Tag: Collaboration

Enterprise Social Networking No Pie in the Sky Venture for IT Pros

by , posted in Communicate
Brad Shimmin
Brad Shimmin

Summary Bullets:

  • Current go-to-market practices within the collaboration platform marketplace call for a highly transformational experience, where the wisdom of crowds can make an organization smarter through lofty ideals such as ideation and expertise location.
  • IT professionals responsible for the purchase of such solutions hope instead for an improvement of existing collaboration tools, most notably e-mail.

In preparing some presentation materials for an upcoming webinar (later this month) on enterprise social networking, I was struck by a singular, unexpected trend – something called pragmatism.  As an industry analyst, I am used to hearing grand visions, the biggest of which is business transformation.  This is the idea that software can literally change the way a company does business, enabling it to reach into new market opportunities or to simply bring business practices back into alignment with its stated business objectives. Continue reading “Enterprise Social Networking No Pie in the Sky Venture for IT Pros” →

Device Specialization Portends Further BYOD Frustration

by , posted in Communicate
Brad Shimmin
Brad Shimmin

Summary Bullets:

  • Vendors Amazon, Samsung, Google, Apple, and even Microsoft are rushing to either fill or invent gaps remaining within the iPad-dominated tablet marketplace with an array of device sizes, media capabilities and increasingly improved access to enterprise collaborative services.
  • This will leave IT professionals to expand management policies through separate, pure-play mobile management solutions. Thankfully, though collaboration players themselves are seeking to do more than simply support mobile devices.

Like many, I tuned in for a few moments to watch last Thursday’s special news conference put on by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, where the outspoken entrepreneur unveiled a new array of portable media devices, the Amazon Kindle Fire HD family of tablets. I was heartened to see the company directly responded to Google’s recent market bombshell, the Nexus 7 tablet, with a number of device sizes and features tailored to those who prize both high speed (dual-band WiFI and 4G LTE) as well as high (ok improved) audio and video fidelity. This is a good thing specifically for the Android market and broader tablet industry. At least it will make for a very interesting, more competitive holiday season, especially once Apple’s mid-sized device hits the streets. Continue reading “Device Specialization Portends Further BYOD Frustration” →

What Does VMware Mean to You?

by Jeremiah Caron, posted in IT Leader
Jerry Caron – Senior Vice President, Analysis

Summary Bullets:                

  • VMware’s VMworld was a hit again, pulling in partners and customers alike
  • The buzz around VMware is about much more than simple virtualization software

I did not attend last week’s VMworld in Las Vegas, hosted of course by VMware, the virtualization software market leader. I wish I had, though. While timing and location prevented my own pilgrimage, Current Analysis was very well represented as were a who’s who of technology-market partners and a robust contingent of IT executives and managers. The reason why this event has become so important for so many is simple, but also profound: Certainly VMware caught lightning in a bottle with its virtualization software, but the company is also leveraging this rather arcane solution as a platform to help solve myriad other IT problems, both with and without partner support. Continue reading “What Does VMware Mean to You?” →

Documents, Not Just Operating Systems, Are Key to Mobility

by , posted in Mobilize
B. Shimmin
B. Shimmin

Summary Bullets:

  • A successful mobility campaign for collaboration players requires attention be paid to document synchronization, editing, and sharing.
  • These documents must follow users across multiple platforms and devices, not just in number but in kind.

Many of us in the analyst industry have watched momentum in the battle for the desktop swing back and forth between various operating systems, favoring from time to time brands such as Microsoft, Apple, and even Linux.  However, at all times in this ever-evolving battlefield, Microsoft has held the one key necessary to unlock (read, dominate) the enterprise.  That key, which has remained tucked up securely in the pocket of one Mr. Bill Gates from Redmond, Washington, is Microsoft Office. Continue reading “Documents, Not Just Operating Systems, Are Key to Mobility” →

The Battle for the Desktop Just Went Airborne

by , posted in Communicate

B. Shimmin
B. Shimmin

Summary Bullets:

  • With enterprise users taking their documents on the road, Microsoft’s longstanding desktop productivity dominance has never looked so promising and so vulnerable.
  • Google’s acquisition of mobile-savvy productivity tools vendor QuickOffice promises to put the company on a much closer competitive trajectory opposite its primary collaboration rival, Microsoft.

Google’s surprise acquisition this week of productivity vendor QuickOffice has restored my faith in the company’s ability and desire to do combat with Microsoft on its home turf: the desktop.  That is, the desktop as we are beginning to understand it as a highly mobile, cloud-savvy, social platform.  For those still wondering what that might be, here is a hint.  The desktop of the near future is a tablet device like the Apple iPad and the Samsung Galaxy Tab.  The trouble for Google, of course, is that the Web search powerhouse has heretofore maintained steadfast devotion to what I’m sure its engineers would refer to as ‘the pure Web experience,’ a platform where everything lives in the cloud.  That vision is best exemplified in the company’s recently reinvigorated smart terminal project (Chromebooks and Chromeboxes), which promises a utopian situation for IT professionals by hoisting everything, even the desktop itself, into the cloud. Continue reading “The Battle for the Desktop Just Went Airborne” →

All Work and No Play Makes Jack Slightly Less Innovative

by , posted in Communicate

B. Shimmin
B. Shimmin

Summary Bullets:

  • The consumerization of IT, Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn, bring-your-own-device: What do these uber-trends have in common?  They shake up the status quo by placing the employee at the center of the universe, bringing them together and merging their personal and professional personas.
  • This progression toward a people-first workplace has greatly influenced enterprise social networking platforms, making them more ‘humanized,’ but that is not enough.  True innovation needs free experimentation and exploration; in other words, a state of play.

In the late 90s, the extent of play within the enterprise was limited to ‘Windows shopping’ for the perfect Windows 95 desktop background color, e-mailing an ASCII art visage of Jerry Garcia, or perhaps even holding an after-hours Doom session on the company’s 10 Mbps Ethernet LAN.  Since then, of course, we’ve had ‘the internets’ to entertain, at least for organizations allowing free and full access to those climes.  However, trolling the Twittosphere in search of fleeting pop-memes is not actually play and does not actually make you any smarter, more productive, or even more informed.  That only happens when we play. Continue reading “All Work and No Play Makes Jack Slightly Less Innovative” →

Cloud Buyers Beware as Suppliers Struggle

by Jeremiah Caron, posted in IT Leader

J. Caron
J. Caron

Summary Bullets:

  • Service providers and technology companies are often criticized for being slow to market with cloud services.
  • The cloud is as transformative for suppliers as it could be for IT, so gain assurances of stability before buying.

It is sometimes too easy to be critical of large service providers and technology companies as they grapple with the latest whims and fancies of enterprise IT taste.  The current phenomenon of cloud-based service models is a striking case in point.  As demand – or perceived demand, at least – grows for cloud infrastructure and applications, it has become quite clear that traditional suppliers are being forced to engage in all sorts of organizational gymnastics to cobble together, sell and support the services.  You have to pity them, really.  The transition from selling boxes and software to selling a pay-per-drink service is pretty complicated.  How will the service be built?  On what network will it run – theirs or somebody else’s?  How do they bill?  How do they provide support?  What about the resellers and distributors?  How much will existing revenue be cannibalized? With whom do they partner? Continue reading “Cloud Buyers Beware as Suppliers Struggle” →

Communications Market Needs More Fish Out of Water

by , posted in Communicate
B. Shimmin
B. Shimmin

Summary Bullets:

  • Despite marketing rhetoric, Enterprise Connect and its exhibitors are still struggling to blend communications and collaboration.
  • One solution is to invite unusual exhibitors steeped in collaborative business solutions outside of the realm of unified communications.

As a dyed in the wool software enthusiast, I often feel a bit out of my element at trade shows like last week’s Enterprise Connect, where solutions come in rack unit increments and business value is measured in port densities. Over the past year, especially after show organizers dropped the VoiceCon moniker in favor of a less PBX-centric name, Enterprise Connect has shown signs of becoming a venue capable of reflecting the needs of enterprise customers both today and tomorrow. That is, an enterprise where collaboration and communication not only co-exist but also understand and directly drive business value. But as my compatriot IT Connection blogger, Jerry Caron, pointed out yesterday, most of the vendors exhibiting at Enterprise Connect have not yet heeded this memo. Continue reading “Communications Market Needs More Fish Out of Water” →

Collaboration and Communications: A House Divided

by Jeremiah Caron, posted in IT Leader
J. Caron
J. Caron

Summary Bullets:                

  • The Enterprise Connect event delivered on key social, video and hosted themes
  • Generally, though, the bigger Collaboration issues were sidelined—at least temporarily

Social is inevitable. Video is hot. Hosted is intriguing. Looking for themes from the 2012 edition of the Enterprise Connect conference held last week in Orlando? There you have them. And not a terribly surprising bunch they are. Indeed, the industry of technology suppliers and service providers dutifully followed through on promises to focus their energy on these issues at the event. Rightfully so, as these issues are the most important drivers for next-generation enterprise communications – a communications environment that embraces social networking techniques at its core, that handles personal video as if it was simply voice, and that can be deployed in any way that the buyer’s heart desires. Continue reading “Collaboration and Communications: A House Divided” →

The Desktop is Dead, Long Live Client/Cloud Computing

by , posted in Mobilize
B. Shimmin
B. Shimmin

Summary Bullets:

  • Mobility within the enterprise has pushed a great deal of computing power down to the client in order to take advantage of services such as voice and video that are native to those devices.
  • But the real driving factor behind mobility, isn’t geolocation tools or two-way cameras, it’s the suite of cloud-based services that stand between enterprise systems and those devices.

When I first heard the late Steve Jobs describe the Apple iPad as a “magical device,” I was decidedly incredulous — an unusual state of mind for me, given my longstanding affinity for all things Apple. How could a super-sized mobile phone change things as Mr. Jobs suggested? As it turns out, the iPad (really, any Apple iOS or Android-based device) has somehow transported the entire industry back in time to circa 1996, when client/server computing architectures ruled the earth. Undoing more than a decade of work toward a lighter and lighter, Web-centric client model, the iPad and its ilk have pushed computing power away from the desktop and even laptop, putting it directly into the hands of an increasingly mobilized workforce. Continue reading “The Desktop is Dead, Long Live Client/Cloud Computing” →