Collaboration and Content in the Cloud

First came ECM, then came Microsoft SharePoint, then Google took content to the Cloud. Now everyone wants to jump on the bandwagon, as sharing content gets even easier in the cloud. Lots of start-ups and existing providers are jumping in (Box, Dropbox, Citrix, IBM, Google, Microsoft, Mindjet) and many others. It is all about making access to content fast, easy and mobile.

At Gartner, I helped coin the term Basic Content Services (BCS) as a way to describe what, at the time were emerging capabilities in products like SharePoint, which was not full Enterprise Content Management (ECM). Microsoft didn't like the term BCS and started to proclaim themselves as full ECM.

Jump ahead to 2011 and files are larger, people (like sales execs) are using tablets for work, and email systems block the transport of large files. Some are calling this new capability Cloud Content Management and for vendors it is a hot market. There is a large amount of investment, mainly at Box, which is gaining significant attention in this space. As a result, there is also new M&A activity occurring (e.g. Citrix announced it is buying ShareFile). Expect to see a lot more in the coming months.

In 2011, it is about more than just putting content in the Cloud. People want to be able to collaborate too, and for those that remember, collaboration has always been part of the content management story. People need access to the content, but often they need to collaborate with others on it. Google established the collaborative content approach with Google Docs and now others are working hard to capitalize on that trend.

As a recent example of collaborative content, Mindjet now offers their mind mapping tool as a Cloud service, Mindjet Connect. You can create information maps, edit and collaborate on them, as well as manage content with this new cloud service. Additionally, Cisco recently acquired Versly, which allows users to collaborate within a Microsoft Office document.

Aragon Research is publishing a syndicated research note this month that reviews this shift towards Collaborative Content in much deeper detail. There are lots of choices that will emerge and it is clear that business leaders are not waiting for the old way of doing things with ECM.

Tech Recap Week Ending 5/13 - a new Clash

It was a busy week in Tech and May is usually that way, spanning back all the way to May of 1990,  when Microsoft introduced Windows 3.0 to the world. Things changed.

This week Microsoft was at it again and they announced that they were buying Skype, which at 8.5 Billion is a steep price to pay to get your Mojo back. See my take on the deal here.

Of course Google was at it too and the shot that hasn't yet been heard around the world is their new Chromebook. A nifty way to shift people from buying to renting a PC (prices are roughly US $20-28 per device/month) and more importantly some clever security and a new way of isolating of apps from the OS to stop intrusion attacks. Google still needs to show that it is committed to this approach with its partners, but this week it certainly showed it is dedicated to Chrome. The progress Google showed with Chrome in just twelve months is impressive and it also shows that Google's development teams are maturing.

The last item probably would have never showed up at all had it not been for a smart reporter that wasn't about to be duped and it has to do with the whisper campaign Facebook tried to launch against Google. While this has been widely reported and widely tweeted about, what is interesting is that this represents an epic shift of the clash of the titans.

I used to discuss Microsoft vs IBM as the big titan clashes. Now that the battle is in the cloud, it is Google facing off against Facebook. This time it is really all about Ad revenue. Google has it and now Facebook does too. I'll certainly be talking about Facebook in the future, but suffice to say, Facebook is pretty vulnerable to the same type of PR attack it launched on Google. Even more worrisome, Facebook is also an effective tool to use as part of a cyber-attack on an enterprise (see As Facebook Grows, so does Cyber Warfare).

So a busy week in tech and it doesn't show any sign of slowing down.

iPad Envy: How Apple Caught the PC Industry Off-Guard

2010 will be remembered most in technology circles as one in which Apple caught the entire PC industry off guard. We're talking about the Apple iPad and the Tablet wars it has stoked. Was this a stroke of genius or just another example of design and usability as a core operating principle of a technology company.

First, the rumors in January about an Apple Tablet. Microsoft's Steve Ballmer tried very hard to circumvent that by announcing Tablets (referred to as Slates) at CES in early January. Jump ahead seven months later and there is no Slate to be seen.

After the iPad announcement, there was lots of criticism until shipments started. After that, People went wild and so did news agencies (racing to develop iPad Apps). I wrote about the five principles that make the iPad a winner before the match even started in my blog post titled: The Five Factors that Make the iPad a Winner. While some might refer to Apple's success as a 'rounding error', by June, 2010, Apple had already sold over three million iPads.

Figure 1

Figure 1 above shows the impact that the Apple iPad has had on technology providers. In fact, today there is not a PC provider or a carrier that isn't laser focused on this new category. Count the wanna-bes far and wide: Verizon, Google, Dell , Microsoft and even Blackberry. So far, few vendors are shipping any devices (the HP Slate is not shipping;  the Dell Streak is shipping outside of US).

Will tablets go the way that smart phones are headed, which implies that Google's Android has a big chance at victory (due in part to mass marketing by hardware manufacturers and cellular carriers)?

Google still is learning about User Interface design and the usability that goes with it. Every engineer at Google learns how to optimize applications for Search, Google's cash cow. Google would also be wise to invest in more UX training.  A plus for Google is that their time-to-market, the time it takes to release a new OS version, is impressive. That said, can you name the Droid device most people carry? Naming and branding needs work as well.

What about Microsoft? Well, a stealth project Tablet called the Courier was cancelled.  Why? Well, it probably lost a battle with the Windows 7 team. Courier looked pretty cool. Check out this YouTube video of a Courier.  It looked far more advanced than the iPad, but again, innovative ideas are killed off every day in the corporate world.

Rest assured, Microsoft will be in the market with Tablets and they will run ads on TV. The problem is that it is more than putting Windows 7 on a device. Microsoft needs more than a 'tuned' version of Windows 7. If it was just that, why didn't tablets take off years ago when Microsoft introduced Ink in its OS.

The reality is that right now, with the iPad, Apple has a multi-year lead on the rest of the Industry. The iPad doesn't require tinkering or tuning. It works and the UI is so intuitive, you see Grandparents using them on planes.

Building for design and usability with tight integration between the OS and the hardware platform is art and science combined. It seems so simple, but the reality is that thanks to Apple, users (IT jargon for people) now have a design and usability standard. The rest of the industry needs to pay close attention to these important lessons.

Smartphones, Tablets and the Rise and Fall of Technology Providers

Time changes all things and 2010 is no exception. Everywhere I go, I see iPads.  In fact, my team at Saba Software helped me produce an awesome launch video about Saba Live and it has iPads featured in it. No one has made a challenge so far to the iPad. Nothing, not a squeak.
What is interesting to watch is how the smartphone wars have changed the landscape.  My friends at Gartner used to say that it wouldn't take much for Palm to be successful. Palm is gone. HP wants PalmOS...
Microsoft put out a new phone called the Kin and promptly killed it, only days after starting a TV advertising campaign. You can still see the website that shows the Kin, but you can also read the details about how it got killed here.
Google now claims that an Android phone is sold every two seconds and that Android is surpassing the iPhone. That may be, but Android doesn't have the cult appeal of the iPhone. That said, some techies are starting to shift. However, the new data plan for the iPhone will mean millions of teenagers will get iPhones, since many parents will go for the $15 dollar a month data plan.
Nokia, the world's largest producer of smart phones recently warned that earnings may fall.
The Apple iPad created a new category and is now a mainstream toy for all the tech enthusiasts that travel the world. Mainstream consumers are snapping them up too. Who will respond to the iPad? So far, no one has.
So, in the course of 36 months, the market for smartphones and tablets has changed. Vendors like Apple and Google are on the rise. Others are taking their lumps. As I have said before, user experience trumps everything.

Instant Classic: What I said about eBooks in 2000

Ho, Ho Ho, my old firm deleted my great blog post on eBooks (because I'm no longer there). Thanks to Google, I got it before it disappeared into the ether. Here it is.

 What I said about Books in 2000

eBooks are no longer a dream of the future. I peered into the past and dug out some of the research we wrote about eBooks and digital paper back in the year 2000.

In Digital Paper: Is It Paper, a Display or Both?, Gartner Fellow Jackie Fenn and I wrote about the new medium that readers like the Kindle use. Here is what we said: “D-paper bridges the gap between traditional paper and display technologies. It has the potential to change the publishing industry, eliminating the huge barriers to entry in newspaper, magazine and book publishing. For the short term, signage will be the primary application. Web and hard copy content providers need to develop architectures that allow for content distribution via D-paper technology.”

The predictions from that Research note were:
By year-end 2004, electronic books will be the primary application for active D-paper (0.8 probability).
By year-end 2003, D-paper will be commercially available for a variety of output uses (0.8 probability).

The two vendors we mentioned in the Research note were Xerox (Gyricon Media Inc., which was spun out of Xerox PARC) and E INK, which is now the defacto leader in this display technology.

In E-Book Proliferation: Critical Factors, Rita Knox, Alan Weintraub (former Gartner Analyst) and I wrote about: “Publishers’ worst fears about e-books are that the books will be downloaded to an array of electronic devices, reducing sales of traditional books. These fears may not materialize. The revenue generated from e-books may not only offset a possible decline in paper sales, but may cause an increase in sales by expanding the potential audience for books delivered in any medium.”

The things we said about Devices, Software and Content:

“Devices:  E-book devices include not just e-book readers (e.g., NuvoMedia’s Rocket eBook and the SoftBook Reader) but any output device that can present e-book content — personal digital assistants, digital audio, interactive TV, audio and Braille devices (e.g., the Blazie 2000 Braille display) — to multiple senses (visual, auditory, tactile and multimedia).

E-book devices must supersede the familiarity and simplicity of paper books. Content vendors must rethink what electronic content delivery can do for readers. The answers to this challenge will determine the relative value of different delivery devices. The advantage of electronic content is that it makes delivery of content much more flexible, since it can be formatted for different output devices. This flexibility will allow consumers to read (or listen to) a book conveniently in different situations (e.g., at home, in the office, traveling or driving) and in different environments, so that e-books can better match individual lifestyles, preferences and limitations.

Software: Software is the major aspect of e-books that Microsoft has targeted (see Note 2). E-book software serves content to the various output devices. The most successful software will offer the greatest flexibility, allowing a reader not only to access the content from different devices, but also to access the same content at different times and places as the opportunities arise (e.g., from a handheld device at home, to a car’s audio system and then on an office PC).

Software vendors must overcome an array of challenges centered around the management of digital rights. The ease with which electronic content can be copied and transformed threatens publishers and authors. E-book software must support various pricing models, give access only to authorized users and prevent theft of the content (i.e., unauthorized copying). These protections should not unduly limit the flexibility and convenience that will make e-book delivery more attractive than paper.

Content: Before e-books become widely available, publishers and authors must be comfortable making their works available in digital format. Unfortunately, this issue lies farthest from a satisfactory resolution. Publishers remain nervous because appropriate rules (e.g., for reuse) have not been formulated, so the required theft-proof technologies are not defined, much less implemented. The content providers (e.g., publishers) must define the rules for pricing and reuse.”

In general we got it right and we predicted the future. However, it took longer for eBook Readers to become popular, partially because of the lack of digital content available them. The one thing we didn’t predict was that Amazon and Google would be players in this space….The good news now is that newspapers and magazines are finally realizing that paper is just one way of displaying content. For some content publishers it is too late, for others, it is just the beginning.