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.

Windows 8 will Compete against the iPhone 6, iOS 6, and the iPad 4

Tuesday, September 13th is the big unveiling of Windows 8 and with ARM support, it is widely expected that Microsoft will support a variety of hardware platforms, including Slates - their term for Tablets.

A new user interface is fine and good, but there are other things at work in the Mobile Ecosystem world in 2011. Within a few weeks after the announcement by Microsoft, Apple is due to ship both the iPhone 5 and iOS 5, which in itself will feature a host of new capabilities, including over-the-air updates and iCloud support. Additionally, Google will be shipping a brand new version of its Android OS this fall - code name is Ice Cream.

Windows 8 is taking shape in a world in which mobile product life refresh rates occur at least every 12 months, and consumers and enterprises have gotten used to this new, faster cadence (note, Windows 7 shipped in October, 2009).

In the second half of 2012, the world that Windows 8 will launch into will include a different set of products than we are about to have this fall. In less than 12 months, we expect to see launches of the iPhone 6, iOS 6, a new version of Android OS (rumored to be called Jelly Bean), new Android Phones, Android Tablets and a strong possibility of the release of the Apple iPad 4.

Will Microsoft surprise us with a quicker release date? History would indicate that answer as most likely no. How should enterprises deal with all of this? Tune into the Aragon Research Webinar on September 28th and we'll cover all this in detail.

We'll also be publishing our formal First Cut on the Microsoft Windows 8 announcement on AragonResearch.com

Aragon Research - The Webinar on Tablet Computing and Mobile Ecosystems

Greetings. I'm pleased to announce that Aragon Research is hosting its very first Webinar  on Wednesday, September 28th from 1-2 EDT (10-11 pacific).  We're going to be discussing a hot topic: Tablet Computing and Mobile Ecosystems. Our take is that there is more to mobile than just the devices. We're talking about a concept called Mobile Ecosystems, what they are and why they matter to you and your enterprise.

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.

Will Microsoft Get its Mojo Back with $8.5B Skype Purchase?

Microsoft needs a shot of Mojo and Skype could be part of the answer. In an Internet era where Facebook, Android, iOS, iPhone, iPad and Skype are uttered hundreds of thousands of times a day on Twitter and the blogosphere, getting a brand called Skype certainly should help Microsoft's brand recognition in the consumer space.

Of course, that assumes this deal goes down as reported in the online edition of the Wall Street Journal.  Assuming it does, Microsoft gets a hot consumer brand that it should be able to leverage its Bing Search engine against (advertising revenue).

For enterprises, the question could quickly become: Should I (pay for) Lync or should I Skype. Clearly the spin will say you can do both, but for many Skype is an attractive easy to use alternative to a Microsoft Lync, whether it be Lync on-premise or Lync Online.

Of course, the problem with acquisitions these days at Microsoft is that resistance is futile. The big divisions at Microsoft don't take kindly to threats to their dominance, so the question is, what happens to Skype after the deal goes down? Does Skype remain somewhat independent or will they be absorbed.

Either way, this deal will give some pricing leverage to enterprises on the Unified Communications and Collaboration (UCC) front. Skype is good enough on many fronts so that Lync doesn't have to be licensed for all users in the enterprise and that could mean a big savings for both the CIO and Business Unit GMs. Just as in Content Management, it is time for enterprises to start segmenting users and their UCC needs vs a one size fits all approach.

So overall, this deal will be viewed as more of a  Microsoft tries to get their (Internet) Mojo back than anything else. Microsoft needed to do something in UCC and this deal is far cheaper what they were looking at paying for purchasing Yahoo as recently as 2008. Whether Microsoft really leverages this Sykpe acquisition with the rest of its products remains to be seen.

An Operating System that changed the World

The seeds were planted years ago, soon after the Apple iPod came out. However, Apple never disclosed its multi-device OS strategy until their momentum in the market was well established. Today, Apple's Operating Systems are powering phones, tablets and Macs. That has created a fair degree of market envy, but Apple now has a few generations of users that know their products work and pretty much keep working.

The high tech industry, which from 2007 until early 2009 failed to take Apple seriously, is now reeling from the continuous product hits coming out of Apple. In fact, one could argue that the PC industry has been permanently changed. Netbooks have given way to Tablets and Smart Phones without apps are just not highly desired, since data, not calls, are powering Carrier growth. Mobility, Applications and ease of use are the watch words.

Google recognized the trend early, put together a great team and now Android has become the OS of choice for most handset and tablet manufacturers. Other providers failed to act and now are scrambling to catch up.

The OS is not the only part of this success story, Apple made it easy for developers to monetize their work and that unleashed a wave of application innovation like we haven't seen in decades. The others that are in the game, with the minor exception of Google, don't have the same application portability across phones and tablets.

I was in the battles of the Desktop Operating Systems in the early days of a GUI based OS (I was at Xerox in Palo Alto) and in those days the desktop OS was looked at in one dimension (Workstations/PCs).  What is fascinating to me is how many large vendors have continued to look at the OS in a single dimension. Apple and Google get As, they did their homework, monetized their designs and are now reaping the rewards.

The question though is what lessons the other vendors (Microsoft, Dell, HP, Nokia, RIM, Sony) will learn from this. For many, a multi-dimensional OS was never viewed as strategic. For a few, it is fast becoming a matter of survival. Mergers and acquisitions will be the things to watch this year.

A sidebar about IBM. IBM certainly knows about Operating Systems, but they of stepped back from the desktop OS fray when they exited the PC business. Given all that is going on, this may be a time that they evaluate their strategy, since they have the core competence to scale an OS up and down.

The result of all this is that that it will no longer be a one OS fits all approach. Users will pick the apps they want, run them on the devices they want and access secure corporate portals that serve up the right content, data and analytics.

The iPad Arrives at Target as Tablet Announcements Increase

Three weeks ago the headline that caught my eye was the front page of the Target Sunday Flyer in the San Jose Mercury News: The iPad is available at Target. Yes, now Target, AT&T, Verizon and others are going to resell the iPad. Apple is expanding distribution just as the wanna be Tablets show up.

There are so many Android Tablets arriving it is hard to decide where to start. The Samsung Galaxy isn't bad, but I wonder if the Verizon will really push it. The 5 inch Dell Streak isn't bad but it looks more like a phone than a tablet.

The Blackberry Playbook Tablet looks interesting, but I don't see any ads from Blackberry pushing it yet. I also don't see the Playbook out yet.

That brings me to HP and Microsoft. The two made big noise earlier this year, but that was before HP bought Palm. Now there is an eery silence, from both companies, except for occasional promises from Microsoft.

So while all the new comers get ready for their launch, Apple is reportedly expanding iPad production capacity to 3 million units a month. It will be interesting to watch this play out.

Cyber Warfare and the new Era of Advanced Persistent Threats

Cyber Warfare is here and your PC is the tool that becomes a weapon. How it does so is up for debate, but facts that have come to light indicate that the PC you pick, the browser and reader you use and the apps you run are being harnessed to launch cyber warfare attacks on you, your company and your country.

I wrote about the hack of Google earlier this year and since then even more information has come to light. The fact that so much of Google's infrastructure was compromised is probably why Google was so angry.

The issue for the normal user and for any IT Pro is that Operating Systems, Flash Players, PDF viewers are all being exploited through zero day vulnerabilities. It isn't just one application that is being exploited. It is a combination and that suggests a much higher level of sophistication than we have known so far in the Internet generation.

The Cocktail combo used to get Google appears to have been PCs with IE 6 running on them. That browser, combined with Facebook Instant Messaging, could enable a fatal trojan to be loaded onto the target PC. After that, it was easy.

Google's reaction was to stop support for IE6. It is a true statement that Adobe has had as much heat for security flaws as Microsoft. Apple has also quietly been issuing security updates at the same frequency as Adobe and Microsoft.

Even more telling is how these attacks are now being labeled. George Kurtz of Mcafee writes. “These highly customized attacks known as ‘advanced persistent threats’ (APT) were primarily seen by governments and the mere mention of them strikes fear in any cyberwarrior. They are in fact the equivalent of the modern drone on the battle field. With pinpoint accuracy they deliver their deadly payload and once discovered — it is too late. All I can say is wow. The world has changed.”

Corporate Security is a big issue and it cannot be ignored. The wrong OS or Browser or player puts you at risk.  Most of the Analysts I know are not taking a strong position on this. The risks are clear: gamble and you lose source code or even more.

It is clear that higher levels of defenses are needed. The first step is knowledge. Check out this link for some courses. Raise your browser security levels and look for best practices like the plug-in checker from Mozilla. Lastly, consider disconnecting certain corporate systems from the regular network (ie a standalone network). Don't wait. Put together a new plan now.