By: Andy Tudor, Head of Multichannel Solutions, Retail Assist Posted: 31st January 2012 Copyright Retail Assist © 2012

ME commerce is a term recently coined to describe the coming together of mobile and e-commerce. The ethos is simple: virtual shopping is no longer limited to sitting in front of a PC or laptop, browsing and buying from retail sites, an activity traditionally referred to as e-commerce. With the advances of mobile/smartphone technology, ME commerce empowers consumers to make decisions to buy from multichannel retailers, wherever and however they choose. The retailer’s challenge - and opportunity - is to recognise that ME commerce is about ME, the consumer, and MY ability to be more demanding and shop ‘smarter’.

We live in a world where channels are multiplying and integrating at an impressive rate, so the retailer’s approach to underpinning an ME commerce offer is important. It is predicted that by 2014 there will be more mobile users than PC users. Mobility opens up a new dimension to retail, one which will fast become the norm if the 2014 statistic holds true. So how does the retailer adapt to this omnipresent channel of mobile commerce?

Most users carry mobile phones wherever they go. In fact, according to a Pew study conducted last year, two thirds of adults sleep with their mobile phone next to their bed. Among ‘millennials’ (young people aged 18 to 29), this figure rises to 90%. The Pew research further reveals that adults who use text messaging receive an average of 10 texts a day, rising to 50 a day in the case of most teenagers.

The potential for retailers to connect with consumers through mobile devices is significant. However, "with great power comes great responsibility". Retailers would be well advised not to annoy consumers with irrelevant marketing to their mobile phones or attempt to interact with them at inconvenient times. When used correctly, the immediacy of the mobile channel brings benefits to seller and purchaser alike; consumers gain access to the goods they want when they want, and retailers enjoy sales they would not have generated in the past.

There has been much debate about whether mobile commerce generates incremental sales or simply cannibalises existing sales. For consumers who are ‘glued’ to their mobile devices, facilities such as free Wi-Fi instore can encourage them to shop there and then. This may sound strange – after all, why would you want to order something online if it was there in front of you? Take the case of an item of clothing not being available in the required size instore; how much better it is to order it online without leaving the store than go home and perhaps forget to make the purchase.

It’s important to note too that a mobile phone is not only a tool for shopping ‘on the go’. It’s also a useful means for consumer and retailer alike to learn more about a product, whether that be scanning a barcode in store to get rich media product content sent to a phone, or searching the internet by phone whilst on the high street to find out which shop is holding stock.

Many consumers have preferred shopping channels. I, for example, prefer not to shop in-store but to order online from the comfort of my own home. My wife has a different approach. She enjoys the high street experience, browsing in several shops before making a purchasing decision.

Retailers need to accept that, whilst my wife and I are by no means exceptions to the rule, there is an important subset of consumers who are channel-agnostic. These customers are indifferent to the channel they use but do want to engage with the product and the service the retailer provides. In 2005, 97% of the consumers surveyed by the eCommerce Times said that they expected a channel-agnostic customer experience. I wager this percentage will have increased over the past seven years.

Even stronger than our preference for certain channels is our emotional attachment to brands, particularly those in the fashion sector. To capitalise on this, retailers should enable consumers to engage positively with their brands, irrespective of the channels they decide to use, in a way that is well managed and consistent throughout. Even though it is calculated that a consumer who shops across multiple channels is up to four times more valuable in monetary terms than one who shops via a single channel, creating a universal consumer experience remains of paramount importance to all retailers.

As retailers introduce multiple shopping channels, they should factor in the consumer’s ability to influence brand identity positively and negatively.  They have much to gain from mapping consumer interaction with each channel to market, putting in place support functions that give real-time visibility of cross-channel consumer interaction, and building a mechanism to capture feedback at the point of purchase.

At the end of the day, smart retailers will entice us to interact with their brands in many new ways. They may have already created a profile of your previous brand contact and purchasing habits. Having made a purchase in a ‘bricks and mortar store’, you may now have received an invitation on your mobile phone to download the retailer’s smartphone app or been directed to their mobile-optimised website. A friend’s Facebook profile may have prompted you to click through to a retailer’s profile page, where you found yourself able to purchase from within the social media site. In short, you may, without knowing it, already be part of an online community which has a common loyalty to certain brands.

To win our custom, retailers must evolve their IT strategy from 'multiple channels' to 'multichannel', by providing consumers with the same destination, no matter what vehicle the consumer uses to reach it.

Andy Tudor is the Head of Multichannel Solutions in the Aurora Client Services division of retail-only IT services and solutions provider, Retail Assist. Contact Andy at andy.tudor@retail-assist.co.uk.

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: 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: Louella Fernandes, Principal Analyst, Quocirca Posted: 29th September 2011 Copyright Quocirca © 2011

The overarching message of Xerox's recent analyst briefing was about being  "services-led, technology-driven". Xerox is certainly a company in the midst of  transformation. Its total revenue has grown from $15.2bn in 2009 to  approximately $23bn in 2011.

Services now represent about half its business, up from 25 per cent two years  ago. Already an established player in the document management/processing  outsourcing market, its acquisition of ACS last year, a BPO firm, means it is  now a leading player in the services market, with an estimated value of $500bn  that combines document outsourcing, business process outsourcing (BPO) and IT  outsourcing.

While the ACS integration promises to expand Xerox's penetration into the  enterprise, it is also actively pushing its managed print services (MPS) capabilities to the SMB and mid-market sectors. Globally, Xerox is working to  accelerate the transition of its global partner network to a services-led  model.

Xerox now has more than 2,500 partners offering some form of MPS. In addition  to its traditional channel partners, its global MPS partner network also  includes a range of managed IT services, technology and software partners,  including Cisco and Computacenter.

In an increasingly commoditised hardware market, MPS is a reseller opportunity  to increase revenue through providing customers with a contractual approach to  purchasing or leasing hardware together with service and supplies.

Central to Xerox's channel MPS initiative is Xerox Partner Print Services,  which sits between its basic equipment service packages, such as eClick and  PagePack, and its direct enterprise MPS offerings.

Xerox XPPS is a cloud-based platform hosted by Xerox and offers a range of  standardised components to support a multivendor environment, such as assessment  and optimisation, device discovery and monitoring, sales contract management,  business intelligence (BI) reporting, service management and delivery, and a  customer service portal. Its recent acquisition of NewField IT and its AssetDB technology has been key  to partner enablement providing the backbone for assessment and proposal  generation architecture for XPPS, as well as an ongoing optimisation of customer  contracts.

Xerox has built a comprehensive certification and accreditation process for  XPPS salespeople and partners to support their MPS sales efforts. Accredited  XPPS partners must be able to demonstrate successful delivery for a client's  managed print service. In Europe, Xerox has approximately 170 XPPS partners,  having grown from 90 at the end of 2010. Almost 80 per cent of these partners  are fully accredited XPPS partners. One of the key strengths of Xerox's  XPPS offering is its multivendor device support, which will appeal to multibrand  resellers and also offers opportunities for Xerox's concessionaires.

In particular, the managed IT services market represents an opportunity for  multivendor MPS platforms such as XPPS, as it enables managed service providers  (MSPs) to integrate MPS with their existing managed service platforms. Although so far printing is not typically an integrated  component of managed IT services, Quocirca believes MSPs will be the next  development in expanding the opportunity for MPS among SMB and midmarket  businesses.

Xerox has certainly set a stake in the channel MPS ground, and many of its  competitors are seeking to emulate its actions. The vendor has already  successfully remodelled its Enterprise MPS tools and technologies for the SMB  and midmarket. And, as such, Xerox is positioned well to support its partners'  transition from box-shifting to a services-led approach.

Its XPPS offering appeals to a wide range of resellers, in our view particularly those strategically focused on MPS. Xerox, of course, recognises that not all its resellers will transition to  XPPS. There will always be some that are reluctant to use a vendor-hosted  infrastructure to manage their multibrand base, which may have concerns about  where and how their customer data is hosted. It should be noted, though, that Xerox has extensive ISO 27,001 security  standardisation and proper contractual terms in place to mitigate such concerns.  In such cases, resellers may consider independent third-party management tools backed up by their own networks of service engineers.

Nevertheless, for those resellers ready to develop their MPS capabilities,  using a flexible and robust hosted platform such as XPPS is a viable approach,  for both Xerox-only and multibrand resellers. Not only does this limit the risk when investing in building a MPS platform,  it also gives resellers access to Xerox global supply chain and delivery  centres. This should appeal particularly to resellers that want to expand their MPS  delivery across regions.

For now Xerox is ahead of the game when it comes to its channel MPS  initiatives, but competitors are following fast and competition will not only  come from its traditional competitors but also from those in the managed IT  services market with which Xerox, wisely, has already engaged.

By: Albert Pang, President, APPS RUN THE WORLD Posted: 5th September 2011 Copyright APPS RUN THE WORLD © 2011

With growing signs of leading one of the most important segments of the enterprise applications market, Salesforce.com embodies the disruptive power of Cloud-based delivery of sales, marketing and customer service software.

At the same time, Salesforce.com is increasingly using its scalable platform to reach beyond its core competency of selling customer relationship management (CRM) applications by unleashing a floodgate of applications developed by its ISV partners to help customers build the next-generation Social Enterprise, a movement that is designed to engage more users, allow for easy and real-time collaboration across different roles, and ultimately yield tangible results to their bottom line.

Social Enterprise Soars Into Space
The power of Salesforce.com was evident at the Dreamforce event where it is pushing into new Social Enterprise frontiers in a series of announcements including an equity investment in ERP vendor Infor in order to help drive back-office data to the new era of real-time collaboration among salespeople, customers as well as those involved in non-sales functions like finance, production and supply chain management.

Similarly Salesforce.com has invested in startup Kenandy, a Cloud-based ERP vendor founded by Sandra Kurtzig, a guru in manufacturing applications who is expected to be instrumental in helping Salesforce.com reach not just regular salespeople, but also production supervisors and quality managers of asset-intensive companies from Siemens to Toyota.

In addition to the investments, Salesforce.com introduced a new portfolio of Social Media-infused tools and services including Chatter Now for instant messaging, Chatter Service for self-service knowledge gathering and Data.com for enhanced crowd-sourcing with Dun & Bradstreet’s proprietary business data. All these new offerings will start leveraging HTML5 to bedazzle users with an attractive frontend ideal for mobile device viewing.

During the week-long Dreamforce, the common catch-all phrase from Salesforce.com executives was that Social Enterprise has become the rocket ship "that will propel the business of anyone associated with the vendor’s platform and applications strategies to stratospheric levels". However the sunny outlook is clouded by a host of issues that Salesforce.com needs to address in order to fulfill its vision of taking its stakeholders along for the rocket ship journey.

There lies the paradox of one of the most successful software companies that has transformed the CRM applications market for more than a decade. Yet it has failed to make a profit consistently, while its recurring revenues from its existing customers appear to have stalled.

Salesforce.com Dethrones Siebel
During that period, Salesforce.com dethroned the former champion of CRM software, Siebel, by reinventing the market segment with the innovative use of the on-demand delivery model, or for that matter redefining how customers should be served in the new era.

For its part, Siebel scored a series of home runs with its integrated sales force, marketing and customer service automation applications until it was weakened by tumbling sales following the Dot Com bust. Finally Oracle acquired Siebel in a $5.8 billion deal in 2005. Unmistakably Salesforce.com is in a stronger position than Siebel at any point in its history. When Siebel was acquired by Oracle, it only had fewer than 5,000 customers. Today Salesforce.com has more than 100,400 customers. And there are thousands more from its recent acquisitions of Heroku and Radian6 that have shored up its capabilities in Web development in multiple programming languages and social media applications.

As the following table shows, Salesforce.com was the No. 1 CRM applications vendor worldwide in 2010, edging past Oracle and SAP and others still reeling from the last recession. Salesforce.com, which led the $15.8 billion market with nearly 10% share last year, never skipped a beat even in the depth of the recession by picking up more customers and recurring revenues than its competitors.

In a survey of more than 1,000 IT managers, executives and CIOs conducted by APPS RUN THE WORLD this summer, Salesforce.com was found to be the primary Sales Force Automation system at more than 12% of the surveyed companies—consisting of mostly enterprises with more than $500 million in revenues. In many cases these companies have positioned their Salesforce.com system as the primary CRM engine, displacing Siebel that has laid dormant after years of under-utilization or failed implementations. For example, Salesforce.com stands side by side with Siebel at a 6000-person media company acting as a customer-facing engine that sits between its ad servers and the back-end Oracle ERP to support its online advertising business.

Additionally Salesfore.com is on a $2.2 billion annual revenue run rate after posting a 38% jump in sales to $546 million in its latest quarter. During that period, Salesforce.com signed more than 60 deals with each yielding at least $1 million in subscription revenues over the length of the contract. It also signed three $10 million+ deals, plus another $10 million+ transaction following the end of the quarter.

Salesforce.com Faces Considerable Challenges
However, such success stories mask a host of problems with Salesforce.com. By one measure, Salesforce.com gets less subscription revenue per customer than some of Social CRM applications vendors as if they were beating Salesforce.com at its own game because the pervasive nature of their Cloud-based services has translated into bigger subscription sales.

As the following chart shows, Salesforce.com received $1,631 in average monthly subscription revenue per customer in its latest quarter. By comparison, Eloqua, which sells Cloud-based marketing automation applications and is also an ISV partner of Salesforce.com, saw its monthly subscription revenues from its more than 1,000 customers reaching $4,966 in the second quarter of 2011, according to its S1 filing in advance of its initial public offering.

Social business applications vendor Jive, which is also planning its own IPO, did even better with monthly subscription revenues averaging $7,874 from its 635 customers during the same period, according to its S1 filing. Despite a steep rise in its early years, Salesforce.com’s monthly subscription revenue per customer has been stuck at $1,400 level over the past few years.

What that suggests is that Salesforce.com’s continuous growth in subscriber base has not translated into bigger wallet share among its customers. The lingering recession could have played a role behind some companies reducing their Salesforce.com expenditures as part of their overall cost-cutting moves. In addition, new services like Chatter have been bundled into its CRM sales without incurring additional revenues. Another reason is that the new wave of social CRM apps vendors are beginning to undermine Salesforce.com’s mind share and market positioning because the newcomers are considered easier and more affordable to use on a large scale.

Jive, for one, is said to have more than 15 million users running its products. Cloud-based vendors from Cornerstone OnDemand to SuccessFactors are touting six million and 15 million subscribers, respectively. Salesforce.com, which has not publicly revealed the number of users in recent years, is estimated to have fewer than three million users.

Salesforce.com will face stiffer challenges than ever in getting its products into the hands of potential users. In the same survey that we conducted this summer, one of the biggest electronics makers has decided to adopt Eloqua as its primary marketing automation system, despite the fact that it also uses Salesforce.com, Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Siebel to automate its sales function in different parts of the organization.

To boost utilization of its software throughout an organization, Salesforce.com introduced a new social enterprise license agreement that allows every employee within its customers to have unrestricted use of its products.

It is not clear whether such a program would help address another big problem, which has to do with the inability of Salesforce.com to make a decent profit even though its products have been on the market for more than 10 years.

The cumulative earnings (net income after tax) for Salesforce.com since its founding in 1999 amounted to $173.4 million, or 2.7% of its aggregated subscription revenues of $6.4 billion. In the first half of its fiscal 2012, it lost $3.7 million following a series of acquisitions. By comparison Oracle posted $3.2 billion in earnings, or 30% of $10.7 billion in total revenues in its last quarter of fiscal 2011. SAP posted $851 million in profit after tax, or 23% of its product sales of $3.7 billion in the second quarter of 2011.

One of the reasons behind Salesforce.com’s spotty earnings track record has to do with its heavy sales and marketing spending, which represented half of its revenues in its latest quarter. Oracle spends 20% of its revenues on sales and marketing. Intuit, which sells both packaged and on-demand ERP and business management applications and is twice the size of Salesforce.com, spends only 29% on sales and marketing in its latest fiscal year. There are signs that Salesforce.com is making an effort to address its high sales and marketing expense ratio by working closely with its ISV, reseller and systems integration partners.

At last week’s event, Salesforce.com announced a $50 million fund to help its consulting partners expand their capacity, thereby lowering the costs for the vendor to sell and service its customers. However these new programs will take time before they can have a positive impact on its financial results.

Salesforce.com To Shift Strategies
In the meantime, there are near-term measures that it can do to remedy the situation, while positioning itself to become one of the biggest beneficiaries of the Social Enterprise movement. For one thing, sales force automation has become a losing proposition when much of the selling is done over online commerce and end-to-end order management.

The rise of social media points to the fact that its future is tied not to salespeople using Salesforce.com to better connect with their customers, but rather harnessing the collaborative power of all employees (sales, marketing, R&D and support), partners and even customers themselves working with tools like Chatter Now to address specific customer requirements.

That’s why Oracle has spent $1 billion on its recent acquisition of ATG as well as additional resources to promote the Distributed Order Orchestration strategy that is at the heart of its Fusion Applications. While Oracle may have lost many Sales Force Automation deals to Salesforce.com in the past, the real value of the Siebel assets lies in hard-to-replicate expertise in such verticals as pharmaceuticals, financial services and communications. Again Salesforce.com is acknowledging that its future will be based on how relevant its solutions will be in the eyes of these vertical industry users and it’s working closely with its channel to address that.

The last thing, or perhaps the most important move, is for Salesforce.com to turn Chatter into a full-blown open social network, broadly expanding its reach to tens of millions of users. Currently Chatter, which is being run as a private social network for businesses, has been adopted by 100,000 organizations. However it is not clear how defensible is the positioning of Chatter when formidable players from FaceBook to Google allow segments of their hundreds of millions users to create business-class private social networks.

If it fails to thwart such threats, Salesforce.com may need to consider the unthinkable by buying a complementary social network like LinkedIn. At a market cap of more than $8 billion, it would be an expensive purchase.

Still the window of opportunity is narrowing and Salesforce.com may need every rocket ship component that it can find in order to sustain its leadership in the CRM applications market and become the biggest Cloud service provider behind the making of the new Social Enterprise.

Let us help you better understand the positioning and market shares of CRM and Social Enterprise vendors like Salesforce.com by emailing us at info@appsruntheworld.com.

By: Peter Abrahams, Practice Leader - Accessibility and Usability, Bloor Research Posted: 23rd August 2011 Copyright Bloor Research © 2011

Why would a blind person go into a library? Maybe to borrow a book in Braille, or more likely to borrow a talking book, CD or DVD. In Lambeth the new answer is to learn to use a computer.

Computers have the potential to improve the quality of life and job prospects of anyone who is blind or has a vision impairment (a Vision Impaired Person or VIP for short). A very large percentage of the world's knowledge has only been available in printed form on paper. This meant that it was inaccessible to anyone with a limited or no vision. Over the years various solutions have been used to close this gap a bit.

Braille was one very clever and successful solution but it is limited by: the cost of setting and printing any document; the size of a Braille document, which is a disadvantage; but probably the biggest issue is that it is difficult to learn, especially for anyone whose lost their vision later in life.

Audio books is a wonderful medium for fiction, where a book is read, and listened to, from the beginning to the end. It is not such a useful solution for reference or text books where navigation becomes a major issue. The cost of production also limits the titles available.

DAISY talking books provide the benefits of audio books and adds navigation capabilities.

All of these solutions have major limitations, as the number of titles is limited and great swathes of printed material - newspapers, magazines, journals - are generally not available and certainly not in a timely fashion.

More recently the rise of the computer, the Internet and various forms of electronic publishing have enabled a whole new set of sources of textual information; emails, blogs, wikis, online news channels etc. All of this is displayed on a screen and is again not accessible.

However, the fact that this information is electronic and therefore can be manipulated means that it is possible to turn the electronic words into spoken words that are accessible to people with vision impairments. All of human knowledge is being rapidly turned into electronic format and thus the knowledge available to a VIP is growing exponentially.

Unfortunately there are two barriers that need to be removed before all this information is available. Firstly the user needs access to suitable hardware and software that will read the information on the screen and enable them to navigate easily. Secondly they need to learn how to use the hardware and software. A VIP who has not learnt to use the system will not be able to assess the benefit to them and therefore will not be able to justify the initial outlay. The cost of a suitably configured machine is a considerable barrier to adoption.

The libraries in Lambeth have recently been the venue for an experiment to fix both these problems. The initiative is being driven forward by a local resident, Christina Burnett of Wide Eye Pictures, who is passionate about the benefits of computing to VIPs.

Like every modern library Lambeth has several computers in each library. The only extra hardware required was headphones; these are obviously essential if there are going to be several screen reader users in the library at one time. It is probable that headphones would have become necessary anyway for the general public as more and more audio information is available on the Internet. The other addition was to install screen reader software on all the library machines; it was decided to install it on all machines so that a VIP could use the system whichever library they wanted to visit. Some screen reader solutions are expensive and it would have been prohibitive to equip all machines; this was resolved by installing a free screen reader called Thunder which is available from www.screenreader.net. So for a minimal expenditure the libraries removed the first of the barriers.

To assist the VIP to learn to use the system a series of seven weekly training sessions was run, called DTvip (Digital Tuesday for Vision Impaired People). The initial set of sessions trained some VIPs and some volunteers so the scheme can be repeated and extended in the future. Screenreader.net, which developed Thunder, has obtained funding from Awards for All to work with DTVIP on this pilot training scheme at the Tate South Lambeth Library.

The first set of sessions was a great success and proved that the model works. Naturally, lessons have been learnt, in particular to have a structure that can support different users, ranging from a VIP who has never used a keyboard, through to a VIP who is an expert PC user but, through failing sight, needs to learn how to use a screen reader.

The second set of sessions is under way. The question now is how to quickly extend this model throughout Lambeth and the rest of the UK.

By: David Norris, Practice Leader - Analytics, Bloor Research Posted: 23rd August 2011 Copyright Bloor Research © 2011

The discussions about Big Data and the analytics that surround it have tended to be dominated by Hadoop and MapReduce, and for the emphasis to be placed on the 'big' aspect. However, we have been doing big for a long time, in Telco CDR analysis, in Retail Banking transaction analysis, and in Retail ePOS analysis, which are all examples of big by any definition. But when you take Big to really mean diverse then it starts to become really interesting and you start to see things that are truly big changes in paradigm and not just a form of natural progression and realigned economics.

For me the truly disruptive technology advance that has been made is the analysis of text based data, rather than numeric data. Numbers make analysis easy, they have a universally agreed context and their magnitude is understood universally. But words are not like that; context is going to change the meaning that can be derived from a word, for instance just think of what the word "wicked" means to me and to my teenage daughter.

Not so long ago we started to mine text and, at the time, this provided really interesting results straight away. At that time I worked for HP and for a SAS SEUGI we used SAS text mining to look at engineer and customer feedback notes in the call centre, and from the install notes, for a number of newly released products, and were surprised to find that we discovered a number of product issues, before the product engineers became aware of them.

The progress in analysing words has been staggering; the most mind boggling being the IBM Watson project winning a quiz show in the US. This is analysis of speech combined with detection of context and data retrieval in real time, and it was only a few years ago that I was being amazed at technology that merely allowed speech recognition to be conducted at faster than real time.

Of all of the uses of text analysis, one that I believe has the most obvious ability to deliver a real boost to the bottom line is that of social media analysis. Over the last few years I have become increasingly aware that, on many of the projects I have been involved in using customer surveys, it is obvious that the panels are providing answers at odds with the behaviour that they actually display, and that they are providing the answers that they think you want to hear rather than what they really think, and the younger the audience the more sophisticated they appear to be in answering in ways that tell you anything but the truth.

The killer app of big data is the detailed analysis of customer behaviour, and one of the richest sources of information about what people really think is to be found in social media, be that Twitter, Facebook or YouTube etc. When it comes to the analysis of such data, it is not enough to just have clever technology - you also need the skills that come from a deep knowledge and experience of analytics and data handling.

The quality of analytics for social media is going to be fundamentally based upon an ability to collect data effectively, to process data effectively and to present results in ways that suits the needs of the audience, allied to an absolute, that the quality of the analytics is fundamental, simplistic analytics will provide simplistic results. When it comes to doing all of these things well, the market leaders are going to be the established players with the track record of doing these things well over the years and who can provide the technology and the know how to deliver reliable results. Here SAS remain a market leader, not through scale or longevity but through expertise and excellence.

Text analytics requires careful tuning, you have to be able to identify the critical things that you want to look at and separate them from the noise that surrounds them. A taxonomy gives structure to what is seemingly unstructured data, as nouns are hierarchically associated with topics, and then verbs and adjectives associated with those nouns can be analysed for sentiment.

As the high street and the shopping mall is increasingly supplemented by the internet, and a whole ecosystem builds up around the likes of Facebook, with its ability to build self selecting audiences of interested parties and a direct channel to them, such analysis will be the battleground for commercial success. Winners and losers will be determined by a detailed analysis of how the sentiment evolves over time in response to different stimuli. The analysis of that data must be reliable, timely and feed back to the audience in a readily assimilable format, and as that data is the lifeblood of an organisation that means that all functions from marketing to logistics will want to know what is going on, each with their own spin on what and how they want the data to be presented. Whilst there will be many point solutions offered to this growing market there will only be a handful of vendors capable of offering everything that is needed and I, for one, would bet that SAS will be leading that group.

The important thing is to remember that, although I have labelled this as social media analysis, the technology is applicable to all sources of textual data; so that includes call centre note fields, customer emails - all valuable sources of insight and that insight can be used to create market opportunities, save wasted expenditure, improve the customer experience and so forth. This is why Big Data gets people excited and this is why the traditional experts, like SAS, continue to have a compelling argument for inclusion in any work in this arena.

By: Dana Gardner, Principal Analyst, Interarbor Solutions Posted: 22nd August 2011 Copyright Interarbor Solutions © 2011

Why is it still difficult for businesses to get the information they want in the way they can use? Why has this been a persistent problem for decades?

We recently conducted a panel discussion, held in conjunction with the recent Open Group Conference in Austin, Texas, to explore these questions and examine the state of data and information management strategies. The discussion centers on the latest in the framework approach to information and data, and takes a fresh look at how an information architect can make a big difference.

To help better understand the role and impact of the information architect, and also how to implement a successful data information strategy, please welcome the panel: Robert Weisman, CEO of Build The Vision Inc.; Eugene Imbamba, Information Management Architect in IBM's Software Group, and Mei Selvage, the Lead in the IBM Community of Information Architects. The discussion is moderated by Dana Gardner, Principal Analyst at Interarbor Solutions. [Disclosure: The Open Group is a Sponsor of BriefingsDirect podcasts.]

Here are some excerpts:

Gardner: Tell me, Robert, why it is that it's so hard for IT to deliver information access in the way that businesses really want.

Weisman: It's the general insensitivity to information management concerns within the industry itself, which is very much becoming much more technology and tool-driven with the actual information not being taken into consideration.

As a consequence, a lot of the solutions might work, but they don’t last, and they don’t, generally speaking, get the right information to the right person at the right time. Within The Open Group, we recognized this split about four years ago and that’s one reason that in TOGAF 9 we redefined that information technology as “The lifecycle management of information and related technology within an organization.” We didn’t want to see an IM/IT split in organizations. We wanted to make sure that the architecture addressed the needs of the entire community, especially those requiring information and knowledge.

Gardner: Eugene, do you think if we focus more on the lifecycle management of information and the architecture frameworks like TOGAF, that we'll get more to this requirement that business has that single view of reality?

Imbamba: Definitely, focusing on reference architecture methodologies are a good way to get going in the right direction. I don’t think it's the end of all means to getting there. But, in terms of leveraging what's been done, some of the architectures that have been developed, whether it's TOGAF or some of the other artifacts out there, would help organizations, instead of spinning their wheels and reinventing the wheel, start building some of the foundational capabilities needed to have an enterprise information architecture.

As a result, we’re seeing that each year with information management, projects starting up and projects collapsing for various reasons, whether it's cost or just the process or people in place. Leveraging some of these artifacts, methods, and reference architectures is a way to help get started, and of course employing other areas of the information management disciplines to help get to the finish line.

Gardner: Mei, when it comes to learning from those that have done this well, what do we know about what works when it comes to data and information management?

Selvage: Eugene and I had a long debate over how we know that we've delivered a successful information architecture. Our conclusion comes out three plus one. The first piece is just like any strategy roadmap. You need to have a vision and strategy. To have a successful information architecture vision you really have to understand your business problem and your business vision. Then, you use applicable, proven, referenced architecture and methodology to support that.

Once you have vision, then you come to the execution. How do you leverage your existing IT environments, integrate with them, keep good communication, and use the best practices? Finally, you have to get implemented on time and on schedule within the budget - and the end-user is satisfied.

Those are three parts. Then, the plus part is data governance, not just one time project delivery. You’ll have to make sure that data governance is getting consistently implemented across the projects.

Gardner: How about in the direction of this organizational definition of what works and what doesn’t work?

Weisman: The information architect will soon be called the knowledge architect to start realizing some of the promise that was seen in the 1980s and in the 1990s. The information architect’s role, essentially, is to harmonize all manner of information and make sure it's properly managed and accessible to the people who are authorized to see it.

It's not just the information architect. He has to be a team player, working closely with technology, because more and more information will be not just machine-readable, but machine-processable and interpretable. So he has to work with the people not only in technology, but with those developing applications, and especially those dealing with security because we’re creating more homogenous enterprise information-sharing environments with consolidated information holdings.

The paradigm is going to be changing. It's going to be much more information-centric. The object-oriented paradigm, from a technical perspective, meant the encapsulation of the information. It's happened, but at the process level.

Gardner: How do you see the role of the information architect as important in solidifying people’s thinking about this at that higher level and, as Robert said, being an advocate for the information across these other disciplines?

Imbamba: It's inevitable that this role will definitely emerge and is going to take a higher-level position within organizations. Back to my earlier comment about information really becoming an issue, we have lots of information. We have variety of information and varied velocity of information requirements.

We don’t have enough folks today who are really involved in this discipline and some of the projections we have are within the next 20 years, we’re going to have a lot more information that needs to be managed. We need folks who are engaged in this space, folks who understand the space and really can think outside the box, but also understand what the business users want, what they are trying to drive to, and be able to provide solutions that really not only look at the business problem at hand but also what is the organization trying to do.

The role is definitely emerging, and within the next couple of years, as Robert said, the term might change from information architects to knowledge architects, based on where information is and what information provides to business.

Gardner: Please update us on what took place at the Austin Conference.

Weisman: We had some super presentations, in particular the one that Eugene and Mei gave, that addressed information architecture and various associated processes and different types of sub-architectures/frameworks as well.

The Information Architecture Working Group, which is winding down after two years, has created a series of white papers. The first one addressed the concerns of the data management architecture and maps the data management body of knowledge processes to The Open Group Architecture Framework. That white paper went through final review in the Information Architecture Working Group in Austin.

We have an Information Architecture Vision paper, which is an overall rethinking of how information within an organization is going to be addressed in a holistic manner, incorporating what we’d like to think as all of the modern trends, all types of information, and figure out some sort of holistic way that we can represent that in an architecture.

The vision paper is right now in the final review. Following that, we're preparing a consolidated request for change to the TOGAF 9 specification. The white papers should be ready and available within the next three months for public consultation. This work should address many significant concerns in the domain of information architecture and management. I'm really confident the work that working group has done has been very productive.

Gardner: Now, you mentioned that Mei and Eugene delivered a presentation. I wonder if we can get an overview, a quick summary of the main points?

Selvage: Essentially, we need to understand what it means to have a successful solution information architecture. We need to leverage all those best practices, which come in a form of either a proven reference architecture or methodology, and use that to achieve alignment within the business.

Eugene, do you have anything you want to specifically point out in our presentation?

Imbamba: No, just to add to what you said. The three keys that we brought were the alignment of business and IT, using and leveraging reference architectures to successfully implement information architectures, and last was the adoption of proven methodology.

In our presentation, we defined these constructs, or topics, based on our understanding and to make sure that the audience had a common understanding of what these components meant. Then, we gave examples and actually gave some use cases of where we’ve seen this actually happen in organizations, and where there has been some success in developing successful projects through the implementation of these methods. That's some of what we touched on.

Weisman: Just as a postscript from The Open Group we’re coming with an Information Architecture and Planning Model. We have a comprehensive definition of data and information and knowledge; we've come up with a good generic lifecycle that can be used by all organizations. And, we addressed all the issues associated with them in a holistic way with respect to the information management functions of governance, planning, operations, decision support and business intelligence, records and archiving, and accessibility and privacy.

One of the main contributions that these white papers are going to provide is a good planning basis for the holistic management of all manner of information in the form of a complete model.

Gardner: Why will the data and information management professionalization, this role of the information architect, be more important based on some of the trends that we expect?

Weisman: Right now, it's competitive advantage upon which companies may rise and fall. Harvard Business School Press, Davenport in particular, has produced some excellent books on competitive analytics and the like, with good case studies. For example, a factory halfway through construction is stopped because they didn’t have timely access to the their information indicating the factory didn’t even need to be constructed. This speaks of information quality.

In the new service-based rather than industry-based economic paradigm, information will become absolutely key. With respect to the projected increase of information available, I actually see a decrease in information holdings within the enterprise itself.

This will be achieved through a) information management techniques - you will actually get rid of information; b) you will consolidate information; and c) with paradigms such as cloud, you don’t necessarily have to have information within the organization itself.

So you will be dealing with information holdings that are accessible by the enterprise, and not necessarily just those that are held by the enterprise. There will also be further issues such as knowledge representation and the like, that will become absolutely key, especially with demographics as it stands now. We have to do more with less.

The training and professionalization of information architecture, or knowledge architecture, I anticipate will become key. However, knowledge architects cannot be educated totally in a silo, they also have to have a good understanding of the other architecture domains. A successful enterprise architect must understand all the the other architecture domains.

Gardner: Eugene, how about you, in terms of future trends that impact the increased importance of this role in this perspective on information?

Imbamba: From an IBM perspective, we’ve seen over the last 20 years organizations focusing on what I call an "application agenda," really trying to implement enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, supply chain management systems, and these systems have been very valuable for various reasons, reducing cost, bringing efficiencies within the business.

But, as you know, over the last 20 years, a lot of companies now have these systems in place, so the competitive advantage has been lost. So what we’re seeing right now is companies focusing on an information agenda, and the reason is that each organization has information about its customers, its products, its accounts like no other business would have.

So, what we're seeing today is leveraging that information for competitive advantage, trying to optimize your business, gleaning the information that you have so that you can understand the relationships between your customers, between your partners, your suppliers, and optimize that to deliver the kinds of services and needs, the business wants and the customer’s needs.

It's a focus from application agenda to an information agenda to try and push what’s going on in that space.

Gardner: Mei, last word to you, future trends and why would they increase the need for the information architecture role?

Selvage: I like to see that from two perspectives. One is from the vendor perspective, just taking IBM as an example. The information management brand is the one that has the largest software products, which reflects market needs and the market demands. So there are needs to have information architects who are able to look over all those different software offerings in IBM and other major vendors too.

From the customer perspective, where I see a lot of trends is that many outsource basic database administration, kind of a commodity or activity out to a third-party where they keep the information architects in-house. That’s where we can add in the value. We can talk to the business. We can talk to the other components of IT, and really brings things together. That’s a trend I see more organizations are adopting.

Listen to the podcast. Find it on iTunes/iPod. Read a full transcript or download a copy.

By: Ike Ononogbu, Managing Partner, InforData Consulting Posted: 8th July 2011 Copyright InforData Consulting © 2011

We have just gone past the half way mark of 2011 and several events—conferences, seminars, and webinars—have taken place. A number of them have one common denominator, Data Management. The 20th and 21st century has seen an increase in mergers and acquisitions as organisations pursue growth and wider customer base. Invariably this has led to the explosion of data held within an organisation. This trend seems to have shifted the focus on how best to manage this ubiquitous item.

What is it that makes data so important? The information that comes from data reveals the state of an organisation. Sales figures, financial status, revenue, forecasts are all derived from data. Information at the disposal of organisations, if accurate, can be used to strategize and gain competitive advantage. In reality, data is the engine that moves an organisation.

One way of understanding your data sets and managing it to gain a competitive edge is through Master Data Management (MDM). In recent times there has been a flurry of interest in MDM and recognition of its importance. It has been noted organisations that are interested in implementing MDM solutions often struggle to address the challenges that come with implementation. Gartner, in a published article titled ‘MDM 'Primer': How to Define Master Data and Related Data in Your Organization’, states that “MDM program managers and leaders need to ensure a shared understanding of what defines master data across the organisation. MDM programs will not go very far without this. If your organisation plans to adopt MDM, you need this “primer” to help define master data across business and IT”. The paper goes on to talk about key findings and recommendations.

While there are immense challenges in implementing a Master Data Management (MDM) solution, the benefits are overwhelming. It has been said that by 2013, Master Data Management (MDM) will reduce data redundancy in organizations. As a result will save 80% of the costs associated with managing this redundant data.

By: Peter Abrahams, Practice Leader - Accessibility and Usability, Bloor Research Posted: 21st June 2011 Copyright Bloor Research © 2011

Apple has announced the next version of OS X, the operating system for Macs, called Lion. It has 250+ new features, including 11 specific accessibility features and several more that could have accessibility benefits.

OS X ships with a built-in screen-reader, VoiceOver, which has been extended to:

In previous versions you have been able to increase the size of the cursor arrow but when you did this the arrow became pixelated and the edges were rough; a small improvement in Lion is that the larger cursors remain crisp and sharp. I have my cursor at a medium size, it makes it easier to find on a large iMac screen and I look forward to this small improvement.

Another feature I use quite frequently is screen zoom. If there is something on the screen that is small, some text or often an image, I zoom the whole of the screen so I can see the relevant section blown up. The problem is that I lose the rest of the screen. Lion will offer a function to have a section of the screen in a separate window and to zoom on that. This is the best of both worlds with magnification of the bit of the screen of interest whilst still being able to see the context of the rest of the screen.

Lion improves Braille support with support for more languages and more control of the verbosity.

A significant usability feature is that for existing OS X users Lion will be downloadable from the Mac App Store. The advantage being that there will be no distribution of CD and installation from CDs. For people with disabilities this should be a welcome improvement, just a couple of clicks to download (see my article Usability and Accessibility of Apple Mac App Store) then a few more to install.

FaceTime, the video calling facility built-in to Lion, provides high-definition video which should make it possible for deaf people to use sign-language when communicating remotely. Lion improves and extends the support for full-screen apps. Full screen applications are beneficial to people with vision impairments as the content can be bigger and also there are no distractions. Full-screen should also help people with dyslexia, and some cognitive limitations. With Lion you can have multiple applications open in full-screen mode and you can navigate from one to another using a gesture.

Preview is the tool for looking at images and PDF documents. Lion provides a magnify feature to enlarge specific text or images.

Safari, the built-in browser, has some new features that will benefit people with disabilities.

The Screen Sharing feature enables one Mac to observe or takeover control of another Mac. This provides an excellent remote user support facility. Many users with disabilities will find this useful as it means that small issues can be diagnosed and resolved quickly and effectively by a remote friend.

And finally you can resize a window from any side or corner.

Lion will ship in July and is great value at £20.99 in the UK ($29.99 in the US). I plan to upgrade as soon as it ships as the accessibility benefits are significant as well as many other of the 250 new features which will improve my usability and general user experience.

By: Louella Fernandes, Principal Analyst, Quocirca Posted: 30th May 2011 Copyright Quocirca © 2011

Xerox’s acquisition of NewField IT, a UK based print consultancy and software solution provider follows hot on the heels of HP’s acquisition of Printelligent, a US-based managed print services (MPS) provider. With both HP and Xerox looking to expand the penetration of MPS to SMBs and midmarket organisations, the acquisition of these companies provides the additional capabilities that both companies need to ensure higher penetration rates. This market remains a largely untapped opportunity for channel partners to capture on-going service revenue opportunities in an increasingly commoditised hardware market – the acquisitions enable both vendors to approach SMBs via the channel with a services-led model that provides distinct business value to the customer.

Xerox and NewField IT

Xerox’s acquisition of NewField IT cements a long-established relationship between the two companies. NewField’s flagship AssetDB technology already underpins the assessment and optimisation capabilities for the Xerox Partner Print Services (XPPS) platform. NewField’s pedigree as a print assessment provider is well recognised across the industry with most printer and copier vendors having used Asset DB in varying degrees to support assessment of print environments and optimised MPS designs. Asset DB covers the complete gamut from graphical floor-plan based data collection to future state design of an optimised print environment.  Although Xerox’s purchase of NewField IT could be dismissed as a small acquisition, it certainly has the potential to make a significant impact of Xerox’s channel-led MPS revenue.

Xerox is keen to replicate its success in the enterprise MPS market across the SMB and midmarket, which currently has a relatively low penetration of MPS. However, success in these channel-led markets is highly reliant on resellers’ resources and skills to sell and deliver MPS quickly and effectively. The Xerox Print Partner Services (XPPS) hosted MPS infrastructure was developed over a year ago to provide channel partners with a set of tools to manage every element of an MPS contract – including sales pursuit, device discovery, optimisation and service delivery. Quocirca believes that the acquisition of Newfield IT will enhance Xerox’s credentials to deliver a comprehensive set of MPS tools for multivendor resellers far beyond the basic MPS packages currently on offer from its competitors.

While the technology benefits of the acquisition for Xerox are clear, less clear is how NewField IT will continue to operate as a vendor-neutral provider of software and services. Its existing relationship as an assessment provider for HP and Ricoh, for instance, must surely be at risk – and even more so given HP’s acquisition of Printelligent. Meanwhile, NewField IT intends to continue providing independent consultancy services to end-users, abiding by its established code of conduct which states that it will remain objective and not supply or promote the products of those hardware vendors that license its technology. Vendor-agnostic assessments are a critical part of any MPS engagement and NewField IT has long been offering these as an independent provider. However, it remains to be seen how effectively it can continue to preserve its independence when delivering vendor-neutral recommendations for MPS device optimisation.

HP and Printelligent

HP’s almost simultaneous announcement to acquire Printelligent has levelled the playing field between the two vendors. Although XPPS had recently been the only cloud MPS platform available to multi-brand resellers enabling them to manage a multivendor environment, HP’s latest acquisition of Printelligent will now provide HP channel partners a wealth of scalable multivendor MPS capabilities.

With Printelligent, HP has acquired an established MPS provider which has been offering MPS since 1993 through a network of MPS channel partners across the US. Printelligent assets will enhance HP’s assessment and optimisation capabilities and its MPS sales and services expertise infrastructure, along with HP’s cloud-based InCommand platform will enable HP to now deliver a set of differentiated MPS solutions and services via the channel.  Whilst the acquisition of Printelligent will certainly bolster HP’s channel MPS capabilities in the US, it may take some time to provide a similar set of services to its European channel, particularly given Xerox’s strong MPS presence in this region.

Market outlook

The majority of SMBs and midmarket organisations currently purchase printer hardware and consumables on a transactional basis which creates a huge opportunity for hardware vendors to encourage customers to adopt a contractual approach to buying “printing” rather than “printers”.  Consequently the market for MPS in the SMB and midmarket is moving beyond the simple single brand, basic service which essentially wraps hardware with supplies, maintenance and support. Whilst HP and Xerox will continue to offer these basic services for businesses that need it, the real cost saving – both financial and environmental – comes from a detailed assessment and optimisaton of the printer environment – from both a hardware and workflow perspective. Channel partners therefore need simple and flexible tools and an infrastructure that they can tap into to sell, deliver and manage MPS on an on-going basis. 

The market to sell MPS to SMBs and midmarket organisations is still wide open and vendors must provide their channel with a simple and effective MPS cloud platform that can deliver remote monitoring, consolidated billing, supplies and service and reporting across a multi-vendor environment. For now SMBs are most likely to be more receptive to basic services, whilst the midmarket organisations stand to benefit most from more complex and value-based MPS propositions.

Although Xerox had a head start in providing an MPS infrastructure for its channel partners, HP has made a smart acquisition which will help it catch up and strengthen its presence in this market, particularly as it can exploit its strong relationship with the IT channel. Now that both vendors have the infrastructure and tools to provide their channel partners, success will ultimately be linked to how well these vendors engage and train their channel to deliver MPS to their customers.

By: Bob Tarzey, Service Director, Quocirca Posted: 28th April 2011 Copyright Quocirca © 2011

Back in December 2010 Microsoft released its Forefront Endpoint Protection 2010 (FEP) suite that provides protection from malware and other threats. Used in conjunction with Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007 (MSCCM), Windows BitLocker for encryption and  the Windows Firewall, businesses can make sure their Windows desktops and laptops are up to date and secure, something most businesses value (Figure 1). Microsoft now has a comprehensive capability to protect and manage Windows PC end-points.

Microsoft hopes that with a big channel drive, 2011 could be the breakthrough year for FEP and that it will prove to be an effective challenge to Trend Micro Worry-Free Business Security, Symantec Endpoint Protection V12 (released in Feb 2011), the McAfee Endpoint Protection Suite and other products from security specialists.

This hope is bolstered by the expected acceleration of the take-up of Windows 7. Although Quocirca research conducted in 2010 show that Windows 7 was quite widely used amongst SMBs (Figure 2), conversations with resellers and service providers suggests this is rarely an across-the-board commitment, especially amongst larger businesses. However, some Microsoft large account resellers say they expect many more enterprises to make the move in 2011.

When businesses do move to Windows 7, they tell Quocirca they will review their Windows end-point security at the same time and the Microsoft will be on the list. So is Microsoft set to take the end-point security market by storm? In Quocirca’s view probably not; it has three problems.

Businesses now have more end-points to worry about than just PCs and, beyond the PC, Microsoft is currently an “also ran”. Its market share of the smartphone market languishes below 5% (Figure 3). Microsoft hopes its new partnership with Nokia will reverse its fortunes, but that would take time. Furthermore, the use of tablets/slates is increasing in businesses. Gartner predicts 55M unit sales of Apple’s iPad in 2011, and the market will be further boosted by other hardware vendors that have entered the market, many using the Google Android operating system.

Whilst vendors that specialise in end-point security and management struggle to keep up with this diversity, Microsoft is not even trying. Worse still, Microsoft does not even support old versions of its own products—FEP 2010 is only available for Windows XP and later and but BitLocker is only in Windows 7 and Vista. And there is no FEP or BitLocker for Windows Mobile.

Microsoft’s second problem is that IT security is about much more than user end-points. It is about servers, data centres, networks and the increasing use of on-demand computing services. The revamped Forefront range includes offerings in these areas; Forefront Server Security, Forefront Threat Management Gateway and Forefront Unified Access Gateway. But, where businesses can no longer rely on the user end-point devices being purely Microsoft, few have ever had such homogeneity at the backend. Most of those wanting a single vendor to cater for the majority of their security needs must look beyond Microsoft to the specialists.

The third problem Microsoft faces is the channel. Some of its existing distributors are keen to join a new value-added distributed programme for Forefront. However, many of the resellers they must win over are not convinced, with some saying that, in evaluations, Microsoft Forefront still fails to come out on top. They also complain that there is little margin for them in Microsoft security products and they have to fall back on services, which at least there is a requirement for, as some find Microsoft’s products more complicated to deploy than those from other vendors. Furthermore, resellers have existing relationships with security vendors whose products they have rolled out to their customers; Microsoft must overcome this double incumbency.

One final groan from resellers actually works in Microsoft’s favour. They complain that because Enterprise Agreements and Enterprise CALs (client access licences)—two ways larger businesses can licence Microsoft technology—now include many Forefront products; their customers already have paid for the right to use them. When this is the case, there is no incremental product revenue for the reseller. End users must work out for themselves if they have such rights and if the Microsoft security products provide the protection they need—many resellers seem unlikely to highlight it for them.

Microsoft Forefront will become more widely used in 2011, but there will be few organisations that will be able to rely solely on Microsoft for their IT security needs. There is plenty of opportunity left for the specialist security vendors and most resellers seem unlikely to jump ship from them to Forefront in 2011.

 This article first appeared on http://www.channelweb.co.uk and in the print edition of Computer Reseller News (CRN)

By: Bob Tarzey, Service Director, Quocirca Posted: 28th March 2011 Copyright Quocirca © 2011

The IT distribution channel has always been considered a major influence on the adoption of new products, services and ideas by end-user organisations. So as the IT industry seems set on moving relentlessly forwards with the message that the cloud is the future, how important is the channel in helping the delivery of that technology?

The relationship between IT vendors and the resellers that ultimately shift many of their products has always been like that between the proverbial chicken and egg. Resellers need products to sell and vendors need resellers to sell their products, at least at high volume with a low cost of sale. But does the cloud change this?

At one level, it has the potential to do so. Some vendors, such as Microsoft, that have been stalwart supporters of the channel in the past have wavered. Microsoft now offers some of its cloud-based products for sales direct to customers as well as via partners—for example, Microsoft Office 365, or BPOS as it was previously known.

Furthermore, the further up the cloud stack a customer buys, the less there is for a reseller to offer. For example, an infrastructure-as-a-service offering still needs some systems and application software licences to make it functional, whereas software as a service includes all that, and so just needs user-access devices and connectivity.

However, a reseller that maintains strong relationships with its customers may not have too much to worry about for two reasons. First, no vendor, not even Microsoft, can offer a full range of cloud services and second, cloud-based services will never be the be-all and end-all. IT delivery will always be an appropriate mix of on-premise and on-demand services for a given organisation.

Resellers need to help their customers strike a balance between on-premise delivery and on-demand services and, in doing so, maintain their value-add. To achieve this balance, they must identify appropriate cloud offerings to add to their portfolio so they can offer these to customers alongside on-premise alternatives.

Requirements can be reviewed case by case, with the reseller being impartial and suggesting the most suitable approach for each customer.

A customer that is growing fast might need rapid access to more processing power. Is this best provided by buying more servers and renting the datacentre space to deploy them or buying commodity virtual servers from a managed hosting provider? Is content security best deployed at the network edge or in the cloud? A range of factors will provide the answers to these questions and help the reseller make its recommendation.

When a cloud-based service seems to be the best option, it still needs to be integrated with on-premise infrastructure. Some would argue smaller organisations could source all their IT needs from the cloud but that can never be true if you look at all the IT infrastructure requirements.

There will always be a need for user end-points—PCs, laptops and smartphones—as well as routers and printers. A true value-added reseller with strong client relationships must operate at this level, providing services to manage and secure IT across this entire infrastructure, integrating cloud-based services as appropriate.

At this stage, it is worth mentioning another aspect of the cloud that resellers should remind their customers about. Making sure the use of IT is secure and compliant is not just about selecting when best to use cloud services, it is also recognising that end users will make use of such services anyway.

Whether it is social networking for business or personal use, collaboration tools, online office tools or even on-demand server-storage utility services, users can choose to invoke these directly for themselves. Resellers need to help their customers control or monitor the use of such services.

How does a reseller go about assembling an on-demand portfolio? Some providers of on-demand services are more channel-friendly than others—some are indifferent. Amazon may not have much of a reseller program for Amazon Web Services but this does not stop a reseller from building EC2 servers or S3 storage into their propositions.

However, it may make more sense to work with a provider such as Rackspace, which has an active partner programme and prides itself on support, as this choice will allow a reseller to back its own service guarantees with those from its supplier. Salesforce.com has always seen the channel as a second to direct sales whereas for NetSuite it is seen as the primary route to market. That attitude is reflected in the way both organisations incentivise partners.

All that said, selecting cloud services is just one of the challenges. Making sure they appear as unified, coherent and seamless set offerings, with a single billing and an integrated management portal is too much to ask of most resellers. There is help at hand from some distributors, who also have to work out how to exploit the cloud and stay in the game.

For example, COMPUTERLINKS has recently launched a range of cloud services under a new brand name called Alvea. This brand includes on-demand servers and storage, data backup, security and collaboration services. Unified billing and management are built into the offerings and resellers can white-label the whole thing to appear as their own.

Being a well-established distributor, COMPUTERLINKS knows a thing or two about incentivising resellers and, for the same reasons, has chosen to work with channel-friendly suppliers, plugging gaps with its own offerings as appropriate.

Ingram Micro assembled a set of cloud services branded Seismic, perhaps an indication the Earth really is shifting under the channel or at least the clouds above it. Certain other distributors look ready to follow the lead of COMPUTERLINKS and Ingram Micro and build out cloud-service portfolios of their own.

Cloud-based services will continue to grow as a proportion of overall IT spending for the foreseeable future. Resellers and distributors that fail to recognise this fact and extend their portfolios accordingly will be failing their customers and themselves.

By: Natalie Newman, Senior Analyst, Bloor Research Posted: 24th March 2011 Copyright Bloor Research © 2011

What will the 2011 Census tell us? Not much without geographic information technology! Demographic information guides the planning for all sectors. Whether for the provision of public services, the supply of power and water, or the marketing and selling of products and services, the where factor will be critical!

On March 27th everyone in England and Wales will be expected to complete the 2011 Census form. We lose an hour during the night before and hopefully that will not cause late submissions. This is the first census that can be completed on line. One hopes that this will not adversely affect an accurate information collection—the last census had an alleged 25% undercounting.

Reading an article in the local Compass Wessex magazine started a train of thoughts of what this new information can mean to public and private sector organisations.

The focus on socio and economic trends opens the usefulness of this information to countless opportunities. Is there anything that is not affected in some way? It is vital to understand where—the location—to which the statistics relate.  

Comparison with the first census in 1801 reveals great change and we all know that the speed of change is increasing. In 1801, the 2 million households averaged 5.6 people compared with 2001 where an average of 2.4 people were recorded in 26 million households. The escalation curve would be very interesting to understand how the rate of change has increased. The geographic illustration of where these changes take place will provide invaluable guidance to so many facets of planning and provision.

New questions about residents include passports held, nationality, year of entry to UK and intended length of stay for recent arrivals, main language and second residence. These statistics would reveal interesting trends, showing where employment is impacted, where transitional populations reside, where different languages should be accommodated, and where homes are not permanently occupied.

Frighteningly, apparently, 1 in 6 homes in the UK fall within a flood plain and the Environment Agency's flood testing centre at HR Wallingford in Oxfordshire is investing in experiments to withstand these wet onslaughts. The 2011 Census will reveal how many people are impacted. That could be a very pessimistic picture? Insurance risk cannot be managed without evaluating where and to what extent the risk exists. This is impossible without geographic technology.

The increasing population densities are essential for network planning organisations—water, gas & electricity, telecommunications. Without geographic visualisation, they will not know where the change in demand is taking place.

The first summary results are expected in September 2012 with more details emerging in 2013 and 2014.  That does seem like a while to wait, but maybe we should already be putting on our thinking hats and start planning how to use this information.

If geographic technology is not part of your solution, think again. Without knowing where change is taking place, the statistics are meaningless.

By: Bob Tarzey, Service Director, Quocirca Posted: 16th March 2011 Copyright Quocirca © 2011

The relentless increase in the use of cloud-based services presents both an opportunity and a challenge for resellers of IT products and services. It's an opportunity because they have the chance to help their customers adapt to the new landscape and identify when a cloud-based service is the best option for delivering a particular requirement. The challenge they face, though, is how to create a portfolio of cloud-based offerings—from reseller friendly suppliers—that sits alongside traditional on-premise products, so they can offer their customers a choice.

The problem is identifying such services and doing due diligence on suppliers takes time. Even harder is integrating services together to provide a federated look and feel. Here distributors are starting to take a lead. Quocirca recently spoke at the launch of COMPUTERLINKS's Alvea platform. (The presentation can be viewed here.) 

Alvea is a range of cloud-based security services including on-demand servers and storage, data backup, security and collaboration services. Unified billing and management are built in to the offerings and resellers can white-label the whole thing to appear as their own. Being a well-established distributor, COMPUTERLINKS has chosen to work with channel-friendly suppliers, plugging gaps with its own offerings as appropriate.

Ingram Micro, meanwhile, has assembled a set of cloud services it has branded 'Seismic'—perhaps an indication the earth really is shifting under the channel, or at least the clouds above it! Certain other distributors, for example Avnet, look set to follow the lead of COMPUTERLINKS and Ingram Micro and build cloud service portfolios of their own.

Cloud-based services will continue to grow as a proportion of overall IT spending for the foreseeable future. Resellers and distributors that fail to recognise this and extend their portfolios accordingly will be failing both their customers and themselves.

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: Ike Ononogbu, Managing Partner, InforData Consulting Posted: 28th February 2011 Copyright InforData Consulting © 2011

Heading South
Is the cost of data management heading south? Have you had a discussion with a client considering moving away from inefficient data management processes or a client looking to implement a transformation project? If you have, my guess is that pricing must have been a thorny issue. One would then ask why such organisations stick to the 'tried and tested' procedures that are quite expensive.

Step in Open Source
In the past few years we have seen the rising interest in Open Source. This has been fuelled by the popular belief that you can possibly get value for money at a reduced cost. The idea of Open Source in relation to technology has long been in existence but the idea of Open Source in relation to data integration is a new concept. Open Source is not just about giving access to source code, it also involves free redistribution of applications. Some offer both free distribution and a licensing option.

I recently attended a dialogue session focused on Open Source and it is evident organisations are beginning to look at and explore the gains Open Source has to offer. Coming from industry chieftains, who constituted the panel at the session within the private and public sector, it certainly is a good sign for Open Source evangelists.

The Difficulty
So, why has it been difficult for Open Source to really take flight? During the dialogue session, the reasons were not in short supply. They ranged from contractual agreements between System Integrators and clients to risks involved in implementing integration projects using ‘non-mainstream’ applications. Members of the audience, of course, did counter the argument for, citing the government’s cost-saving drive as a big enough incentive. Some, also, did point out the superiority of some Open Source products, in terms of functionality, over closed applications.

Data Integration
Looking at Open Source within the data integration arena, Talend easily comes to mind. Talend, a Paris-based software house, offers an Open Source data integration tool with a free standard edition version and a subscription version. The company publishes the code of its core modules and offers the developer community the ability to improve the product. Nevertheless, Talend R&D drives the road map/strategy.

Talend seems to be succeeding in its awareness drive which has seen it sign-up a number of clients in the private and public sector. It must be added that their data integration tool is effective.

Pros and Cons
As with every evolving concept there are positives, to build on, and negatives, to address.

Negatives

• Intellectual Properties issues: Who owns what?
• Who reaps the financial gains from the sale or use of the product?

Positives

• Costs: The reduction in costs associated with Open Source weighs heavily in its favour.
• Easy access: Free versions are available on-line.

While the evangelists of Open Source proclaim the philosophy according to Open Source we have to remember it has to be judged based on its merits and not just on costs.

By: Gerry Brown, Analyst - Digital Marketing & CRM, Bloor Research Posted: 23rd February 2011 Copyright Bloor Research © 2011

In the last 12 months technology shares on the NASDAQ exchange have appreciated by 28%. Apple’s have appreciated by c. +80%, Oracle’s by +40%, IBM’s by +30%. Microsoft’s haven’t: they have gone in reverse by -3.5%. Apple is now valued at c. $100bn more than Microsoft.

It’s not that Microsoft’s results have been so bad. Their accounts would have a finance man purring like a stroked kitten. Microsoft’s tech industry leading 30% net margin on revenue of $62.5bn created $18.7bn of net profit in 2010. Nice.

But these impressive figures hide a break from the past. Bill Gates was always obsessed with winning market share and beating the competition. Nowadays Microsoft is more interested in making loads of money and retaining the status quo. The decline of the Roman empire was exactly the same. This is what the stock market is picking up on.

While rivals such as Larry Ellison at Oracle are still hungry for scalps (for example, he said recently that he was ‘going after’ HP at the top end of the server market, ‘and then we’ll take on IBM’ with his new Sun servers and Exadata), Microsoft has been focusing much of its effort on internal wrangling and re-structuring.

Four of CEO Steve Ballmer's direct reports have departed since May 2010, including Stephen Elop who left to run Nokia, and Robbie Bach who ran Microsoft’s entertainment division. Three Divisional Heads have now gone (out of 5 Divisions), the most notable being the President of the $15bn Servers and Tools Business (STB), Bob Muglia.

Ballmer’s email to Microsoft employees on January 10th said “I have decided that now is the time to put new leadership in place for STB. This is simply recognition that all businesses go through cycles and need new and different talent to manage through those cycles”. This doesn’t quite square with Ballmer’s letter to shareholders last September that reported ‘outstanding momentum across all our businesses’. The ‘new and different talent’ to run STB is Satya Nadella, a 20 year veteran at Microsoft. He ran the Bing search engine division. A chance to blood new talent has been missed.

The Microsoft mission statement: “to enable people and businesses throughout the world to realize their full potential” lacks real teeth. Previously, one key objective was ‘to take on difficult challenges and see them through to the end’. When Microsoft entered a market it would never let go. It offered a low price point with continually increasing product functionality, the marketing machine kicking in with slick promotions and resellers everywhere. Microsoft’s goal was to become market leader no matter how long it took, and it was a compelling proposition.

Imagine my surprise when they retreated from the performance management market: “we've made it clear in the public domain that we're shifting back, or pulling back… (from) where we were essentially in a competition with the Cognos and Business Objects of the world“ they said. What? Pulling back? Microsoft? Unheard of.

Microsoft’s aura of invincibility has been punctured. Once upon a time, if Microsoft entered a market, existing suppliers knew they were in trouble and clamoured to sell up and get out. Not anymore. Now they fancy their chances of winning against Microsoft and tucking into that soft underbelly of late-to-market indecisiveness that has bedevilled the company in recent years.

The lion needs to wake itself from its gentle slumber, put its teeth back in, get up from its soft bed of grass and go and kill something if it’s going to restore its lost pride of place in the industry. However, a change of leadership may be required at the very top of Microsoft for this goal to be achieved.

By: Simon Holloway, Practice Leader - Process Management & RFID, Bloor Research Posted: 10th February 2011 Copyright Bloor Research © 2011

As the realisation comes to the software market that the new generation of workers need user interfaces that fit with the lifestyle of Facebook, Twitter and mobile phones with apps, we are starting to see how various software companies are meeting these changes. For the BPMS market, Appian have always been one of the companies leading the way and with the release of Appian 6.5, which includes a new interface called Appian Tempo, they have produced a release that is geared towards the end user of BPMS-driven solutions in terms of a mobile and social interface with cloud capabilities.

Malcolm Ross, Appian’s Director of Product Management, told me “The release delivers a revolutionary way to extend process visibility and participation through native mobile device access, real-time collaboration, filtered and personalised views of key business events, integration to external systems, and the ability to take direct action in a familiar and intuitive social media interface.” So what does the new Appian interface deliver?

Mobility

Appian Tempo provides native client applications for the Apple iPad, iPod Touch and iPhone as well as RIM BlackBerry devices. Ross explained that mobile BPM allows employees to stay connected, allowing them to monitor, collaborate and take action on important business decisions regardless of where they are. It also extends BPM participation beyond pre-defined process participants to include all levels of the organisation. The iPhone and iPad applications are available for immediate download from the Apple App Store. The BlackBerry application is available now from the Appian Forum community site, and will be available shortly on the BlackBerry App World site. A native application for Google Android devices will be available shortly.

Figure 1: Appian Tempo user interface on BlackBerry, iPad and iPhone. (Source: Appian)

Social

There always seems to be a contradiction about incorporating social media into a business world. Social technologies are powerful communication and collaboration platforms, but they must be harnessed in a business context to have business value. Ross explained, “Appian utilises familiar social tools and interfaces to drive business collaboration across the enterprise through personalised, filtered views that allow easy collaboration with the ability to take action when needed.” Users can filter views by relevant application or process areas and subscribe to customised feeds to monitor the key events and information that is meaningful to them. As well, users can comment, pose questions and collaborate on business events through real-time message posts and ad hoc updates to targeted groups within and outside of pre-planned business processes. The last user capability is to “Take Action”; here a user can generate actions and complete tasks from inside the event feed or from a mobile device, using optimised web and mobile forms to capture data and route tasks.

Customer-Driven

Samir Gulati, Appian’s Vice President of Marketing, described how Appian 6.5, and in particular Appian Tempo, had been driven by their customers’ business needs. One example is Archstone, a leading apartment management company, headquartered in the USA. Archstone have a highly mobile and dispersed workforce which is supported by a system built on Appian. David Carpenter, Director of BPM, Archstone, stated that “Appian Tempo delivers a new level of value to our customer service associates through instant mobile access to our key enterprise processes and forms.”

Comment

I was very impressed with the demonstration of Appian 6.5 and the Appian Tempo interface. From an end user viewpoint it opens up the ability to make real-time decisions where and when they are needed by using collaborative technology. The product is definitely easy-to-use and intuitive. While all events and collaborations can be secured at a granular level, organisations that make use of the new Appian release will need to think about the security implications of the information that can be shared.

In addition to on-premise deployment, Appian has emerged as the BPM-in-the-cloud market leader. When you add the capabilities of Appian Tempo to those already in the Appian BPMS and Appian Anywhere, as well as Appian’s specific knowledge about industries such as government and financial services, you have a very compelling proposition.

By: Bob Tarzey, Service Director, Quocirca Posted: 1st February 2011 Copyright Quocirca © 2011

Back in December, Microsoft released Forefront Endpoint Protection 2010 (FEP), a suite that provides protection for Windows PCs from malware etc. Used in conjunction with Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007 (MSCCM) businesses can make sure their Windows PC user end points are up to date and secure. In conjunction with BitLocker, Microsoft’s full disk encryption capability, and other security features that come with Windows, such as the Windows firewall, Microsoft now has a comprehensive capability to protect and manage Windows PC end points.

A further worry for its competitors is that business take-up of Windows 7 since its launch in October 2009 has been fairly slow, but this is expected to accelerate rapidly during 2011. A Microsoft large account reseller (LAR), which provides end point management services, told Quocirca that many of its customers are asking to upgrade in the next 12 months. One thing seems certain; when they do this they will review their Windows end point security in light of the offerings from Microsoft. For example, one CISO Quocirca spoke to stated:

“When we move to Windows 7 we will include an evaluation of Forefront and BitLocker alongside existing end point security”

So is Microsoft set to take the end point security market by storm and see off the security specialists that dominate at present such as Symantec, Trend Micro, McAfee and Sophos? In Quocirca’s view probably not; Microsoft has three problems.

First, although Windows 7 is expected to do well in 2011, it is no longer true that Windows-based PCs are the only end point most businesses have to worry about. Microsoft has failed to make much of an inroad into the smartphone market; its market share languishes at below 5%. Nokia/Symbian, Apple/iOS, Google Android and RIM are much more widely used and look set to remain so. 

Furthermore, more tablet computers are increasingly being used to access business IT resources. Gartner predicts 55 million unit sales of Apple’s iPad in 2011 and other hardware vendors are entering the market, many using the Google Android operating system. A CISO from a diehard Microsoft shop, that was an adopter of the forerunner to FEP, Forefront Client Security, told Quocirca that even they now have a “few iPhones and iPads” to worry about.

Vendors that specialise in end point security and management struggle to keep up with this diversity, and Microsoft is not even trying. Worse still, Microsoft does not even support old versions of its own products; FEP is only available for Windows XP and later (not too bad) but BitLocker is only in Windows 7 and Vista (few businesses adopted the later). As for Windows Mobile, don’t even bother—no FEP or BitLocker there. So if you are looking for a common security suite across all end points, Microsoft does not have the answer and it probably never will.

Microsoft’s second problem is that IT security is about much more than user end points. It is about servers, datacentres, networks and the increasing use of on-demand computing services. The revamped Forefront range includes offerings in these areas; Forefront Server Security (for Windows Server SharePoint, Exchange, Lync), Forefront Threat Management Gateway 2010 (was ISA Server) and Forefront Unified Access Gateway 2010 (was Intelligent Application Gateway). But, where businesses can no longer rely on the user end point devices being purely Microsoft, few have ever had such homogeneity at the backend. Most of those wanting a single vendor to cater for the majority of their security needs must look beyond Microsoft.

The third problem Microsoft faces is the channel. It is rolling out Forefront via a new value added distributor (VAD) programme. Its existing distributors are keen to join and capitalise on the Forefront opportunity. However, the resellers they must win over for this to succeed are less convinced. One told Quocirca:

“We always include Microsoft [security products] in a review but it has never come out on top”

Other resellers complain that there is little margin for them in Microsoft security products and they have to fall back on services, which at least there is a requirement for, as some find Microsoft’s products more complicated to deploy than those from other vendors. Furthermore, resellers have their existing relationships with security vendors whose products they have rolled out to their customers; Microsoft must overcome this double incumbency.

One final groan from resellers actually works in Microsoft’s favour. They complain that because Enterprise Agreements and Enterprise CALs (client access licences)—two ways larger businesses can license Microsoft technology—now include many Forefront products; their customers already have paid for the right to use them. When this is the case, there is no incremental product revenue for the reseller. End users must work out for themselves if they have such rights and if the Microsoft security products provide the protection they need—many resellers seem unlikely to highlight it for them.

Microsoft Forefront security will become more widely used in 2011, but there will be few organisations that will be able to rely solely on Microsoft for their IT security needs. There is plenty of opportunity left for the specialist security vendors.

By: Bob Tarzey, Service Director, Quocirca Posted: 27th January 2011 Copyright Quocirca © 2011

More and more of us are working remotely, for at least some of the time, enabled by an increasingly diverse range of mobile devices. For businesses this has many benefits whether it is making field based employees more responsive, improving workflow or enabling flexible working practices. But many studies show that the biggest perceived down side is security; for resellers this is an opportunity.

Remote devices themselves, be they smartphones, netbooks, tablets or laptops, provide only small margins for resellers, as do the network connectivity services that link them to back office applications. But mobile device management (MDM), software and services to manage and secure these growing fleets of devices, are more attractive.

Controlling what employees can get up to and ensuring that their use of IT is safe is far easier when they are constrained behind a firewall than when they are ‘at large’ with mobile devices. There are three basic problems to solve: protecting the device from malware, protecting the data generated and stored on the device and securing and authenticating the connection.

With the larger form factor devices (laptop, netbooks and some tablets – mobile PCs from hereon) it is possible to protect the device and the user by forcing access back via the corporate network. They are then subject to internal security controls. There are three basic ways of doing this: 

1. Enforce the use of virtual private networks – a controlled work space can be created on the mobile PC with access to a given set of backend applications, user productivity applications (word processors etc.) are still usually installed locally
2. Use virtual desktops infrastructure (VDI) – this means all applications are run inside the firewall including user productivity applications
3. Force all network traffic back via a firewall – user productivity applications are run locally, but everything going to or from the PC is subject to internal controls

Securing the use of smartphones has thrown up some new challenges and, as yet, it is not really possible to take a unified approach to managing all mobile devices. For a start it is harder to force smartphone users back on to the corporate network, due to the convenience of making direct internet connections via mobile network operators (MNO), second VDI is hard to adapt to their smaller screens, third there are different device based security products for the different types of devices and finally, the range of operating systems for smartphones is much more diverse.

There is one measure that can be taken centrally to protect all remote users; email filtering. Most organisations today will have this in place to catch spam and email-born malware and also to check what is being sent via corporate email. However, the target of many malware writers and an increasing source of data leaks is web traffic. It is possible to use proxies to force web access for mobile PC users via a central web traffic filter, but, for the reasons outlined above, this is less easy to enforce for smartphone users.

So, as smartphones increasingly become target for data theft and they are, by their very nature, easier to lose, it is necessary to make sure the device itself is secure. This also applies to any mobile PC for which internet access is allowed independent of the corporate network and, unless device based security blocks the use of low cost of 3G dongles, this is almost inevitable.

A few years ago, given the range of mobile operating systems, it seemed obvious to select a corporate standard smartphone and impose it. But the increasing overlap between work and personal lives means most employees prefer to use the device of their choice. This consumerisation of IT may look like a headache for IT managers, but it has one big advantage; if the device an employee uses for work is also their favourite toy – they will take more care of it – step one to mobile security – user love of their device!

But that is not enough; there are a number of other steps that need to be taken:

• Password protection – basic but obvious – making sure the device cannot easily be used when it falls in to the wrong hands.
• Malware protection – now offered by many of the security vendors for mobile PCs and smartphones. Smartphones are now a target as they are being used more and more to access sensitive data.
• Device firewall – these are now becoming available for mobile devices, allowing the customised filtering of web traffic on the device itself
• Encryption – if any amount of sensitive information or intellectual property is to be stored on a device then that data, or probably all data, should be encrypted. Recent rulings by regulators make this clear. Remember, contact list with telephone number and note may constitute sensitive data.
• Remote disablement and wipe, should a device be compromised making sure the services available to it are discontinued and that data is wiped (less of a concern if the data is encrypted).
• Advanced security features including SIM recognition and geolocation using GPS

Ensuring all this protection is in place and remains so, that device software and security is up to date, and that action can be taken when a problem arises requires MDM tools. Such tools can also enable the auditing of device ownership and use, for example logging phone calls made, SMS content and photos.

For many businesses, especially mid-market and smaller ones, these will be new and unprecedented challenges. The number of threats and the range of options for mitigating them will seem daunting and the in-house skills will not be available. Resellers that provide tools and services for managing mobile device security and safe remote IT access will be relieving their customers of a headache and enabling their businesses for the future.

By: Philip Howard, Research Director - Data Management, Bloor Research Posted: 27th January 2011 Copyright Bloor Research © 2011

Data virtualisation is the latest technology to enjoy its moment in the hypelight and there has been some considerable debate within the blogosphere about what it actually is and what its relationship is to data federation, data integration and EII (enterprise information integration).

Rather than start from scratch I thought I would go back through my files and see what I had written about this in the past (if anything). I found the following definition of an EII platform (that is, what you need to support EII, which is, after all, about information rather than mere data). What I wrote, some three years ago, was that an EII platform needs to do four things:

1. “It virtualises your data – it makes all relevant data sources, including databases, application environments and other places where data may be sourced, appear as if they were in one place so that you can access that data as such.
2. “It abstracts your data – that is to say, it conforms your data so that it is in a consistent format regardless of any native structure and syntax that may be in use in the underlying data sources.
3. “It federates the data – it provides the connectivity that allows you to pull data together, from diverse, heterogeneous sources (which may contain either operational or historical data or both) so that it can be virtualised. It should also enable things like push-down optimisation so that query joins can be mastered in the optimal place.
4. “It presents the data in a consistent format to the front-end application (typically, but not always, a BI tool) either through relational views (via SQL) or by means of web/data services, or both.”

Actually, I didn’t quite write that: I have updated it somewhat but the gist is the same.

Clearly, data federation is not the same as data virtualisation. Moreover, federation is not necessary for virtualisation, depending on why you are doing the virtualisation. If you want to link a number of data marts together so that you can query across them then clearly the query optimisation capabilities of a federation engine will be necessary. On the other hand, if you want to create Mashups or other applications that have relatively lightweight access requirements, or you want to use virtualisation to support MDM-like capabilities, then such functions may not be necessary. Instead you can use data services. Data services may also be more appropriate in environments where less of the data is relational and more of it comes from a variety of unstructured sources or from the web. Indeed, there is a whole new discussion to be had about the distinctions between data virtualisation for unstructured data and structured data (or a combination of the two) but that’s a subject for another day.

The other question that arises is whether parts 1, 2 and 4 are all actually parts of the same thing. I think 2 and 4 probably are or, at least, the differences are so slight that there is no point in making a distinction.

Parts 1 and 2 are another issue. If data virtualisation is about having a virtual data source that does not necessarily mean that it is easy to work with. It is certainly easy to imagine a huge hybrid database that contains relational and non-relational data, pdf documents and a whole bunch of other things, but that would not necessarily mean that the data was all in a common format and, therefore, easy to work with. So, I think both 1 and 2 are required and are different. It is certainly true that it does not make much sense to implement data virtualisation without an abstraction layer but that doesn’t mean they are the same thing.

Finally, I haven’t talked about data integration at all. Well, the fact is that leading data integration products support data services so you should certainly be able to virtualise data sources even if you can’t federate them (they won’t typically have the sort of distributed query optimiser you would want from a data federation product). The question will be how easy it is to build the abstraction layer with a data integration tool. Of course, you can create all the transformations and mappings necessary for this purpose but what you would really like is something that automates a lot of this abstraction rather than requiring you to build it for yourself. It is in these two areas—federation and automated abstraction—that the pure players in the market, especially Composite Software and Denodo, have a significant advantage over the data integration vendors.

By: Ike Ononogbu, Managing Partner, InforData Consulting Posted: 25th January 2011 Copyright InforData Consulting © 2011

We recently signed up to a CRM web-based application and so far it has proven to be a wise investment. Automating and simplifying some tasks previously carried out manually and more importantly we have avoided the drudgery of installing, configuring and subsequently maintaining the software. Our consultants can now log in from anywhere and use or input company-wide data without having to be at our office or logged into our machines. This is a pretty cool service.

Another significant occurrence, for me, that heralded the arrival of SaaS was when I had a need to share a 'live' document with a friend. As I was pondering how we could both access the document without having to save and send via email a former work-mate suggested we use a particular application on the cloud, this application allows for document-sharing on the 'cloud'.  Perfect!!

In The Beginning
Historically companies have been required to buy software, configure and deploy. But it seems there is change in the air. This apparent shift in paradigm from client-server desktop applications to web-based or cloud computing has its merits and, as some sceptics would like to dwell on, its down-side.

If I were a manager in a company would I rather have a client-server installation or opt for the seemingly easier option of SaaS. Some thought-provoking questions need to be answered before an appropriate decision can be made.

Some of the questions would possibly be:

• How safe is my data?
• Am I looking at short-term or long-term costs?
• If long term, will it be cost effective? Same question should be posed if short-term. 

Data Security
Back to what I would assume is the most important question companies looking to go the cloud route would ask, is my data safe? For all its ease-of-use and minimal, if not lack of, maintenance data security is key to making a decision whether to embark on this road. Managers will have at the back of their minds that their data will be stored in a data centre they have no control over and probably haven’t got a clue where it is located. Where does governance lie if your data is stored in a data centre in Alaska? Is the integrity of my data assured in the data centre?

SaaS 'Players'
Every technology shift has its forebears and followers. Salesforce, a CRM firm formed by an ex-Oracle executive and three software developers, leads the way in harnessing web-based capability. Others, notably Informatica (Data Integration software company), SAP (provides Enterprise software applications), Oracle and IBM Cognos, have all followed suit and now offer on-demand services which are all cloud based. Worth mentioning, Microsoft has just launched its CRM application, Dynamic CRM Online. No one wants to be left behind and there is good reason not to.

Conclusion
While awaiting assurance that data held in data centres will be safe, another question pops up. Are the features in on-demand products as 'rich' as client-server editions?

Having said that and posed some questions, earlier on, we must not lose sight of the benefits of SaaS or cloud computing. The positives are all too obvious for one to see and it certainly has a big part to play in the technology arena, now and in future.

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: Simon Holloway, Practice Leader - Process Management & RFID, Bloor Research Posted: 24th January 2011 Copyright Bloor Research © 2011

Back in September 2010 I was asked to meet those in HP responsible for devising the strategies being offered by HP to the Retail sector, Kobi Elbaz, Director, Client Solutions and Workstations, EMEA, and Emily Dart, Manager, Retail Store Solutions.

Before I look at the solutions and offering being promoted by HP, let us look at the retail industry itself. The retail sector has undergone its biggest ever evolution in the past decade as new technologies have given people greater choice in the way that they shop. People, who shopped in stores or via catalogues and door-to-door selling, can now buy online or via digital TV. This has resulted in a multi-channel approach to selling by retailers intent on ensuring they maximise sales and market share with 2009 and first half of 2010 being one of the toughest recorded for retailers.

Liane Dietrich, MD at LinkShare UK, has recommended[1] that, as customers have increasingly turned to the web in search of the best deals, the key for retailers looking to boost dwindling high street sales is to seize the opportunities which exist online by promoting their brand whilst also appealing to the ever-savvy online shopper. Dietrich explained that one consequence of the bargain hungry customer is that they have become more demanding—shoppers now require more from their online shopping experience and expect to be presented with something extra to entice them into making a purchase. Therefore to be successful in an economy which still remains fragile, retailers need to adapt to the changing shopping habits of their target audience as well as maximise the potential of all revenue streams available to them. Today’s customers are often better connected and hold more technology in their hands than exist in stores, thus enabling to compare prices online through their mobile phones.

So what is HP offering to help with these issues? Elbaz explained that HP saw that retailers needed to invest in the latest customer-friendly technologies and, given HP’s penetration into the vertical with 90 out of the world’s top 100 retailers being customers, HP equipment handles over 3.5 billion credit card transactions annually. Besides the hardware that people are familiar with from HP, the company also offers:

• Point of Sale (POS) systems based on an industry standard architecture with a small footprint;
• Digital signage ranging from 42 inch to 47 inch LCD displays; and
• Kiosk implementations that include media players, Touchsmart PC and touch screens.

From a services viewpoint, HP aim to be the partner at the customer’s table. In the retail sector they are offering 4 solutions:

• Store-to-go is an outsourcing alternative for retailers. It is an alternative to traditional services of contracting and ownership, relieving the retailer of the burdens associated with purchasing, deploying, managing, optimising, and upgrading an in-store environment. It is a packaging of a hardware offering with surrounding services.
• Business intelligence is based on HP’s business intelligence offering using HP hardware, and Oracle or Microsoft software, with services. BI solutions can be built to understand how customers shop, identify up-sell and cross-sell opportunities and assess same-store sales to increase turnover. Process improvements, as well as operations and IT efficiencies, can be identified and implemented. Collaboration solutions that allow retailers to interact more closely with both customers and suppliers are also included.
• Track and trace visibility allow distribution networks to operate more effectively through increased visibility and performance metrics. In this package of goodies is an RFID solution that provides automation, efficiency and reliability of data to support real-time decisions and advanced analytics for a competitive advantage. There is also pick-by-voice or pick-to-light solutions to select the right part, track inventory and send part replacement notices. There is support for both RF and WLAN mobile devices. Both warehouse management and workflow management capabilities are included in the solution.
• eCommerce and Multi-Channel provides support for customer direct services, customer relationship management, business continuity as well as data protection and recovery.

Solutions means software, particularly applications, and that is not part of the HP portfolio. However HP has formed major partnerships with the 3 main application vendors in this sector: SAP, Oracle and Microsoft. In addition they have formed strategic partnerships with best-of-breed vendors such as Retallx, eRetail and Aldata, to name just a few. HP, through its EDS acquisition, has also acquired a number of vertical-oriented services groups. Now each of HP’s software vendor partners has a retail strategy of their own, so there would seem to be potential for a disconnect. To avoid this HP are working closely with their major software partners to integrate their solutions with their software partners’ solutions. This results, if you like, in a SAP, a Microsoft, an Oracle and so-on version for each solution, where appropriate.

In an additional discussion with Mario Vollbracht, Worldwide Segment Executive, Retail and Consumer Goods Industries, explained that HP saw that being independent of software applications meant they could better respond to their client’s need with a right combination of hardware and software appropriate to the existing portfolio of their client. Vollbracht also stated that HP saw their ability to manage effectively the legacy portfolio of retail organisations coupled with HP’s business process knowledge as key differentials in the services offered by the company.

Elbaz expounded that HP not only saw the technology challenges that retailers faced, but they themselves were retailers with stores in Eastern Europe where they were learning to eat their own dog food. He explained the HP POS solution was able to support the necessary agility that business required, by providing solutions that were compatible as a retailer grows with the ability to customise and redeploy systems. This business requirement goes hand in glove with HP’s known stability and reliability as a hardware vendor. This approach is very like the way HP went into the use of RFID to track and trace.

For what I was told of a year or so of operating, HP has come a long way, but I felt that they aren’t quite there. The information on the solutions on the web site is a bit sketchy, but what there is is very good. I also feel that the relationship with different software partners needs to be made clearer in terms of what is actually being offered by the partnership. Retailers aren’t going to buy hardware; they want cost-effective and quick-to-implement solutions which give a very good ROI. These solutions are a combination of hardware and software. It is a case of nearly there, but if you do start talking to them you may well find the solution you are looking for, but you need to do some digging to get there.

[1] Online retail in 2010, John Ronson, Retail Digital, Apr 16, 2010

By: Peter Abrahams, Practice Leader - Accessibility and Usability, Bloor Research Posted: 11th January 2011 Copyright Bloor Research © 2011

In December 2010 the British standards Institute (BSi) published "Web accessibility - Code of practice (BS 8878:2010)" http://shop.bsigroup.com/en/ProductDetail/?pid=000000000030180388; this document is based on, and replaces, "PAS 78: Guide to good practices in commissioning accessible websites". It extends, updates and improves on its predecessor and is therefore essential reading for anyone intending to create or update a web product.

This new document, like its predecessor, concentrates on the processes, procedures and practices required to create an accessible web product; it does not discuss coding or technical issues but does provide references to relevant standards, guidelines and practices; so there is no conflict between this standard and the guidelines produced by the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI).

Jonathan Hassell, from the BBC, who lead the development of the standard says "Most web product managers know accessibility is important, but need a guide to the decisions they make during product development which can impact disabled and elderly users of the types of multi-platform, interaction-rich products they are creating. BS8878 is that guide, and encompasses the best advice and experience from many experts from all round the world on how to make products that include these people.".

Firstly it describes the policies and structures that an organisation needs to have in place to support accessibility.

Secondly it describes a series of steps required to create an accessible web product. The steps are summarised in the document as follows:

• Research and understand the requirements for the web product;
• Make strategic choices based on that research;
• Decide whether to create or procure the web product in-house or contract out externally;
• Produce the web product;
• Evaluate the web product;
• Launch the new product;
• Post-launch maintenance.

The document describes the specific accessibility issues that should be considered at each step. At first sight this may look like a lot of new work but in reality nearly all of the steps are considered good practice for any web product development.

This is followed by an introduction to the existing guidelines for developing accessible web products as well as discussion of accessibility of non-browser interfaces and special consideration when developing for older users.

Finally there is a detailed section on "Assuring Accessibility throughout the web product's lifecycle", which identifies and discusses the various methods of accessibility validation.

Graeme Whippy, of Lloyds Banking Group, one of the authors of the standard, said "Lloyds Banking Group is committed to best practice in accessibility and sees significant business benefits in making our websites as accessible as possible".

The standard is about 90 pages long and the second half is made up of fifteen extremely useful annexes. These cover areas such as definitions, laws, standards, responsibilities, challenges, examples of web accessibility policies and statements, guides to testing and a comprehensive bibliography.

I have read the standard and found the information in it clear, concise, insightful and pragmatic. It is laid out in such a way that it can be read in small chunks as required by different audiences and steps of a project. It provides all the parties involved in the creation of web products the information they need to understand the issues, decide how to proceed towards an accessible product and, importantly, how to deal with real world conflicts between ultimate accessibility and other market forces.

It provides a single source for accessibility best practice and information on the law and standards regarding accessibility.

The only criticism I have is that it does not discuss in sufficient detail the importance of ensuring that new content added to the web product after launch is accessible. It hints and implies that this is essential but does not highlight the issue.

Having seen the document, Gail Bradbrook of Fix the Web, an organisation set up to help people with disabilities report web accessibility issues and get them fixed, said "if every web product used the standard then we would not be needed and could close down; unfortunately that is not the case yet and we are very busy and need more volunteers (see http://www.fixtheweb.net )."

To ensure the maximum benefit is obtained from the standard there is a need for a community to be built up around the standard that can add to and refine the standard based on new experiences, technologies and opportunities and I expect some organisation will step up provide the platform for this community.

The standard is an essential purchase for anyone creating web products, as it provides:

• Pre-digested research into accessibility and best practice;
• A roadmap showing how to ensure accessibility is built into web products;
• A template for recording the decisions made about accessibility which will help to show good intentions if complaints are made.

Its cost should be recouped within a few days of starting any significant web product development and it will continue paying dividends throughout the whole life-cycle. It should be used by all commissioners and developers of web products.

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: 22nd December 2010 Copyright Bloor Research © 2010

1. Technology Designed for Everyone
The technology world enlarged in 2010. Consumers fell in love with the intuitive user interfaces and versatile technologies of the likes of Apple, Facebook and Google. “I love it” is how most users describe their iPad or iPhone. Now consumers want their enterprise applications to offer a similar user-oriented experience.

Consumers want to use technology to connect and collaborate with others. No wonder social networking and mobility is such a compelling combination for businesses and end users alike. Facebook’s mobile users spend twice the amount of time on Facebook than do non-mobile users. This trend is set to accelerate. Hence SAP acquired Sybase for its mobile apps platform, rather than its database technology.

Traditional consumer brands such as Sony (Vaio) and Samsung (Galaxy) and Amazon (Kindle and EC2) sense there is more money to be made in Tech. As do a vibrant new group of entrepreneurs who have developed well over a million consumer apps on various platforms. There are no barriers or caveats to entering the software market anymore.

2. Making Technology Easy to Consume
How do you turn 5 keystrokes into 3? How do you make software that is immediately intuitive and makes obvious sense to users? Can you eradicate training courses and user manuals? Some enterprise software user interfaces look like a flight pilot’s cockpit instrument panel.

Steve Jobs, the Tech industry’s top CEO, loves a clean design and simplicity for Apple’s users. The iPod has 5 keys; the more modern iPad has 3. Jobs launched the iPhone 3G using only 11 presentation slides, only one of which contained any words. BBC Radio 4 recently praised Apple’s use of clear, plain English in its product descriptions, in contrast to Microsoft’s “techno-babble” that can alienate potential customers.

Facebook starts product development from the premise ‘how does this product enable users to communicate and collaborate?’ Features and functions become outputs rather than inputs when viewed in this manner.

3. Getting the Price Point Down
High price is the last great bastion of the technology industry. But now many vendors offer similar ranges of products to address similar markets; the key decision-making criteria has become availability, brand, and most importantly, price—especially as vendor pricing is increasingly transparent and available on the Internet. There are now many options open to vendors who want to offer more customer value and encourage product trial.

BI vendors such as QlikTech, Tableau, TIBCO Spotfire, and MicroStrategy offer generous free trial product downloads. Open Source vendors such as Jaspersoft, Pentaho and SugarCRM offer free entry-level products. Spiceworks’ network management software is free if you are prepared to accept the advertisements that come with it. Many excellent applications, such as Google Analytics for example, are totally free of charge. Virtually every kind of software platform, application and service is available for rent as a SaaS service in the Cloud.

4. Be different
Competition from now on will be intense and hostile. Recent aggressive moves from industry titans such as HP, IBM, Oracle, and Microsoft set the tone. Product innovations are easy to copy and vendors are now stepping on each others’ toes. To insulate themselves against this trend the top Tech companies have transformed themselves into brands. They hope to encourage a sense of community and belonging, customer loyalty and advocacy, and a feeling that customers cannot do without them.

Brand Finance now rates Apple, Microsoft and IBM as 3 of the most valuable ($) 5 brands on earth—ahead of Coke, Mars, Persil and all the other household names. Six of the Top 20 valued brands are from the Tech industry. The thought-leadership, business model innovations and brand distinctiveness that characterise these vendors are now becoming essential pre-requisites for success in Tech.

Those that are truly market-oriented and customer-centric will thrive. Those that remain product-led will find it increasingly hard to attract new customers. Business agility will be key to vendor survival. ‘Be fast and be bold’ as Facebook says. Vendors, customers and users should endeavour to embrace this dictum.

If there are vendors or others who want advice in any of the above, drop me a line and I will be glad to help. It is Xmas after all ;-) And a happy New Year to all our readers!

By: Nigel Stanley, Practice Leader - IT Security, Bloor Research Posted: 21st December 2010 Copyright Bloor Research © 2010

I recently presented at a webinar alongside LogLogic on the issues of compliance for IT professionals. Here is an edited transcript of my talk.

Until fairly recently, information security people were buried away in server rooms configuring firewalls and patching servers. With the sudden surge of compliance and regulatory requirements being placed onto a business, IT security people are now required to understand and help implement compliance solutions.

But how can security teams help join the dots between their security work and compliance issues? How can compliance requirements be met without placing undue strain on the organisation causing paralysis by analysis? How can information security people add value to a business following a compliance agenda?

The pressure to deliver a secure IT infrastructure against a background of constantly changing compliance and regulatory demands is tough, and not helped by a reduction in budgets to achieve this ever-changing goal. The first part of this process is to get an understanding of exactly what compliance requirements you need to be worried about and, more importantly, those that can be put to the background. Not only do we need to consider state laws, federal laws and international laws, there are industry-specific regulations that further complicate the picture. Those organisations trading across international boundaries face even more challenges as they get to grips with different legal structures and cultural demands. During this webinar you will have a chance to learn about the realities of achieving an acceptable level of compliance for your organisation, and hopefully get some help for your work down in the trenches.

I would imagine that everyone knows only too well the demands on us as information security professionals. I think it could be argued that we have one of the most difficult jobs in the IT business as we need to be seen to add value whilst at the same time often saying no—often a contradictory position.

As the current financial situation rolls on we are faced with doing more with less, and organisations are increasingly worried about reputational risk more than ever before as any damage to the business will have an affect on often slim profits. This work needs to be balanced with the relentless slog of dealing with malware and other unexpected gotchas waiting in the wings to pounce.

Some of us are lucky enough to enjoy a lot of support from the executive team downwards. Unfortunately other boards may see the information security role as nothing but a pain and something they wish they could make go away. If this is your position you have my sympathies!

Data security is now getting a lot of attention as it is subject to legal and regulatory compliance requirements. Failing to adhere to appropriate laws and regulations can result in legal actions, fines, reputational risk and maybe, in extreme circumstances, imprisonment.

The benfits of compliance
Achieving  compliance, in the broadest sense of the word, can be a good thing as it often instils good practices and procedures.

On the other hand over-compliance can be detrimental as the business can be bogged down in achieving a goal that delivers little direct business benefit. Many medium-sized businesses are struggling with compliance requirements as they are big enough to be caught by various requirements but too small to have resources to cope. Of course failing a compliance audit can result in lots of difficult questions from the board of directors, shareholders and partners.

The only thing we can promise is that there will be more compliance and regulatory requirements coming down the line to affect data handling and security. The demands of a business culture that is becoming more and more compliance oriented can be major. The problem is that this change in culture leads to some strange ideas.

One objection to additional security spend I hear from businesses is that they are fully compliant, as proved by external auditors, and therefore don’t need much or any more investment in their IT security systems. Some business managers are then astonished when they realise that security has been breached, especially after they had spent considerable sums on establishing this compliant business environment. Indeed, the fact that the business is compliant, whatever that means, has induced a level of complacency in some as regards information security.

IT security managers have a need to help educate business managers in the differences between compliance and security. That way a business can make investment decisions based on accurate information rather than assumptions.

I feel for medium-sized businesses that are captured by the compliance net but have little or no resources to meet what can be seen as an onerous requirement. Fortunately some compliance and regulatory demands have planned for this and offer suitable break points so that small and medium sized business don’t fall foul of regulations whilst being able to run their day to day business.

The cost of poor compliance
So what about the real cost of poor compliance and bad information security? In March 2010 Zurich Insurance announced that it was going to improve its information security after losing personal financial information on 46,000 British clients through careless handling of unencrypted back-up tapes.

The back-up tape, which also contained personal details of 1,800 third party insurance claimants from the UK, was lost by Zurich's South African sister company during what was described as a routine transfer to a data storage facility in South Africa in August 2008.

In total, 51,000 British records were on the tape, along with a much larger number of details about Zurich customers in South Africa (550,000) and Botswana (40,000). Zurich's UK arm wasn't informed about the problem until a year later.

They were fined the equivalent of $5m by the Financial Services Authority, the highest fine levied in the UK on a single firm for data security failings. This is the cost of non-compliance.

US compliance
In many respects, the United States has led when it comes to data security laws that mandate stricter requirements and harsher penalties if data is compromised.

The implementation of state-level data breach notification laws in California in 2002 was seen as a prime example of addressing individuals' concerns about their data privacy. In this case, if personally identifiable data has been lost then those individuals possibly affected must be notified and steps taken to help them manage any ongoing consequences. 44 of the US states now have similar laws in place but, of course, if data has been demonstrably encrypted, then there would be no obligation to disclose its loss.

Since 2002, many US states have introduced even more draconian laws. The state of Massachusetts has introduced regulation 201 that is designed to protect personal data, for which encryption plays a big part. The compliance date was set for January 2010 and violators face penalties of $5,000 per infringement.

Other US laws encompass data security and imply that data encryption is required, even if it is not explicatively stated in the legislation.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 gives powers to the Department of Health and Human Services to watch over and enforce rules applicable to the safe and secure handling of patient data, including that which contains personally-identifiable health information. It is applicable to all entities that use such data, including healthcare providers, insurance companies and public health authorities. There are three safeguards that need to be implemented covering administration, physical and technical areas of data management. The technical safeguards require that patient health information is not improperly modified and any deliberate misuse could result in a prison term.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 was intended to improve the regulation and accountability of publicly owned companies following the spectacular corporate failures that occurred in the early part of that decade. Under Section 404: Management Assessment of Internal Controls of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, there is a need to prove the integrity and confidentiality of financial information.

The U.S. Congress passed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA), also known as the Financial Services Modernization Act, in 1999 to assist in the growth of the US financial services industry. One part of the Act (Sec. 501b) addresses the safeguarding of customer information including the integrity and confidentiality of non-public personal information and customer records.

EU compliance
The EU has a very different make up to the United States. The European Union currently comprises 27 member states. It was established following the Maastricht treaty in 1993, which renewed the union originally called the European Economic Community, or EEC. The EU generates approximately 30% of worldwide GDP and has around 500 million citizens.

The EU has developed a system of laws that apply to the movement of goods and people and the creation of a single trading entity. Each member state is subject to both EU and their own locally created national laws. There are countries that form part of Europe geographically but do not have membership of the EU, for example Switzerland. These countries are therefore not subject to EU-based laws.

As part of its remit, the EU has created business-related compliance and regulatory requirements, including laws that cover the safe keeping and management of data in computer systems. Failure to comply with these laws can result in criminal proceedings and prosecutions, so any organisation operating in the EU needs to take such laws as seriously as those developed by individual nation states.

When considering EU law it is important to understand the structure of the EU and how laws are enacted.

The EU Council represents national governments and is a council of ministers run by a 6-month rotating presidency. National ministers attend meetings as appropriate to their portfolio. The European Parliament is elected every five years by citizens of the member states. Members of the European Parliament have geographically-based constituencies that are generally larger than those for members of a national parliament.

The European Commission acts as a civil service and drafts new laws, which are passed to the European Parliament for discussion and enactment. The EU is based on a rule of law, which is laid down in a series of treaties and directives. These then become a collective legislative act of the EU, which is then enacted in member state laws. If a member state fails to enact a suitable law then action can be taken against that state in the European Courts of Justice, which is the judicial institution of the Community.

The compliance and regulatory framework in EMEA is never far from the spotlight, more so as the current worldwide financial situation is forcing regulators to review their oversight and regulatory activities in an attempt to prevent a similar crisis happening again. This is against a backdrop of relentless data loss incidents across both the private and public sector.

So let’s look at some key requirements in detail. The UK Data Protection Act is a useful example of a data privacy law and the PCI DSS is an interesting example of an international requirement put in place by a non-state organisation.

Data Protection Act
The UK Data Protection Act imposes legal obligations on anyone processing personal data to ensure there is good practice and management of that data. In part 1 of the Act there are 8 enforceable principles of good personal information handling. Data must be:

• Accurate and up to date.
• Fairly and lawfully processed.
• Secured.
• Not allowed to leave the UK unless the destination countries have similar legislation.
• Processed in line with a person’s rights.
• Only kept for as long as necessary.
• Processed for limited purposes.
• Adequate, relevant and not excessive.

Part 2 of the act gives individuals rights to find out what personal information is held about them on computers and most paper records. The UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has legal powers to ensure that organisations comply with the requirements of the Data Protection Act. A data controller who persistently breaches the Act and has been served with an enforcement notice can be prosecuted for failing to comply with a notice. From April 2010 the ICO can impose penalties not exceeding £500,000 for serious breaches of this act. We are still waiting for the “big one” to hit, but I understand there are some ongoing investigations that may result in the maximum fine. Certainly if the loss of 25 million records, as happened a couple of years ago by the UK’s HM Revenue and Customs happened today then the ICO has publicly stated that it would have levied the maximum fine. Then, of course, we have discussions about public money travelling from one place to another but that is beyond the scope of this presentation.

In Germany the Bundesdatenschutzgesetz (BDSG), adheres to the seven basic principles of EU Directive 95/46/EC in the protection of data relating to individuals or data that allows an individual to be identified. The 16 Länder have their own data protection regulations that cover local public bodies. These local regulations are similar in spirit to the Federal Data Protection Act. In July 2009, German legislature passed a number of amendments to the act to strengthen its powers. Most notably there was a new requirement introduced to provide notification of data breaches in a similar way to the United States. These were effective as from 1st September 2009.

PCI DSS
This is probably one of these regulations that appears to have achieved a good compliance vs. effort balance as organisations that I work with are generally satisfied that they can achieve their required level of PCI DSS compliance without it breaking their businesses. If you take a look at the 12 requirements of PCI DSS no one could argue against the sanity of putting in place these measures:

• Build and maintain a secure network including installing and maintaining a firewall configuration to protect cardholder data and not using default passwords.
• Protect cardholder data and encrypt transmission of cardholder data across open, public networks.
• Maintain a vulnerability management program and use regularly updated anti-virus software. Develop and maintain secure systems and applications.
• Implement strong access control measures and restrict access to cardholder data on a need-to-know basis. Assign a unique ID to each person with computer access and restrict physical access to cardholder data.
• Regularly monitor and test networks and track and monitor all access to network resources and cardholder data.
• Maintain a policy that addresses information security.

I don’t see how any information security professional could argue against implementing these requirements as they all go to make up a commonsense set of security structures. Having recently had my credit card details stolen I am as keen as anyone to see merchants achieve a better level of security and compliance.

Contrast the relative clarity of PCI DSS with the Sarbanes-Oxley requirements in the US. This imposes rather mystical requirements on information security. For example section 404 of Sarbanes-Oxley requires organisations to, “provide internal controls and report on their effectiveness” and section 802 says that organisations must, “ensure the integrity and availability of records”. This is a charter for auditors to make a lot of money!

As we have seen, compliance is now a big requirement for many businesses and I think most people would agree that the depth and breadth of compliance requirements is only going to deepen. As organisations switch on to the world of compliance they realise that it is far more cost-effective to run compliant systems 24/7 rather than hastily scrabble to clean up prior to an audit. Those days should be long gone and organisations should ideally be “audit ready” at all times, or at least strive to be. Any investments in systems that assist in gathering data and then produce compliance documentation will inevitably be proven to be a wise one, if even in the short term there is some practical and fiscal pain in purchasing and implementing the system.

This is where knowing the unknowns can pay dividends. I worked with a very large organisation recently that was feeling under pressure to come up to scratch from a compliance viewpoint. The IT infrastructure was (and indeed is) huge, and quite frankly systems, servers, networks and deployments ran away with themselves for a number of years. The IT management was feeling overwhelmed and needed to try and get a grip. To that end they installed and configured some automatic discovery tools to try and scan the network to see how it matched with their “official” documentation. The scale of additional network segments, hidden wireless access points, secret departmental databases and a wealth of other unauthorised IT was frightening.

This shook up the management and lead to a far more structured planning and network management process. Luckily they managed to get most of these issues addressed prior to a looming audit.

Compliance adding value
We, as information security professionals, need to be adding value to the business. Instead of being seen as the people that say no, we should be a conduit to ease the implementation of compliance systems. By understanding not only the technical challenges of compliance requirements but also the business context we can be seen to add value from the off. The good news is that, as we have seen, investing in compliance can also help us deliver a secure working environment. That said, it is beholden on us to ensure the business really understands the difference between compliance and security but at the same time sees the improved business case of delivering appropriate security projects on the back of a compliance requirement. Information technology can be notoriously complex and we often see business managers chased away from involvement in decisions related to technology. Whilst this may be appropriate in very narrow technical decisions it is important that business understands IT and how it is benefiting the business.

From a compliance perspective it is very easy for the business to be frightened by talk of liabilities, whilst technicians appear to spend budgets with limited care for the overall business benefit. When considering IT compliance, it is imperative that a strategic approach is taken based on clear, rational thinking. Many businesses have rushed into a technical solution that was sold as solving compliance issues only for them to quickly realise the limitations of the product.

IT security professionals have a responsibility not only to define an effective technical solution but to ensure that the solution is developed and deployed to mitigate fully the exposure and risks facing the business. Businesses must recognise that IT security is not only an important aspect of today’s business requirements but a permanent feature, the importance of which will only grow as the rights of the individual are ever more politicised and enshrined in EU and national law.

Data is either static or on the move. In both cases businesses must be able to secure it and to demonstrate to all parties that it is doing so. In our industry nothing stays still for long.

A word of caution now needs to be sounded about cloud-based systems and compliance. The race to the cloud has seen a number of organisations fall foul of data protection regulations and issues such as data privacy. Of course the cloud delivers some interesting business benefits but these must be balanced against the associated security and regulatory issues—joining the dots between security and compliance initiatives when talking about cloud computing can be very tricky.

The good news is that aligning information security and compliance, although a challenge, is probably getting easier now than it was up until a couple of years ago. The availability of tools to help in this process should reduce the compliance headache and help us get some value out of the compliance process.

New compliance requirements
We have seen new compliance and legislative requirements continually emerge in response to political initiatives, market dynamics and the need to manage new technologies.

Although many of these were not directly aimed at IT systems it is inevitable that such systems will be used to transport, store and manage data that will be subject to audit and control. There will therefore be a need for data to be held and moved demonstrably in a safe and secure way such that integrity is retained.

Examples include the UK’s smart metering initiative, where household energy meters will be upgraded to devices connected to a network and data transferred automatically to central billing facilities. Requests for data privacy comments have been made by OFGEM, the energy regulator. Although a lot of existing regulations and laws such as the Data Protection Act will be applicable it would not be surprising if tailored requirements emerge.

Effective governance that protects all constituents and demonstrates compliance and clear corporate responsibility will become an increasingly key component of data-related business solutions. Increasing awareness of the consequences of non-compliance will drive requirements for transparency and complete end-to-end visibility of data movements within the enterprise and, ultimately, throughout the value and supply chain.

Does compliance = MOT?
I will leave you with one last thought. Here in the UK, after the second world war, lots of people were driving cars that were in pretty bad repair—brakes were poor, lights were damaged and steering was often ropey. This lead to accidents and injuries that could have been prevented. In 1960 the Ministry of Transport introduced a compulsory test, now commonly called the MOT,  on all vehicles over 10 years old in an effort to ban the most dangerous cars from the road. Over time the age of annual tests reduced to its current of 3 years and the breadth and depth of the MOT has now expanded to incorporate new technologies such as catalytic converters.

Is the growth in IT related regulations and compliance requirements following a similar trajectory to the evolution of the MOT test?

All in all we now see far fewer old bangers or clunkers on the road than at anytime in the past and I wonder whether we will benefit in seeing fewer data breaches and security lapses as computer systems are put through regular audits or MOTs.

Of course the mistake many people make when buying a car is to assume that a current MOT certificate is proof that a vehicle is roadworthy. Of course it isn’t—all it means is that at the time of testing the car was able to pass the MOT test.

In a similar way a computer system may pass an audit but very rapidly collapse into a state of non-compliance due to mismanagement. Constant attention to audit and compliance is the only sensible way to manage these needs.

Who knows, with the development of decent compliance and regulations we may see less dangerous IT systems and fewer data loss accidents and mishaps!

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

It is time of year when we are expected to make predictions about the following year. My predictions for next year are, in no particular order:

1. We won’t see any less hype next year. Probably more.
2. Confusion will continue to spread, mostly because of 1.
3. Cloud computing won’t take over the world.
4. The advocates of cloud computing will say that it is taking over the world (see 1).
5. Most people won’t be much clearer about what cloud computing is and what it isn’t and what the different types of cloud computing are (see 2). For example, it needs to be understood that XaaS (something as a service) is not the same thing as cloud computing and that there are (maybe) 3 types of cloud computing: public, private and hosted, where the last of these is effectively a private cloud that it is run for you by someone else. But what is the difference between a flexible on-premise infrastructure and a private cloud? And what is the difference between an outsourced infrastructure and a hosted cloud? Beats me.
6. We will run out of letters to put before aaS (see 2). Just kidding. I wonder how many have actually been used up?
7. Virtualisation will continue to be the next greatest buzz word; at the latest count applying to at least four different technologies (see 1 and 2). Currently we have desktop virtualisation, server virtualisation, data virtualisation (which refers to having a virtual data model and is therefore completely different) and we are about to see the emergence of the polar opposite of server virtualisation (making one big system look like a lot of small ones) whereby you make a cluster of small systems look like one big one, which will also use the v word.
8. We will hear lots more about big data (see 1). From the amount of noise about it (see 1) you would think big data was the number one issue in data management. It isn’t. It is certainly important for some companies but those companies are a relatively small fraction of the total. Most companies are more concerned with mundane issues like performance and meeting user demands for new reports than they are with big data. But big data means big bucks, particularly if you are a disk manufacturer, so expect more 1.
9. In order to meet the demands of big data there will be more sets of initials: SQL, NoSQL and NOSQL aren’t nearly enough: someone will certainly invent some more (see 1 and 2).
10. The number of proprietary data warehousing vendors will fall though not enough to compensate for the growth in NoSQL, NOSQL and other initial-based open source database vendors claiming to address the big data problem.
11. It won’t get any better in 2012 so you might as well enjoy 2011 while you can.