Shared Spaces ... the Collaboration Advisor

Shared Spaces Briefing, Jun 16 (Take 2)

Today's highlights (for the second time ... thanks to time travel!): The Register on Collaboration; Infocation MailPoint; RIM Patent-less Approach; Broken Windows for iSeries;

• The Register surveyed its readers last year, on the topic of collaboration. Key findings: 70% said email was a "critical" business application, large organizations make use of teleconferences to avoid travel for face-to-face meetings, video conferencing suites get little usage, and 40% of organizations formally accept IM usage. PDF of the complete report is available. The Register


• Infocation released MailPoint, an integration framework for linking Lotus Notes email with other enterprise applications. Integration requires changes to the Notes administration template, and an end-user plug in. Installation and deployment takes 30 days, on average. Integration is provided through SOAP and XML, among others. Available immediately. Yahoo


• RIM has a "workaround" technology available for current and future BlackBerry devices, should it go ill on the battlefield with NTP. It claims that the workaround is not covered by NTP patents. No further details were given. Comment: Whatever form this takes, this has to be a good bargaining point against NTP ... Reuters, Globetechnology


• Tyler Cooper & Alcorn replaced its "failure-prone Microsoft solution" (Windows, Exchange) with an iSeries system running Notes and Domino. The server also runs its accounting system, document management system, and legal management system. The IT staff was reduced by half. iSeries Network

This Briefing was written by Michael Sampson, of Shared Spaces Research & Consulting Ltd. Email or IM Michael to discuss any of these items further.

Saying Goodbye, Jun 16

I'm off to the Collaborative Technologies Conference today. My lovely wife and family are staying here, and my Mum and Dad have come to help. Thanks to them each for giving me a pass to be away.

Katrina, my wife of almost 11 years. Thanks, Sweetheart, for taking on the extra responsibilities around the home.

David, my 9 year old son. David can now beat me at chess ... I should never have purchased "How to Beat Your Dad at Chess" from Amazon.com. He is the master strategist around here for "Lego Rock Raiders" on the computer.

Matthew, my soon-to-be 8 year old son. He turns 8 while I'm away. His love in learning is birds (the type with wings).

Philip, my 6 year old son. He is wonderfully creative with Lego, and has a strongly held interest in justice and equity in all actions ... such as ensuring that everyone gets the same amount of chips!

Daniel, my 5 year old son. Daniel is full of life, loves fun, loves bouncing (like Tigger), and enjoys a quiet moment on the computer.

Timothy, my 3 year old son. Tim too is full of life, loves rough-n-tumble with Dad, and enjoys driving the ride on mower (with Dad in charge of course).

Susanna, my just turned 1 year old daughter. She is definitely Daddy's little princess, and has just learnt to walk.

I will miss them each very much. Since we homeschool our children, they are "around" all day long. It will be very different to be away from them. I look forward to being back with them.

Shared Spaces Briefing, Jun 16

Today's highlights: Near-Time Current and Flow Updates; Parlano and Royal Bank of Scotland; Coveo Enterprise Search for SharePoint; Carriers Hedging against BlackBerry; Santa Cruz Networks vSkype Beta;

• Near-Time updated Current and Flow, its information management applications for Mac OS X. New capabilities: support for podcasting, Spotlight support, enhanced navigation, and refinements to the organization of views, among others. Available immediately. Near-Time


• The Royal Bank of Scotland won The Banker's 2005 Application of the Year Award, for its Openvu solution. Openvu is a portal for its customers in the financial services industry, and utilizes Parlano's MindAlign application for persistent group messaging. Parlano


• Coveo Solutions released a free version of Enterprise Search for SharePoint, a solution that adds additional searching capabilities to SharePoint. The free version supports indexing of up to 5,000 documents. Comment: Good move by Coveo. There is increased activity in this market -- add-on search tools for SharePoint -- so this is a compelling way to build market share without sinking the ship. Coveo


• Forbes thinks carriers are hedging their bets in case the renewed RIM and NTP negotiations fail. If they did fail, one prospective outcome is the withdrawal of the BlackBerry from the US market. Forbes


• Santa Cruz Networks released the beta of vSkype, a video and data conferencing plug-in for Skype. Supports video calls of up to 200 participants, and the sharing of applications, spreadsheets, presentations, and photos. Beta available immediately, for Windows 2000 and XP, with peer-to-peer and server-based configurations on offer. GeekZone

This Briefing was written by Michael Sampson, of Shared Spaces Research & Consulting Ltd. Email or IM Michael to discuss any of these items further.

Kudos to Ranchero Software, Jun 16

I'm leaving town today to attend the Collaborative Technologies Conference, and that means leaving behind my desktop Mac. I make extensive use of RSS for keeping up-to-date with what's going on, and NetNewsWire 2.0 is my RSS-reader of choice. Until today, I only had NetNewsWire installed on my desktop Mac, not my PowerBook.

As I rush to get out the door, you can imagine my surprise and delight to find that Ranchero Software offers out-of-the-box synchronization of NetNewsWire subscriptions between two Macs using .Mac. Way kewl! Major thanks to Ranchero for helping this so-to-be harried traveler get out the door.

Shared Spaces Briefing, Jun 15

Today's highlights: Notes "Hannover"; Sametime and Quickplace; Volkswagen Adopts Mindjet MindManager; Terratial DocHawk 1.2; Laplink ShareDirect 1.3;

• IBM detailed the direction of future Notes clients at the IBM Lotus Technical Forum in Hannover, Germany. The new client will incorporate much of the Workplace rich client, including activity-centric collaboration (organizing contacts, users and messages around activities), expanded contextual collaboration, integrated presence in the inbox and calendar, among others. The user experience is very configurable, to enable simpler training. SearchDomino, InformationWeek, and images at Ed Brill



• IBM is returning to its Sametime and Quickplace product naming strategy. Sametime was re-badged "Lotus Instant Messaging" a while back, and Quickplace became "Lotus Team Workplace". Customers and partners never liked the new names. Ed Brill


• Mindjet announced that Volkswagen has implemented MindManager, its visual mapping application, for IT project management. Enables the IT team to see relationships in the project components, and manage action. Volkswagen publishes maps on its online portal for access by partners. Read the full case study at Mindjet (PDF). BusinessWire


• Terratial Technologies launched Version 1.2 of DocHawk, a server-based solution that supports the viewing of PDFs on BlackBerry devices. Subscribers forward an email with a PDF to the DocHawk service, which renders the PDF for viewing. Available immediately, for a monthly fee. PDFzone


• Laplink released Version 1.3 of ShareDirect, its peer-to-peer file sharing application for sharing files and file folders across the Internet. The new version streamlines the user's experience, and offers support for 5 languages. Available immediately. Laplink

This Briefing was written by Michael Sampson, of Shared Spaces Research & Consulting Ltd. Email or IM Michael to discuss any of these items further.

GEEC Dinners in NY and MA ... Are you coming?

I'm about to leave for the Collaborative Technologies Conference, being held next week in New York. If you are a GEEC (that is, a "Global Expert in Electronic Collaboration") and would like to meet, how about coming to a GEEC dinner?

• In New York, the GEEC dinner is at 6pm on Tuesday June 21. Venue to be determined when I get to New York.


• In Boston, the GEEC dinner is at 6pm on Thursday June 23. At this time, we'll have dinner at a restaurant in Inman Square, and then transfer for ice cream at a nearby Herrell's.
  

Do you want to come? It will be a fun evening ... fairly informal. Please let me know ASAP.

Shared Spaces Briefing, Jun 14

Today's highlights: eRoom at Wilmington Trust Company; New Product Announcements at CTC 2005; NTP wants more money from RIM; Raindance Meeting Edition;

• Wilmington Trust Company adopted eRoom for collaborative workspaces for creating structured finance transactions. Reasons: (a) account executives can open a new eRoom whenever required, without IT's involvement; (b) ease of including external parties; and (c) Web-based for anywhere anytime work. Documentum eRoom


• A variety of vendors will make new product announcements at the Collaborative Technologies Conference in New York next week, such as: GroveSite will major a major annoucement, Interwise will launch ECP Connect 6.0, and Raindance will announce an innovative new Web conferencing tool. BusinessWire


• NTP has taken the position that technology developed by RIM since the first lawsuit filing is not covered by the recent Term Sheet. It wants further payments. out-law.com


• Raindance Communications announced an update to its web, audio, and multipoint desktop video conferencing service, the Raindance Meeting Edition. New features: integrated record and playback, content management portal, enhanced participant interaction, and stored documents. Comment: This is sounding a lot like a hosted collaborative workspace ... online meetings, stored documents, and polls and surveys! Raindance

This Briefing was written by Michael Sampson, of Shared Spaces Research & Consulting Ltd. Email or IM Michael to discuss any of these items further.

Shared Spaces Briefing, Jun 13

Today's highlights: PolyVision Thunder; RADVISION and Microsoft; Skelta SharePoint Workflow Accelerator; Gartner Critical of Windows Mobile 5.0; WebSphere Everyplace Mobile Portal Enable 5.1; Microsoft Mobile Email is Good Enough;
Proud to be an email addict;

• PolyVision announced "Thunder", the code name of its new product for group collaboration activities. Provides a multi-dimensional environment for sharing, annotating, saving, recalling, displaying and distributing information between local and remote users. No release date announced. PolyVision


• RADVISION announced an integration between Click to Meet, its desktop conferencing solution, and Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005 and Office Communicator 2005. The integration enables users to initiate a multiparty audio and video conference from the Communicator client. RADVISION demonstrated the integration at TechEd last week. RADVISION


• Skelta Software announced that its SharePoint Workflow Accelerator won a "Best of Tech-Ed 2005" award in the Software Components and Middleware category. Enables the building of document-based collaborative solutions with SharePoint Portal 2003 and Windows SharePoint Services. Skelta


• Gartner says that the security improvements in Windows Mobile 5.0 and its Messaging & Security Feature Pack are "insufficient and do not meet basic enterprise security needs". Gartner says organizations should use third-party vendor security add-ons to make Windows suitable for mobile use. eWeek


• IBM released Version 5.1 of WebSphere Everyplace Mobile Portal Enable, its content adaption product for delivering portal access to users with mobile and wireless devices. New features: Mobile Web Clipping, image conversion service, and an update to the Mobile Portal Toolkit development environment, among others. Available immediately. ThomasNet


• Gartner says that Microsoft's Messaging and Security Feature Pack for Windows Mobile 5.0 makes Microsoft's wireless email offering "good enough" for some organizations, and is therefore a viable alternative to more-expensive gateway-based solutions from RIM and others. Gartner


• Arik Hesseldahl, a staff editor at Forbes, says that he is an email addict and proud of it too! He goes further to say that email addiction is something that should be "encouraged". Forbes

This Briefing was written by Michael Sampson, of Shared Spaces Research & Consulting Ltd. Email or IM Michael to discuss any of these items further.

Shared Spaces Briefing, Jun 10

Today's highlights: Microsoft PDC 2005; NTP Doesn't Want RIM's Money; Ovum on Microsoft's Collaboration Strategy;

• Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference 2005 is on September 13-16 2005 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Topics for discussion include Longhorn, Microsoft Office 12, and SharePoint v3, among others. Registration open. MSDN


• RIM claims that NTP has refused to sign the binding term sheet for its recently negotiated settlement. In March, NTP agreed to license its technology to RIM and cease all litigation for a one-off payment of $450 million. RIM is taking NTP to the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. RIM, with coverage at MarketWatch, MercuryNews.com, and NewRatings.com


• Ovum reviewed Microsoft Office Communicator 2005, and concludes with the following on Microsoft's collaboration strategy: "Microsoft does seem to have an increasingly integrated strategy for collaboration. The high-level story is very sound and seems to be offering what the end user needs to work effectively in a collaborative environment. The software tools provide a comprehensive range of functions; indeed, many of the functions are actually duplicated in various products which makes life even more complex. Challenges arise when you need an integrated solution - the sheer number of products from different groups in Microsoft instantly complicates the picture hugely. These problems arise largely because of the way that Microsoft is organised into multiple groups around products rather than around the collaboration vision. While Microsoft will undoubtedly continue to play a leading role in the collaboration software world, it will suffer when compared with other players in this market, such as Oracle and IBM. Both of these organisations have simple coherent messages for the collaboration tools they deliver, even though the functionality is actually provided by multiple pieces of software underneath the covers in both cases". Ovum

This Briefing was written by Michael Sampson, of Shared Spaces Research & Consulting Ltd. Email or IM Michael to discuss any of these items further.

Shared Spaces Briefing, Jun 9

Today's highlights: Microsoft and AT&T; Jabber XCP 4.2; RIM and EADS; IntraLinks Case Study;

• Microsoft and AT&T announced a strategic alliance to deliver a range of messaging, collaboration, media and business applications on the AT&T IP network over the next 5 years. Ideas include displaying presence and availability on a document in a portal, the sharing of documents via a Web conference, and others. Microsoft


• Jabber released Version 4.2 of XCP and IMA, its presence and messaging platform and enterprise IM platform respectively. Both products offer a new Java software development kit, new compliance enforcement capabilities, and simplified server management, among others. Available immediately. Jabber


• Research In Motion announced a strategic alliance with EADS for the delivery of BlackBerry wireless email to government organizations in Europe. EADS is a provider of aerospace, defence and related services. Research In Motion


• IntraLinks provides a hosted virtual teamroom environment, optimized for financial services related discussions and activities. The Globe and Mail published a brief case study of the use of IntraLinks by O&Y Properties Corp. The Globe and Mail

This Briefing was written by Michael Sampson, of Shared Spaces Research & Consulting Ltd. Email or IM Michael to discuss any of these items further.