By: Philip Howard, Director of Research - Technology, Bloor Research Posted: 15th May 2008 Copyright Bloor Research © 2008

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I have for sometime been extolling the importance of discovering your spreadsheets, assessing the risks associated with them, and the need to take control of significant spreadsheets, as a part of any data governance initiative. However, I have not previously written about the role of spreadsheet management within the emerging market for GRC (governance, risk and compliance) software.

The big players in the GRC market are the 800lb gorillas of the software world, companies like SAP, Oracle, CA and IBM. If we take SAP as an example, it has a variety of software offerings that "automate end-to-end GRC processes to address corporate governance and oversight, risk management, and compliance management and reporting". These options work directly with SAP application software and the company sees its ability to offer such capability as a competitive advantage.

However, the downside to this GRC approach is that it is limited to SAP applications and the databases and infrastructure that support the SAP environment. Which is fine, up to a point, if you are a dedicated SAP shop and don't have, say, Oracle applications also running in your environment. Of course, CA and IBM are less proprietary when it comes to application software so a GRC solution from one of these vendors will not force you to have multiple solutions.

Except that none of these vendors (as far as I know) have any support for end user computing (EUC) such as Access databases, spreadsheets and so forth. And given that research indicates that upwards of a third of all corporate data resides in spreadsheets this would seem to leave a large hole. Of course, there are tools from a variety of vendors for managing spreadsheets but they have, hitherto, been separate and distinct from any conventional GRC solutions, which means that to do a complete job of GRC you have been obliged to have multiple systems supporting multiple dashboards to monitor your GRC environment—which is clearly a bad thing.

However, Compassoft has just released version 4.0 of its Compassoft Enterprise product and, apart, from beefing up its spreadsheet management capabilities the big news in this release is that it has opened up its environment, so that you can either import (typically by means of web services though there are other mechanisms available) other GRC information into the Compassoft environment and present data through its dashboard or, conversely, you can export data in the same fashion so that you can present EUC management information within the dashboard of your (say) SAP GRC portal.

While it is likely in the future that the major vendors will buy up spreadsheet management suppliers (or build their own capabilities—less likely) precisely so that they can include this sort of functionality within their GRC suites in the future, such consolidation has not yet started to happen. At present, therefore, this leaves in Compassoft in an enviable position, with a distinct advantage over its rivals in terms of GRC functionality.

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By: Peter Abrahams, Practice Leader, Accessibility and Usability, Bloor Research Posted: 15th May 2008 Copyright Bloor Research © 2008

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I was speaking to an accessibility guru in a large government department and she told me a distressing story. An up-and-coming member of staff who is profoundly deaf was invited to attend an important meeting. A sign language interpreter should have been booked for the meeting but that had not happened. Unable to follow, or participate in, the meeting the deaf member of staff left. A month later management were reviewing a promotion for him and it was rejected because he left the meeting. We could argue that the HR department failed in their duty but I would rather investigate how technology could have help to avoid the situation.

Part of the problem is that sign language interpreters are a specialist and scarce resource, so they cannot be called at a moments notice because of travel time, besides anything else.

Collaboration software could provide the framework for a solution to this specific problem. Spontania from Dialcom provides collaboration capabilities where the user can choose the relevant mode or modes of access that include:

• Instant messaging
• Teleconferencing
• Videoconferencing
• Application and file sharing
• Whiteboard capabilities
• Mobile devices

The system requires a dedicated server running Spontania in the enterprise but only a downloadable ActiveX widget on the client. Once installed it can have an immediate impact on how meetings are organised:

• Participants do not have to travel, which improves productivity and increases the flexibility of setting up the meeting.
• Instant ad-hoc meetings can be set up, as long as the attendees are within reach of a mobile device.

But it also opens up new ways of working; examples from the users of Spontania include:

• A bank's call centre can now invite a client to join a ‘conference'. The client can now see the agent (and vice versa if the client wishes), they can share presentation material and view the output from applications. This multi-mode interaction has proven to be popular with the bank's clients and this has been reflected in the sales conversion rate.
• An organisation that has been set up to offer more working opportunities for people with impaired mobility implemented Spontania. The users can work from home, so avoiding the effort and issues of commuting; whilst still benefiting from the real-time and visual interactions of the office, which improve productivity and avoid any feelings of social isolation.
• An international company has improved its ability to communicate with its staff and clients around the world by adding extra channels on their collaboration network for different languages. A presentation or announcement now includes simultaneous translation into several languages and the user can choose the channel they are most comfortable with.

So, if I now look at my story again we could change the ending. The department installs Spontania. The meeting is arranged and instead of everyone having to travel to the same place, time and money is saved by having a virtual meeting. The deaf member of staff arrives 15 minutes early to check that the interpreter is available and to check the signs they are going to use for certain specialist concepts. Disaster!. The interpreter has not been booked, but now there is less of a problem because the interpreter does not have to travel. A panic phone call to the agency and an interpreter is found within twenty minutes. The formal part of the meeting starts 10 minutes late so the interpreter is already available. The staff member stays in the meeting makes valuable contributions to the discussions and this is noted by the head of department. A month later the promotion goes through on the nod.

I believe that collaboration software can be a boon to any enterprise but can be life changing to many people with disabilities.

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By: Fran Howarth, Principal Analyst, Quocirca Posted: 14th May 2008 Copyright Quocirca © 2008

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Software applications are the backbone of businesses today. A recent survey conducted by Quocirca, commissioned by Fortify Software, of 250 organisations in the US, the UK and Germany, found that developing or modifying software applications is business critical or very important to two-thirds of organisations. Not only that, but reliance on software development is increasing and bespoke application development is seen as a competitive differentiator for end-user organisations.

Not only are bespoke or modified software applications becoming more important, but they are increasingly being web-enabled over networks that are being opened up to access by employees, business partners, suppliers and customers. This increases productivity by allowing for greater collaboration and by speeding up the rate at which transactions can be performed.

But it is a double-edged sword. Many large enterprises have thousands of web-enabled applications running over their networks and their developers are under pressure to release new applications at an ever faster rate. The internet is also no longer the static marketing tool for organisations that characterised it during the 1990s. Dynamically changing content is the order of the day—and that means that applications are frequently updated, with extra functionality being added at a fast and furious pace.

Each of these applications may contain thousands, or even millions of lines of code, making it likely that at least some bugs have been incorporated along the way. Accepted levels are that there will be 0.5 significant errors per thousand lines of code, so a fairly small, 10,000 line application will have five significant errors within it—somewhere. Each of those errors could make the application vulnerable to attack and that is playing into the hands of hackers. Gone are the days of script kiddies; now a new breed of hacker has emerged that hunt for insecurely written code and vulnerabilities in software applications that will allow them to steal information contained in those applications. And, to an increasing extent, those attacks are specifically targeted—at an individual organisation or a certain individual.

The stakes are set to rise even higher as organisations turn to practices that could actually increase their risk of exposure even further for three reasons.

First, the survey showed that organisations are fast adopting service oriented architectures (SOA), with 66% of respondents having already adopted, or are in the process of adopting, a SOA. Among German respondents, that percentage rises to 84%, 71% of which are exposing legacy applications—potentially leaving them more vulnerable to attack as some of these applications would originally have been intended for internal use only and therefore developed without concern for today's security threats.

Second, organisations are also increasingly using next-generation Web 2.0 programming techniques and tools. The survey shows that 45% of respondents make use of JavaScript/AJAX programming tools in order to write applications that provide users with a much higher degree of interaction than traditional applications, and that enable dynamic, on-the-fly content to be produced. However, these new programming techniques actually increase the chance of applications containing vulnerabilities. For example, many Web 2.0 programming techniques make use of JavaScript as the data transport mechanism, which exposes more of the business logic of the applications such as access controls at the browser level, instead of at the server level, meaning that it is more exposed to users, and therefore to hackers. The problems involved are not yet widely understood, but a significant number of organisations report that they are encountering vulnerabilities that are specific to the new programming tools.

The third potentially insecure practice to which organisations are exposing themselves is that of trusting the development of their software applications to third parties. This requires that watertight service-level agreements be put in place to demand the highest standards of security be used in the development and testing of the software, and that the third parties can be held accountable for vulnerabilities that slip through the net. However, the survey does show that those organisations for which the importance of bespoke software development is increasing are least likely to outsource this activity, meaning that organisations do at least understand that outsourcing code development could be a less secure practice than keeping this in-house.

As well as these findings, the survey brings to light the fact that many organisations are not doing enough to actively build security into their applications at the design and development stages, nor are they making sufficient use of automated tools to test the security of the applications that they develop. It is well known that fixing security flaws is more expensive that ensuring that they do not exist in the first place. It is imperative that security be considered at all stages of the software development lifecycle to ensure that organisations allow as few vectors of attack against their networks to be left open as possible. In today's world, the penalties for sloppy security practices that lead to data leaking out of an organisation are high-and no one wants to be the subject of the next negative headline.

Quocirca's report Why Application Security is Crucial is free for readers and can be downloaded here.

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By: Bob Tarzey, Service Director, Quocirca Posted: 13th May 2008 Copyright Quocirca © 2008

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Spam has been with us, in name at least, for some 15 years. According to the watchdog Spamhaus, 90 per cent of all email now sent is spam. Fortunately that does not mean 90 per cent of our inboxes are filled with the stuff.

The problem has been contained through the widespread deployment of anti-spam products and services in the highly competitive market of the past decade.

Before spam became a big problem, there were still specialist email security vendors like Clearswift and Marshal Software that checked outgoing email to ensure it complied with internal rules on content distribution and decency.

But that was the mid-1990s, when sending email externally was a relatively new concept and volumes were low. The vendors' software was installed on email servers themselves—at the heart of the IT department, which was the last place spam with its sometimes viral payloads was welcome.

Then came a rapid evolution of products that kept spam at arm's length—either appliances at the network edge or in-the-cloud services that ensured an almost clean incoming email stream. These specialist solutions identified and eliminated spam but also targeted its sources and cut them off.

Many of the biggest names to have emerged in email security have now been acquired by the big IT infrastructure vendors. We now have such pairings as Google and Postini, Microsoft and FrontBridge, and Cisco and IronPort. Others have become, or remain part of, some of the major IT security companies, such as Trend Micro, Symantec, Websense and Secure Computing. A few, like MessageLabs and Mimecast, still retain their independence.

The interesting thing is that the market has now come full circle. With most business users having spam controls in place, the email security vendors have found new business harder to acquire and have been limited to attracting competitors' customers rather than finding green-field opportunities.

This difficulty has meant they have started to target broader content security issues, such as content accessed and uploaded via web browsers and email archiving.

The aim is to expand the range of products and services sold to existing customers and to be more attractive to those of competitors who may be tempted to jump ship.

This broadening of focus has also allowed a number of small vendors that might otherwise have died to diversify and stay in the market. Both Marshal and Clearswift now see themselves as content policy engines.

Regardless of the content's origin or destination, they aim to ensure people only distribute content they are authorised to. Others like Tumbleweed and Proofpoint, having failed to establish a strong presence in Europe first time around, reckon they can make more of a mark with a renewed focus.

The choice can seem mind-boggling if you take all these vendors and review them alongside other content security specialists such as ScanSafe, which specialises in managed services for web security; Bloxx with appliances for web security; and anti-spyware vendor Webroot, which recently acquired spam-filtering firm Email Systems.

The whole market has converged on content security for a good reason—and one that is sometimes lost sight of. One of the main functions of IT is to allow the secure sharing of content, within organisations and externally.

For this to occur within employers' and regulators' guidelines requires policies to be in place and implemented. This has led to much talk about data leak prevention (DLP), a term that has come into general use in the past few years.

DLP is all about stopping the wrong stuff going to the wrong people. Most vendors will have the term somewhere on their marketing materials.

But there is no silver bullet for DLP. For any organisation this is a broad discipline that requires integrating multiple products from different vendors.

First there are people—who they are, what groups they belong to. For most organisations this information is already defined in existing directories, generally Microsoft's Active Directory or an LDAP-based product. Any content-filtering products need to integrate with this and build on it, and not require redefinition.

Then there is content. Nearly all the products from content-filtering companies deal with data moving across networks—apart from some email archiving services.

But content spends most of its life at rest sitting quietly on a disk somewhere until someone disturbs it. Content security must start here, ensuring that such data is secure, whether on a storage array in a data centre, on an employee's desktop or on some mobile device out in the field. Content filtering companies do not address this.

Only when content is on the move—or when it has been created on the fly, as are many emails—can policy engines really decide what content is and if the person doing something with it should be authorised to do so.

Before investing in a new product from a content-filtering vendor, perhaps based on some lively marketing relating to the hazards of data leaks, IT departments should take a good look at what is already in place and what gaps need filling.

They may well find they have many of the components already. Where they do not, existing suppliers may already have evolved their offerings to plug those gaps.

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By: Peter Williams, Senior Analyst, Bloor Research Posted: 12th May 2008 Copyright Bloor Research © 2008

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De-duplication (de-dupe) specialist DataDomain today [12th May] launched its fastest—and the industry's fastest—de-dupe appliance, the DD690.

The stand-alone unit, which has an Intel quad core CPU, can achieve up to 1.4TB/hour throughput, or up to 170MB/sec in a single-stream for a large database. Its addressable physical capacity is 35.3TB. However, up to 16 DD690 arrays can be installed in the DDX cabinet, to provide a maximum capacity of 28PB and an aggregate throughput of 22.4TB/hour.

What DataDomain describes as "the fastest single-stream de-dupe engine in the world" uses its own operating system with an architecture to maximise processing and indexing within the CPU while minimising disk access. DataDomain's VP of product management Brian Biles told me that this approach would be difficult to match. "We expect a 50% de-dupe speed-up every time Intel doubles the number of CPUs."

The big positive in de-dupe is that it drastically reduces nearline and/or offline storage. (Primary storage is never de-duped.) In simple terms, all the data is examined as it is backed up and duplicate files and/or blocks (or even smaller segments) are replaced by a pointer tag to where the single instance of the data is held.

This picture becomes even more attractive—at least using the DataDomain architecture—if data is coming from a number of remote locations. A further announcement is the extension of its processing capability to allow up to 60 separate data streams to be de-duped before transmission over a WAN to, for instance a single large receiving DDX. Clearly, the less physical data that needs to travel over the wire, the faster this is completed. Moreover, bringing separate data silos together in this way means a greater space saving—since, otherwise, identical data will remain replicated in the different silos—and is easier to manage centrally.

Competitive approaches are, in general, not as efficient in space-saving; but DataDomain expects its de-dupe to achieve a 10x reduction and, combined with data compression, will achieve a 20x output space reduction—with a 95–99% reduction in cross-site transmission bandwidth. Then comes the question: "In that case why wouldn't everyone do this?"

There are several answers to this, and most of them revolve around where it is applied. DataDomain's phenomenal growth—doubling turnover in three quarters since it IPO'd last year and adding nearly 300 new customers in the past quarter alone—is a testament to the fact that most large organisations are now taking the plunge. (The company is now the de-dupe market leader in the US and a recent survey suggests it will soon overtake Symantec and EMC in Europe too.)

A second deterrent is that de-dupe performance can be a dog. That is why throughput figures are key, and why a stand-alone de-dupe appliance tends to be the best option; this is also part of why some vendors only provide de-duping on already backed-up data (as a background task that still slows down other processing and saves less space). In some systems performance can be improved but only at the expense of output disk space, to some extent defeating de-dupe's whole purpose.

Perhaps most of all it is considerations about recovery from backup—and especially disaster recovery (DR). The data is not a mirror of the live system and, if recovery is needed, it has to be ‘reconstituted' to its original form. So, if an immediate switchover to a remote DR site is needed, forget de-dupe—at least for the critical on-line data. But in all other cases, it comes down to how efficiently and reliably the recovery can be performed.

The output file will be the same in either case. Retrieving blocks using existing pointers will be faster than when they had to be created; but, of necessity, it will be slower than contiguous reading—unless segments are placed in optimum sequence and sometimes memory-held so no disk access is needed at all. DataDomain does try to arrange its stored segments optimally for retrieval performance.

Potentially, then, recovery can be as quick as would be the case without de-dupe—largely removing that objection. Likewise, if some de-duped data goes to off-line archive on tape, and has to be reconstituted first. However, this performance level will not be achieved by all solutions, so performance testing vis-à-vis likely SLA requirements should be considered in all major evaluations.

The reliability and integrity of the data, and protection against hardware faults, is covered by such things as on-the-fly error detection and correction and continuous disk ‘scrubbing' to remove errors before they become a problem. So, short of a DR regime where up-to-the-minute mirroring is crucial, I ask again: "why wouldn't you include de-dupe?" It is, anyway, very green (greatly reducing disk space and network bandwidth), so energy and heat saving—which provides an obvious ROI.

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By: Simon Holloway, Senior Analyst, Bloor Research Posted: 9th May 2008 Copyright Bloor Research © 2008

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Warehouse management is viewed by all involved in Logistics as a key to being successful in this fast moving industry. But the price of IT systems with the right mix of functionality for the SME market has been a major issue in the reticence of these organisations moving away from the use of Excel spreadsheets. 3M Supply Chain Solutions has been a major player in the warehouse management system (WMS) market with its HighJump product since their foundation in April 1983. They have over 1,300 customers worldwide; these include such well-known names as Duracell, Sony, Yamaha, Pepsi, Toyota, Bridgestone and of course parent company 3M. At the end of 2007, 3M Supply Chain Solutions released a version of their WMS—HighJumpWarehouse Advantage-45—specifically for the SME market. Bloor was given a briefing on the capabilities of this new venture by Chris Goldsmith (Director, Product Strategy), Hugh Murphy (EMEA Marketing Manager) and Chad Eckes (Director, Product Strategy).

Goldsmith stated that "Globalisation continues to increase competitive pressure even for smaller companies, which result in several challenges for these companies. They are being forced to innovate while, at the same time, they need to cut costs to remain viable. SMEs have fewer resources but must interact with larger, more advanced companies in the global supply chain. On top of this, goods movement and logistics are riddled with inefficiencies due to lack of investment in technology." In the past SMEs may have needed new systems, but were unable to afford a long and expensive implementation cycle. Additionally, they have wanted a simple system without the full complex support for warehouse management, but this system has to be able to grow with them. Because of their size, SMEs also need a system with fast employee adoption. What an SME would really like is a WMS vendor who will provide them with best of breed functionality and architecture without best of breed pricing and, most importantly, who will be there in the future.

Eckes explained further: "3M Supply Chain Solutions has built HighJump Warehouse Advantage-45 to address the pains of SMEs. It is a rapidly configured WMS that is designed to be fully implemented within 45 business days. The solution contains all the key warehouse management features an SME needs, and is built upon the same technology as our enterprise-class WMS—HighJump Warehouse Advantage." WA-45 provides the following WMS features:

• Tracking and visibility of inbound orders
• Receiving: automatically validates receipts against orders
• Directed put-away: ensuring the right materials are put away in the right location. Materials can be put away using a variety of algorithm choices, including FIFO and LIFO.
• Picking: support for by order, batch or label.
• Coordinate packing and shipping processes to increase fill rates and cut preparation time for shipping documents and ship confirmations.
• Replenish materials automatically so associates have sufficient inventory to fill orders, and short-shipped orders are minimised.
• Inventory control: 3M Supply Chain Solutions claims that the solution can achieve up to 99+ percent inventory accuracy, visibility and traceability.
• The system captures every transaction in the warehouse and presents operational information through a web interface.
• A web page development tool, WebWise, that allows the user to edit and create pages, so users see information in the terminology and format to which they are accustomed.

To achieve the 45 day implementation, 3M Supply Chain Solutions has provided a number of aids to make implementation easier and faster. These include:

• Playbook: the analogy Goldsmith and Eckes gave Bloor that it was like a sports playbook
• User guide: this provides specific direction by Job Category; namely the warehouse leader and the system administrator
• HighJump University: this is a set of online courses, involving about 30 hours of class time. The courses are aimed at the SMEs' key users with the goal of making them productive from day one
• Warehouse Wizard: this wizard provides an easy to use means of converting the Logical Warehouse definitions to the actual Physical Warehouse environment.

Murphy described the flexible pricing of WA-45, "For some users, we realise that they want to make an outright purchase so WA-45 is available on license covering a maximum of 20 concurrent users. Other users prefer a subscription-based manner. So WA-45 is also available in this way. The conditions are the same as for the perpetual license, and clients sign for at least a one-year license, which is renewable annually. WA-45 also has an la carte functionality, allowing a user to only buy the functionality they need."

With the current pressure of SME logistics companies, WA-45 is a welcome addition to the software available to run effective warehouse operations. Bloor are particular impressed with the way 3M Supply Chain Solutions has gone about the engineering of a version of their Tier 1 product to meet the needs of SMEs, but at the same allowing them to grow into the larger system. The portfolio of tools to support the quick implementation is very impressive. 3M Supply Chain Solutions is consolidating their position as a serious player in the WMS market.

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By: Simon Parums, Managing Director, Themis Posted: 8th May 2008 Copyright Themis © 2008

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Although IT department employees are covered by the same Health and Safety laws as other workers, there are many issues specific to the industry. Staff working in IT are required to spend much of their time sitting at a computer so the most common complaints are limb disorders such as repetitive strain injury and eye strain from long spells working at a computer screen.

Computer screens are wrongly blamed for a wide range of health problems. In fact, only a small proportion of computer users actually suffer ill health as a result of working at a screen. Where problems do occur, they are generally caused by the way in which they are being used, rather than the computers themselves.

Employers can avoid claims from staff for these issues by ensuring a good working environment and examining the ways computers are used. All employers should also have a Risk Assessment. This will help them identify the risks so they can take the relevant steps to reduce them.

IT employers should have:

• A full written Health & Safety Policy in place;
• A Fire Risk Assessment carried out on their premises;
• Adequate First Aid cover;
• Training in Display Screen Equipment (DSE); and should
• Look into obtaining separate Risk Assessments for groups of employers including young workers, pregnant workers, noise, stress etc.

All of the above should be carried out on a regular basis and not just as a one off.

Here are some other common complaints from IT workers and tips on how employers can combat them:

Aches and pains
Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI) has become the common term for all manner of aches, pains and disorders, but it's not always correct and can mean different things to different people. A better medical name for the whole group of conditions is ‘upper limb disorders'. Usually these disorders do not last, but in a few cases they may become persistent or even disabling.

Employers can avoid problems by good workplace design, to make sure staff can work comfortably, and that they take regular breaks from the workstation. Short and frequent breaks are thought to be more beneficial than longer, less frequent ones. Preventing upper limb disorders is easier than ever.

Limb complaints can arise from employees who use laptops and portable computers. Make sure are compact and easy to carry. Design features such as small keyboards can make prolonged use uncomfortable so consider advising staff to use a docking station.

If full-sized equipment is available advise staff to use it. Like other computer users, people who habitually use a portable should be trained how to minimise the risks. This includes sitting comfortably, angling the screen so it can be seen clearly with minimal reflections, and taking frequent breaks if work is prolonged. Wherever possible, portables should be placed on a solid surface—importantly this should be at the right height for the user to prevent back injuries

Damage to eyesight
Extensive research has found no evidence that working at a computer can cause disease or permanent damage to eyes. However, long spells of screen work can lead to tired eyes and discomfort. Also, by giving eyes more demanding tasks, it might make users aware of an eyesight problem they have not noticed before. To prevent problems employers can help ensure screens are well positioned and properly adjusted, and that the workplace lighting is suitable.

The heat generated by computers and other equipment can make the air seem drier and some contact lens wearers find this uncomfortable. Where the air is dry, employers should increase the humidity.

Employees covered by Health and Safety regulations can ask their employer to provide and pay for an eye test from an optometrist or doctor. Employers only have to pay for spectacles if special ones (for example, prescribed for the distance at which the screen is viewed) are needed and normal ones cannot be used.

Headaches
Headaches are a common complaint in the workplace and it's often assumed they are caused by working at a computer screen, but this isn't always the case. Headaches may result from several factors, such as:

• Screen glare
• Poor image quality
• A need for different spectacles
• Stress and anxiety
• Reading the screen for long periods without a break
• Poor posture

Try to identify the reason for any headache complaint as it can usually be put right quite easily. It could be something as simple as adjusting the employees chair, changing the monitor or providing further training on how to use the computer. This is something that will be identified if you have a full Risk Assessment carried out.

It's extremely important to remember that, no matter what size of the business, all employers have Health and Safety obligations to ensure staff have a safe working environment. If you are confused about any of the information given in this article it's essential you speak to an expert. A small cost to seek advice could save you thousands in the long run from claims brought against the company. Good Health and Safety practice also increases productivity which will have an impact on bottom line profitability.

If you require further information please visit http://www.themissupport.co.uk/

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By: Gerry Brown, Senior Analyst, Bloor Research Posted: 8th May 2008 Copyright Bloor Research © 2008

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There is a plethora of white papers, webcasts, newsletters, conferences, and general advice emanating from the technology industry today. But why are many messages from the most dynamic and innovative industry on earth so similar? For example, this is the latest advice, paraphrased from one leading analyst organization, on how to implement BI:

• Ensure business vision and sponsorship
• Ensure data lineage, governance and quality
• Combine planning, reporting and analysis
• Enable forecasting and simulating (modeling) scenarios
• Account for cultural change
• Make applications more intuitive, making them easier for business users

Granted these are all sound management principles, but are they ground-breaking? A similar set of 'to do' actions could be applied to virtually any enterprise software including ERP, CRM, and SCM. How many times have you heard "set goals and milestones, implement in bit-size chunks, and measure results"? In recent times the IT industry has been mesmerised by investment appraisal techniques such as ROI and TCO.

Much of what we read in the technology industry media today follows good data governance and general management practices. This is all well and good. Now this might be because, as Larry Ellison believes, real innovation is now largely dead in a fast-maturing software industry, and we no longer have enough ‘new' new stuff to talk about. I prefer to believe this is not the case. The IT industry is as vibrant and as energetic as it ever was.

However, times have moved on and the technology is now the easy bit. User interfaces are now much easier to navigate. Implementations can be completed in weeks in many cases. The depth and breadth of software functionality is awesome. Software mostly works.

We now understand that failed CRM and BI implementations (for example) are not mostly the fault of the software, but rather overall project management. Typically problems have centred on available project management and technical expertise, lack of executive sponsorship, and lack of buy-in from end users. No wonder business management advice is in vogue.

In addition, many IT project management techniques such as ITIL and PRINCE have proved unwieldy and frustratingly slow from an end-users' point of view. Empowered business managers with BlackBerrys in their pockets, laptops in their knapsacks, and PCs in their homes want their say. IT is becoming inseparable from the business and deeply embedded in our everyday lives. Who can say where technology ends and life begins? Data (or IT) management and general management principles are becoming blurred.

Vendors and industry commentators have an obligation to help customers navigate through the complexity of the technology industry so they can make well-informed superior purchasing decisions. This will help the industry to continue its high levels of growth despite the world economy slowing down.

Increasingly technology consumers will value knowledge that combines elements of both technology know-how and best business management practices. This knowledge needs to be at an appropriate granular level to enable effective project management and implementation of a specific technology. More focus on helping and guiding customers and to listening to their specific information needs will help to provide the compelling and rich hybrid ‘business and IT' content that customers need and want.

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By: Philip Howard, Director of Research - Technology, Bloor Research Posted: 8th May 2008 Copyright Bloor Research © 2008

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Leading data integration vendors like Informatica and Business Objects (SAP) have recently (over the last year or so) been making much of the fact that they can support unstructured data. That is, that you can use these tools to move (say) Word documents around. This is absolutely true and it is useful enough in its way.

But there's a big difference between a Word document and content. Why do you think that all the ECM (enterprise content management) vendors all have their own tools for migrating data from competitor's platforms? And why does everybody use these (or an independent product such as EntropySoft's, about which I wrote here recently) rather than an ETL (extract, transform and load) tool?

The answer is that ETL vendors extract Word documents at the database level whereas EntropySoft and companies in the ECM space interface at the application level, thereby having an understanding of the context within which that content is stored, and the metadata surrounding it.

Now, all the major players in the data integration space, and even some of the smaller ones, make much of the fact that they have connectors that have a deep understanding of a variety of application environments such as SAP, Oracle and so on, because it is a clear advantage to understand the context within which your data runs or will run when it comes to moving that data. So why don't these suppliers apply the same principle to content? It's not even as if they would have to develop their own connectors in the various ECM systems: they could license them from third parties if they preferred.

Actually, I think the ETL vendors are simply unaware that there is an issue with moving content. They think that content is just another word for unstructured data and that they know all about moving data. It hasn't occurred to them that there are major auditing and validation issues that arise whenever regulatory control is applicable, such as whenever the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) or the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) is involved, for example.

The problem here is that the big data integration players are pitching their products as platforms that will serve all your data requirements. The truth is that right now they are very far from offering such capability. Content is one major element that is missing. With a few exceptions, so are replication and synchronisation. Data integration has a long way to go yet.

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By: Simon Holloway, Senior Analyst, Bloor Research Posted: 7th May 2008 Copyright Bloor Research © 2008

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Last month, I had the pleasure of having a briefing from Martijn Iseger, Product Marketing Manager of QPR Software Plc, on their QPR Business Process Management Suite. QPR Software has a different approach to providing BPMS solutions, which allows a phased approach for BPM adoption. The major benefit of this approach is that the customer does not have to commit a large amount of resources to a "make or break" BPM project. Instead, this flexible BPM adoption approach allows customers to bring BPM in-house at a pace that suits them best.

Have you heard of QPR Software before? They were founded in 1991 and their headquarters are in Helsinki, Finland. They went public in 2002 and are quoted on the Helsinki Stock Exchange. They have 60 employees with a subsidiary in South Africa. Their go-to-market strategy is based on a large partner network with 72 VARs in 58 countries, and 184 partners in total. This extensive partner network has resulted in QPR Software having an impressive worldwide penetration for a company of their size. The key markets for QPR Software are Nordic, UK, USA, South Africa, and Japan. They target organisations in the process of transition and who, from a technology viewpoint, are Microsoft .NET Platform based. This sales and go-to-market strategy has been very successful as they have over 1,500 customers, which include Bosch/Siemens Domestic Appliances, TTSL/Tata Indicom, Canon, Emirates Identity Agency, Petrobras, Copel, City of Oulu and Swiss Post.

With 75 % of the Swiss market share, PostParcels, the parcel division of Swiss Post, is the leader in parcel distribution. About 4,000 employees are responsible for transporting around 105 million parcels a year and an average of about 500,000 per day. Krystian Lasek, Head of Strategy at PostParcels stated that the QPR BPM solution significantly improved the quality of their services to customers, something their customer surveys clearly identified.

So what is different about QPR Software's approach to BPMs? QPR Software has put together a well integrated suite of best of breed products to provide support for organisations implementing Business Process Management from strategy formulation, process design to live running with Performance Management, an important driver for continuous process improvement. Some of these products are engineered by themselves, whilst others are OEM'd from organisations QPR consider to be the pick of vendors in these niches. The QPR BPM Suite consists of the following products, all of which are based on the Microsoft platform:

• QPR ScoreCard - is a Performance Management tool. It provides both support during the formulation of business strategies for the capture of objectives and measures, as well as the automatic collection and consolidation of data from business processes. The information is provided in the form of scorecards, digital dashboards and strategy maps.
• QPR ProcessGuide - provides support for analysis and design of business processes for business users. It provides support for BPMN, with the ability to convert the BPMN models into BPEL specifications for making process designs executable with workflow execution engines.
• QPR FactView - is a Business Analysis add-on to QPR ScoreCard. It provides support for dashboards and alerts, multi-dimensional analyses, slice and dice of data. QPR FactView is a tailored version of QlickView from QlikTech. This technology provides in-memory analysis and data association so that data is loaded, prepared and presented on the fly.
• QPR Workflow - is the Business Process Automation add-on to QPR ProcessGuide. It is an OEM version of PNMsoft Sequence. It works in Microsoft Internet Explorer environment to provide automation of human-centric business processes.
• QPR Portal - provides the portal glue both at runtime and during development for pulling together the product suite through a single user interface.

QPR have put together an impressive set of products to provide an environment for the development and management of business processes. By using standards for their interfaces they have also allowed their potential customers to purchase only those pieces of the suite that they require. This provides greater flexibility as well as the ability to start small and expand to the full capabilities as required. All the products work on a client server approach.

QPR Software has cleverly chosen the portal medium, in the form of QPR Portal, to pull the different products together into a single suite, which is able to be customised to include other products depending on clients needs. There is a key business user focus to the whole suite with all the tools being easy to use. The BAM environment provided by QPR ScoreCard and QPR FactView is very powerful being based on tools originally developed for Business Analysis and Performance Management

The QPR BPMS Suite provides an impressive portfolio with an innovative approach based around flexibility, whilst at the same time providing the necessary IT controls and business user ease of use requirements that are needed. Bloor would recommend that potential BPMS users take a closer look at this flexible solution.

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By: Bob Tarzey, Service Director, Quocirca Posted: 7th May 2008 Copyright Quocirca © 2008

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Most networks deliver a range of services—voice, video and IM, for example—as well as traditional IT applications. A business's dependence on its network is linked to how distributed its working practices have become.

But to get an objective measure of how distributed a business is can be tricky and requires looking at branch networks, remote-mobile enablement and external interaction. To this end Quocirca has designed a distributed business index (DBI) that encapsulates all three types of working.

The DBI has a minimum of one—for a business with the single premises and no external or mobile workers—to a maximum of 30 for a business that has many buildings and lots of external and mobile workers.

In general terms, financial services organisations turn out to be the most distributed and public sector ones the least. But generalisations can be misleading. While one German regional government body had a DBI of two, another one from the UK scored 30. The lowest score for a bank, 11, was also from Germany.

The index allows the trials and tribulations of distributed working to be compared. Businesses enable remote working because they expect it to improve efficiency, increase customer and employee satisfaction and keep down costs. But there is, of course, a downside if it all goes wrong when the network fails for some reason.

The impact this has on highly distributed businesses is palpable. All businesses care about the experience their users receive when working at their PCs.

But those with a high DBI are far more concerned about the experience of remote workers than those with a low score. And for those with the highest DBI, network downtime has much more impact on external and mobile workers than it does on office-bound ones.

Most businesses still operate with a single HQ and branch offices but today the quality of communications between different buildings, however widely distributed, is expected to be good for video and web conferencing, centralised content management and emails with huge attachments. The need for enriched communications extends to those workers who spend some or all their time outside the office.

Again, businesses have always had field service engineers, sales people and truck drivers who work remotely, but today many of these workers are linked to business processes through mobile devices.

These demands on external access have also led to a big increase in remote working by employees who, in the past, would have spent nearly all their time in the office.

Home-working provides flexibility to those with families and also lets employees communicate with each other and customers around the clock.

In other cases it is home working that enables staff to work in the first place—for example, agents of virtual call centres permanently based at home. But if an employee can link into a business process from outside the office, so too can customers, suppliers and partners.

This is the fastest growing driver of distributed working—outsourcing of tasks. Some of this is traditional outsourcing. For example, a mid-market company can use an external IT management company to work from afar or give external accountants access to internal records.

But in the past decade more customers and suppliers have been encouraged to do some of their own leg work. This ranges from individuals managing bank accounts online and tracking the progress of goods ordered online, to whole groups of businesses sharing centralised supply-chain management systems.

The degree to which businesses are distributed varies from one industry to another. Retailers have the most branches—on the whole most goods are still bought from shops and there are some very large retailers.

Utility companies have the most mobile workers—lots of field service engineers rushing round repairing faults—and finance organisations have the most external workers—all those inter-company financial transactions.

The worry is that the most highly distributed businesses are, in some cases, struggling to support their distributed workforce. They are pushing the boundaries of distributed working and sometimes failing to meet their own expectations.

Yet these businesses will be the ones to reap the benefits first if they can overcome some of their problems, which are often—at least in part—down to an overworked data network.

There is plenty that can be done: better broadband connections for small branches and home workers, more efficient use of network connections through use of network acceleration products and services, keeping employees focused on their work by limiting their activities and access to content.

Getting these things right and making sure the underlying platform—the network—can perform, will allow distributed working to be pushed to new limits.

Quocirca's report, The Distributed Business Index is free to readers for download.

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By: Rob Bamforth, Principal Analyst, Quocirca Posted: 6th May 2008 Copyright Quocirca © 2008

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In economically challenging times it is no surprise to see the knee-jerk reactions of many organisations to ‘cut costs'. Overall solvency (profitability), and the monthly demands of liquidity (cashflow) are vital for the health of any company—most businesses cannot rely on government rescue like that extended to some now infamous banks—so it sometimes seems that cutting costs is the best thing to do.

However cutting equally across all cost centres in a blind panic is rarely effective in the long term and should be taken as a last, rather than first, resort. There are often many avenues that can be addressed before wielding an indiscriminate axe. This is particularly important in those areas where direct expense is most visible, but the true business value is opaque or diffuse.

Take mobile telephony as an example. Those responsible for telecommunications in most organisations have a pretty good idea of how large their total phone bills are and can see how much certain elements, for example mobile calls, are growing by. This makes it an easy target area for swingeing budget cuts. According to recent Quocirca research, around a half of companies are not seeing mobile spending falling in line with tariff reductions. Telecoms managers can also see who the worst offenders are, as over two thirds believe they have sufficient accuracy and detail to know ‘how much' and ‘who spends what' from itemised charges on a mobile phone bill—what they don't know is ‘why?'.

This piece of information is critical, because not only does it provide an indication of what value might be being gained, it also offers some intelligence that could be used to decide if it is possible to find an alternative, so that the value can be retained while the cost reduced.

Businesses obtain significant value from voice communication, and the mobile phone has become a primary tool for delivering this, ensuring that people can be reached when away from their desk. Decisions can be made faster, avoiding costly delays, and improving responsiveness. Individuals are able to make use of previously dead time, hopefully either improving their personal productivity and taking control of their work/life balance, or perhaps just as likely staying in touch friends or relatives.

Making mobile calls while in an office with perhaps a lower cost fixed phone nearby is of more questionable value, but something that many employees will do. Why? Because it is more convenient and generally the desired contact numbers are already in the phone and just a click away. There's also the flexibility of being able to start a call while sat at a desk but not having to hang up and call back when other demands make it necessary to get up and move, say to head off to a meeting, or to go home.

If the call is important, mobile flexibility means it does not need to be curtailed, promoting value over cost. What is the value of a lost opportunity when a salesperson is unable to make a mobile call because of penny pinching, or the loss of loyalty when a rapid response to a customer can not be made because the person needing to call is out of the country? The reason for the call is more relevant than its length or distance.

However not all calls are that instantly vital. They may simply be being made because it is all too easy to call a contact out of the address book or click to return a missed call. Employees are so familiar with using a mobile phone as consumers that they would rarely think twice about the cost of making calls from a business supplied mobile phone. Other alternatives—an email, instant message or text message—may be seen by the employee as too awkward to use, are not encouraged by their employer or are not available because of the devices or services currently being supplied.

These alternatives can only be pursued with appropriate knowledge of ‘why', and this requires an appraisal of the impact of current usage by line managers and the individual affected employees. This awareness encourages personal responsibility among employees, perhaps making them think twice about too many personal or unnecessary calls, and allows managers to make business oriented decisions balancing value with cost.

There is also a need to understand outside influences, such as the viability of other services, a comparison of current tariff options and best practices in place elsewhere. This is where a good telecoms manager, either on their own or with external specialised help, can provide more effective support to users than simply an itemised bill and a budget squeeze.

The business value of mobile telephony stems from the importance and timeliness of making contact there and then, coupled with the convenience of how contact is made. If companies take too simplistic a view to cutting costs of mobile telecoms that means cutting usage or users. They may of course be able to negotiate a better deal with a supplier, but according to the same research, even with falling tariffs, for most companies mobile bills are still rising. Convenience, timeliness and perhaps over familiarity are driving up the demands for usage and the number of users.

Companies have to be more effective to continue to get good value out of advanced communications, and use other tools to help manage telecoms budgets than just an axe. To look in more detail at obtaining value from telecoms, download this free report from the Quocirca website, "Total telecoms expense management".

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By: Peter Abrahams, Practice Leader, Accessibility and Usability, Bloor Research Posted: 6th May 2008 Copyright Bloor Research © 2008

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e-Access is a yearly conference in London reviewing accessibility and technology. I could not attend last year so I found it particularly interesting to compare the change in emphasis over two years. See my blog Accessibility to direct the mainstream for my views on e-Access 06.

I will compare the conferences' emphasis on: management, hearing impairments, new technology and delegates.

Management: Two years ago the discussion was all about what had to be implemented and why accessibility was important. The discussion had moved on this year to how to manage the implementation of accessible solutions

Julie Howell, from Fortune Cookie, in her opening keynote speech told the conference that PAS 78 "Guide to good practice in commissioning accessible websites" is going to be upgraded to a British Standard. Julie is chairing the IST/45 committee that will develop the new standard and plans to publish it in Q1 2009. The standard will build on PAS 78 and the experience of its use in the last two years. It will also address issues relating to WEB 2.0 social networking technologies that have matured enormously since the development of PAS 78.

A further example of the importance of managing accessibility was Judith Russel's excellent presentation "Managing e-access in large organisations" in which she discussed he experience implementing accessibility in the Environment Agency. I picked up two particularly important messages from her

• You need to get buy in from all areas and a persuasive way to do that is to collect and present stories from users with disabilities. A personal description of how the right technology enabled a user to perform their tasks effectively, and progress in their career, provides an overwhelming argument for implementing accessibility.
• Organisations like the Environment Agency are big enough to have significant buying power. They can, and should, use it to be uncompromising in their procurement. Whether it is commissioning an outsourced application, or buying an application off the shelf, or implementing an e-Learning system, accessibility should not be a 'nice to have' but a 'buy-no-buy' criteria.

Hearing impairments: Two years ago the special problems of the deaf community where not discussed at all.

This year the main tent presentations were supported by a palantypist (the speeches were converted simultaneously into text and displayed on a big screen in the hall). This service was provided by Caption First, a company based in the US. An audio link was set up from the conference to Chicago where a palantypist converted the speeches in real time and the text was sent back over the Internet. Roy Graves, of Caption First, told me that they can provide this service anytime anywhere, they prefer a day or two's notice but have provided instant support when required.

In one of the main tent sessions, Malcolm Wright of ITV demonstrated ITV SignPost. He showed the use of British Sign Language (BSL) on television and on the Internet but I was particularly impressed by the children's book that combined synchronised pictures, written English, spoken English and BSL. It enables hearing parents with deaf children to read and discuss the book together; this sharing will reinforce the child's understanding of written English and at the same time improve the parent's and hearing sibling's signing.

The support of the hearing impaired is a complex and at time contentious issue and I plan to write an in-depth article on it soon.

New Technologies: New technologies provide opportunities and can create barriers to accessibility.

Simon Walsh is a wheel chair user and he has found Second Life (SL) a liberating environment, not as you might imagine because his avatar need not be disabled but because in Second Life he founded Wheelies, a club for real life (RL) wheel chair users. The club means that he can meet lots of wheelers, many more than he can easily do in RL and they can provide support and fun together. Simon is now an international celeb. SL is providing a variety of opportunities to support and discuss disabilities such as Fez Rutherford's blindness simulator, which gives people a better idea of what it is like to be blind. However there are still issues relating to the accessibility of SL as I described in my blog Second Life is now too important not to be accessible.

Tara Alexander of the RNIB and Rachel Bagust of Dolphin discussed the future of DAISY, the talking book format. At present only 4% of books are available in accessible formats but with the publishing industry moving rapidly to using electronic source it is hoped that the percentage of accessible books will rise rapidly. To aid that process, Dolphin have developed Easy Converter that will convert original source into a variety of accessible formats including DAISY.

And just to show the range of technologies on show, Xerox had a stand where they displayed Xerox Copier Assistant, which improves the accessibility of photocopiers and printers, by displaying the controls on a PC rather than the small built in touch screen.

Delegates: The only thing that has not changed from two years is the disappointing lack of delegates from the private sector. If I exclude vendors and sponsors of the conference then there appeared to be only 4 delegates, out of more than 100, from the private sector. I hope that there will be a better turnout next year.

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By: Simon Holloway, Senior Analyst, Bloor Research Posted: 2nd May 2008 Copyright Bloor Research © 2008

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Business Community Management (BCM)—there's a new name for you. It certainly was to me when I met the EMEA management team of Inovis, John Redfern - MD, Paul Tatam - Sales & Marketing Director and Stephen Jefferies - Director of Retail. Redfern described BCM as "BCM creates a comprehensive view of an organisation's supply chain by integrating the technology, business processes and communication of the entire business community. By unifying the technology and business community communication, a company can optimise its supply chain and create sustainable value through three key avenues: increasing end-to-end visibility, reducing B2B complexity and automating the entire trading community." Now that seems to be quite a mouthful and you may still not quite get what is involved.

Let's go back to look at a typical supply chain. There you are, a manufacturer of widgets—of course, the best in the market. You have a number of partners who provide services and component parts that help you make your widgets. The first requirement to operate in today's fast changing world is that you have all the necessary systems that allow you to manage your own operations. This is normally provided by an Enterprise Resource Planning package. This helps you manage your sales and purchase orders and their links into your production orders and, importantly, your finance systems. You can manage your own inventory in your own warehouses and WIP on the shop floor. Now all manufacturers have heard of Lean Manufacturing or one of its many derivatives such as TQM, Six Sigma and so on. All these are ways to help the manufacturer reduce their costs through managing their inventory through a just-in-time principal. There is a fundamental key to this—you have to collaborate with your partners. This means you need to share information, make compromises and work for the benefit of all concerned—that, of course, includes the customer. Now come the problems:

• They don't have the same meaning for the data terms that you use
• They don't use the same ERP system as you do
• They have other customers who are your rivals so there is a need to secure sensitive information on both sides
• In a number of scenarios, it is not just 2 companies involved but a plethora—for instance component manufacturer, logistics company and you
• All your current ERPs are not very flexible and business users have developed lots of Microsoft Office based application front-ends
• A high proportion of your orders are in error with a large number resulting in deductions and overpayments
• You have a high number of stock-out situations occurring
• It is costing you between £20–40 a time to resolve data and invoice errors.

So what you need to be able to work this complex environment is something that simplifies it all by taking the complexity away, improving the visibility across the whole supply chain with better security and that provides agile integration between all partners. So what services do you need in place to achieve this?

The first piece is a communications layer that allows all members of the supply chain to exchange content with a gateway/portal that controls the access to the content dependent on role. The content exchanged needs to be both validated as well as synchronised. As content is added there is a need for an event driven process to be triggered. This will need to integrate with a number of transactions and processes in different organisations to support the business process. Therefore there is a need for transaction and services management as well as facilities to make interoperability between the diverse systems easier. To overcome disparities in data meaning, there is a need for a Master Data Management solution for the community and data that is shared between business partners. In order to manage the environment, provide business intelligence and support alerts around governance and compliance issues, the solution has to have a layer for management and reporting. This is what Business Community Management is all about. Does this sound too good to be true?

So how do Inovis tackle this? Inovis provide a suite of modular applications, all of which are built upon their Multienteprise Expert Services Hub (MESH) platform—this is designed on a distributed architecture around a J2EE clustered environment. The BCM suite comprises five key modules that support the BCM model I have described. Jefferies said, "The modular nature of BCM applications enable companies to add value incrementally, allowing quick adoption as business needs require and the ability to scale for future growth".

The Visibility module provides a "single pane of glass" view presented on a dashboard that enables the community to track and act upon the business intelligence in real time. The Transact module translates data from an array of protocols, standards and applications. The translation applications support VAN, Direct Connect, ebXML, Web Services, AS/1 (SMTP), AS/2 (HTTP/s) and AS/3 (FTP) and other network-based protocols and formats including EDI, EDI-INT, RosettaNet, and has specific adapters and support for enterprise integration to systems such as Oracle and SAP. The Collaboration module features out-of-the-box notification, events and alert capabilities. It allows the user to define the performance parameters and responses to meet specific community needs. The Communication module supports over 47 protocols and standards, including direct connect, AS1, AS2, AS3 and Value-Added Networks (VANs). The Optimize module is built around a centralised master data repository that standardises B2B documents, supply chain documents and catalogue items from the community. It features a tracking portal that provides visibility into every transaction in addition to tracking of data against pre-defined business rules. When errors are identified, transactions are quarantined and resolved before they can create downstream problems in the supply chain or other business process. These applications are provided as services run on the Inovisworks™ Value-Added Network hosted at Inovis's Tier Four Data Centre, which Inovis claim has 99.995% availability with automated failover. The service is supported by professional and educational services to enable the customer to make the most of the solutions provided.

So we have a new acronym—BCM—and a new outsource service from a well-known experienced provider of outsourced services. If you want to improve your supply chain and you have been nodding your head as I have described the scenario, you should certainly look seriously at Inovis's BCM solution.

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By: Peter Abrahams, Practice Leader, Accessibility and Usability, Bloor Research Posted: 1st May 2008 Copyright Bloor Research © 2008

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This blog will be updated each time I become aware of a new conference. If you are running a conference please click on the contact the author button and I will update the blog.

Date	Location	Title and web site
12–14 May 2008	St. Louis USA	The National ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) Symposium
3–4 June 2008	Brussels Belgium	Public Procurement of accessible ICT in Europe ICTSB
9–11 June 2008	Galway Ireland