Shared Spaces ... the Collaboration Advisor

News for Today, Mar 31

Today's news:

• Aligo introduced a 30-day free trial of its wireless email access server, MobileAccess for groupware, which supports multiple devices and multiple groupware platforms. Yahoo Business


• Gordano released an update to its GMS Collaboration Server. Offers full/tight integration with Microsoft Outlook, enabling organizations to replace Microsoft Exchange with the GMS Collaboration Server. Gordano


• Citrix released Version 2.2 of its Citrix MetaFrame Secure Access Manager, a product for gaining secure access to corporate information sources over the Web. New features: support for Outlook 2003 offline synchronization, a selection of portal interfaces, among others. Integrated Marketing

News for Today, Mar 30

Today's top items of interest:

• Akonix published an executive guide on IM in the enterprise, with a specific focus on the benefits it brings to the workplace when properly managed and controlled. Target market is CIOs. Available free, although registration is required. PDF format, 290KB, 8 pages. Akonix


• Other stakeholders in the Symbian alliance are considering acquiring partial stakes in the Psion sale, instead of allowing Nokia to purchase the lot, and therefore gain a controlling stake in Symbian. theregister.co.uk


• Plumtree Software announced an integration between its corporate portal platform and Yahoo! Messenger. This is designed to enable Plumtree customers to add presence awareness, instant messaging and application alerts into their applications. Comment: Yahoo? But it's the third placed player in the consumer IM space. Why not Microsoft MSN Messenger or AOL IM? Why not fully-fledged corporate platforms, eg, Lotus IM, Microsoft LCS, etc. C'mon ... Plumtree. A Line56 article says support for other platforms is coming.


• Captaris announced Version 4.1 of Teamplate for .NET, its business process automation software. New features: an enhanced workflow design wizard, tighter integration with Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003, and integration with RightFax, among others. Available immediately. Captaris


• BT Syntegra released its Message Management Platform (MMP), a single-point management solution for cross-platform messaging system management. MMP's "secret sauce" is its Common Management Interface (CMI), a web-based console that serves as a window into enterprise messaging operations. This tool enables administrators to enforce consistent system-wide policies and procedures across messaging operations through a single interface. CMI will manage messaging administration services in the future. BT Syntegra


• Microsoft is pleased with the progress of Microsoft Office 2003 in the retail channel. Microsoft


• Forrester, a technology research company, says that companies are too concerned with 'tactical collaboration tools', and should think beyond individual collaboration components. It thinks that IBM and Microsoft will continue to be the two leaders in the market, although also thinks that Novell and Oracle have a chance. Forrester

News for Today, Mar 29

Key happenings of recent days:

• RIM and Good Technology brought an end to their legal disputes, with the broad terms being an upfront one-off and ongoing royalty payments from Good to RIM. Both develop wireless email servers and devices, and initiate carrier relationships for bringing the technology to consumers and business people. RIM. Analysis at mercurynews.com, theregister.co.uk, thestar.com, and CNET News


• RIM is working on Version 4.0 of the BlackBerry Enterprise Server. The key new feature is remote deployment due to no install code on the desktop, a point that Good Technology was first to offer. RIM is also working with Sprint PCS Group for a BlackBerry deployment, although the deal is predicated on BlackBerry support in the Treo 600. eWeek


• Transform Magazine reports on three key trends in enterprise content management: (1) content management becomes part of the enterprise IT infrastructure, rather than a series of disjointed point solutions, (2) integration between content management and business process management (a super-set of workflow), and (3) more intelligence in dealing with scanned/imaged documents, eg, initiation of appropriate workflows. The article includes a brief description of products that match the three main trends. Transform

My Inspiration of the Week ... Clay Digs Up Wellington, Mar 24

My friend and colleague Clay Nelson is one of those big dreamin', mighty movin', huge idea-in' people I know. One of his latest ventures is to wire New Zealand's capital city, Wellington, with iTouch booths ... offering localized knowledge, insight and leads for tourists and locals alike. Above, Clay stands beside his iTouch booth on Wellington's main business drag, Lambton Quay.

Tom Peters, writing in Re-imagine, encourages his readers to associate with "crazy" people who will broaden your ideas, and set an example of thinking big. Thanks Clay, for being that person for me this week.

News for Today, Mar 26

Interesting industry incidents:

• Isospace released Version 4.6 of its real-time Web-based collaboration platform. New features: faster performance, revised user interface, meeting scheduling via Exchange Calendar (if desired), and archiving of events for compliance management, among others. Available immediately. IsoSpace
• Microsoft announced a forthcoming revision to Windows Mobile 2003, called Second Edition. New features: dynamic screen switching between landscape and portrait (like on the Palm Tungsten T3), a square screen resolution support, and support for VGA and QVGA display. The Motorola MPx will be the first to use the Second Edition release. Microsoft. Review at InfoWorld.

From My Perspective, Mar 25

Time to Get Rid of the Palm Desktop

One of palmOne's key strategic drivers is to increase the appeal of its handheld/PDA line in the enterprise. It's working on a range of initiatives to do so. Here's my 2 cents worth ... born of recent experience (frustration?) with a new Tungsten: Get rid of the Palm Desktop, make HotSync Manager more intuitive, and streamline synchronization with the user's default email program (in enterprise accounts, Outlook or Notes in 90% of cases). Here's why:

• Palm Desktop: This product is an irrelevant waste of time for an enterprise user. They don't need it and won't use it ... so don't force the user to install it. If there are key components in Palm Desktop required for sync, then fix HotSync Manager (see next).


• HotSync Manager: HotSync Manager needs a major revamp. There are two places I have to go to configure settings ... HotSync Manager itself, and the right (or is it left) click context menu on HotSync Manager while it's in my system tray. Make them one. And don't make the default option in HotSync Manager whether I want it to start-up automagically when I start Windows ... I'm only going to look at that screen once or twice a year at the most. Give me a sensible list of conduit settings instead.


• Sync to Outlook or Notes: Yes, Palm now ships Outlook sync conduits with its devices, but these need to be installed after Palm Desktop and a variety of other things, and from a separate menu. It's easy to miss them. The first screen after "thanks for spending mega-bucks to buy our latest gadget" should ask to what I want to sync it with ... after a scan of the system to see what appropriate software I have available. In terms of out-of-the-box sync conduits, Outlook and Notes sync support is critical to deliver. Those are the products most in use in the enterprise.

News for Today, Mar 25

News to start the day:

• Oracle is preparing to deliver Version 3 of its Oracle Collaboration Suite (OCS), a messaging and collaboration platform to combat Exchange and Notes/Domino in the enterprise. (Remember the Oracle ad positioning earlier versions of OCS against Exchange ... "Is your email a virus exchange?"). New features: integrated IM, better integration with enterprise applications, and shared Web-based workspaces, among others. Available 2H2004. InfoWorld


• ComputerWorld Australia published a concise summary of IBM's strategy for Lotus Notes/Domino and Lotus Workplace. An IBMer wrote the piece ... and did a fine job. computerworld.com.au


• eWeek reviewed the Groove v3 beta, concluding that Groove File Sharing is its killer app. eWeek

From My Perspective, Mar 24

Contextual Collaboration is More Than Integrated Presence & IM

I'm disappointed with the implementation of "contextual collaboration" by some vendors. That term should represent the pinnacle of integration of collaborative capabilities into business applications of all sorts, not merely the existence of a presence-enabled buddy list and a set of right-click contact options. At an IBM Lotus briefing yesterday, a slide showing a transition from "Collaboration" to "Advanced Collaboration" and finally "Contextual Collaboration" was displayed ... although the only detail provided for contextual collaboration was "the integration of Sametime into a portal interface". When I questioned the presenter (who did a great job of presenting given that me-the-skeptical-analyst was in the room), he agreed that there was more to contextual collaboration that what he discussed ... I stressed that he/they/IBM need to push the boundaries on what that could mean.

From my perspective, one of the sterling examples of contextual collaboration is the work done by DETERMINE Software with Kubi Software to integrate a standard business application (for contract negotiation) with the Kubi client for Outlook (yes, no Notes compatibility ... which is bad for the overall Kubi value proposition, but it was DETERMINE who decided to implement as such). In essence, as a user is working through the contract process using DETERMINE, there comes a point when a greater set of collaborative capabilities are required ... and so DETERMINE creates a Kubi space for the individual participants, and invites them to it. The (hard) work around coming to points of agreement with other members of the contract negotiation are undertaken within the Kubi client, and on completion of that stage, the resulting discussion threads, contact records, and documents are embedded back into the DETERMINE process. Users have been able to collaborate in the context of the business process.

Another example for further investigation and elaboration is the points at which collaborative capabilities -- presence, discussion lists, real-time application sharing, etc -- can/should be integrated into enterprise resource planning systems. This means that all negotiations and discussions about an element of the overall plan are available to all future users of the system, not locked away in some 'out-of-band' (eg, email) system.

The team at Groove have done some good thinking about this, too, although I'm a bit out-of-touch with where and how they are doing such integration going forward. One of the Groove VP's presented at a conference I moderated, and shared some initial ideas.

Yes, integrating buddy lists into other applications is an initial step of contextual collaboration, but please don't make it the be-all-and-end-all.

Request: Does your organization have a coherent ... or even emergent ... strategy/vision for "contextual collaboration"? If yes, I'd love to hear from you, either via the Comments system below, or privately to contextual.collaboration@shared-spaces.com.

News for Today, Mar 24

Today's news:

• Motorola announced that its MPx mobile handset will support the Good Technology's GoodLink wireless email and corporate data access system. The MPx is a Microsoft Windows Mobile (aka Pocket PC) device. Available 2H2004. Motorola


• RIM announced that CSL, a wireless operator in Hong Kong, will release the RIM BlackBerry wireless solution. Available 1Q2004. RIM


• JP Mobile said that a forthcoming release of its SureWave Enterprise Server, a wireless messaging gateway, will add support for the Novell GroupWise messaging and collaboration server. Available 2Q2004. JP Mobile

From My Perspective, Mar 23

Add-On Keyboards for Palm and Pocket PC

Makers of both Palm and Pocket PC devices offer external fold-up clip-on keyboards for their devices. For example, Palm offers the Ultra-Thin Keyboard for its Palm devices with the universal connector, and HP offers the iPAQ Foldable Keyboard for its iPAQ line. My favorite for is the Palm Ultra-Thin for two reasons:

• Usability: Both keyboards enable touch typing, but the Ultra-Thin wins for one specific reason: the positioning of the right-hand shift key on the Stowaway is all wrong ... instead of finding the shift key, one's little finger rests on an arrow key ... which causes the cursor to jump to very strange places during text entry on the iPAQ. The Palm variant works as expected. Entry of numbers is a bit slow, due to having to hold down a function key, but it works great.
• Carry-ability: The Palm Ultra-Thin wins here. It folds in half, and has a smaller form factor than its iPAQ cousin. The iPAQ Stowaway is thicker and deeper, although not as wide.
• Connectability: The iPAQ keyboard wins in terms of establishing a physical connection with the iPAQ. The connector enables the iPAQ to be slotted onto the keyboard with a minimal of fuss. The Ultra-Thin, however, is very fiddly ... it usually takes me 6-12 seconds to get the two connected, and I have to pick up the keyboard and Palm and look very closely to get them to fit together. Palm needs to address this major shortcoming.

Regardless of which one you choose, both keyboards significantly raise the functionality of handheld devices for text entry, particularly during meetings.

The Palm Ultra-Thin Keyboard: