Mindbreeze, a business unit of Fabasoft, offers an enterprise search solution that provides search services across file systems (Windows, Linux, and Novell), e-mail platforms (Exchange, Notes/Domino, and Novell GroupWise), Microsoft SharePoint, and Fabasoft’s own applications and Intranet/Internet sites. Mindbreeze also provides an SDK to help integrate with other repositories of structured and unstructured information (such as document management systems and address information repositories), enables IS…
Technology Audits - published 03/02/2010 - Richard Edwards, Somak Roy
Safend Data Protection Suite (DPS) from Safend is a well-integrated portfolio of endpoint security products designed to protect organisations’ confidential information from loss or theft by monitoring, detecting, and restricting data transfers to or from Windows-based computers. All digital files are prone to loss or theft as a result of either benign or malignant behaviour, but facilities within successive Microsoft operating systems lack granularity and operational flexibility, leading organisations to…
Technology Audits - published 01/02/2010 - Alan Rodger, Richard Edwards
CloudView from French company Exalead is a next-generation search and information access platform designed for enterprise, Web, and OEM use. The offering’s scalable service-oriented architecture provides advanced data-extraction, indexation, and text-analytics features, and it is suited to a wide range of usage scenarios, from traditional Web and enterprise search to search-based applications. By supporting security at the data layer, application layer, and network layer, CloudView provides full complian…
Technology Audits - published 20/01/2010 - Richard Edwards
Information workers must carry out their tasks and duties in a complex and increasingly regulated world, and so business leaders, and CIOs in particular, must find new ways to empower the beleaguered workforce without transferring that burden to an already overstretched IT department. In most circumstances this means delivering more with less, and with the ‘credit-crunch’ affecting almost every business sector, now rather than later. With over 80% of salary costs now associated with ‘information work’, t…
White Papers - published 04/01/2010 - Richard Edwards
Alcatel-Lucent has a series of IP telephony solutions and a Unified Communications (UC) portfolio comprising unified messaging, conferencing (audio, Web, and video), and single-number reach. There is also instant messaging, integration with desktop platforms, mobile access to the UC features, Web services that enable the embedding of communication capabilities into enterprise applications, and a contact-centre solution with a comprehensive feature set. These UC features are coupled with telephony and mul…
Technology Audits - published 14/12/2009 - Mark Blowers, Mark Clark, Mark Egan, Mark Fullbrook, Mark Kusionowicz, Mark Morris, Mark Strauch, Martin Butler, Martin Gandar, Martin Maters, Martin Read, Martin Richmond-Coggan, Martin White, Matt Peachey, Matthew Hopkins, Maxine Holt, Menno Van Doorn, Merlijn Gillissen, Michael Azoff, Michael Callahan, Michael Cross, Michael Gough, Michael Kenward, Mike Adami-Sampson, Mike Barwise, Mike Davis, Mike Hill, Mike Lenette, Mike Lynch, Mike Small, Mike Thompson, Mychelle Mollot, Neil Chaney, Neil Meddick, Nick Kalisperas, Nick Sears, Nicola Byers, Nigel Hawthorn, Nobby Akiha, Owen Cole, Paul Brown, Paul Grossman, Paul Hollingsworth, Paul Lavin, Paul Strassmann, Peter Dorrington, Peter Gandy, Peter Mitteregger, Peter Woollacott, Peyman Mestchian, Philip Padfield, Phillipe Reynier, Professor Fred Piper, Professor Leslie Wilcocks, Professor Margaret Ross, Raj Lotey, Ray Woabank, Richard Blanford, Richard Brierton, Richard Edwards, Richard Sheppard, Richard Sprong, Rick Cudworth, Rick Marshall, Rob Hailstone, Rob Rachwald, Robert Coles, Robin Wilson, Rod Perry, Roddy Adams, Rodrigo Fernando Torres, Roger James, Ronan Lavelle, Rory Nolan, Roy Illsley, Roy Lee, Russ Thornton, Sally Flood, Sally Whittle, Sara Cullen, Sarah Burnett, Sarim Khan, Sheila Childs, Shuna Kennedy, Simon Edwards, Simon Forge, Simon Stevens, Simon Wardley, Somak Roy
According to a survey organised by Credant Technologies amongst licensed London taxi drivers, passengers leave around 10,000 mobile phones a month in the back of taxis (which equates to one every two months per taxi), and more than 1,000 other handheld devices, including iPods, laptops and memory sticks. Statistically, a London taxi cab is good place to lose your mobile device, as 80% of cabbies managed to reunite passengers with their lost property; however, with the party season fast approaching, and m…
OpinionWire Articles - published 08/12/2009 - Richard Edwards
Kapow Web Data Server from Kapow Technologies is a product that automates the extraction of, and enterprise access to, Web data. With so much useful data and intelligence residing on the Web, organisations are compelled to make use of it as best they can. Kapow Web Data Server, which is currently in its seventh iteration, offers a codeless visual development environment for the creation of custom data extraction and integration components that run on a Java-based server. Automation components known as Ka…
Technology Audits - published 01/12/2009 - Chandranshu Singh, Richard Edwards
Omniscope, by Visokio, is an end-user tool for data visualisation, analysis, reporting, and information publishing. It enables business users to analyse enterprise data without the need for heavy involvement from SQL-savvy business analysts or the IT department. Omniscope picks up where tools like spreadsheets leave off, by offering 16 different data views, auto-refresh of data sets, and automated multi-tab report/presentation distribution. The product provides comprehensive analysis and visualisation ca…
Technology Audits - published 01/12/2009 - Chandranshu Singh, Richard Edwards
I’m beginning to wonder if our experience with consumer-oriented applications and services is setting an expectation that in-house and off-the-shelf enterprise applications can never live up to in terms of their ‘joy of use’. With ‘cool’ and ‘sexy’ now de rigueur for consumer apps, I sense that the time is fast approaching when line-of-business applications will be expected to be the same, albeit in a pin-striped suit and polished pair of Oxfords.
OpinionWire Articles - published 26/11/2009 - Richard Edwards
The Thinkmap SDK is a Java-based platform for developing applications that aid organisations in visualising sets of dynamic, complex, structured data. The solution offers native support for relational databases, XML, and flat files, and ships with a flexible data source API that lets organisations integrate the application with any underlying source data set. Once developed, Thinkmap applications can be embedded as a Java applet and published via any standard Web browser, or can be embedded within Java-b…
Technology Audits - published 25/11/2009 - Balachandar Ganesh, Richard Edwards
This week sees the formal unveiling of Microsoft Office 2010, with beta versions available to customers, partners, and third-party developers. When Microsoft Office for Windows was launched back in October 1989 there were already competing offerings on the market, and today is no different. However, today’s knowledge worker wants to use the Web as well as the desktop for office productivity applications.
OpinionWire Articles - published 20/11/2009 - Richard Edwards
Last week saw the official launch of ‘Windows 7’, the desktop operating system successor to Windows Vista. However, contrary to Microsoft’s branding of its new operating system, Windows 7 is in fact Windows ‘version 6.1’. Because no IT manager likes a ‘point-zero’ release of anything, Windows 7 should in theory appeal to organisations planning desktop system upgrades, just as Windows XP (version 5.1) did soon after the release of Windows 2000 Professional (version 5.0).
OpinionWire Articles - published 30/10/2009 - Richard Edwards
Guardian Web Filter from SmoothWall is an intelligent Web content filtering solution with anti-spyware, anti-virus, and browser-exploit prevention capabilities, among many others. Aimed at controlling access to inappropriate Web content, Guardian blocks potentially dangerous and productivity-depleting Web sites and resources via a set of granular and flexible policies that can be quickly and easily maintained and deployed. It is offered as a pre-built, hardened appliance; as a self-install software solut…
Technology Audits - published 16/10/2009 - Karthik Balakrishnan, Richard Edwards, Somak Roy
Next week’s SharePoint conference in Las Vegas will be the first public event to focus on SharePoint 2010 – Microsoft’s next-generation business collaboration platform for the enterprise and the Web. Although Microsoft’s SharePoint products and technologies have found favour within many organisations in recent years, the offerings themselves have started to look somewhat dated when compared to the competition, and so Microsoft executives will be keeping a close eye on this event as the company’s flagship…
OpinionWire Articles - published 15/10/2009 - Richard Edwards
Mindjet, a company best known for its visual mind mapping software, has just launched Mindjet Catalyst; a product the company describes as a visual collaboration platform. Utilising the Adobe Flash platform to deliver a rich collaboration environment, Mindjet Catalyst provides knowledge workers with a new way to work together on complex issues in real time.
OpinionWire Articles - published 12/10/2009 - Richard Edwards
If enquiries from our subscribers are anything to go by, then organisations are clearly re-thinking their Enterprise Collaboration strategies as the momentum from consumer-oriented Web 2.0 collaboration services builds. The question on everyone’s minds seems to revolve around what Microsoft will do next, and will this be any different from what has gone before?
OpinionWire Articles - published 02/10/2009 - Richard Edwards
Over the years, the notion of collaboration has been responsible for some of the most utopian and naďve visions of what IT can deliver in terms of enterprise IT, and yet organisations continue to seek new means by which that most expensive of all human corporate resources – i.e. the information worker – can become more efficient, effective, and productive.
Butler Group Review Articles - published 28/09/2009 - Richard Edwards
During the summer holidays Microsoft and Nokia announced a new global alliance, whereby the two companies will collaborate on the design, development, and marketing of mobile productivity software for Nokia smartphones. Details of the announcement suggest that this relationship is focused solely around the Symbian platform, and poses some interesting questions relating to the potency of Microsoft’s own Windows Mobile platform strategy and Nokia’s relevance to the enterprise market
OpinionWire Articles - published 10/09/2009 - Richard Edwards
When it comes to Enterprise Collaboration, many organisations remain 'land-locked'; restricted by the architectures, deployment models, and functionality of solutions that were conceived in another age - an age when there was no Web 2.0, no mobile Internet, no impending pandemic, and no economic crisis. Of those organisations that are trying to move ahead in the 'new world of work', many IT departments are struggling to keep pace with the rapidly-changing world of information worker solutions and with th…
Technology Evaluation and Comparison Reports - published 09/09/2009 - Angela Eager, Balachandar Ganesh, Chandranshu Singh, Mark Blowers, Richard Edwards, Rob Hailstone, Sarah Burnett, Sue Clarke
Google Apps Premier Edition (GAPE) is an integrated set of online applications that enable users to communicate and collaborate. The primary components of this offering are e-mail, calendaring, chat, document authoring, and sharing. As a hosted service, GAPE offers a cost-effective service with straightforward per-user/per-year licensing, and contrasts markedly with traditional products and solutions where IT departments have to procure server hardware and manage a range of software patches and upgrades....
Technology Audits - published 11/08/2009 - Richard Edwards
Organisations have an increasing range of viable alternatives to traditional Enterprise Collaboration solutions, as Adobe, Google, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, and others back cloud-based Enterprise Collaboration services. But are these offerings any match for those consumer-oriented products and services that so many of us increasingly rely on to do our jobs?
OpinionWire Articles - published 10/08/2009 - Richard Edwards
IBM’s Enterprise Collaboration offering is comprised of a plethora of products, services, and solutions, with IBM Lotus Notes/Domino, IBM Lotus Connections, IBM Lotus Sametime, IBM Lotus Quickr, and IBM WebSphere Portal being the primary components. Enterprise collaboration systems, along with their supporting communication technologies, underpin many of the value-add activities of organisations, and so it figures that companies and institutions with complex business processes are likely to require a sop…
Technology Audits - published 10/08/2009 - Richard Edwards
The Enterprise Collaboration market has been dominated by two vendors for the last couple decades: Microsoft and IBM. This domination has been driven, in the main, by extensive deployments of the vendors’ messaging products (Microsoft Outlook/Exchange and IBM Lotus Notes/Domino) and the fact that most collaboration still takes place via the e-mail Inbox. However, new offerings from EMC Documentum (CenterStage), Oracle (Beehive), and others could provide some organisations with a more compelling proposition.
OpinionWire Articles - published 24/07/2009 - Richard Edwards
Oracle Beehive is the next generation of Oracle’s enterprise collaboration technologies. Oracle Beehive provides a unified collaboration application and platform comprised of a comprehensive set of integrated, Java-based services. Oracle Beehive unifies common, yet typically disjointed, collaborative services, such as e-mail, time management, Instant Messaging, and Document Management, and delivers these through familiar desktop tools, such as Microsoft Outlook. Access through standard Web browsers is su…
Technology Audits - published 09/07/2009 - Richard Edwards
Adobe AIR is a runtime environment that allows applications developed using HTML, Ajax, Adobe Flash, and Flex technologies to run outside the browser similarly to a native application. The same AIR application can run unmodified on Windows, MAC OS X, and Linux operating systems. Enterprises can make use of this new runtime environment to develop custom applications that reach out to customers and employees, providing rich, interactive multimedia experiences. Building on established Web technologies, the …
Technology Audits - published 29/06/2009 - Chandranshu Singh, Richard Edwards
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