Industry news

With all the hullabaloo about cloud floating around in the content management world, here’s a handy tool to help you evaluate your ECM vendor's cloud strategy, to see if it fits what you are looking for. So, without further adieu, here are the results of our extensive (web surfing) research:

The Check-The-Cloud-Box Strategy: This strategy is simply virtualization by another name. The thinking behind this strategy goes like this: oh fiddlesticks! We need a cloud strategy, because Gartner said so. Let's see if we can make this thing work on EC2. No way? Ok, how about a virtualized server or 16. Yes? Great… we'll put it in a hosting center - heck, we'll even host it ourselves for customers if they want us to. Shazam! Write the press release, Martha - We are in the cloud!

The DropBox-for-the-Enterprise Strategy: At first blush, this strategy seems rather useful and indeed generous. ECM vendor develops a tool - such as a desktop sync tool - that makes it super simple for people to get content into the on-premise ECM system. It turns your big ECM system into a corporate DropBox, because DropBox is evil and insecure and way too easy to use and must be banned. We can't have that type of productivity around here! So here's the rub: with open standards, you could do that like 7 years ago (WebDAV & CIFS). Another name for this strategy is: replace useful user tools that everyone uses and finds easy with "corporate approved" tools that keeps everyone locked-in to the ECM system. Now let me ask you - do you really want everyone's My Documents and My Photos and My Music folders copied into your corporate document management system? How much is that going to cost you next year?

The Red-Pill-or-Blue-Pill Strategy: Think of this as the market segmentation approach. Here's how the vendor thinks: so, we've been selling on-premise ECM to big enterprises for years, and we're not growing as fast as we want (or at all, or shrinking, actually). So, let's put a lightweight solution in the cloud, and sell it to SMBs! We'll position on-premise as the secure, safe choice, and we'll position cloud as the lightweight, SMB choice. We'll get to market fast by buying someone or building completely new cloud technology, that has very little to do with the on-premise tech. And, for the over-achiever customers who want to use both cloud and on-premise together, we'll wave our hands and shuffle forward a few partners who can develop connectors and migrators and syncher-magigs, but we secretly bet you won't actually try this.

The Ignore-It-and-Hope-it-Goes-Away Strategy: Not much to say here. If your goal is to embrace the status quo with reckless abandon, then you should definitely find an ECM vendor with this strategy and have some high-level meetings in big leather chairs.

The Cloud-Extensions Strategy: Okay, I can't make too much fun of this one, because it makes good sense. In this strategy, ECM vendor provides complementary cloud services that make owning their ECM platform better. Cloud back-up and archiving maybe? Cloud indexing? Cloud transformations? Some or all of these might make good sense. The problem is, nobody is actually doing this. This is the trick answer in this multiple choice quiz.

Here's what you don't see out there: choice and flexibility. The common theme here is: give the people a "cloud strategy", so that we can buy time and continue to protect our on-premise power base. Now, to be fair, all companies want to attract and keep customers, and most of these strategies are born out of good intentions - but legacy technology and proprietary lock-in creates frankenstein-style innovation. If you want play a little game, check out Gartner's 2011 ECM Magic Quadrant, and see if you can match the cloud strategy with the vendor.

There is a better ECM cloud strategy. At Alfresco, we have actually put our ECM platform in the cloud, so companies can have a choice about where they use it: on premise, in the cloud or both. For the 80% of content you want to keep behind your firewall, Alfresco’s enterprise platform fits the bill. For content you would like to use to collaborate with your business partners or agencies, Alfresco in the cloud is the perfect choice. And with Alfresco’s upcoming enterprise-to-cloud sync, you can push and pull content from the cloud into your enterprise based on policies you set up. Legacy, proprietary vendors either can’t (or won’t) deliver flexibility like that, because either their technology isn’t built for the cloud, or their business model is too threatened.

Here’s the bottom line: Don’t settle for Frankenstein innovation or a reactionary cloud strategy, when you can have choice & flexibility. Look for modern ECM platforms that work in the cloud or on premise, with business models that deliver consistent value to your organization.

The 100 day countdown to the London 2012 Olympics Games has started. With 10.8 million tickets on sale and an estimated population influx of up to three million people in London travelling at peak times – transport disruptions, public disorder, road closures or staff absences are likely to impact businesses this summer.

New research of 1200 organisations in the public and private sector by recruitment firm Badenoch & Clark highlighted that UK companies can expect high employee absences. One in six employees admitted they plan to take a ‘sickie’ to watch the Olympics and yet in spite of this, 30% of companies including FTSE 100 firms, public sector organisations and SMEs haven’t made any preparations to avoid the potential disruption. This is particularly surprising considering the fact two-thirds of organisations are expecting an increase in business during this three month period.

Currently, Transport for London (TfL) is campaigning to persuade individuals and businesses to change their commuting and working habits. TfL needs to reduce normal traffic by 50 – 60% at key hotspots such as London Bridge to accommodate the influx of spectators. Even then, there could be delays of up to half an hour. On peak days, there will be an extra 3 million people travelling on public transport in London. However, it seems that TfL’s campaign is having little impact on businesses – just 11% of companies have said they will allow staff to work from home.

It seems that UK businesses are underestimating the threat of Olympics’ disruption. However, there is still time for them to address these issues and put in place reliable contingency plans to safeguard business.

One way of ensuring ‘business as usual’ is by adopting Cloud Computing. Cloud has become a buzz word which represents many things; however, virtual hosted desktops in the cloud enable seamless remote working. Using Desktop as a Service (DaaS) technology, employees are able to access their company’s IT systems including emails, files and their own desktop securely from any location with an internet access. They don’t need to be in the office and they are not reliant on their organisation’s servers and technology to work. They can carry on as normal wherever they are based; they are not losing hours spent unproductively in transport delays and won’t have to battle in to the office on overcrowded trains.

From a corporate perspective, there are many additional benefits – including significant financial ones. Adopting cloud computing technology reduces the need for capital investment in IT and, all administration issues including software provisioning and updates, security, disaster/recovery are taken care of by the cloud computing provider. There is no longer any need for ‘energy draining’ servers in an office as everything is managed remotely.

Until now, one of the biggest barriers to cloud computing adoption has been fears about security. Understandably, companies have felt nervous about outsourcing their data and information to a third party supplier. However, serious DaaS providers will typically improve any company’s securities setting when compared to their existing situation.

If organisations want to move into the cloud, security considerations should of course be prioritised. For companies to have confidence in the security of their data, they should work with a trusted cloud computing provider that can manage and store their data in a secure UK data centre behind firewalls to ensure security is watertight.

Adopting DaaS is not only a good contingency plan for to minimise business disruption during the Olympics, it can help companies realise long term, strategic business benefits and cost savings. The cloud has the potential to enable companies to become efficient, responsive and innovative and gain a much needed competitive advantage in a difficult business climate.

Cisco’s Research and Development centre located in Galway, Ireland is to be expanded thanks to the Industrial Development Agency’s investment. The exact breakdown of funding has not been revealed, but together Cisco and IDA will put €26m forward.

Following the investment 115 R&D jobs will be created, in addition to a more comprehensive range of research topics.

The Taoiseach – Ireland’s head of government – Enda Kenny said “The decision by Cisco to expand its research and development capabilities here in Galway demonstrates the value of economic stability and Ireland's position in Europe when it comes to our ability to attract the overseas operations of world-leading multinational companies such as Cisco.”

Senior Vice President of the global collaboration business for Cisco, Barry O’Sullivan, said the talent pool in Ireland had a major part to play in the decision to extend the R&D capabilities. Cisco is not the only company who has expanded operations to Ireland, major players such as Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and Google have also set up data centres in Ireland.

Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude has stated that the £4.93m G-Cloud framework stands to save the public sector a substantial £340m. The saving estimation came in a written response from Maude to an enquiry about the costs from Michael Dugher, MP for Barnsley East.

CloudStore, a catalogue of public cloud services for the public sector’s use, was launched in February of this year. The catalogue comprises of 257 suppliers, 50% of which are SMEs – in keeping with the government’s pledge to move away from the major vendors and enter into more contracts with SMEs.

However, newly appointed director of the G-Cloud, Denise McDonagh said that the second iteration of the contract will also include some bigger names such as Amazon and Salesforce.

The National Outsourcing Association has announced Wipro Technologies’ association with the National Outsourcing Association Awards (NOAAs) which is taking place in London in October.

This is the 9th year of the NOAAs, the only annual UK awards ceremony for the outsourcing industry, and is set to take place on Thursday 25th of October 2012 at Park Plaza Riverbank Hotel, London.

The NOAAs are firmly established as the highlight of the outsourcing industry calendar, attracting over 500 delegates annually and recognise the efforts of companies and individuals, demonstrating world-class technology and outsourcing best practices, and this year has a record number of categories.

Martyn Hart, NOA Chairman said: “The NOAAs are growing year on year. They are one of the most prestigious awards within the IT and Outsourcing Industry. Last year’s awards had more entrants than ever. We are delighted that Wipro have decided to come on board with their support for the awards this year. It is clear evidence that companies recognise the value of being associated with the NOA.”

Rahul Kadavakolu, Head – Global Field Marketing & Branding said: “Wipro are delighted to be part of the NOAAs 2012. The Awards bring together the entire IT and Outsourcing industry and provides a great platform for both clients and service providers to showcase the best in class consulting and technology solutions. Our aim is to recognise the best in the business through our support for these awards.”

The National Audit Office today published its report on assurance for major government projects, including the introduction of large IT systems, the construction of ships and helicopters and major changes to how services are delivered in support of government changes to the central assurance system.

The report details 205 projects in the Government Major Project Portfolio, totalling a combined whole-life cost of £376 billion, and annual cost of £14.6 billion- 39 of those projects have a delivery confidence rating of 'red' or 'amber/red'.

Martyn Hart, Chairman National Outsourcing Association said: “With the stakes of £376bn at stake the government needs to quickly prioritise its focus, as an alarming 1/5 of its major projects are in grave danger. Collecting and sharing information on what makes major projects go wrong – and what makes them go right – would be an enormous step to the government saving taxpayer’s cash. Knowing which deals are working is one thing, but government departments still need to do more in terms of sharing learnings with each other. Studying the BS11000 standard in Collaboration would be a good place to start eradicating a culture of persistent ‘wheel reinvention.”

A new ad released yesterday for President Barack Obama's re-election campaign condemns Republican candidate Mitt Romney of outsourcing jobs and slams him for keeping money in foreign bank accounts.

The ad asserts that Romney "shipped American jobs to places like Mexico and China" whilst lead at the investment firm Bain Capital, as well as stating that Romney "outsourced state jobs to a call center in India" when he was governor of Massachusetts.

The campaign has spent the considerable sum of $780,000 to place the ad in the three crucial swing states Virginia, Ohio and Iowa.

The Obama ad is in response to a spot released last week by the conservative political group Americans for Prosperity which suggested money from Obama's $814 billion economic stimulus package went to overseas green-energy companies.

Xerox is to deploy a managed print services (MPS) strategy for Boeing, providing the aerospace leader and innovator with a streamlined approach to managing documents on the ground in Boeing’s U.S. offices.

The Enterprise Print Services contract is to last 6 years and will see Xerox consolidate devices and develop a strategy for the most cost-effective, environmentally friendly approach to help meet environmental sustainability goals to reduce paper use, power use and landfill waste.

Ted Colbert, vice president, Boeing IT Infrastructure said “This partnership will strengthen our ability to provide best-in-class print services to our employees and customers. Additionally, the newer technologies and improved services Xerox provides will help reduce IT costs while maintaining our commitment to an environmentally friendly workplace.”

Visa has confirmed that its new digital wallet service, V.me, will launch to an initial group of consumers in the UK by autumn 2012. The announcement by Visa is the latest in a number of contactless payment systems.

Visa will be using WorldPay as a key development partner in the delivery of the V.me service in the UK. Further development and launch partners in each market, including banks and retailers, are to be announced soon.

The service will be made available through Visa’s member banks and will initially be accessed through the internet browser on a PC, laptop, tablet or smartphone. Consumers will be able to put multiple cards into the wallet.

Mariano Dima, Executive Vice President of Product and Marketing Solutions at Visa Europe, said: "V.me sits at the heart of Visa’s future of payments. For the first time, consumers and retailers will have a streamlined online checkout experience through an acceptance mark that offers industry-leading security and, when a Visa card is used in a V.me wallet, the same protection and rights that come with any Visa card transaction.”

The news follows Barclays move to extend the Pingit service to non-Barclays customers and O2’s Wallet application allowing users to shop or send money via their mobile.

SAP has replaced its UK Managing Director. Fred Hessabi will act as the interim MD after predecessor Steve Winter occupied the position for just six months.

Hessabi, based in Paris, also serves as General Manager of Continental Europe and is responsible for all SAP operations in the continent. Winter is still with SAP and will now be in charge of a new business HR operations team.

“We will continue to structure our business around the five market categories that are critical to our combined success: mobile, database and technology, analytics, cloud and applications,” said an SAP spokesperson.

“As part of this structure and market focus, we have recognised the incredible opportunity available to us regarding SAP’s line of business HR solutions and as a result, Steve Winter has been appointed to lead the newly created line of business human resources sales team.”