Pattern Finder

Opening Keynote at Gilbane Conference

Following are my notes from the opening keynote at the Gilbane Conference yesterday. The panelists were: 

• Susan Parker, Director, Mass.gov, Commonwealth of Massachusetts
• Michael Edson, Director, Web and New Media Strategy, Office of the CIO, Smithsonian Institution
• Luuk de Jager, Senior Director, B2C Organizational Empowerment, Central Marketing Office Online, Philips Consumer Lifestyle

Parker: Mass.gov

Before Mass.gov, a lot of different web sites. Mass.gov came along in 2001.

Goals of Mass.gov:

• Brand: Simple, recognizable brand name
• User-Centric: Content organized according to users, not government structure
• Consistency: Same look and feel
• Consolidation: From hundreds of individual web sites to a handful of sub-portals

Mass.gov came out of an e-government task force chaired by Governor Celluci. Vision was high level. Over time has evolved into “a single face of government.”

Did an analysis of a consolidated web site; reduced the number of people needed from 20-30 to 5-6 people.

We want to deliver info to where people live, such as on Facebook. We have a long way to go to do that. We've just started on a Massachusetts Open Data initiative.

We have had a problem with being dependent on expensive consultants to keep our systems running. For products, we use Interwoven Team Site and Vignette.

Statistics:

• Mass.gov gets 2.5 million unique visitors a month; there are 200 content authors.
• 104 individual web sites in the Executive Branch before Mass.gov. In December 2009, 36 total sites.
• Before Mass.gov, 157 separate sites in all Mass government. Dec 2009 is 89; goal is 30 in June 2012.

Edson: Smithsonian

Used a process of "workshops to wiki." Time was the enemy. Used a public-facing wiki over the course of 6 weeks. To find information about the project, search for “Smithsonian Web Strategy.” Recorded the workshops on the wiki.

We’re a red ink business. We want to lose less money but involve a lot more people.

Build your APIs first; we want to have people reuse our content.

De Jager: Philips

Statistics:

• Philips has $30 billion annual revenue.
  
• 15,000 active SKUs, 52 countries

Four pillars:

• .com: The marketing site
• .shop: Used for consumer intelligence
• .live: User-generated content
• .org: Global scale, local flavor

I'll Be at the Gilbane Conference

I'll be at the Gilbane Conference in Boston this Wednesday and Thursday. I'll be on the analyst panel on the first day, entitled, "Industry Analyst Debate - What's Real, What's Hype, and What's Coming."

I always enjoy going to this conference because: (1) it's not overwhelming in size, (2) the presenters are usually quite good, and (3) I always run into people I know, both end users and other analysts.

Cisco: Changing Market Dynamics in the SaaS E-mail Market

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For an analyst's view of Cisco's announcements, see these four postings by Mike Gotta (he's currently at Cisco's Collaboration Summit):

• Understanding Cisco's Collaboration Strategy (Part 1): What Is Driving Cisco into the Collaboration Market?
• Understanding Cisco's Collaboration Strategy (Part 2): What Is Cisco Announcing?
• Understanding Cisco's Collaboration Strategy (Part 3): Clarifications and Questions
• Understanding Cisco's Collaboration Strategy (Part 4): Is Cisco's Vision Holistic Enough?

Mike notes, "In those areas [virtual computing, voice and video networks, and inter-business collaboration] Cisco will progress and mature over the next 3 years (expect incremental consistency)--people should not expect overnight success--this remains a journey for Cisco."

I agree--Cisco still has a lot to learn in these markets, and it will not be an overnight success. However, these announcements have already changed the dynamics of the market. Looking at just hosted e-mail:

• Microsoft just lost its "California trendy vs. business-like" positioning: When going up against Google Apps, Microsoft has been able to say, "Yes, Google's trendy, but wouldn't you rather deal with a company that's been selling to enterprises for years?" In some cases, large enterprises, put off by Gmail's downtime and Google's enterprise cluelessness, have said yes, purchasing BPOS or Exchange Online. Cisco now disrupts that binary choice. Cisco can call high; it's been selling to enterprises for years. So while Cisco is new to hosted e-mail, it's only about a year behind Microsoft, and it's also a "safe" choice. For enterprises that just want to outsource e-mail--they don't care how it integrates with a collaboration platform--Cisco has now became an option. 
• IBM now has another enterprise SaaS e-mail vendor to go against: IBM's Lotus Live offering is for SMBs; if a large enterprise wants someone else to run its Lotus Notes e-mail system, IBM Global Services offers hosting services. If a large customer came to IBM looking for e-mail hosting, they were also probably looking at Google Apps and Exchange Online Dedicated. Now Cisco gets added to the mix.

The big question at the moment is how much Cisco WebEx Mail will cost. The Cisco WebEx Mail product page extols the virtues of the product, but doesn't mention pricing. Assuming it's in the ballpark of $50 per user per year, enterprises now have a new option to consider.

Unofficially, News on Cisco's Hosted E-mail Solution is Out

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On Friday, November 6, The Wall Street Journal posted a story noting that Cisco would soon be announcing a new e-mail solution as well as video sharing and social networking products. Although Cisco doesn't make the official announcement about its SaaS e-mail solution until two hours from now (12 ET today), the Friday trickle has already turned into a Monday flood:

• Marguerite Reardon, "Cisco ruffles feathers with new collaboration tools," CNET News, November 8, 2009.
• Clint Boulton, "Cisco Adds Social Software, Hosted E-mail to Collaboration Lineup," November 9, 2009.
• "Cisco Breaks Down Barriers to Business to Business Collaboration," CNNMoney.com, November 9, 2009.

The question was never "if" Cisco would offer SaaS-based e-mail, but rather "when." Cisco bought PostPath in August 2008, and was clearly working to bring a "Cisco-ized" version to market. In fact, if you attended the SaaS e-mail vendor panel I ran at this year's Burton Group Catalyst Conference, you will remember the Cisco representative saying a SaaS-based e-mail solution was in beta test--and told the audience if anyone was interested in being in the beta to contact him afterwards.

Information missing from the pre-announcement news stories is pricing for the service. It had better be in the ballpark of $50 per user per year. This is the number that Google has burned into people's brains, and one that Microsoft met last week with it's 50% price cut of Exchange Online. (In this case, the WSJ article is wrong. It stated, "Microsoft recently dropped the price of its hosted email service from $15 per person per month to $10." That's the price for BPOS. Exchange Online was $120 per year; it's now $60 per year, and with volume discounts it gets below $50 [e.g., 10,000 users is $49.32 per user].)

Oracle Plans on Supporting OpenOffice.org; Silence on Sun StarOffice

Oracle has updated its FAQ page on the Sun acquisition (hat tip to Savio Rodrigues' blog post). Under the question of, "What is Oracle's plan for OpenOffice?," the company states,

Oracle has a history of developing complete, integrated, and open products, making integration quicker and less costly for our customers. Based on the open ODF standard, OpenOffice is expected to create a compelling desktop integration bridge for our enterprise customers and offers consumers another choice on the desktop. After the transaction closes, Oracle plans to continue developing and supporting OpenOffice as open source. As before, some of the larger customers will ask for extra assurances, support, and enterprise tools. For these customers we expect to offer a typical commercial license option.

So the good news is it looks like Oracle will continue to contribute to the OpenOffice.org codebase and offer support for OpenOffice.org, as Sun does now. The curious thing is there is no mention of Sun StarOffice. Is this because Oracle figured calming down the open source proponents was more important than talking about Sun StarOffice, which it will continue to develop and support? At the other end of the spectrum, is this because Oracle plans to drop development and support of Sun StarOffice? Or is the answer somewhere in between?--maybe Oracle hasn't yet figured out what to do about Sun StarOffice.

Something to ponder.

(As an aside, the Oracle lawyers might want to do their homework. It's supposed to be called OpenOffice.org, rather than OpenOffice, as the name OpenOffice is owned by someone else. I know. My wife used to be the product manager of OPEN/office.)

Quotes from the SharePoint Conference Keynote

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Following are some good quotes from the Steve Ballmer/Jeff Teper keynote at the SharePoint Conference:

• A questioner asked Steve Ballmer and Tom Rizzo if the company would have a single web page ("sort of like Windows Update") that would list the current updates for SharePoint. Steve Ballmer replied, "The right answer is 'yes'; what's the current answer, Tom?"
• Steve Ballmer: "SharePoint Online is helping us understand compliance issues and we can roll that back into the SharePoint software."
• Steve Ballmer: "SharePoint, in a sense, is becoming an operating system."
• Jeff Teper: The symbiotic relationship between Office and SharePoint was there from the get-go."
• Jeff Teper: "SharePoint 2010 includes a replumbing of the UI."
• Jeff Teper: "SharePoint is the ultimate Swiss Army knife."

What’s New in SharePoint 2010

I’m attending the Microsoft SharePoint Conference 2009 in Las Vegas this week and received the 274-page Microsoft SharePoint 2010: Beta tome in my registration materials yesterday. Due to the 3-hour time difference between Boston and Las Vegas, I woke up early this morning and decided to while away my time by reading it. Based on what it says (note: the book contains the disclaimer, “This is a preliminary document and may be changed substantially prior to final commercial release of the software described herein.”), following are my initial impressions about the differences between SharePoint 2007 and SharePoint 2010.

• The UI is friendlier: The 2010 interface includes the Ribbon UI. Hopefully, that will make SharePoint less click-happy. (I’ve always felt SharePoint 2007 makes me click five times to complete a task that should take one click.) In addition, 2010 includes better support for what Microsoft calls “multilingual experiences.” That is, fields within lists can support multiple languages, and users can submit multiple entries (e.g., an English version, a French version, a German version) for a specific piece of content. Also, SharePoint can use rules (e.g., show this paragraph to new workers, show that paragraph to long-time employees) to customize content for users.
• Metadata is now pervasive: Recognizing that good metadata facilities make content easier to classify and search, Microsoft has significantly expanded support for metadata in SharePoint 2010. Examples include: (1) automatically extracting metadata from images, (2) configuring a folder to automatically add tag content with a specific tag (e.g., the folder “Preliminary” adds the tag “stage=Preliminary” to all content stored in that folder, (3) support for folksonomies (user-defined tags), and (4) the addition of the Enterprise Managed Metadata (EMM) service (allows sharing of metadata configurations across sites and farms).
• Support for compound documents: SharePoint 2010 has added the concept of “Document Sets”—that is, an uber document made up of multiple documents. This way, an enterprise can create a product rollout plan that consists of an Excel spreadsheet containing rollout dates, a PowerPoint presentation popularizing those dates, and a Word document describing the rollout stages in detail. By being a Document Set, these documents can be controlled as one logical entity (e.g., versioned as a whole, managed by a workflow as a whole).
• Blogs and wikis are improved: Frankly, given that blog and wiki support was so dismal in 2007, it was impossible for the feature set to go in any direction but up. At a glance, the blog and wiki support looks solid but not ground-breaking.
• Records management and business intelligence are no longer second-class citizens: Both records management and BI showed signs of being add-ons in 2007. In 2010, they’re much more integrated with normal SharePoint usage. For example, rather than records management capabilities being affiliated with a specific site template, a site collection owner can designate which records management features are enabled within that site collection. In the BI case, again, BI is no longer affiliated with a specific site template, but rather a set of capabilities that can be used in any SharePoint site. In 2010, PerformancePoint is no longer a separate product, but rather a service (PerformancePoint Services) residing within SharePoint 2010 (assuming the enterprise buys an enterprise license [ECAL]).
• Web analytics is now included: SharePoint 2010 includes a Web Analytics service so that enterprises can monitor site usage and search terms. For companies drowning in unused sites (e.g., a project site goes live, is used intensively for two months, and then never used again), this capability will be invaluable in helping them clear out the deadwood. In addition, it will help companies understand how their employees are using SharePoint—the first step in optimizing site design, terms, and so on.
• Multi-tenant SharePoint Online will now support custom code: The current version of SharePoint Online comes in two flavors: multi-tenant and hosted. The multi-tenant version (allows no customization) is targeted at SMBs, while the hosted version (allows customization) is for large enterprises. The lack of customization capabilities has been a huge issue, especially with partners that like to customize an installation for their clients. In 2010, Microsoft says it will allow such customization via a mechanism called “Sandboxed Solutions”—basically, process and data isolation.

To be clear, these are not all of the changes that are coming in SharePoint 2010; but they are, at least, some of the interesting ones.

Adobe Buys Omniture: The Long View

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On September 15, Adobe announced that it was buying web analytics vendor Omniture. This solves some short-term issues for both companies. Adobe’s revenue is down, and Omniture’s annual revenue of $300+ million will bolster that; Omniture wants to call higher and leverage Adobe’s many offices as a way to increase sales.

The financial analysts were all aflutter over the short term implications. Some weren’t quite sure where the synergy was (“OK, explain to me how a company that sells Dreamweaver needs web analytics.”); others felt Adobe paid too much (I’m inclined to agree, but knowing Josh James, I’m not surprised he got a good price); and others said Microsoft, Oracle, and others might top Adobe’s offer.

However, assuming the deal goes through—and I think it will—what does this mean in the long term? It means that we’re finally starting to see some market movement towards content analytics: that is, creating a feedback loop that monitors content creation and consumption as a way to help enterprises create more relevant content at a lower cost.

I discussed this concept in a Burton Group report three years ago: Content Analytics: Assessing the Value of Corporate Content (Burton Group subscription required). In the analyst call announcing the planned acquisition, Adobe said their customers were telling them that while they could monitor what parts of a web site or Flash application users were clicking on, they needed this analytics capability to be better integrated with the content creation process. Customers, Adobe, and Omniture typically discuss this integration work within the context of web site content—not surprising, since both Adobe and Omniture focus on this area.

However, there’s nothing to say that this integration work couldn’t expand to other areas, such as Adobe’s SaaS solution (Acrobat.com), digital images, documents. And in fact, in a call I had last week with Adobe and Omniture last week on the acquisition, they said as much to me. Both companies have a much broader vision of where this will ultimately go than was apparent in last week’s news coverage. This is the real long term value of this deal—expanding the creation/analytics integration work so that all digital content types are instrumented and monitored as a way to deliver the most relevant documents at the lowest cost. Put another way, in the long run, Adobe could use real data to tell you whether it’s worth spending three hours honing this project report—or whether you should spend only  20 minutes on it so you can move on to other work that will have a better payoff. That’s the path that Adobe is starting down, and that’s a good thing for enterprises.

Unraveling the Microsoft Word Kerfuffle

On Tuesday, a Texas U.S. District Court issued an injunction against Microsoft, saying it couldn't sell versions of Microsoft Word that "have the capability of opening a .XML, .DOCX, . or .DOCM file (an 'XML file') containing custom XML." This would seem to stop Microsoft from selling Word 2003, Word 2007, and the forthcoming Word 2010 product.  Microsoft has 60 days to appeal, and it may overturn this verdict, but it does give an IT manager pause.

So what's this all about? When Microsoft designed its XML file formats (OOXML), it included the ability to create custom schemas, somewhat akin to views in a database. The idea was that enterprises could add structured data to documents (e.g., an hCard [address] entry) without changing the underlying document schema. These custom schemas were not embedded in the document proper, but did travel along in the document .ZIP file. This meant that a document could contain multiple custom schemas: one highlighting people's names in a document, another highlighting place names, for example. This "to the side" mapping mechanism is apparently what violates i4i's patent.

ODF 1.1, the other current XML document standard, does not have such a rich custom schema mechanism, but the forthcoming ODF 1.2 standard will have a much better one. When a reporter, Kurt Mackie, called me Wednesday evening, I mused that ODF 1.2 might violate the i4i patent as well. The article reads, "The current version, ODF 1.1, doesn't use this custom XML approach, but 'ODF 1.2 will move to a similar custom schema that OOXML has, he [Guy Creese] said in a phone interview." While the quote is accurate, at this point I think I was wrong. True, ODF 1.2 supports a much richer metadata mechanism, but it's not custom XML-based, but rather RDF-based (see http://marketing.openoffice.org/ooocon2008/programme/friday_1475.pdf). The effect is somewhat the same, but the mechanism is different, and that makes all the difference, at least when it comes to patents.

How will this all play out? I'm not sure--and my impression is no one knows for sure.

Free Google Apps Comes Back: Why This Is Bad for Enterprises

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Um, that was another Google oopsie on July 7. After all the brouhaha about Google Apps Standard Edition going away, it turns out that it isn't. The TechCrunch article has an update stating, "A Google spokesperson says, 'In experimenting with a number of different landing page layouts, the link to Standard Edition was inadvertently dropped from one of the variations. We are in the process of restoring it and you should see it soon. We have no intention of eliminating Google Apps Standard Edition, and are sorry for the confusion.'"

So take yesterday's post and turn it upside down. The Enterprise Division continues to be a hobby at Google: it's subsidized by ad revenue rather than standing on its own two feet. Bummer. I thought Google had finally seen the way to serving enterprises. Oopsie on my part. 

Free Google Apps Goes Away: Why This Is Good for Enterprises

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Google made a splash yesterday by burying the sign-up hyperlink to Google Apps Standard Edition (free) and pointing people instead to the $50/user/year version: Google Apps Premier Edition. The title of TechCrunch's article about the move ("What The Hell Happened to the Free Version of Google Apps?") hints at the general reaction. Several commenters said they felt that Google was violating its "Don't be evil" mantra with this move.

At a superficial level, this is about Google's plowing ahead with a different pricing strategy, leaving some miffed users and prospects in its wake. However, at a deeper level, this announcement signals a major organizational change at Google.

Think about it. Google has been following this dual pricing strategy for 2.5 years--it could have easily kept on a steady course. Why did it change? My guess is that upper management told the Enterprise Division that it would have to start paying its own way--it could no longer live off of ad subsidies.

In other words, this is Google saying, "Let's figure out if we have a viable business here: let's stop treating Google Apps like a lark and get serious." (A hint of the "get serious" attitude is that yesterday Google also removed the beta status from Google Apps.) If the supposition that the Enterprise Division is being told it has to stand on its own two feet is correct, that implies something else: that the Enterprise Division will be able to call its own shots. With its own money coming in, it will be able to develop the apps it needs, rather than making do with hand-me-downs (such as Google Apps) from the consumer side of the house.

In my view, the Enterprise Division has been sort of hamstrung by being a hobby at Google. (Not completely hamstrung--the Google Search Appliance, derived from Google's web search expertise, has been a big hit and a money-maker. However, Google Apps hasn't taken off with enterprises because Google hasn't made the necessary feature changes that enterprises need.) Living or dying based on paying customers will concentrate the mind of the Enterprise Division wonderfully, and that will be good for enterprises. 

ThinkFree Behind the Firewall; Zoho for SharePoint

Yesterday was "news rich" in the productivity suite market. Two small vendors, ThinkFree and Zoho, made interesting announcements.

ThinkFree released its ThinkFree Server Enterprise solution on June 22 and announced it on June 23. Basically, this allows an enterprise to take ThinkFree's SaaS productivity suite/document sharing solution and install it on an internal server behind the firewall.

At the Enterprise 2.0 Conference on June 23, Zoho announced Zoho Office for Microsoft SharePoint. The e-mail I got from the PR person says,

This add-on, when installed on a Microsoft SharePoint Server, integrates Zoho Office Suite with Microsoft SharePoint.

The add-on provides users with the following functionality:

• Create new documents and save them to SharePoint in MS Office formats.
• View existing documents within SharePoint using Zoho Apps (Zoho Writer, Sheet and Show).
• Edit existing documents with Zoho Apps and save them back to SharePoint.
• Provides collaborative editing capabilities based on SharePoint's sharing permissions.

You can find more information about it in a post on the Zoho blog.

Via a server-side install, this connects Zoho to a document sharing/management application, similar to Google Apps, Microsoft Office/SharePoint, and ThinkFree--a capability that isn't offered by Corel, IBM, Novell, or Sun.

If you've been poking around, looking for alternatives to Microsoft Office/SharePoint, these are both worth looking at. With the entrance of Adobe into this space earlier in the month, the options just keep getting better and better.