborate and show videos.

At the Liberty Mutual Group, employees are making use of Microsoft SharePoint, and soon will have access to TelePresence technology that will allow for employees from many work sites to meet, share information and speed decision-making. For the CIOs, the virtual world is here and ready to be put to the test.

To read more about the collaboration revolution:
- see this searchcio.com article

Gartner: Better BI tools on the way

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 07:59:58 -0400

A new Gartner study finds that the role of corporate IT units in business intelligence will be shrinking. In its place, search and collaboration tools will allow individual users and business units to build their own analytical applications, according to the study released last week. Gartner said that it expects this change to occur by 2012. By then, users will turn to interactive visualization, in-memory analytics, search integrated with BI, Software as a service and service-oriented architectures to build their own reports. Search and collaboration tools, probably off-the-shelf, will allow individual users and business units to build their own applications. "Evidence suggests that BI is used aggressively by just 15-20 percent of business users," said Kurt Schlegel, an analyst at Gartner, in a statement. "For the BI sector to thrive, it needs to overcome the fact that most business users feel BI tools are hard to use." And we bet that BI tools will get much cheaper, too.

For more on BI tools to come:
- See this ComputerWorld article

Google expands enterprise offerings

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 06:59:57 -0500

As you will recall, just a few short weeks ago, Google expanded its enterprise offerings with Google Apps Team Edition, a controversial product that would allow end-users to deploy collaboration software without the IT department's blessing or knowledge. While the dust that the company kicked up with that release still hasn't settled, that hasn't stopped the big G from unleashing yet another piece of web-based productivity software on the corporate world. Last week, the company launched Google Sites, essentially a reworking of the JotSpot online service, which Google acquired in 2006. A sort of companion application to Google Docs, Sites allows users to create documents and websites that can then be collaboratively edited and managed by various members of a team. Additionally, the suite allows users to track tasks, create image galleries and organize their contacts. While it might seem like Sites can perform a wide range of functions, as Ars Technica notes, "...many users may feel that Google stripped out far too many of the rich collaboration tools that originally made JotSpot so appealing." Regardless, it seems likely that the company will continue to improve the service as it has with Docs, in order to inch closer toward a full-fledged online collaboration suite.

For more on Google Sites:
- see this Ars Technica article

A look at the R&D Labs of major vendors

Thu, 27 Sep 2007 06:59:59 -0400

Wondering what's happening in the research and development labs of some of today's largest vendors? Top researchers from Cisco, HP and Intel shared the stage at MIT's EmTech Conference--"EmTech" being MIT's new name for what used to be called the Emerging Technology Conference. Topping the list is power consumption, parallelism and mobile communications. Andrew Chien, vice president of research at Intel said that his company feels that wireless devices, applications, and service providers are still falling short in terms of how "intuitive" and "seamless" their technologies currently are. Specifically, he said that today's handhelds should support tools that use geolocation and onboard sensors to give users data that is pertinent to their personal condition and immediate surroundings. Cisco, meanwhile, said it is looking for ways to merge telepresence with collaboration tools--not surprising, as Cisco recently acquired WebEx. And HP is working on ways to more tightly link handhelds with back-end datacenter systems.

Internally, it looks like the companies are giving their R&D labs a real facelift. HP is trying to lower the overall number of research projects by folding them into larger efforts and Intel is establishing "lablets," or groups of researchers that it sponsors at academic institutions. Cisco, meanwhile, is encouraging individual groups to be more entrepreneurial in their development efforts.

For more news on the conference:
- read the article in Infoworld
- see the article in eWeek

Consumer tech in the enterprise? Caveat emptor...

Thu, 06 Sep 2007 06:59:58 -0400

In new CIO survey from the Yankee Group, 86 percent of the respondents said that they had used at least one consumer technology in the workplace, to either stimulate innovation or realize gains in productivity. While you have got to admire their creative flair, security professionals in the enterprise are pulling their hair out because of the risks associated with these vulnerable devices and applications. But is it right for a CIO or CSO to ban the technology? ComputerWorld lists 8 collaboration and consumer tools that are making their way into businesses.

Topping the list is instant messaging; Yankee says that 40 percent of respondents use consumer IM technology at work. One way to deal with the security threat is to implement an internal IM server. Up next is webmail and portable storage devices. Some 50 percent of those surveyed by Yankee said they use webmail. Again, security is the big trade off here for convenience. PDAs, smartphones and camera phones are also causing a lot of headaches for CIOs, primarily because employees are coming to work and trying to sync up these devices with their computers. This can create big problems, ranging from application glitches to blue screens. Rounding out the list is Skype, downloadable widgets and virtual worlds. There's no doubt that it's a new world out there… buyer beware.

To read more about the security risks:
- see the article in Computerworld

Collaboration coming to the enterprise

Thu, 06 Sep 2007 06:59:58 -0400

Let's face it. Work is changing. First off, there's more of it. Secondly, we're expected to access the office at any time from anywhere and everywhere-- while on vacation, from home. When you combine this with the fact that companies are becoming more decentralized, you get a rising case for deploying collaboration tools. That is why we are seeing large companies and government agencies adopt new Web-based procedures and workflow strategies to maintain high levels of operational efficiency. The FAA recently implemented IBM Lotus Connections, a new Web-based tool that combines record-keeping, blogging, bookmarking and more. The FAA is using the technology as part of its Disaster Response Team, which allows employees to quickly file receipts, voicemail and instant messages to a central archive in case there is an emergency and employees have to buy items quickly. Analysts at Gartner expect to see organizations in the public and private sectors continue using tools like this. By 2009, approximately 30 percent of all Fortune 1000 companies will have enterprise social software platforms in place.

For all the details on collaboration tools:
- read the article in CIO Insight

Welcome to the joined-up enterprise

Thu, 22 Mar 2007 20:01:39 -0400

Thanks to the fast proliferation of broadband, mobile devices and collaboration tools in the enterprise, the promise of the joined-up enterprise--the idea that organizations can share data and information across different departments and systems--is fast becoming a reality. Major technologies allowing that to happen include broadband, mobile devices, Virtual Private Networks (VPN) and SharePoint-type applications. But along with benefits come some challenges. In addition to security, the biggest challenge is identifying and delivering access to useful data in legacy systems across the enterprise. Other challenges include information overload and effective management. Managing the joined-up enterprise involves developing a clear corporate strategy around information. Without it, islands of automation will occur, creating silos of information lacking a connection to anything else.

Read more about the joined-up enterprise:
- read the article at Silicon.com

ALSO NOTED: The paperless office; IT risk management best practices

Wed, 14 Mar 2007 20:01:38 -0400

> The paperless office, at last? Article

> IT risk management best practices. White paper

> Europe still experiencing a shortfall of women in IT. Article

> Microsoft releases Service Pack 2 for Windows Server 2003. Article

> Off-the-shelf collaboration tools grow up. Article

And Finally …First baseball, now soccer. Sports as a metaphor for collaboration. Blog

ALSO NOTED: New advances in SOA tools; Older systems more vulnerable to DST change;

Thu, 22 Feb 2007 19:01:38 -0500

> New advances in SOA tools. Article

> Older systems at greatest risk for Daylight Savings Time change. Article

> A new rash of phishing attacks. Article

> 90 percent of emails will be spam by years' end. Article

> ECM to become a prime focus for IT managers. Article

> Microsoft rolls out tools to ease transition to Vista in the enterprise. Article

> Creating more dependable, functional software. Article

> Nine web-based collaboration tools worth a look. Article

And finally… IT workers working less unpaid overtime. Article