By: Mark McGregor, Research Director, Bloor Research Posted: 31st January 2012 Copyright Bloor Research © 2012

In my recent article "The Game of Process Improvement", I referred to a book called "Innovation Games". The book is packed with details on how any of us can leverage Innovation Games to gain greater insight into our customers and users. Something that is critical to the success of BPM and Process projects, but also can be applied to the vendors of these, and other products too. Last week I spend some time talking with Luke, the author, about the book, the games and his company.

When it comes to the use of games in business I am a firm believer that they should enable people to learn. As I mentioned in my previous article, we learn more by play than by analysis. Luke, though, is concerned about making sure people understand that his games are not seen as simply a learning tool, but a business tool directed towards delivering specific outcomes. Of course he still believes that they can and should be fun!

Luke has undertaken a lot of research into the linkages between the brain and productivity. In his words: "Productivity Games are not simply 'more fun' - they are literally more effective. This is due to the fact that the concept of play is deeply integrated into human beings' mental development."

"Studies tell us that there are parts of the brain that we do not access when we are simply discussing our views, or trying to think through a complicated situation. However, when we play a well structured game with other interested players, our actions, interactions with other players, and explanations of our behaviour can provide a better, more comprehensive view of how and why we make certain decisions."

Innovation Games, although a relatively young company, boasts an extremely impressive customer list. Companies, including Adobe, SAP, Aladdin, Wyse, Google and Qualcomm, have all leveraged Innovation Games to to improve holistic design thinking, discover new business opportunities, drive strategy and product road map decisions, improve the effectiveness of sales and service organisations, fine tune marketing messages, and create more intimate, durable relationships with customers.

One of the challenges that Luke has faced over the years is the stigma associated with the idea of using games in business. In part this is due to the mistaken understanding that games do not equate to work. This has led to him and others using the term "serious games", although he (and I) prefer the term that he also uses - "Productivity Games" - to try and overcome these obstacles.

I agree totally with Luke that the objective has to be to deliver objective, useable business outcomes, and Innovation Games amply delivers on this front. I also come from the perspective that, for effective change to take hold, then people need not just outcomes but the learning. The ability to come to their own "Aha!" or "Light Bulb" moment. So for me it is also about going back and seeing how people learn most effectively and, as we say, this is through structured play.

What I can see is that there is a need for people to be able to understand how to differentiate between unstructured and structured play. I can also see that even the most boring of analysis tasks can be made to be more fun through games. So perhaps we could use terms like "Strategy Games" or "Objective Gaming" to make it clear that in board game terms it is more like 'Risk' or 'Diplomacy' rather than 'Ludo' or 'Snakes & Ladders' - e.g. it is a game, should be fun, but is directed toward a targeted outcome. As mentioned in the previous article, there are many business leaders who have successfully grown businesses using their love of, and skill at, the game of chess to succeed.

Truly successful games need to deliver both concrete outcomes and learning. The outcomes ensure that you are making good use of your time and getting business value, while the learning ensures that your people continue to grow and develop. The great thing about the Innovation Games concept, as developed and promoted by Luke, is that it delivers on both counts. One only has to take a look in more depth at the success stories to see how much has been saved/made/changed to understand that the results are definitely there. If you take the time to talk with people who have been involved in those projects, you will hear them enthuse about learning things that they did not even realise were important.

Next month, during my trip to California, I hope to meet with Luke and learn first hand more about the way he and the team leverage Innovation games.

By: Simon Holloway, Practice Leader - Process Management & RFID, Bloor Research Posted: 27th January 2012 Copyright Bloor Research © 2012

When I first wrote the RFID market overview, one of the key things I identified was that RFID hardware couldn't exist without RFID middleware and applications, and neither could RFID middleware and applications exist without RFID hardware. What has also become clear is that no longer are organisations just looking at passive or active tags, what they want is for their RFID middleware and applications to be able to work with a mix of different tags, both active and passive, and even at different frequencies. It is a case of choosing the right horse for the course!

On January 12th, Zebra announced they have entered into a "cooperative relationship and licensing agreement" with Checkpoint Systems. This relationship brings together Zebra's active location solutions with the passive RFID, auto-ID, Wi-Fi and sensor capabilities of Checkpoint division OATSystems' OATxpress middleware. The objective is to provide increased visibility of assets across an enterprise. The agreement is a non-exclusive contract and provides Zebra with an OEM software license for OATxpress

A reminder for those of you who are not sure about the two organisations involved. Zebra is one of the leading suppliers of bar code, receipt, card, kiosk and RFID printers and supplies, as well as real-time location solutions. Over the last year or so they have also developed a real-time location solution (RTLS), WhereNet ISO/IEC 24730-2. This provides robust location performance both indoors and outdoors with a long tag to sensor range. WhereLAN III RTLS tag delivers 1 meter locating accuracy, lower deployment and ownership costs, lower power consumption, and 802.11 b/g Wi-Fi backhaul.

Checkpoint Systems is a leader in shrink management, merchandise visibility, apparel labeling and asset tracking solutions. Checkpoint has some 40 years of experience of RF technology and shrink management requirements. In 2008, Checkpoint Systems acquired one of the leading RFID middleware companies, OATSystems (see OATSystems acquired by Checkpoint). This strengthened their RF capability and RFID customer base and has allowed OATSystems, as a division of Checkpoint, to further develop supply chain, manufacturing and inventory management applications on top of their RFID middleware for a number of verticals ranging from Apparel to Aerospace.

So what we have with this agreement is that Zebra can now offer Checkpoint's OATxpress device and data management capabilities in conjunction with their WhereNet RTLS solution. This makes it easier for a potential customer to purchase a complete solution from one point. From Checkpoint's viewpoint it gives access to Zebra customers and to the Zebra partner network thus providing further global access. From Zebra's viewpoint it can be summed up by a quote from Phil Gerskovich, senior vice president, new growth platforms at Zebra Technologies, "The addition of OAT's passive RFID and other auto-ID technologies capabilities will enable Zebra to play a larger and more meaningful role in helping organizations to make smarter decisions in managing their operations." Zebra has stated that they will announce details around its first product with the capability to implement applications that combine both active and passive RFID in the coming months, so watch this space!

In my view this relationship makes perfect sense to everyone and, most importantly, to potential and existing customers of Zebra and Checkpoint Systems.

By: Gerry Brown, Analyst - Digital Marketing & CRM, Bloor Research Posted: 22nd December 2011 Copyright Bloor Research © 2011

Marketing and IT have never been a match made in heaven. Extrovert creative communicators and geeky analytical techies rarely choose to passionately embrace. However, corporate needs, rather than partner choices, will take precedence in 2012.

Corporate confidence has been rocked by the ferocity and intensity of competition encountered during the current global economic downturn. Key clients and deals have been lost, salespeople are omitted from the early stages of procurements as customers research possible solutions online, and many products increasingly look undifferentiated and 'me-too'.

Many highly profitable companies are now 'looking down the gun barrel' of commoditisation and low margins caused by global competition. Senior management wants Marketing to make their companies more presentable, attractive, and relevant in order to restore premium pricing.

Marketing is now expected to take a central user role in selecting new customer-centric technologies. These include creating a Single Customer View (SCV) and involvement in customer-oriented uses and applications for 'big data'. Marketing needs to report on customer insights and analytics, better manage the customer experience, and to embrace new social media and mobility. Even 75% of marketers identify these latter elements as 'important' says a recent Marketing Week / SAS study. Little wonder then that 'familiarity with marketing technologies' is the most desirable attribute for new hires in marketing, according to an eConsultancy / Eloqua report.

To date, many digital marketing technology investments have been piecemeal and low cost, and funded out of general discretionary marketing budgets. Often marketers outsource digital marketing to ESPs (Email Service Providers) and creative agencies to manage customer and sales prospect databases, email campaign execution, search and online advertising, and web site management.

In 2012 marketers will take back some control of digital assets from external agencies. Digital marketing will emerge as an enterprise mission-critical core competence, managed in-house and supplemented with specialist agency skills, not the other way around. More techie analyst / statistician types will be recruited into marketing. Digital marketing investment will need to ratchet up a gear in 2012 as data-driven Marketing takes centre stage.

"So what has this got to do with the IT Department?" you might ask. Well, Marketing mostly will not have the line-item budget to support the level of digital marketing investment required. Secondly, marketers may be gaining desktop IT skills, but have a limited understanding of enterprise IT architectures and the constraints and complexities associated with managing and controlling enterprise data. Marketers rarely have the attention to detail, the numerical and statistical disciplines, and the procedural rigour that is commonplace in the IT Department.

Marketing needs financial help and technical support from the IT Department to make digital marketing happen in the all-embracing manner envisioned by corporate management. New scalable digital marketing technologies, common platforms, and open standards will be required to ensure interoperability with cloud services. Legacy digital marketing systems will be migrated or replaced. 'Proper' IT management and support is required from the IT Department. Marketers need to get on with the day job of being professional marketers, rather than tactical amateur technologists with the resultant risks to data integrity, security, and compliance, as has been happening recently.

In summary, IT and Marketing will need to create a close and harmonious relationship to produce the customer-centric end-result demanded by corporate management. The passionate embrace required may take some humbleness from both sides. However, such a business-IT partnership has a great opportunity to deliver against corporate goals, and enhance the image of two much-maligned departments that often suffer from a lack of corporate credence and credibility.

By: Gerry Brown, Analyst - Digital Marketing & CRM, Bloor Research Posted: 15th November 2011 Copyright Bloor Research © 2011

Most companies have not fully 'got' social media yet. Sure, they have a Facebook page, a Twitter account and a LinkedIn presence, but then what? Wait for the world to beat a path to your door? Run a few promotional campaigns and see few results? Wait for the CEO to ask "why have we only got X number of Facebook followers?"

Many brands have a somewhat passive, reactive approach to social media marketing. EngageSciences is an interesting UK start-up with a pro-active social media formula for businesses and brands wishing to attract new social media followers, and then to monetize that presence.

Firstly, you need to sign up a critical mass of fans. EngageSciences encourages its clients to create viral campaigns on Facebook and Twitter that give away something for free. Digital marketers might run prize draws, online sweepstakes, contests and quizzes, or offer exclusive premium downloadable content, such as a white paper, for example.

These incentives can prove surprisingly effective. For example, Unilever (Pot Noodles) increased their Facebook fans from 3,000 to 25,000 and Play.com increased from 40,000 to 80,000 Facebook fans within 8 weeks of using EngageSciences.

Sign-up requires an opt-in email address to be provided, so that the prize winners can be notified. Email addresses are critical pieces of digital marketing data. For digitally-savvy vendors, this contact data can then be cross-correlated with other databases and company web site visits; so that a pattern of personal behaviour can be detected that triggers further more personalised marketing communications.

Secondly, you need your fans to spend money with you. The best incentives are those that can easily 'go viral' i.e. are forwarded to friends, family and other followers. Typically these include redeemable coupons and 'flash deals' (time-constrained discount offers), such as the '2 for 1' deals used by Café Rouge and Strada restaurants, that have proved so effective. Exclusive ("offers only for you, dear fan") web page offers also work well.

As a recent IBM CRM survey proved, contra to conventional wisdom, for the most part, consumers don't really want 'relationships', and 'connection' and 'dialogue' with corporates. Consumers want offers, discounts and the ecommerce ability to purchase online. ExactTarget research reveals that Facebook consumers who are promiscuous (who "Like" a lot of brands) and those a little older (age 27+) want something of value in return for their "Like".

The EngageSciences Fan Relationship Marketing Platform provides all the technology required to push attractive offers into the key social media channels i.e. Facebook and Twitter, and capture followers' contact details for segmentation and online re-marketing.

EngageSciences' SaaS-based hosted solution is a relatively low-cost method of quickly creating a cloud-based social marketing database as a repository for follower demographic details, social behaviour, and engagement with online social media marketing campaigns. A 'test' campaign or a monthly subscription costs c. £1,000.

EngageSciences is an invaluable short-cut to market for marketers wanting to get started with executing social media marketing campaigns. Many marketers are fumbling with DIY approaches or 'big ticket' solutions that take too long to develop.

Consumers are receptive to creative online promotions now. ExactTarget research reveals that 45% of Facebook customers currently "Like" a company at least once monthly. Already the average US Facebook user "Likes" an average of 14 companies / brands. Consumer fatigue will set in over time, and fan or follower acquisition will become increasingly more difficult and expensive.

To date EngageSciences has managed to attract some impressive high calibre brands as users - Nokia, TNT and Forbes for example. One fact is clear. EngageSciences can help to re-energise a lethargic social media presence - and there are plenty of companies out there in that broad category.

By: Gerry Brown, Analyst - Digital Marketing & CRM, Bloor Research Posted: 1st November 2011 Copyright Bloor Research © 2011

Chief Marketing Officers' (CMOs) main role is to serve as 'brand custodians' on behalf of their employers today. They know that what their customers buy today is not so much product features, functions and form; but more 'the brand promise' - the image of the brand, what it stands for, and how the brand makes them feel.

Hence CMOs obsess about keeping the brand's integrity intact and ensuring that creative images and messages they use are globally consistent, and are mutually supportive of the brand promise. This has always been tricky. Local country operations often employ their own agencies to build local language versions of promotional materials, and different and often contradictory logos and messages appear, serving to confuse the customer and dilute carefully woven corporate marketing stories.

What CMOs need is a central brand control system to ensure global discipline of its troops. The solution is Brand Asset Management (BAM) which is a mix of Digital Asset Management (DAM) and its parent category, Marketing Resource Management (MRM), where Aprimo (acquired by Teradata earlier this year) is perhaps the best-known supplier.

Less well-known is the UK-based company VYRE, which is making waves in the Brand Asset Management market. Over 400 brands use VYRE's Unify BAM platform. Its clients include Diageo (owners of drinks brands like Guinness, Smirnoff and Baileys) and Shell.

Typically, brand managers use Unify as a central access point and portal for brand guidelines, creative display pieces, video, pictures, blog content etc. VYRE's larger customers have many thousands of Brand Managers globally accessing up to 100,000 brand assets as part of their daily work. These assets are then combined by local marketers into finished content, brochures, flyers, advertising etc. for their marketing promotional campaigns.

This finished content is then loaded into an Approvals workflow module so that the necessary management authorisation and sign-off can be obtained. This means local language versions can be tightly controlled by Corporate, so that brand integrity can be maintained. In addition, wasteful 're-inventing the wheel' is avoided as content can be created once and re-purposed for many different promotional uses. Such systems make simultaneous global promotional product launches a reality, maximising impact and product availability. Apple and Microsoft do this effectively.

VYRE's Unify is ideal for a large company like Shell or Diageo - it allows for a high degree of flexibility and customisation so that established working practices can be simulated within the software. Now VYRE has launched a midmarket, more packaged solution called On Brand. This is only available as a SaaS version, and starts at £2,500 per month. This means for roughly the cost of a marketing executive, a brand can deploy a fully featured BAM system. This has to be tempting, as the ROI is potentially around 3x to 5x.

The On Brand price will be attractive to marketing and advertising agencies too. The global agency, Lowe + Partners, is already a big VYRE user. Marketing agencies typically provide much of the creative content for the big brands (for example Lowe serves Microsoft, Unilever, and Johnson & Johnson) and can better manage the logistics and workflow between themselves and their clients in an extranet configuration using shared systems such as On Brand.

Traditionally, many brand marketing organisations have used generic IT systems such as OpenText as databases for their brand assets. These multi-level filing systems are not that easy to use, especially for marketing folk not known for their computer-savvy skills. A system like On Brand, designed for use by Brand Managers, is preferable and offers the potential for fast global SaaS deployment (typically 6-8 weeks).

VYRE is an established 20-year industry veteran that has quietly been building clients and competencies around BAM. It has plans to grow its presence in the US and recent contracts there bode well. On Brand may just provide the vehicle to accelerate their growth and provide a stronger global presence as a leader in the BAM market.

By: Mark McGregor, Research Director, Bloor Research Posted: 25th October 2011 Copyright Bloor Research © 2011

For many years it seemed as though the domain of modelling in an SAP environment was the preserve of only one tool. IDS-Scheer, with their ARIS tool, was the undisputed dominant player. Whether this was because of both companies being German, whether it was to do with the cross shareholding, or simply great sales and marketing by IDS-Scheer, other vendors fought shy of fighting the ARIS dominance. But now it seems that is changing.

Ever since the acquisition of IDS-Scheer by Software AG, there has been a sense of opportunity among other vendors. The last 18 months have seen several vendors talk about that opportunity and consider entering the fray. I know from my own experience that, in some cases, senior management within vendors has been split on whether to enter the market or not.

Historically, vendors such as MEGA International and Nimbus Partners have dabbled, but not really appeared to make great headway. Casewise, too, has in the past attempted, without great success, to address the SAP market, but did announce last year that they were planning to re-enter the fray with their Casewise4ERP offering.

Today though, things have changed. IBM, iGrafx and QPR are addressing the needs of the SAP community head on. QPR originally partnered with Nobultec Ltd to provide the interfacing between the company's modelling offering and SAP, and then they purchased the company.

Meanwhile, IBM turned to UK-based Silwood Associates to provide the required interfaces for their System Architect product. iGrafx, meanwhile, chose to partner with the German vendor Transware.

While the opportunity to tray and service more than 100,000 organizations using SAP in more than 120 countries is obviously a factor, vendors also have their eye on other prizes - with Oracle and other Software AG competitors as targets, as well as SAP themselves. Most vendors believe that Oracle and the others will increasingly be looking at alternative business modelling solutions for their own practices and systems, so the prize of an illusive major OEM contract is also driving them forward.

The acquisition of Nobultec by QPR was definitely a smart move and surely increases the market value of both Transware and Silwood. Some years ago another company aimed to act as a bridge between tools. That vendor, Software One, was quickly snapped up by Oracle and thus others were prevented from easy interfacing between tools. It remains to be seen whether history might yet repeat itself in this space.

One thing we can be sure of is that SAP customers have never had such choice before and, for them at least, the opportunities to reduce the cost of the modelling aspects of implementation will be pleasing.

At the time of writing, no particular SAP-related deals had been announced although IBM is understood to have closed some SAP/System Architect deals within 7 days of their announcement! IBM, iGrafx and QPR all have products being demonstrated and shown; as yet I am not aware of Casewise having a commercial product, but rumour has it the company may well have recently closed a $1m deal as a result of their Casewise4ERP offering.

It remains to be seen which, if any, of these vendors may take over the mantle of "dominance" in the SAP space, but having cost effective, easy to use options and, most of all, choice, has to be a good thing.

SAP customers should, for the most part though, remain cautious, as many of these offerings come as a result of partner technology, which may or may not be available in the market on a longer term basis. As has been stated, even IBM are offering via partner technology.

By: Matthew Wailling, Director, Cordless Consultants Posted: 17th October 2011 Copyright Cordless Consultants © 2011

In reality the 3D screens we see today aren’t ‘real’ 3D; they’re stereoscopic displays, the origins of which can be traced back to Sir Charles Wheatstone in 1838. With the first patent for 3D cinema applied for almost 100 years after Sir Charles produced his first stereoscopic image, it took a further 73 years for Avatar to arrive at the Odeon. But while technically not 3D, “a new, groundbreaking stereoscopic movie from director James Cameron” definitely doesn’t sound as good.

Screens today create a perception of 3D by presenting offset images that are displayed separately to each eye; the human brain combines them and perceives three-dimensional depth. Although the term ‘3D’ has become ubiquitous, dual 2D images are very different from displaying an image in three full dimensions. The only display capable of this is a holographic one. The main distinction is that with a stereoscopic screen, even if the viewer moves, no additional information about the 3D object is seen; you can’t look round the back.

The challenges associated with stereoscopic?  Well, the obvious one is the need to carry (and be seen wearing) special specs—it’s not a great look. Then there’s the hassle and cost for IT professionals as glasses are just another thing for staff to lose or break. At a time when workers are more mobile, personal devices lighter and people want to carry less, I just can’t see widespread adoption by the typical worker. There are, of course, exceptions for particular work use: stereoscopic displays have clear applications in complex modelling and undeniable business benefit in immersive environments, but wider application to the desktop still feels clunky to me.

There is a second type of 3D screen available—autostereoscopic, which has optics built into the display, splitting the images directionally into the viewer's eyes, removing the need for glasses. This provides the opportunity for incidental viewing; product advertising through autostereoscopic signage could instantly become almost unavoidably eye-catching. But what of the commercial workplace? This year’s Consumer Electronics Show saw the launch of autostereoscopic laptops, including products from Toshiba and Sony. Initially, these will probably be bought by consumers for gaming and film-watching; most businesses will wait for the likes of MS Office to become 3D to justify the extra expense.

An issue with many autostereoscopic screens is the need to stand at a specific distance or angle to get the optimum 3D effect. While this presents a challenge for digital signage or point of sale use, where a target audience of multiple, moving people would need to see the screen at any one time, it’s less of an issue for laptop use. To improve the effect, many laptop screens now track a user’s eye position, adjusting the image constantly. As eye-controlled laptops are now reaching the market, also using eye-tracking cameras, it won’t be long before the two systems are combined to provide eye-controlled 3D laptops. 

An issue with both stereoscopic and autostereoscopic is accessibility. A significant proportion of people are stereo blind—they cannot see 3D images. The Eye Care Trust estimates that could include up to 12% of the population—some six million in the UK. So the potential market is smaller than for other display evolutions such as HDTV.

While the ‘how’ 3D is an easier question to answer, the ‘why’, for the workplace at any rate, is less so. When examining new workplace technology there’s always the danger of being wowed by new features and forgetting to look for the benefits. Gesture control, as seen on the Xbox and Wii, is being explored as a control interface for business-driven applications (although this hasn’t got much further than turning a bathroom tap on without touching it in many workplaces). Outside of scientific research, manufacturing and specialist modelling, business and user benefits are harder to quantify.

The logical use is as part of digital signage and branding strategy for high-impact areas. But a word of warning: while digital signage can add value, it has to be owned and its content kept fresh. Few things look worse than digital signage that’s turned off or showing a screensaver or tired PowerPoint deck—even if the company logo does magically protrude a foot from the screen.

As the adage goes, “content is king”. Avatar remains the highest grossing film ever, with a global box office taking of $2.8bn. I suspect 3D played no small part in this, and after the initial awe subsided, many people commented that the story was rather, well, one-dimensional. Avatar 2 is scheduled for 2014 and I’ll wager at least one of those 2.8bn dollars that the sequel won’t create anything like the same impact. With audiovisual the commercial sector tends to follow the consumer market and 3D hasn’t yet had the consumer impact many expected (perhaps people are just easily bored?). Herein lies the problem. Some market analysts predict 85% of us will have had a 3D screen for over a year by the time Avatar 2 bursts out of cinema screens. So if anything, it will be old hat.

In choosing to adopt 3D therefore, as with any new technology, remember this simple checklist: purpose, cost, benefit, ease of adoption, longevity.  Can you satisfy these criteria?

By: Peter Abrahams, Practice Leader - Accessibility and Usability, Bloor Research Posted: 18th August 2011 Copyright Bloor Research © 2011

I wrote an article about new accessibility features in Apple OSX 10.7, Lion, just before it was available, I have been running Lion on both my iMac and Mac Book Air and all my comments hold.

The new feature of Lion that has really impressed me is Mail, the email engine. Apple have really researched how people would like to use mail and made significant changes to the usability of the interface. When I read about the changes and even when I saw them demonstrated I was not that excited, it is only since I have started using them for real that I realised how good they are.

The layout of the window has changed to take advantage of the standard wide screen format, which means you can see more of the email you are reading or writing. A sensible but not surprising change.

The facility to search all my emails has been made more intelligent and easier to use. For example if I am looking for an email I sent to a specific person:

• I start typing in the name and it will give me a list of suggestions.
• I choose the relevant suggestion and it places a token in the search field.
• The token gives me options to narrow the search by emails with the person's name in the from, to, or entire email.
• In my example I would choose 'to' and I will get a list of emails that I have sent.
• This list can be narrowed down further by creating other search tokens, for example having a phrase in the subject field.

This is saving me considerable time and reducing the stress I suffered when I could not find the email I was looking for. Really a big boon.

But my real favourite is conversations. This feature takes an email that has a long conversation in it, with many replies and forwards in it, and re-formats it to remove all the indentations and repetitions and just shows each step as a separate block. This makes it much easier to follow the threads and it just looks much better.

However, for me the real excitement is the massive difference to round robin replies and daily emails.

I organise a rota of volunteers. To do this I send out an email to all the volunteers asking for availability. The answers arrive over several days. With the old Mail I had to gather them altogether to process them, the new Mail does that automatically. I click on the latest reply and all the other replies are visible in the same pane, just like steps of a conversation. I can see them all at the same time, deal with them and then delete or file them as a whole. It is faster and I am less likely to miss one.

My inbox always has several daily emails, for example one from Bloor with the new articles on the site. I do not always have time to look at them on the day. I have to say they tended to get lost. But with the new conversations they are all brought together, I can skim through several days worth, pick out the few interesting bits and then delete all of them at one go. This is helping to clean up my inbox.

Usability and accessibility are close cousins; the extra usability in Mail should improve the accessibility as well. The new Mail is a great example of User Centred Design.

By: Simon Holloway, Practice Leader - Process Management & RFID, Bloor Research Posted: 26th July 2011 Copyright Bloor Research © 2011

A lot has been written over the years about the way processes work within organisations. However, when one really looks under the covers what we find is that every process is driven by an event. Once the event occurs, decisions are taken by an "Identity", that can be an actual person or an automated device that has knowledge about the way the business reacts to this particular type of event. This "decision" is a rule. Once the rule has analysed the data surrounding the event, it makes a decision about which process should be started.

Let me illustrate this thinking. I am currently responsible for the administration of grass hockey elite squads in my county and this moment in time is one of the busiest, as parents respond to the invitations to join the county training squads and pay their children's fees. My event is the arrival of post each day. First decision on hearing the post come through the door, is do I collect now or a bit later? Once I collect, I hit the next event of "sorting the post". I have basically a decision on what sort of post has arrived:

1. If it is hand written or has the words "Director of Coaching" or "JDC", then the letter is of immediate interest and goes into the right pile on my desk;
2. If it is a business letter such as bank or credit card company communication, then it goes onto a pile on top of my printer;
3. If it is addressed to another member of my family, it goes into a pile on the left side of my desk, which, at the end of sorting, I take out to the kitchen for distribution;
4. If it is a magazine then it goes into another pile to be taken into the lounge for reading later.

So I have now applied my sorting "rule", which results in 4 different processes being kicked off; all of which can occur simultaneously, or near enough! Let's follow the post that is affected by decision 1 above. My next event is to open the letters and skim read the contents. Now comes the next set of decisions (rules):

1. If the letter is concerned with the Summer Camps I am running it goes into a pile on the left side of my desk;
2. If the letter is concerned with registration for the County JDC, then I check to see if a cheque is attached or not:
   1. If there is a cheque it goes into a pile on the right of my desk;
   2. If there is no cheque, then I write "No Money received and the date" on the form and put it on a pile on top of my printer.

For those letters about Summer Camps, I now start the process of registering the form. This process involves opening the right spreadsheet at the right tab, checking if the player involved is registered on the County database or not, entering all the necessary details of the form and finally banking the cheque.

For those letters about the County JDC that have a cheque, I now start the process of completing the registration of the player on the database and, for the double entry book keeping, updating the entry on the fee registration tab of a spreadsheet. The form is then filed in the completed box file store. For those County JDC letter with no cheques, I check to see if there has been a request to pay electronically and if so mark the form 'electronic payment' for latter checking with my bank records. If there is no information, then I email the primary address and ask how payment will be made.

What you can see is a pattern of Event followed by Decision (Rule) followed by Process and so on until you reach the final event-the end of the process!

My events, decisions and process are analogous to those that many organisations deal with every day in terms of customer orders, complaints, claims.

But what if, when the event occurs, all that you know is what the final outcome has to be and nothing about how you get from the starting event to the end event-what people refer to a "dynamic case management?". Well, if you look at BPM tools that support this capability, they are actual driven by the same pattern of event - decision - process; the difference is that the decision is more complex and will, in all probability, involve collaborative working with more experienced colleagues and other parties involved.

What I am seeing therefore is that the future of management of process in an organisation is no longer about just the workflow that connects all the current components that have been identified from the application portfolio, but also the identification of the events that trigger each major process and the rules that control what happens. However in today's mobile world there is one other piece to the jigsaw that has to be taken into consideration and that is the "identity" that triggers the event and those that are involved. This is all about the location and the device used to trigger the device or that will be used to receive information to make decisions.

By: David Norris, Practice Leader - Analytics, Bloor Research Posted: 14th July 2011 Copyright Bloor Research © 2011

As I try to understand the current trends in Business Intelligence solutions and, in particular at present, try to get to grips with what is meant by many of the marketing labels-like Agile BI-I have come across a number of really interesting products. Last week I had a phone briefing about Oryx and learnt a lot about the background that led to its development, and had an overview of what it could do. I was very interested and took the opportunity to go along and see them and have a demo of the software. What I have seen is a very polished and accomplished solution to a problem that I have seen occurs over and over again.

We have all worked in companies where, despite of all of the efforts of the IT department, demand for reports and analysis is never met, and that gap is usually filled by a series of Excel spreadsheets that provide answers but are far from a polished reliable source of enterprise data. Oryx is designed to enable business experts to obtain answers for themselves in a robust and reliable fashion.

Whereas most traditional approaches involve several steps with different tools to extract, to validate, to format and then to present data, and require a number of specialist skills such as an ability to write SQL, Oryx, in a single tool, and with an interface that is a point and click standard Microsoft desktop style screen, all of the functions are invoked to complete the job. From a very accessible interface a series of functions are invoked that will obtain data, validate it, format it and present it back with various tools, including drill through, and pivot and export functionality, and all of the other features that an enterprise solution should have, but delivered at the desktop of the business user with speed and elegance. In addition, all outputs satisfy the needs of enterprise solutions; they clearly identify when they were produced, there is a clear trail to identify where the data came from and how it has been manipulated.

I am not suggesting that Oryx is a complete replacement for the standard BI tool kit , but I see it as a valuable addition, enabling the backlog of demand to be satisfied without resorting to dubious DIY solutions. I have not actually seen another tool with all of these features delivered in this way before. Although designed to be sold as a Departmental solution to help Finance, Marketing etc to handle their demand for analysis without requiring constant IT intervention, this is a tool that should be seen as a proper enterprise level solution. It is very robust when things go wrong, it fails elegantly giving all of the information needed to correct the situation and fails safe rather than leaving a trail of files in uncertain states for IT to sort out. Once a report or cube is proven to satisfy the need, the solution can be turned into a production job with, again, just changes made via the interface to change the values and set up the required libraries.

This is a powerful desktop tool, capable of addressing a business need that exists in most companies. I have been impressed by the company and the product and think they succeed in satisfying the business need for flexible rapid answers, and IT's need to see the total cost of providing solutions remain controlled and not introduce a debt to be tackled in future years.

By: Louella Fernandes, Principal Analyst, Quocirca Posted: 15th April 2011 Copyright Quocirca © 2011

Pitney Bowes has long been a goliath in the metered postage market with around an 80% share in the US and 65% internationally. The need to diversify beyond the stagnant postage market has seen it venture into the software world. This venture has been far from smooth as it continues to try and carve out a niche beyond its traditional dominance in the mailroom. 

The company has spent over $2.5 billion on software acquisitions since 2000 – including MapInfo (location intelligence), Group 1 Software (data management and customer communications) and most recently Portrait Software (customer analytics). These are managed by Pitney Bowes Business Insight (PBBI), which was formed in 2007 from the merger of the Group 1 Software and MapInfo businesses. However, the various acquisitions have created a patchwork product portfolio and a complex set of offerings. PBBI is now competing with far more competitors than it is used to, so must simplify its messaging and focus on the core capabilities across its product range.

PBBI’s strategy is to help its customers enable lifetime customer relationships through the application of Customer Communication Management (CCM). PBBI’s CCM comprises a set of core capabilities—data, insights, strategy and communications that help businesses acquire, serve and grow the lifetime value of their customer base. CCM particularly focuses on creating and delivering cost-effective multi-channel communications—including print, email, web, SMS and call centre interactions. 

A complex product range
PBBI’s products for CCM include solutions for document composition, archive and compliance, web self-service and interactive communications for customer service representatives. PBBI’s MapInfo has long been widely regarded as the leading product for location intelligence and geographical information systems (GIS) while its latest acquisition, Portrait Software, fills a gap in PBBI’s customer and data analytic capabilities—which include data integration and data profiling, along with analytics products such as demographic and psychographic data. 

PBBI now certainly has a range of products to enable businesses to gain real customer insight, particularly through geo-demographic and psychographic analysis. PBBI’s advantages over some of its competitors are the ability to go beyond traditional analytic segmentation using either geo-demographics or advanced predictive modelling as provided with Portrait Software. At one end of the scale, PBBI is competing against standard CCM vendors such as HP Exstream, Thunderhead and GMC, while at the other end is also competing in the business intelligence space with many smaller analytics companies and the large players, many of who have made acquisitions in the last few years (e.g. IBM/Cognos, Oracle/Hyperion, SAP/Business Objects). If PBBI can simplify its messaging, it can certainly be a real contender in these markets.

Exploiting the convergence of digital and print communications
As the communications landscape continues to become more complex, as online and offline channels converge and the use of social media grows, businesses must find a way to manage business processes across all these channels. Many of its customers are undoubtedly operating print and digital communication processes in silos and are probably using some elements of PBBI’s CCM suite—either for document composition, data quality, production or archival. PBBI must now encourage these customers to move to a single enterprise CCM platform, and thereby reduce the waste and inefficiency associated with decentralised communications processes.

But, ultimately, the biggest opportunity for PBBI is to pull together its wide and somewhat disjointed portfolio, and provide a unified CCM enterprise platform that can identify the “hot pockets” of customers by both geography and buying habits. Such highly targeted capabilities can lead to far higher conversion of prospects to customers, so reducing the cost of sale and also “buyer fatigue” caused by over marketing of different approaches to people who have no interest. Such an approach avoids the need to sell to multiple different groups within the organisation, as it provides a single approach that can be used directly by sales and by marketing, yet provides all the analytic and reporting capabilities as needed throughout the rest of the business.

PBBI certainly has the technology and the breadth and scale of products to enable businesses to create personalised multichannel communications but it cannot ignore that other players are snapping at its heels, particularly HP and GMC who both offer end-to-end CCM platforms. Along with the many vendors in the customer interaction space, PBBI has certainly got its work cut out in establishing a strong position in the market.

By: Julian Holmes, Co-founder, UPMentors Posted: 18th March 2011 Copyright UPMentors © 2011

A change is taking place in the IT Industry that has a major impact on the way organisations should now look to recruit software development people. The so-called ‘hard skills’—such as an applicant’s technology skills, qualifications, and certifications—should simply be an entry requirement and a greater focus should be placed on the ‘softer skills’.

The core competencies that a recruiter should now be looking for are the behavioural skills. Whilst these are sometimes difficult to extract, a skilled recruiter with a competency-based recruitment method should be able to identify applicants who will not only suit new ways of working but also enhance the team. 

What are the competencies organisations should now be looking for?
Competencies such as a team-player, excellent communication and collaboration skills, results orientated, the ability to pick up new skills quickly, to see the ‘big picture', flexibility, someone who embraces change and a ‘can do’ attitude, to name just a few. Some organisations may already feature these as part of their profiles for candidates, however these should now be a prominent part of the recruitment process, with new employees required to perform each to a high level on a daily basis. 

What is driving the change in focus?
The growing adoption of agile software development practices has significantly changed the way project teams work. No longer are they required to work as technical specialists in silos but are now expected to work in cross-functional teams, often with direct customer contact, to understand the business challenges and to enable them to deliver the right solution.

The success of these agile teams is directly related to the ability of the team to ‘gel’ together to deliver high quality software. This way of working is a significant departure from the traditional approaches to software development. The challenge for HR departments is to strategically align their recruitment policy and practices to support software teams and deliver candidates who will not only fit with the new ways of working, but enhance and develop it further to the benefit of the team, organisation and the customer.

About UPMentors
UPMentors helps organisations to successfully deliver and cope with complex software projects by transforming people’s capabilities. Using a combination of consultancy and specific practices such as knowledge transfer, leading by example, mentoring on-the-ground and various training techniques, UPMentors gives software professionals the capability to work more effectively as part of a team and prevent project failure.

As a trusted external resource, UPMentors challenges the mindset of how training is delivered across the business; it removes unnecessary overheads, company politics and bureaucracy while streamlining the entire software development process. The company specialises in several software development processes, including Agile and Unified Process variations.

Founded in 2007, UPMentors works with large enterprises across a wide range of industry sectors; clients include Capgemini, ING Direct and HM Revenue & Customs.  For further information, please visit www.upmentors.com

By: Philip Howard, Research Director - Data Management, Bloor Research Posted: 3rd March 2011 Copyright Bloor Research © 2011

In my article on identity resolution in January I stated that “I only know one vendor that specialises in this second type of identity resolution and that is IBM.” What I was referring to was the sort of identity resolution that understands criminals who have multiple aliases and, further, can figure out that this suspect lived in the same house as xyz two years ago, who is now engaged to be married to abc, who is the sister of known terrorist lmn, and so on and so forth.

Well, my mistake. It turns out that I was wrong: Infoglide (www.infoglide.com) also provides this sort of software. Truth to tell, I had always put Infoglide into the same camp as Identity Systems (part of Informatica) for conventional identity resolution, which is more closely related to data quality. Indeed, Infoglide does sometimes compete in this market (they do overlap). However, its customer base is primarily in federal and state government and financial services, which tells its own story, although it does have a presence in the retail and healthcare markets also.

Also worth noting is that, while the company has historically been focused primarily on North America, it is now forming partnerships elsewhere. For example, the Westminster Group is a UK-based partner. Infloglide has several existing UK-based customers.

There are a couple of interesting things to be aware of in Infloglide’s solution. The first is that it uses a federated approach. In other words, all data stays in the source system. More particularly, this approach lends itself to addressing external data sources as well as those that are internal to an organisation. For example, you can query Facebook or LexisNexis at the same time as internal databases.

Like IBM, Infoglide supports anonymous resolution. This is used when you want to make enquiries about an individual but data privacy laws get in the way of providing such information, for example between a bank in Switzerland and one in the United States. IBM’s approach is that the data is shipped but anonymised (masked, if you will) whereas Infoglide’s is that the data is not actually shipped at all. Nevertheless, both answer the question.

These approaches are both fine if used within a single banking corporation. You need the software installed at both ends of the connection but that’s fine in a single organisation. However, it isn’t fine if two different banks want to communicate with one another. With both IBM and Infoglide having implementations in this market this will likely mean that banks will have to have both sets of software in order to handle information requests from different sources. No doubt both of these vendors would love this, but it’s not good for the banks, or anyone else wanting to use this software.

The market for anonymous resolution has not yet reached critical mass but it will. At that point we are going to have a problem. IBM and Infoglide need to sit down together sooner rather than later to discuss coming to some sort of agreement about standards for interfacing between the two product sets.

By: Natalie Newman, Senior Analyst, Bloor Research Posted: 25th January 2011 Copyright Bloor Research © 2011

I am not referring to Cloud Computing but rather the cloud of confusion prevailing over geographic information amongst the general public. The confusion over this type of information; the confusion over the many terms used for information that can be linked to the earth's surface; and the confusion over maps.

Watching a TV program the other evening called, ‘The Beauty of Maps' highlighted the subjectivity of maps. The map maker has cartographic licence to create a map display which projects his interpretation of the subject; whether it is to visualise the topography correctly and read the labels easily, or to project an image that might not be true. This program described William Morgan's 1682 Map of London. He created a map of a city after it was destroyed by The Great Fire. His map illustrated the city he envisaged London would become. St Paul's Cathedral was well illustrated on the map even though it was totally destroyed and had yet to be rebuilt. Maps project what the creator intends.

There is a book written by Allan and Barbara Pease called ‘Why men don't listen and women can't read maps'.The theory goes that "due to their different roles in evolution, men had to hunt and stalk their prey, so became skilled at navigation, while women foraged for food and so became good at spotting fruits and nuts close by" [The Telegraph website]. I am not sure that explains it and, if one can generalise quite so simply, women should then be the bigger enthusiast about SatNavs. Maybe the ‘don't listen' bit prevents men from asking for or listening to directions :)

Returning to the subject—there is a great lack of understanding amongst laymen about location and geographic information systems (GIS)—as my previous article described the need to increase aWhereness. Location information—or whatever we want to call it—is simply the position on the earth's surface to the accuracy that is possible, and/or the accuracy that is required.

Initially Google Maps and Google Earth provided much needed publicity for geographic information. Google Maps, or similar, is used by most people I know to find their destination and obtain directions to reach it. Google Earth stirred an interest in places we might not visit but can view. So much good has emanated from those two applications to raise the profile of location.

The downside is that there is still not enough understanding or appreciation of the implications of geographic information and the systems. The associated costs are now even harder to sell as ‘Google is free'.

The Google application, Latitude, enables a mobile phone user to allow certain people to view their current location. I assume that these locations include both the longitude and latitude measurement; just the distance from the equator would not really help anyone.

Another term to increase the confusion, or is Google taking latitude with Latitude?

In addition, according to the latest Apollo survey table measuring the media coverage per technology company, Google came 1st in Europe and in USA, and 3rd in UK!  With that much media exposure, we should not underestimate the influence of Google!

We will have to tell a convincing story about the necessary investment to add location to your business systems. We will have to ensure that the longitude accompanies the latitude and makes good sense.

That means we, geographic professionals will have to work that much harder to tell—and sell—our story.

By: Philip Howard, Research Director - Data Management, Bloor Research Posted: 31st December 2010 Copyright Bloor Research © 2010

For a variety of reasons geographic and geospatial considerations have been in my mind recently. To begin with, Natalie Newman will, provided all things go smoothly, shortly be joining the Information Management group here at Bloor Research, specialising in exactly these areas. She has 25 years of experience of working in this space, especially in government (local and national), defence and in the telecommunications sector, both here and in her native South Africa. Most recently she was working with BT Global Services. So Natalie is welcome addition to our team.

Then, earlier this week, I received an email from Capscan, announcing its support for CACI’s ACORN. ACORN (a classification of residential neighbourhoods) enriches UK address data with a whole load of demographic data. If you go to the CACI site you can try it for yourself. Put simply, you put in a postcode and then the software classifies that post code as being in one of a number of categories, groups and types. For example, my post code comes into category 1: “wealthy achievers”, group A: “wealthy executives” and type 3: “villages with wealthy commuters”. Not that I’m a commuter. Or very wealthy for that matter. You can then analyse this type by a variety of lifestyle and demographic attributes to see how type 3 communities compare. For example, the average household in a type 3 community is 1.76 times more likely to have 2 or more cars compared to the country as a whole. It’s really quite cool. Capscan is suggesting using ACORN in conjunction with name and address cleansing and you can see how this would make sense or even, for that matter, using it independently of data quality.

Now, this demographic data is based on locations and we’ve all heard a lot about location-based services and the like, which brings me to something I’ve been thinking about for a while, which is why GIS (geographic information systems), in particular, is not as popular as it might be?

What I have been wondering is whether it’s because of the name. It seems to me that GIS systems are not really about geography at all: they are really about locations. And, for that matter, spatial analytics is not really about spaces but about topography. Perhaps if they actually said on the tin what they are about then people might use them more.

Here are some examples:

• GIS systems are often used to help decide where to put new store or depot locations. Yes, locations.
• GIS systems can be used to identify hotspots for benefit fraud. That is, where (locations) this is happening.
• I remember a particularly neat example from Information Builders: one of its clients had done a location-based analysis of its suppliers and found that 90% of them were on the other side of a major river, meaning that if the bridge was out for some reason, then their whole JIT (just in time) manufacturing would go out the window.
• The most common application of spatial analytics is in the insurance sector, for determining things like flood risk. This is essentially worked by how close you are to a flood plain or coast and how high your property is relative to the water source. Which sounds to me like topography.

Long-time readers know that I like to call a spade a spade and this is no exception. Normally, I would say that we are stuck with these terms but that may not be the case with GIS. With the huge growth in location-based services and location analytics there is the possibility that GIS could re-brand itself and finally prove as successful and as widespread as it ought to be. Hopefully, Natalie will help to make that happen.

By: Gerry Brown, Analyst - Digital Marketing & CRM, Bloor Research Posted: 9th December 2010 Copyright Bloor Research © 2010

Facebook is a phenomenon. Founded in 2004, it now has 600m+ active users (as of September 2010) c. 10% of the WORLD’s population. It will add around 300m users during 2010. That’s about how many people live in the whole of the US. Not that Facebook is a US phenomenon; 70% of Facebook users live outside of the US.

Number of users is one thing, actual usage is another. This is where Facebook gets really scary. Fifty per cent of Facebook users log onto Facebook everyday for 30+ minutes. People spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook. So it’s sticky, which advertisers love.

The mobile revolution is fuelling Facebook’s growth. Facebook has 200m+ mobile device users. Having more ubiquitous access, they are twice as active as non-mobile users. All this for a relatively tiny software company of 1,700 employees that is dwarfed by the size and resources of the likes of Microsoft or Oracle.

So what makes Facebook so successful? Well firstly, Facebook believes that human interaction and sociability is a natural and normal human condition. This means they start their software development from the premise of ‘how does this product help people to communicate and collaborate?’

For example, Facebook’s first products to market offered relatively low functionality. Pictures weren’t shown in high definition and you couldn’t even move them around. It didn’t matter though because the product was easy to use and the pictures were easy to share with others. ‘Social’ is the startpoint for software development rather than functions, and is deeply embedded in all Facebook’s products.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg parallels this consumer-oriented mindset with that of enterprise software vendors. He believes that enterprise software vendors are more concerned with “a features checklist rather than what is really good to use”. Few analysts would disagree. It is rare indeed to find users raving about a piece of enterprise software like Facebook users do. However, that being said, Tableau, QlikTech and others have been making moves in this direction.

Zuckerberg goes further: “if you build a product that people love you can make lots of mistakes”. He means that users will forgive you if you build a product around the needs of people, and which is engaging, enjoyable and fun to use.

Facebook spends a lot of time trying to keep the user interface simple and intuitive, as Apple does. Unlike Apple, Facebook (which develops on Open Source platforms such as MySQL) also tries to be ‘open’ so that users can access and connect to a wide variety of services (including Facebook’s catalogue of 550,000 applications). This is true from a technical perspective, but also for user adoption. There are no user sign-up qualifications—apart from having to use your own real name rather than hiding behind an alias.

Facebook understands that it is at the forefront of a massive shift in tech marketplace dynamics—and wants to keep it that way. Every day their executives have intellectual debates about such issues as privacy, searching to better understand and shape trends, rather than to react to them. Facebook’s two most important corporate values are “move fast and be bold”.

Facebook may be run by a group of people who look like they just got out of High School (Zuckerberg is still aged only 26), but it should not be underestimated. Facebook has tapped into (and to some degree created) a rich vein of IT-enabled social interaction that few legacy software vendors have been able to exploit. The combination of intellectual zeal, ambition and teamwork; backed by top industry veterans (such as Netscape’s founder Marc Andreessen) has created a corporate culture that will be difficult for rivals to replicate.

Most importantly, Facebook has demonstrated a fanatical desire to understand and make sense of the fast-changing market environment around us—and convert that understanding into new products that are truly customer-centric, easy, social and fun to use. No wonder its dazzling speed to market and excellent execution is striking fear into rivals. With good reason.

By: Peter Abrahams, Practice Leader - Accessibility and Usability, Bloor Research Posted: 8th December 2010 Copyright Bloor Research © 2010

In October, Martha Lane Fox, UK Digital Champion, wrote to Francis Maude, Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General, with the results of a strategic review of DirectGov he had commissioned.

I enclose some short excerpts from her letter below.

The letter and Francis Maude's positive response are well worth reading and can be found at the Cabinet Office Newroom http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/newsroom/news_releases/2010/101122-defaultdigital.aspx.

The major thrust of the recommendations is "to improve citizens' experience of key transactions". I understand this to mean that usability and accessibility need to be improved. The need for improvements in accessibility were inadvertently highlighted when the report was first published on the web as an inaccessible PDF file. When I reported this error to the webmaster the response was a rapid 'mea culpa' and an agreement to resolve it as soon as possible.

In general I agree with the suggestions in the report as it suggests ways of:

• Making it easier for citizens to navigate around and through the government websites.
• Reducing the cost of providing the various services.
• Improving the quality of the services, including usability and accessibility.

The simple answer to all of this is to take the hundreds of existing government websites and centralise them under the DirectGov banner. In the process provision, control and technology could all be centralised and simplified.

I suspect that reducing the number of websites is certain to improve the services. However, I have seen many reorganisations in my business life, and I have always been struck by the fact that the proponent of the reorganisation always explains the benefits that will accrue but never seems to consider what may, or will, get broken in the process. I believe what is likely to get broken is the ability of individual parts of the government to react quickly to changes in circumstance or opportunities. The new structure will be big, inevitably bureaucratic, and liable to stifle innovation.

The intention of the new structure is to enable a citizen to go to one place whatever the issue. It is not clear exactly how wide the net would be, for example would it include the NHS, Local Government, the Citizens Advice Bureau or the remaining Quangos, etc. If it does then the structure is gargantuan, if it does not then it cannot meet all the requirements of the citizen.

Getting the balance right between centralised organisation and control, and flexibility for the departments, is going to be the major challenge for the new CEO for Digital (see recommendation 4 below).

I will watch the progress with interest and report back on a regular basis.

Extract from Martha's Letter:

"You asked me to oversee a strategic review of Directgov and to report to you by the end of September. I have undertaken this review in the context of my wider remit as UK Digital Champion which includes offering advice on "how efficiencies can best be realised through the online delivery of public services." This means that I have not reviewed Directgov in isolation but as part of how the government can use the Internet both to communicate and interact better with citizens and to deliver significant efficiency savings from channel shift. This letter sets out my findings and key recommendations.

Summary of Key Recommendations

1. Make Directgov the government front end for all departments' transactional online services to citizens and businesses, with the teeth to mandate cross government solutions, set standards and force departments to improve citizens' experience of key transactions.
2. Make Directgov a wholesaler as well as the retail shop front for government services & content by mandating the development and opening up of Application Programme Interfaces (APIs) to third parties.
3. Change the model of government online publishing, by putting a new central team in Cabinet Office in absolute control of the overall user experience across all digital channels, commissioning all government online information from other departments.
   • Departmental experts will still produce much content, on a commissioned basis.
   • Over time, departments will stop publishing content to their existing sites.
   • Any savings from the reduction in duplication should remain in departments, once transition costs and ongoing funding for the new central team have been taken into account.
   • Ultimately, government should use just one Internet domain, which could be direct.gov.uk or hmg.gov.uk .
   • A shared, agile, cost-effective suite of web services should replace existing departmental web publishing infrastructure.
   • Put more effort into syndicating government content across the third party websites
4. Appoint a new CEO for Digital in the Cabinet Office with absolute authority over the user experience across all government online services (websites and APIs) and the power to direct all government online spending."

By: Peter Abrahams, Practice Leader - Accessibility and Usability, Bloor Research Posted: 3rd December 2010 Copyright Bloor Research © 2010

For anyone with a disability, navigating a website is likely to take longer than it would for a fully able person. If you have very good eyesight, good hand-eye coordination, the ability to scan text and images quickly, and an understanding of how the Webmaster's mind ticks, then with a few quick moves of a mouse and a few deft clicks you will get to the information you require simply and quickly. If, on the other hand, you have to use a screen magnifier and can only use the keyboard you can spend a frustratingly long time finding the link you are interested in, and this will be repeated for each page you have to traverse to get to the information, or process, that you need.

There are several ways in which a website can be made more navigation friendly, including:

• A well structured, understandable menu hierarchy.
• Jump to, skip to, links to the most important parts of a page.
• A simple heading structure within a page.
• Potentially an A to Z of all the website.
• A search function.

But none of these are as easy to use as asking a real person questions like "How do I pay my parking fine?" Or "What time are the trains from London to Cambridge next Sunday morning?" The real person may be able to answer the question immediately or may need to ask you some additional clarification questions, but you will get to the correct answer or procedure very quickly.

The Virtual Zone (http://www.thevirtualzone.co.uk) now provides consultancy and software to create virtual assistants that can provide the ease-of-use of a real telephone operator within a website.

The software provides the ability to analyse natural language and extract the salient information from the question and then initiate:

• A direct connection to the relevant webpage.
• A structured question-and-answer session similar to those used by real telephone operators.

The consultancy is needed for the initial analysis of the type of questions that may be asked by visitors to the site and how the relevant answers can be retrieved from the site.

When the virtual assistant is initially put into production it is expected that it will be able to answer about 80% of the questions put to it. The software records all the questions and answers in a database, which can then be analysed to see how the process can be improved. This learning process should quickly bring the hit rate to above 95%.

Because this technology greatly reduces the number of links traversed to get to the answer and is also a human friendly interface it will appeal to all users; but particularly those who find using the Internet difficult, either because they have a disability or because they are not that familiar with the technology.

I have played with several sites that include this solution and have been pleasantly surprised at how easy it is and how quickly I found the information I was looking for.

To make the technology as user-friendly as possible it is important that the function is well signposted so that a new user to a site will be immediately aware of its existence. This probably requires that it is near the top left-hand corner of the homepage, and also that it is signposted by a ‘jump to' link at the very top of the page (those of my readers not familiar with this concept it is a link that is read out by a screen-reader that says something like "jump to virtual assistant", the user can then hit enter and go straight to the requisite part of the page).

The technology is already being used in a variety of different types of site including:

• Transport, for example Lisa at National Rail Enquiries (http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/).
• Shopping, for example Anna at IKEA (http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/), which also has an audio output which really improves the experience.

I would recommend trying out a few examples to see how you could adapt the technology to your industry and website.

By: Simon Holloway, Practice Leader - Process Management & RFID, Bloor Research Posted: 29th November 2010 Copyright Bloor Research © 2010

Some of you have been following my articles may remember an article I wrote about Convergent Software (A demonstrator for the new standards for RFID in Libraries) in February 2009. Well this week, Paul Chartier, their Managing Director, let me know that the company was launching a range of software products for the library community.  These meet the new conformance requirements recently announced on the RFID for Libraries Support website (http://biblstandard.dk/rfid/).

There are two products in the initial offering designed to help stakeholders to future-proof their investment in ISO 28560-2:

• ISO 28560-2 Planning and Modelling software:  This software allows libraries and other stakeholders to experiment with the encoding options of ISO 28560-2 by selecting and arranging data elements and encoding these on a simulated tag.  The main advantage of this software is that it can be used as part of a pre-investment process without requiring any RFID hardware or tags. This product incorporates their Template Builder and Data Builder tools that I reviewed in February 2009.
• ISO 28560-2 Quality Control software: This software combines the functionality of a fully compliant decoder with the additional powerful function of diagnostic software that identifies encoding errors and points to possible causes of those encoding errors. This product incorporates our Template Builder, Data Decoder and Data Doctor tools.

The announcement also contained details of 2 other products that are to follow shortly; namely:  

• ISO 28560-2 Comprehensive software: This software combines the functionality of the planning software and the quality control software products with their Data Editor tool. Chartier stated that this will provide the most comprehensive support for ISO 28560-2.  
• An interface module that enables the various software-only products to be linked to specific RFID encoding/decoding devices. This version of the software will take the simulation one stage further and allow prototype tags to be produced for testing purposes. It also can read tags claiming compliance with ISO 28560-2 and report any errors in a comprehensive diagnostic report.

All the products meet the requirements of the recently published Guidelines for ISO 28560-2 Conformant Devices and Processes.  A Compliance Statement is available on their website which explains in detail how the software products achieve this.

Convergent Software Limited is still offering its two software development schemes to help RFID vendors in the library sector to rapidly develop their support for the new ISO standard:

• The Benchmark scheme provides software and support to those companies developing their own bespoke system to support ISO 28560-2.
• The Integration scheme enables software developed by Convergent Software Limited to be embedded in vendors' software as an OEM component.

Convergent Software Limited develops and markets software and tools to support the encoding and decoding of data on RFID tags. The company also has products to support IATA RP1740C baggage handling (see article: Bagging Handling Applications get an RFID Simulator and Diagnostic tool).

By: Gerry Brown, Analyst - Digital Marketing & CRM, Bloor Research Posted: 26th November 2010 Copyright Bloor Research © 2010

In November 2010 I attended two separate user conferences, both at the same venue (The Mayfair Hotel in Central London) and hosted by two different enterprise solutions companies with a common heredity.

Both were innovative entrepreneurial start-ups offering disruptive technologies; both have c. 500 employees; both have recently been acquired at an attractive premium price (c. $1.8Bn) by a larger software supplier. The companies? Omniture (acquired by Adobe) and Netezza (acquired by IBM).

Two years ago the Omniture conference in London was electric. Their CEO, Josh James, was buzzing around with great vigour, and preached the gospel of web site analytics to an adoring audience. There wasn’t a dry eye or a free seat in the place. Youthful exuberance, funky beards and hair gel were everywhere. Stand-out presentations included ‘how BT uses web site behavioural targeting’.

Not this time. In Omniture’s recent ‘Clicks to Cliques’ conference there were no customer presentations. Content was thin and presenters relied mostly on jokes to enthuse the audience. At lunch the attendees I talked to felt little had been learned, and there were few action points. “I am not sure why we are all here” said one. Earlier this year Josh James abruptly left Omniture with no explanation and his life-blood, and the drive and innovation that made Omniture so successful seems to be lacking.

At Netezza’s ‘datawarehousing appliance’ conference both the audience and the presenters seemed to be having a jolly good time. An IBM manager articulated the attraction of Netezza to IBM. Netezza’s SVP for Strategy & Marketing presented the Netezza product technology road map providing a clear sense of direction using Netezza’s core values: speed, simplicity, smartness, and trustworthiness.

Three enthusiastic and personable Netezza customers presented why they had bought and how they use Netezza product(s). The man from BSkyB used BSkyB’s own tag line ‘believe in better’ to describe Netezza. “The more I use Netezza, the less I need integration tools” he said. There were lots of questions from the floor. The compere kept everything moving at a brisk pace and no-one had time to get bored. Everyone stayed for drinks afterwards, because they genuinely wanted to.

The bottom line for customers: smaller, high growth innovative vendors that are acquired by bigger beasts can work well if the senior management team is left intact, autonomy and continuity are maintained, and the culture remains relatively untouched. Synergistic co-existence is the desired goal—meaning customers get more of the same, but with more resource backing and global reach. For example, if Netezza can leverage the IBM customer base it might turn its 400 customers into 4,000 customers by 2015.

Paradoxically, those acquirers that try to assimilate innovative company cultures into their larger entities are taking the bigger risk. IBM’s decimation of Tivoli is the stuff of legend, but also other big players have destroyed shareholder value with an insensitive approach to acquisitions. A balanced, emotionally intelligent, approach is required rather than looking for immediate cost savings and ROI. IBM certainly seems to have taken this onboard in its approach towards Netezza and Cognos.

Customers are advised to observe behaviour rather than listen to the rhetoric when evaluating whether to stay with an acquired software vendor. If it becomes clear that a dynamic entrepreneurial culture is being consumed into a larger role-based bureaucratic culture, customers should review their sourcing options.

By: Nigel Stanley, Practice Leader - IT Security, Bloor Research Posted: 1st November 2010 Copyright Bloor Research © 2010

Published recently the third paradox report, based on research sponsored by McAfee and written by Nigel Stanley at Bloor Research, highlights some interesting security statistics from across the world. Here are some highlights - further details and the full report available here.

Key findings worldwide

• 54% of mid-sized organisations have seen an increase in IT security risks facing their company from 2009 to 2010, up 2% on last year.
• 40% of mid-sized organisations have had data breaches in the past year, an increase of 13% from last year.
• 75% of mid-sized organisations said that there is a chance that a serious data breach could force them out of business, up from 70% in last year's survey.
• 30% of mid-sized organisations had to manage multiple network security incidents, of which 55% took up to 5 hours to investigate and remediate.
• 58% of worldwide respondents spend less than 3 hours per week working on, evaluating and researching IT security. Last year it was 65%.
• 5% of mid-sized organisations reported that they had suffered a data loss that had cost them more than $25,000. Of these 25% were from China, 14% from France and 11% from India.
• 47% of all reported intellectual property losses were from EMEA-based mid-sized organisations.
• 88% of mid-sized organisations said they were concerned or very concerned about non-malicious/inadvertent security incidents.
• 60% of worldwide mid-sized organisations admitted to knowing less than 75% of the pertinent regulatory and compliance requirements pertinent to their organisation.

By: Gerry Brown, Analyst - Digital Marketing & CRM, Bloor Research Posted: 25th October 2010 Copyright Bloor Research © 2010

Last week I looked at the effect of open source and new agile vendors such as Qliktech on the BI market in the article ‘Is the Traditional BI in decline?’. Is the CRM market similar or different?

As with the BI industry, the heavy boot prints of the large enterprise applications vendors, SAP, Oracle, and Microsoft are all over the CRM industry. Also similar to the BI market, most of the CRM old stagers are still hanging in there, many albeit under new ownership e.g. CDC (Pivotal) Sage (Saleslogix), Pegasystems (Chordiant), Consona (Onyx). The CRM market during the last decade has been a roller-coaster with many vendor casualties, whereas the BI market has grown in a more linear fashion.

The most successful CRM vendor in recent times has been salesforce.com which now has $1.3Bn in revenue, 4,500 employees, and has grown its revenues in the $250–$300m range for each of the last 3 years. Salesforce loves to spend money (c. 50% of its revenues) on sales and marketing, especially for its mega Cloudforce conferences that provide the speaking platform for its charismatic and outspoken CEO, Marc Benioff.

Salesforce is great for the CRM SaaS market and its cousin the open source CRM market in ‘taking on’ the rhetoric of the enterprise vendors. One vendor described Benioff as a ‘lightening rod’ for attracting media attention: “we just enjoy being in the salesforce.com slipstream”.

Unlike BI, where there are relatively few open source vendors, in CRM applications there are at least 60 open source CRM packages regularly downloaded from Sourceforge. The crown prince of the market is SugarCRM.

SugarCRM, like Qliktech in the BI market, is growing revenues at over 50% per annum. It claims 7 million downloads and serves 600,000 end users. 6,000 customers have the ‘paid for’ SugarCRM Professional or Enterprise editions. The Professional edition starts at only $30 per user per month on an annual subscription contract. The new version SugarCRM 6 incorporates an intuitive interface, social CRM and search functions that keep it pretty much in touch with the product developments of the mega vendors.

SugarCRM is a low cost alternative to salesforce.com, Microsoft and Sage for Sales Force Automation (SFA). In addition SugarCRM offers some basic call centre support features and marketing functions such as campaign management. A key strategic question for CRM suppliers is whether to stay focused on the triumvirate of Sales / Marketing / and Customer Support applications? Few, if any, vendors do all 3 of these applications brilliantly today.

The alternative is to branch out wider into integrated Accounting and eCommerce as a SaaS-based small business suite, as Netsuite or up-and-coming UK vendor Brightpearl do. The latter offers the Brightpearl CRM / Accounting / Time Management suite all for just £20 per user per month.

In summary, the CRM market is still growing nicely and is now well out of its early adolescent growing pains. Some segments of the market, such as SFA and marketing campaign management, are starting to look increasingly commodity in nature, as tumbling prices and the many SaaS and open source alternatives are testament. Customers should choose vendors with strong strategies, and who are willing to continuously innovate in products and their own business models in order to remain competitive. Salesforce.com has shown remarkable agility and foresight in this regard to date.

Always a good sign is when the venture capital (VC) community is prepared to sign the cheques. To date, SugarCRM has raised $46 million in VC funding and an IPO in the future seems likely. So maybe the CRM market looks like a pretty good place to be after all.

By: Nigel Stanley, Practice Leader - IT Security, Bloor Research Posted: 8th October 2010 Copyright Bloor Research © 2010

In October last year I penned a commentary piece on Symantec, finishing the article with the line, “Is Symantec on track? Probably. Will it be successful? Maybe.”

This year’s Vision 2010 Europe event was a chance to see what they have been up to and to check point their progress.

Enrique Salem, CEO, articulated his vision based on the evolution of Symantec, now entering its third phase, The first two phases saw the transition of the company from software publishing through a product-centric world and now a refocus on making Symantec “relevant to today’s world.”

The company will follow 6 of what they call megatrends over the next few years:

• Consumerisation of IT
• IT-isation of the consumer
• Mobile
• Social
• Virtualisation
• Cloud

No surprises here, but they do need to come up with a better term than the dreadful term IT-isation. It basically means that consumers are now driving the adoption of technology and the need for security vendors and practitioners to be in front of the threat curve. As many security professionals are finding out supporting the tide of iDevices is a nightmare, so any help they could get to be ahead of the game would be really appreciated.

The huge array of products from Symantec are at long last being squashed together to form 4 product suites, so at least we should see better coordination even if we don’t quite get the centralised management tools many customers look for.

Symantec are not poor—in fact a recent round of funding has seen a war chest available for acquisitions. After all, cash earns a pathetic rate of interest, even when you are a multi-billion dollar business, so expect to see some merger and acquisition activity in support of delivering the Symantec growth strategy. Likely areas will be mobility, SaaS and solutions that help with the contextual analysis of data, so any boutique vendors out their with cool solutions give Symantec a call, you may be able to get your exit at long last.

So what of the elephant in the corner AKA the Intel/McAfee deal?

The public face of Symantec accompanies any discussion of the subject with a perplexed look and a degree of (fake?) incredulity. Admittedly they are in good company as few with insight can see how the fit will work—even at the basic level how much of the McAfee portfolio can actually be engineered in to silicon? Or is this a step too far for Intel?

Of course Intel needs to diversify, and they have a huge war chest (now $7bn lighter) able to be deployed as and when required, but how far should they go?. Symantec have a pretty cosy relationship with Intel, something that seemed to attract amusement at the conference that was part sponsored by the ubiquitous chip maker. No doubt to hedge their bets Enrique Salem admitted to developing relationships with other chip vendors. And any discussion of the Intel/McAfee deal was accompanied by the audience being reminded that Symantec is “the largest security vendor in the world.” So will Symantec be acquired? Well, think back to April this year (2010) when it was believed that HP may be out to purchase McAfee. If they are interested in a security and data management company then maybe they could go after Symantec, but at a market capitalisation around $12bn it would be an expensive purchase.

Is Symantec on track? Probably. Will it be successful? Maybe.

Has that line changed? Not yet.

Let’s review it again in a years time.

By: Philip Howard, Research Director - Data Management, Bloor Research Posted: 6th October 2010 Copyright Bloor Research © 2010

You can tell that complex event processing (CEP) was not initially developed by a company because no marketing man would ever have allowed a technology to be referred to as complex. In fact, the man generally regarded as the father of CEP, David Luckham, is a professor at Stamford University and he invented the term to describe the processing of complex events, as opposed to any idea that event processing is, in itself, particularly complex. He defines a complex event as “an event that could only happen if lots of other events happen”. For example, to use CEP (or any other technology for that matter) to recognise fraud means recognising the pattern of events that indicates that type of fraud: so this pattern consists of the “lots of other events”. To take a more prosaic example, the completion of an online shopping basket is a complex event that is dependent on a whole series of preceding steps.

Also, bear in mind that events are not limited to a single environment: for example, the availability of hotel rooms represents a complex event that will be influenced by such diverse individual events as the weather, time of year, whether there are any conferences in town and how many, the state of the economy and so on.

So, CEP is essentially about monitoring those individual steps or (micro)events or, in some cases, transactions, and then looking to see if they make up the complex event you are looking for. Or, of course, you might be looking for any one of a number of different complex events so there are multiple patterns against which the incoming event data must be tested against.

That’s it, basically. Of course there are bells and whistles that you can add to make the software faster or easier to use or look prettier but, essentially, CEP is about two things: monitoring events and then looking to see if those events fit into patterns that you are looking for or, sometimes, looking for events that don’t fit an expected pattern (anomaly detection). If you think about what the intelligence communities do, those responsible for squashing terrorist threats before anyone is affected, they are looking for a series of events to establish and identify a complex event that might be a threat. That’s the type of things they’ve been doing for years and businesses can leverage the same approach.

So, the question, naturally, is what can CEP do for your business? And the answers are as diverse as industry and commerce. Two generic examples are a) any environment in which you might want to prevent and/or detect fraud or criminal behaviour or any sort of unwanted behaviour (even if it is not actually illegal but is, perhaps, against corporate governance policies); and b) any network that you need to monitor, whether that be a road, rail, pipeline, computer or utility network. In its broadest sense you can even think of a shop-floor production line as a sort of network and certainly CEP has been employed on the shop-floor as it has in airports and by airlines.

An even more generic example is when you want to link events to a process of some sort. It is often the case that many business processes, for example, are embedded within application software while other processes have been formally modelled and are managed within a BPM (business process management) environment. And then, of course, informal processes abound. One of the issues that arises is how to link these together, and one answer to that is to use CEP, treating each step in a business process and each transaction as an event in its own right. However, this is not limited to business processes per se but any sort of environment where processes are involved, including process manufacturing (the shop-floor again), communications processes (not necessarily within communications companies), integration processes (witness Informatica’s acquisition of AgentLogic) and so on.

Finally, there lots of specific use cases: monitoring PC fleets for carbon emissions, monitoring stock ticks within capital markets, monitoring automated number plate recognition systems, monitoring patient heart rates and so on and so forth.

The bottom line is that if you need something monitored then you may need CEP. It might be because you need to detect a problem (typically, something anomalous has happened); or because there is an opportunity to buy stock or up-sell or cross-sell to an existing customer because you have recognised a particular pattern of events that predicts a higher than usual success rate (using CEP in conjunction with predictive analytics); or because you need to prevent, or at least detect, unwanted behaviour such as a security breach or potential fraud. But whatever your requirement is don’t get put off because it is called complex: it isn’t or, at least, it doesn’t have to be (with the right vendor).

By: Simon Holloway, Practice Leader - Process Management & RFID, Bloor Research Posted: 4th October 2010 Copyright Bloor Research © 2010

We all know that Manufacturing is all about products and that you have to keep reinventing your product portfolio to keep ahead in today’s market. Perhaps what it is not so well known is that the majority of R&D products don’t even make the market and of those that do only 1 or 2 really make a worthwhile profit. Therefore product development is a risky business, but one we can’t avoid. So how can we limit the risks and get better control of the process of controlling the life of our products?

Andy Michuda, Chief Executive Officer of Sopheon told me, “Product life cycle management (PLM) is the most vital business process in manufacturing today. A right decision on which product ideas to develop and produce can transform a company’s future. A wrong decision can bring a company to its knees. In the race for growth and profitability, the capacity to understand and act on PLM’s power will separate the winners from the losers”. But what exactly is PLM? There seem to be no standard definitions of PLM—everyone has something slightly different to say. Even the site http://www.product-lifecycle-management.info has a number of different definitions!

Let me give you my condensed definition of PLM. “It is the business process of managing the entire lifecycle of a product from its conception, through design and manufacture, to service and disposal. It integrates people, data, processes and business systems and provides a product information backbone for companies as well as their partners, suppliers and customers.” PLM is first and foremost a business discipline, whose goal is to eliminate waste and improve efficiency, and is considered to be an integral part of the lean production model. However, because of the business complexity and rate of change that requires organizations execute as rapidly as possible, application software is becoming more and more crucial to the success of PLM. It is one of the four cornerstones of a corporation's information technology structure. Shoenhair of Ping, a PTC Customer, supports this view: “PLM can be difficult to measure, but it is absolutely critical to leaning out processes, and critical to improving information flow and control.”

Where do ERP and PLM fit? Most manufacturing companies distinguish two main process chains: the operational process chain and the technical process chain. ERP systems largely address the operational process chain, whereas PLM systems automate and enable predominantly the technical process chain.

Figure 1: ERP and PLM (Source: PLM Technology Guide)

Johan Malmström, PLM Business Development Manager, SAP, emphasised the collaborative nature of PLM, “PLM makes sure that everyone works towards one version of the truth, with clearly defined tasks and responsibilities. It manages the product structure and related information, the usage of this data across the product lifecycle as well as the process of creating this data. Process support includes workflow capabilities, program and project management, resource management etc. to make sure that the correct resources are working on the correct tasks in order to deliver the right products to the market in the right time.”

Michuda explained that PLM is implemented in practice on three different levels, each of which is supported by a different tool set.

• Transactional Processes: Enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications manage transactional processes. They are designed to unify materials planning, purchasing, financial transactions, accounting and reporting into streamlined transactional processes. Supply chain management (SCM) and customer relationship management (CRM) applications also address process needs at this level.
• Technical Data: Computer-aided design (CAD) applications, as well as those related to formula, recipe, or product data management (PDM), are primarily focused on managing the masterfile of descriptive data within the product lifecycle. These PLM systems streamline and continuously improve the processes of defining, designing and producing products, while potentially also supporting aspects of product innovation. They offer collaboration capabilities that enable enterprise-wide sharing of product designs, reducing the chance of design and manufacturing errors.
• Business Information: The business level of PLM deals with business issues around critical business-related decisions within the product lifecycle. At the business level of PLM, the emphasis is on solutions that handle innovation governance issues such as process management, decision support, idea management, product portfolio management, expertise management, and intelligence around markets, competitors and technologies. Regulatory compliance and sustainability that important not only during product innovation but also to effective management of the supply chain are also included within the business level.

So what tools are used in a PLM solution? The PLM Technology Guide shows the core technology of a PLM system and some of the many solutions that can rest on the basic technology. The orange line outlines Product Data Management (PDM), which is typically used for basic CAD file and Data Management.

Figure 2 PLM Functionality Source:  PLM Technology Guide

Who are the main players? The major players in PLM space can be grouped under 3 broad categories:

• PLM product vendors such as Dassault Systemes , PTC ,Siemens, Sopheon, Aras
• The ERP vendors such as Oracle Agile, SAP PLM, Infor PLM, Epicor, IFS
• Consulting & implementation companies such as Accenture, Atos Origin, Capgemini, ITC Infotech, IBM, Infosys, KSA, Wipro and HCL Technologies.

What is coming? Dassault Systemes, on their web site, describe PLM v2 – “PLM 2.0 is a major redefinition of the PLM markets targeting all users creating, consuming and remixing IP. PLM 2.0 is to PLM what Web 2.0 is to the Web, harnessing collective intelligence from online communities. Any user can imagine, share and experience products in the universal language of 3D. PLM 2.0 brings knowledge, from idea to product experience (IP), to life. It merges the real and virtual in an immersive lifelike experience.” SAP’s Malmström sees the following three trends:

• Consumer-Driven Sustainable Innovation: with a focus on developing the right products at the right time in fast innovation cycles.
•  Global Price and Time Pressure: requires development efficiency, sharing of information in dynamic development networks.
• Increasing Product Compliance and Regulations: manage compliance, controls, documentation and visibility.

Mike Spragg, Infor's UK director for the process industries, sees the increase in environmental awareness and the incorporation of the ‘green’ agenda as an area of PLM expansion, “PLM has much to offer manufacturers.  PLM begins at the earliest possible stages of design, meaning these new green considerations are factored in long before products are manufactured and then enter the supply chain. This can save costs that would have to be borne were the products reworked at a later date.”

Deepankar Ghosh, Head – Manufacturing Practice, ITC Infotech, provided a clear idea of the importance of PLM, “PLM industry is comparatively a niche industry which is gaining more currency and acceptance as organizations are realizing the value that the PLM process brings to the table. With an ever increasing pressure on bottom line it is imperative that companies make IT investments where the ROI is not only high but faster. A more informed and demanding customer is seeking not only cheaper but innovative and trendy products more than ever before. For an organization to be ahead of its competition, collaboration across key roles and functions within the company and with its supply chain has become critical. The environment for the PLM practice to grow is just right and we will soon be witnessing an unprecedented interest in this area.”

So, if ERP manages your operations, PLM manages your product portfolio from creation to end of life. My experience of PLM solutions is that they really do provide value—you just need to find the one that best suits your pocket and needs. If that is the case then come along to PLM Connect and find the answer.

By: Peter Abrahams, Practice Leader - Accessibility and Usability, Bloor Research Posted: 29th September 2010 Copyright Bloor Research © 2010

ICT Accessibility is important today. But will it be important in 5 years time and what will it look like? What should organisations that are involved, interested or dependent on ICT Accessibility be planning for over the next 5 years?

Firstly, a short definition of ICT Accessibility to ensure that we are all on the same page. The international standard ISO 9241-171:2008 (Ergonomics of human-system interaction — Part 171: Guidance on software accessibility) defines accessibility as:

"Usability of a product, service, environment or facility by people with the widest range of capabilities"

The term "widest range of capabilities" is really a politically correct way of saying "including people with disabilities".

This article will use a slightly more limited definition:

"ICT for people with disabilities including: vision, hearing, speech, muscular-skeletal, learning and ageing".

Ageing is included not because it is a disability in its own right but because as we age we will tend to become less able through diseases such as Parkinson's or Alzheimer's or failing eyesight or hearing.

To try and answer the questions this article will look back 5 years, look at the present and then extrapolates 5 years in to the future.

ICT Accessibility is complex intertwined area so the discussion will be based around the following questions:

• How important is it for an individual to access digital information?
• What is the impact of laws, legislation and standards?
• Are decision makers aware of the requirements and benefits?
• Do the various professionals have the implementation skills?
• How does technology help or hinder?

How important is it for an individual to access digital information?

This is the key question that influences changing views on accessibility.

2005

Primary sources of information and services were offline: paper, telephone or face-to-face. In some cases alternative formats were offered, for example Braille or large print. Some basic information (brochureware) and some bleeding edge services were available on-line.

The majority of the population were not regular users of the Internet. People with disabilities had access to the information and services they needed off-line and access to digital information was not that important. However, there was an awakening to the potential benefits of access to digital information, especially amongst those with vision impairments who could access such information through screen-readers rather than being dependent on the information being transformed into another format.

2010

Digital is the preferred channel for most providers: how often do you hear/see "for more information go to our website"? This implies that the information is on the web but not available in any off-line format. Better service is now provided via online shopping, banking and travel than is available face-to-face or via the telephone. In particular there is a strong push in the public sector towards e-government as a way of providing better services more efficiently; hardcopy documents and forms will continue to be provided but only grudgingly.

Some providers have gone the next step with information and services only available on-line: Amazon, iTunes, EasyJet, comparison web sites etc. Where possible the product has also gone digital: music and electronic books. We are seeing the slow death of printed books; for example Amazon now sell more electronic than paper versions of some titles and the Oxford University Press has announced that it is not going to produce another printed version of the Oxford English Dictionary, which is now only be available on-line.

The other major area of push towards the need to access on-line is the meteoric rise of social networks of all sorts.

Lack of access to digital information, services and products is now serious enough to have a name, 'the Digital Divide'. Those on the wrong side of the divide are now disadvantaged but can still survive.

According to the Office for National Statistics about 1 in 5 UK adults are not on-line. This group includes people who are old, poor, or lack the necessary skills and also a small group who who wish to remain off-line.

The British Computer Society (BCS) has just published a report that shows access to IT makes people happier; not only does it enable people to do things better but it also improves their view of their quality of life.

Unfortunately some people with disabilities find themselves on the wrong side of the divide, even though they are keen to be on the right side, because the information, services and products are not provided in an accessible form.

2015

By 2015 the trend from off-line to digital information, services and products will be complete. Anything that can be provided digitally will be digital by default and will only be available in other formats by request, if at all, and probably at a premium.

By this date anyone on the wrong side of the divide will find it very difficult to carry on as a member of society. They will lack access to basic government-supplied services, most commercial services such as insurance, banking, many retail outlets, and all electronic social networks.

There will be pressure from a new group, "the recently old". This group will have been using digital channels for some years and will be furious if they cannot continue to do so because of illnesses of old age.

As the digital divide closes down it is essential that people with disabilities are not left on the wrong side through no fault of their own and therefore everything digital needs to be accessible.

It would not be overstating it to say that by 2015 access to digital information will be considered a basic human right.

What is the impact of laws, legislation and standards?

2005

Legislation existed in many countries relating to disability, including the UK Disability Discrimination Act 1995 and the the US Rehabilitation Act 1973 (and in particular Section 508 1998). These laws were either limited in relation to ICT or only relevant to government, they also seemed to lack teeth. They did not have a major impact on the accessibility of most ICT systems.

The W3C developed guidelines for web accessibility—the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 1.0) 1999.

The British Standards Institute (BSI) published PAS 78: Guide to good practice in commissioning accessible websites in 2006.

At this time it was not clear if the legislation applied to ICT and, if it did, whether it only applied to specific parts of ICT: did it apply to websites, did it just apply to public sector organisations?

Because of this confusion the guidelines and guides were not enforced by legislation. This meant that most webmasters and their organisations were either unaware of them or ignored them.

2010

In the last year, or two, case law has made it clear that all areas of ICT are covered. Probably the most publicised example is the case against Target (a large US retail chain). An individual sued Target because its web site was not accessible and therefore he was getting a poorer service than members of the able-bodied community. It took a least two years to go through the courts. In the end it was agreed that the website had to be accessible, Target had to pay out compensation to the individual and also to a group who took out a class action, and Target had to fix the site within a given timescale. The total cost came to more that $10M.

There is still a lack of awareness amongst many business decision-makers and plaintiffs are still put off pursuing claims because of the effort involved and potentially small returns.

In 2010 eBay announced changes to their systems to support users of screen readers. There were good moral and financial reasons for implementing the changes, but it can be assumed that the possibility of legal action also encouraged their implementation.

There are still cases going through courts, for example Donna Jodhan v the Canadian Government. The number of cases going to court is likely to decrease as organisations cry 'mea culpa' rather than spend money on legal support for a case they are likely to loose.

2015

In 2010 several acts are going through the US Senate, Mandate 376 Phase 2 is progressing through the EU, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has been ratified by most member states, rules and regulations are being passed through many other governments. All of these will have had a major impact by 2015.

By 2015 legislation across the world should be clear and have sufficient teeth so that it cannot be ignored. As it cannot be ignored, any relevant person (manager, procurer, technician, user) will be aware of the legislation and the importance of accessibility.

Are decision makers aware of the requirements and benefits?

ICT systems will only be fully accessible if accessibility is built in during all phases of implementation. This will happen if the decision makers dictate that it should. Ideally the edict should come from top management but it could be at the level of procurement or a highly motivated development manager.

2005

By 2005 most decision makers were aware of the need to provide physical access to people with disabilities, most obviously users of wheelchairs. This was certainly true in the UK and North America but may not have been so common in some other parts of Europe and the World. The decision makers were aware because the laws were clear and because the problem was easy to understand: a client in a wheelchair at the bottom of a flight of stairs leading to their building was not a photo-call that a CEO wanted to deal with.

The same could not be said about ICT accessibility. Firstly the law was not clear and had not been tested. But also the issue was not so easy to understand or even be aware of. If the issue was raised the initial reaction was "how can blind people use computers" not "what has to be done to our systems to make them easy to use by people who are blind?".

The users were only beginning to push for ICT accessibility because access to ICT was less important and because alternative formats such as braille and large print were the main requirement.

2010

Today the situation is not so different to 2005, with most decision makers still not being aware of the need for accessible ICT. The biggest improvement has been in the public sector where legislation has made the requirement clear. In the US, Section 508 makes it mandatory for government organisations and in the UK the push to e-government and the Disability Equality Duty have raised the awareness significantly.

The commercial sector is only just beginning to understand and be aware through court cases such as Target and by major organisations, most recently eBay, realising the importance of accessibility and going public with the changes they have made and the benefits to their clients and to their organisations.

The decision makers are also becoming more aware because of the noise being generated by disabled users. People are complaining when systems are not accessible and these complaints are beginning to percolate up to those who can instigate the changes.

2015

By 2015 most decision makers will be aware of the need for accessible ICT, this greater awareness will be driven by:

• Legislation will have been extended, given more power and written to explicit include ICT.
• Disabled Users will become more vocal.
• The ageing population will include users who expect to be able to access digital information and who will not accept that age related illnesses have removed that ability.
• The economic imperative to move towards digital information will highlight the need to make that information available to all.

The only question is, will this increased awareness always ensure that the systems are made accessible? There will still be a conflict between using the latest whizzy technology and the need to ensure accessibility.

Do the various professionals have the implementation skills?

Even if the decision makers decided that all ICT systems should be accessible it would not be possible if the professionals who were implementing it lacked the necessary skills. The professionals include the designers, coders, content creators, and testers.

2005

A small cohort of dedicated professionals were available to implement accessible systems, but they were the exception. Most professionals knew nothing about accessibility and were not interested in finding out. Professional education ignored accessibility with tutors not understanding why it should be included.

2010

In 2010 the number of skilled professionals has grown significantly but is still a small minority of those involved in implementing and developing ICT. If there was a sudden drive to improve the accessibility of ICT then skills would become a real issue.

The only way to know if an system is accessible is to test it. Testing needs to be done throughout the project and should use automated checking tools and user testing. There are an increasing number of professional testers who have the necessary skills to run the automated and user tests.

There are some good signs in the education field:

• Accessibility and user-centred design are now included as modules in many ICT courses, but they still tend to be add-ons delivered quite late in the schedule. Accessibility is still not built-in as an inherent part of implementation.
• The BCS is reviewing accessibility across the whole of the organisation. One aspect is to look at the inclusion of accessibility in SFIAPlus, the IT skills, training and development standard. Inclusion of accessibility in the right places in SFIAPlus will have a significant long term impact on the development of accessibility skills.
• Middlesex University now offers a MSc in Digital Inclusion.

This trend in education should ensure that accessibility becomes business as usual in the next few years.

2015

By 2015 skilled implementers should be available and should be willing to keep their skills honed because of demands for such skills from aware decision-makers.

Technology—Will Assistive Technology keep up?

There are two areas of technology that need to be considered:

• Assistive Technology: covers hardware and software that helps people who cannot see the screen well, or find it difficult to use a standard keyboard or mouse.
• The interface between the system and the user: drives screens, keyboards and pointing devices directly and needs to be accessible to the widest possible population, but it also needs to communicate with Assistive Technologies so that users of these technologies can access all the functions of the system.

2005

Speech recognition and text to speech were both available but without being too disparaging they were both fairly clunky and were only used by those who had no option. If you were blind, text-to-speech was the main way you could get access to digital information. If you could not use a keyboard, voice recognition software did enable you to input text and control the computer.

Predictive text was originally developed as an Assistive Technology, users who could only type very slowly only had to type a few letters rather than a whole word or phrase.

There were a variety of alternatives to the standard mouse, ranging from bigger mice, to rollerballs, through to controlling the mouse through winking an eye.

2010

The increase in processing power and significant advances in the software now mean that solutions that were clunky in 2005 are now so good that they are being used by people without any disability as they become a natural and efficient way to interact with ICT. This has led to some assistive technologies being built in to standard products. Examples include Voiceover text-to-speech on Apple products, and voice control in new cars; saying 'call home' whilst driving is much easier and safer than fiddling with any buttons.

Built-in touch technology has provided solutions for many people, for example those suffering from rheumatism or RSI, who cannot use a standard mouse.

Other alternatives to standard keyboards and mice are available but due to limited demand they are expensive.

2015

There will be new forms of AT, direct brain connections, wearable devices that will enable certain people to more easily control and access their ICT environment.

There will be a continuing improvement in the power available to AT: for example text to speech today tends to be fairly flat, with more power it will be possible to include emotions and clearer pronunciation and intonation.

Technology—Will the User Interface be accessible?

2005

In 2005 most of the input and output was text and that meant that it was fairly easy for the Assistive Technologies to interact. Some ancillary technologies were causing problems; probably the biggest examples were Flash and PDF, which did not always interface well to the Assistive Technologies.

There were also some web development tools that produced HTML that did not follow the W3C guidelines and was, by definition, not fully accessible. In fact it was difficult to find a tool that made it easy to produce accessible HTML

2010

Significant strides have been made since 2005. Most development tools can now produce websites that are accessible, the issue now is that it is still up to the creator to use the tools in the right way as the tools give very little assistance or guidance on how to create accessible sites. Adobe now provides PDF and Flash products that can be made accessible and has worked with the Assistive Technology vendors to ensure that the interface works.

Unfortunately there are other new technologies that have been developed that are not accessible, for example the standard YouTube screens are not accessible; so if YouTube clips are included in a website the site is not fully accessible to users of screen readers or users who cannot use a mouse. However YouTube now supports closed captioning to support people who are deaf or hard of hearing. Developers of other widgets have not been aware of the accessibility issues and have created solutions that are not accessible.

Vendors are recognising the need for solutions in specific niches, for example Xenos Axxess is a tool to create accessible transaction reports (e.g. bank statements) from non-accessible print streams.

2015

It is impossible to predict all the new user interfaces that will be used in five years time but 3D, interactive gestures and emotions will be three areas that will be commonplace. Emotions will be supported with the Emotion Markup Language (EML) that is currently being developed by the W3C. The EML will be added to text and then a text-to-speech engine will be able to vocalise the text with the right intonation or an avatar could make a suitable gesture or facial expression. The question with all of these interfaces is will the system be able to interface to the user, directly or via a suitable Assistive Technology, so that it is accessible?

New and exciting interfaces will always be attractive to the marketing departments, as a way of being ahead of the competition. It will be an uphill struggle to stop them being used if they are not accessible.

The likelihood is that new interfaces will be developed to include accessibility features built-in, however there will be a need for continuous vigilance by the accessibility community to ensure that this is the case. The community will have to recognise the new interfaces early and put pressure on the developers, standards bodies and users of the technology to ensure that it is accessible from first delivery.

Summary

By 2015:

• Accessibility will not be optional: everyone who provides digital content, services or products will need to make sure that they are accessible.
• There will be moral, legal and financial imperatives for this to happen. In particular there will pressure from users to be on the right side of the digital divide as a human right.
• Awareness will be much higher both at the user and the supplier end.
• Skill levels will have increased and should be sufficient for the demand.
• New user interface technologies will need to be accessible. Ensuring this happens will be the major challenge to the accessibility community.

By: Rob Bamforth, Principal Analyst, Quocirca Posted: 27th September 2010 Copyright Quocirca © 2010

Technology innovation is often hard to demonstrate to those in senior decision-making roles in most organisations, and generally for very straightforward reasons. Many vendors pitch their products or services as being full of benefits, but often these are simply features dressed up with a few marketing buzzwords ending in ‘ability’. The answer to the question ‘what will it do?’ is generally ‘anything’ as those flogging the idea, either from outside or with the help of internal IT champions typically ignore the unspoken part of the question ‘...for me, our company, against the competition, etc’.

It is an issue of putting the innovation into specific context.

In October 1993 the then Anderson Consulting created a dramatic way of doing this for their retail prospects in Europe, through a ‘blue sky thinking’ experience called ‘Smart Store’, built at its office in Windsor, which aimed to transport senior retail executives into the distant future of 2010. The multi-room showcased the impact of technology in a context that would grab and sometimes shock retail executives into action. Many of the concepts, such as self scanning, logistics tagging and tracking, are now pretty much the norm, so it must have been a successful, if rather expensive investment.

While Smart Store showcased other company’s technology innovation to help Anderson Consulting sell services, other centres of innovation and executive briefing centres have been built by technology companies keen to show off their thought leadership. Both IBM and Sun Microsystems developed these sorts of facilities and have tried as hard as possible to justify the generally hidden back end ‘big tin’ with applications and services set in the context of real business.

Although the theatrics rarely meet the impressive standards of Anderson Consulting, some effort still goes into filling the demonstrations with props. It might seem trivial, but there is merit in demonstrating real world examples and doing some sort of scene setting. After all, how many business leaders or managers seeking solutions to specific business problems want to be faced simply by banks of (expensive) IBM and Sun servers?

From a recent visit to Motorola’s innovation centre in Basingstoke it is clear that money had not been frittered away on superfluous theatrics. The markets being targeted and applications shown address down-to-earth everyday business needs, not blue sky concepts. The main room is filled with many diverse communications devices from simple two way radios to smart consoles for forklift trucks; all great examples of Motorola’s innovation and technical prowess, but how do they connect to business?

Rather than looking for props or theatrics, the clues come from Motorola’s recent changes in corporate structure, in particular the decision to spin off the phones division earlier in 2010 and the acquisition of Symbol in 2006.

As the spinoff of the consumer oriented mobile phone part of the company concludes in 2011, what remains is business and public sector organisation focused, covering wireless LAN, drop in cellular networks and mobile devices. Rather than having the generic devices that might be picked up as consumer friendly phones by the average office worker, the new Motorola has large ranges of more specialised devices, some offering voice communications, some mobile data, others converging both. Why? It allows Motorola to provide different devices to target the specific working needs of different groups of workers, with tools that are sometimes rugged, often just robust, but always designed and dedicated to do a particular job—hence the reason there are so many in the innovation centre.

That is all well and good and, to be honest, what you might expect from a large technically driven company with over seventy years of innovation, but while the hiving off is bringing much needed focus, it is the acquisition and subsequent slow absorption of Symbol that turns that focus into revenue. Symbol not only brought smart small IT devices to the radio company, it also introduced an ecosystem of applications, application developers and channel partners.

This has become the driver for much activity and is where the business innovation is happening; developing a mobile application to meet the business process need of an individual worker, blending small robust hardware with the right interface options to fit their role and adding the spice of well engineered radio technology.

If Motorola can stay partner friendly and avoid the arrogance that so often surrounds long term industry players who think they can do it all themselves, this sounds like a recipe for success for all parties involved.

Mobile applications that address business needs rather than massage egos or satisfy gadget lovers will appeal to the business decision makers. That should put Motorola’s mobile innovation into context, and while its innovation centre is not overly theatrical in its presentation, this is not an issue for the practical business needs being addressed.

By: Dana Gardner, Principal Analyst, Interarbor Solutions Posted: 22nd September 2010 Copyright Interarbor Solutions © 2010

Morphlabs, a provider of enterprise cloud architecture platforms, has simplified the process of building and managing an internal cloud for enterprise environments -- enabling companies to create their own private cloud infrastructure.

The Manhattan Beach, Calif. company today announced a significant upgrade to its flagship product, mCloud Controller. The enhanced version introduces Enterprise Cloud Architecture (ECA), a new approach that provides enterprises with immediate access to the building blocks and binding components of a fault tolerant, elastic, and highly automated platform.

Morphlabs also announced a partnership with Zend Technologies Ltd., whose Zend Server will be shipped as part of the mCloud Enterprise, said Winston Damarillo, CEO at Morphlabs.

mCloud Controller is a comprehensive cloud computing platform, delivered as an appliance or virtual appliance, as well as providing open mCloud APIs (you can manage the ECA cloud from an iPad, for example). To support the leading platforms, mCloud Controller will have built-in ECA compliant support for Java, Ruby on Rails, and PHP.

Fittingly for enterprise private clouds, the Morph offering also provides direct integration to mainstream middleware via standards-based connectors. It also supports a plethora of VMs, from KVM to Xen, and and VMware, and allows for others cluster managers to be used as well.

Look for Morphlabs to seek to sell to both service providers and enterprises for the compatible hybrids benefits. Of course, we're hearing the same from Citrix, VMware, Novell, HP, etc. It's a horse race out there for a de facto hybrid cloud standard, all right.

Productivity gains
“PHP has been broadly adopted for the productivity gains it brings to Web application development, and because it can provide the massive scalability that e-commerce, social networking and media sites require,” said Matt Elson, vice president of business development at Zend. “Integrating Zend Server into Morphlabs’ mCloud Controller enables IT organizations to leverage the elasticity of cloud computing and automate the process of deploying highly reliable PHP applications in the cloud.”

Key features of the mCloud Controller with ECA include:

• Uniform environments from development to production to help users simplify system configuration. Applications can grow as needed, while maintaining a standardized infrastructure for ease of growth and replacement.
• Simplified system administration with automated monitoring and self-healing out of the box to avoid complicated system tuning. mCloud Controller also comes with graphical tools for viewing system-wide performance.
• Self-service resource provisioning, which frees the IT department from numerous application provisioning requests. Without any system administration skills, authorized users can start and stop computes and provision applications as needed. Billing is also included within the system.
• Streamlined application management automates the process of deploying, monitoring and backing-up applications. Users do not have to deal with configuration files and server settings.

The mCloud Controller v2.5 is available now in the United States, Japan and South East Asia. For more information contact Morphlabs at info@mor.ph.

By: Peter Abrahams, Practice Leader - Accessibility and Usability, Bloor Research Posted: 9th September 2010 Copyright Bloor Research © 2010

In the early history of accessibility of the Internet, video and audio were really not an issue, little existed and what did exist was not vital. At that time accessibility concentrated on the needs of people with vision impairments and, to a slightly smaller degree, to those with muscular-skeletal issues. The requirement was for websites to be compatible with assistive technologies such as screen readers, screen magnifiers and various alternatives to keyboard and mouse input.

At this stage people with hearing impairments did not have accessibility issues as they could read the text on the screen. This is not the whole story, as British Sign Language (BSL) is the first language for deaf people in Britain and written text is a second language; this means that deaf people would prefer BSL. I discussed the issue of BSL on websites in 'Should websites include sign language'. My major conclusion was that it would not be practical to convert all content into BSL and therefore web site owners would have to decide what content was important enought to convert into BSL.

But today, with the increase use of audio—and especially video—the deaf community is finding that increasing amounts of content is inaccessible. What is needed is captioning. The vast majority of video does not include captioning at the moment.

Adding captioning has the obvious benefit of making the content availalbe to the deaf and hard of hearing; but, like many other assistive technolgies, it has a variety of other benefits:

• It can be used when it is difficult or inappropriate to listen.
• The text is crawled by search engines so captioned videos should get more and better hits.
• YouTube has a beta function to translate captions into other languages so the videos become accessible to a much larger audience.
• The caption could be an actual translation where having a high quality translation can be justified.
• The caption could be a video description so enabling users with vision impairments to better follow the action.
• Captions can be a learning tool as the viewer can relate the spoken word and the written word.

You Tube is the main purveyor of such content and does include the ability to add captions; but most user-created content does not include captions. This is hardly surprising because most creators are not even aware of the issue and, even if they are, may not be motivated to go to the extra effort to create captions.

This may be inevitable for privately created content but is not acceptable for content created for inclusion on commercial websites that should be accessible to all. The difficulty is that creating captions for YouTube clips has been hard and costly. Two recent innovations have made it more feasible and are discussed here:

YouTube now have a beta test version that transcribes the audio in real time using Google speech recognition. I have tried this on a few audios and at first sight it is amazing how good it is, but unfortunately at second view you become aware of the mistakes it makes. The problems are that it has to work on any voice; some are clearer than others, also it has to work in real time so the level of processing available is limited and, finally, there is no correction facility so the system does not learn. I believe it will be some years yet before this technology can provide an adequate solution. At present it is what I describe as a band-aid facility; if there is no captioning and a person with a hearing impairment wants to know what the clip is about the transcription will give them a good clue. This is similar to me asking for an automatic translation of a web page, which is inaccessible to me because it is in a language I do not understand, reading the translation will give me a good indication if it is of real interest to me but I know there will be errors in the translation, some of which may be serious, so I would not quote from it without having it translated by a person.

On the other hand Videocritter is a free tool that enables captioning to be created for YouTube. It was written by Ken Meyering as a college class project but is of a standard that you would expect from a commercial product. The process is very simple:

• Log on to VideoCritter.
• Connect to the video on YouTube.
• You then have controls to listen to a portion of the video and immediately type the caption, then listen to some more and type some more.
• There are also functions to review and correct.
• When the caption file is complete you upload it to YouTube

I have tried it and it is very easy—you just need a little practice to decide when to stop listening and to start typing.

There are other similar tools available but I have not had a chance to do an in depth comparison.

All of them require you to type the text so I have two requests for extra functionality to reduce the need to type:

• If there is a pre-prepared script then it should be possible to upload this and then use the tools to sync it with the video.
• The YouTube Beta transcribe function should produce a caption file that could then be edited and corrected using a tool.

One final issue that needs to be resolved is that the standard YouTube Player is not fully accessible. Easy YouTube, which provided a much more accessible player, does not support closed captions. It really is time that YouTube recognised the importance of accessibility and provided a comprehensive solution.

Given the need to be accessible and the other benefits that accrue from captioning I would strongly urge anyone, and especially commercial organisations, to start using these tools on the videos on their websites. Further, I would encourage users of the websites to complain when captioning is not included.

By: Philip Howard, Research Director - Data Management, Bloor Research Posted: 20th August 2010 Copyright Bloor Research © 2010

I have been doing some thinking about (complex) event processing recently and it seems to me that, with the exception of companies that are very strongly focusing on capital markets (notably Sybase [SAP] and, to a lesser extent, StreamBase), the clear trend in the market is towards merging with other forms of “processing” technology.

You can see this in the history of acquisitions within the market. The first such happened when Avaya bought iSpheres way back in 2006. It integrated the iSpheres event processing with its own communications processing capabilities. Then there was IBM’s acquisition of AptSoft in 2008, which was promptly renamed WebSphere Business Events, with an emphasis on integration with business process management. And, of course, Oracle and TIBCO are doing much the same thing.

A year ago, Informatica acquired AgentLogic and here, of course, the emphasis is on event-driven integration with complex event processing being merged with data integration processes.

And, earlier this year, Progress, the company behind the Apama complex event processing product bought Saviion, a BPM vendor. Progress has now integrated these two products into a combined offering which, along with other Progress products (notably Actional and Control Tower) makes up the RPM (responsive process management) suite.

So, the clear trend is towards integrating complex event processing with other types of process management, though these may not necessarily be with business process management per se.

Which leaves me in something of a spot, because I have been predicting the convergence of complex event processing and data warehousing for some time. And, indeed, there is evidence for this: Sybase’s acquisition of Aleri, for example. And there are a number of joint ventures between StreamBase and Vertica. I am also aware of other data warehousing suppliers cosying up to purveyors of complex event processing. As another example, I think that InfoSphere Streams is far more likely to be used in conjunction with a data warehouse than a BPM suite.

Thus it would appear that complex event processing is being pulled in two directions. Ideally, of course, you would want to be able to offer both options but these acquisitions tend to take suppliers down one road or the other, with a leaning towards processing integration or data warehousing integration but not both.

Apart from IBM, which is not limited to a single complex event processing product, and possibly Oracle, the company best placed to offer a dual strategy would appear to be Sybase. The Aleri products (there are two, Aleri had previously acquired Coral8) are currently integrated within the Real-time Analytics Platform (RAP), which means that they are integrated with Sybase IQ. On the other hand, given the Sybase acquisition by SAP then there is the potential for SAP to leverage these complex event processing capabilities in other areas. We will have to wait to see if that happens.

Indeed, we will have to wait to see if complex event processing becomes completely subsumed into other technology areas and, if so, what new acronyms the industry can come up with: what is the acronym for a convergence of complex event processing and business process management?