Intellext announced that it has emerged from its research and development stage and is now commercially marketing and shipping its software solution, Watson. By reading and understanding what people are working on and using that knowledge to proactively find and deliver useful information to the user, Watson is able to find information the user didn’t know existed — in places they otherwise might not have looked. In emerging from the incubation stage, the company has changed its name to Intellext from Open Road Technologies. Watson determines what information is relevant to each user, and forms contextually-based queries rather than simple one or two-word search terms to generate the most useful and complete set of results. Watson automatically brings users any relevant information from their company’s external and internal information sources including websites, desktop search applications, online news sites, subscriber services and search engines, as well as documents and data from a company’s corporate knowledge management systems, databases and intranets. If the user chooses, Watson will even retrieve advertisements that are related to their current work. Information from Watson’s multiple sources is then organized by relevance regardless of its source, and presented to the user in a non-intrusive way. The online information collected and presented by Watson is based solely on relevance, so users do not receive intrusive advertisements and unrelated content that interrupts their work. Intellext is also offering the MuseSearch MuseServer as part of the Watson solution for large organizations. www.intellext.com
Year: 2005 (Page 87 of 95)
Microsoft provided an analyst briefing on Thursday January 27th titled “Creating Business Value through Collaboration.” Personally, I was struck by the presence of a clear strategy for infrastructure dominance (in the sense of OS, server and core technologies such as email, search, etc.) as well as the absence of the same for solution-specific or industry-specific dominance in the market for content technologies. I think the resulting messages — ranging from the clear to the hinted — were intentional, further demonstrating the company’s ability to boldly state “where it wants to go today” without necessarily divulging the types of technology providers it intends to run over in the process.
In terms of collaboration from a generic perspective, the Microsoft “information worker” strategy has been evident since at least 2001. At that time I wrote “Each [product] provides just enough collaborative technology to hover in and around the realm of markets such as knowledge management, document management, portals, and virtual project management” in a discussion on SharePoint, Exchange and Mobile Information Servers in relationship to the significance of .NET and the acquisition of CM vendor NCompass, Inc. (InfoTrends/CAP Ventures, Inc. Analysis, 05/03/01) It was clear that Microsoft encouraged speculation on how the aquisition could change the content techology landscape. As a result, most analysts predicted an impending “market shakeup” due to the entrance of platform players such as Microsoft and IBM into specialized areas such as CM, DM, and portals.
Looking back from early 2005, I would not describe Microsoft inroads to content technology markets as “earth-shattering” or “competition-crushing”, but I would describe the marketing and technology development progress as calculated, consistent, broad, and more recently, deep. In 2003, Microsoft executives such as Jeff Raikes and Steve Ballmer discussed aspects of the information worker vision in detail through public “Executive E-mails”. Touching on issues such as content authoring, publishing, rights management, collaboration, and compliance, the Microsoft roadmap included highways such as Live Communications Server, Exchange Server, Project Server, Sharepoint Services and Rights Management Services with interconnected avenues such as LiveMeeting, OneNote, Office 2003, and InfoPath. According to Raikes, the vision — branded “Office System” — represented the company’s transition from a client applications provider (read: desktop/workgroup market for content technologies) to a client, server and services provider (read: enterprise market for content solutions.)
Thursday’s collaboration briefing was a solid message about the technology areas in which Microsoft feels “comfortable”, and in the words of the presenter, “areas in which we consider ourselves best of breed.” (Kurt DelBene, Corporate VP, Microsoft Office Servers Group) Considering that the primary flavor of the presentation stressed providing software and services as platforms for partner-driven solution development, it was interesting to note when “best of breed” was mentioned in the same breadth as “out of the box capabilities.” IOW, the ability of Microsoft to continue directly competing against ECM, DM, WCM, and portal vendors should clearly not be underestimated.
Other points of interest:
- Microsoft is moving more content and collaborative functionalities to an infrastructure level, possibly affecting change for competitive differentiation in the content technologies market. IOW, do others follow and move more specialized capabilities to a commodity level? One of the more interesting discussed in this context was content-based privilege and rights management. Surely not a new subject (see Gilbane Report in 2001) but interesting nonetheless.
- Microsoft strategy for a broad infrastructure functionalities coupled with a mammoth developer base assures that “build versus buy” is still a major competitive headache to suite and pureplay content technology vendors.
- Microsoft is clearly still in the game of “out of the box” collaborative workspace solutions (i.e. LiveMeeting, SharePoint), directly competing with pure-play vendors and other platform titans like IBM (i.e. Workspace.)
And the beat goes on…
Microsoft provided an analyst briefing on Thursday January 27th titled “Creating Business Value through Collaboration.” Personally, I was struck by the presence of a clear strategy for infrastructure dominance (in the sense of OS, server and core technologies such as email, search, etc.) as well as the absence of the same for solution-specific or industry-specific dominance in the market for content technologies. I think the resulting messages — ranging from the clear to the hinted — were intentional, further demonstrating the company’s ability to boldly state “where it wants to go today” without necessarily divulging the types of technology providers it intends to run over in the process.
In terms of collaboration from a generic perspective, the Microsoft “information worker” strategy has been evident since at least 2001. At that time I wrote “Each [product] provides just enough collaborative technology to hover in and around the realm of markets such as knowledge management, document management, portals, and virtual project management” in a discussion on SharePoint, Exchange and Mobile Information Servers in relationship to the significance of .NET and the acquisition of CM vendor NCompass, Inc. (InfoTrends/CAP Ventures, Inc. Analysis, 05/03/01) It was clear that Microsoft encouraged speculation on how the aquisition could change the content techology landscape. As a result, most analysts predicted an impending “market shakeup” due to the entrance of platform players such as Microsoft and IBM into specialized areas such as CM, DM, and portals.
Looking back from early 2005, I would not describe Microsoft inroads to content technology markets as “earth-shattering” or “competition-crushing”, but I would describe the marketing and technology development progress as calculated, consistent, broad, and more recently, deep. In 2003, Microsoft executives such as Jeff Raikes and Steve Ballmer discussed aspects of the information worker vision in detail through public “Executive E-mails”. Touching on issues such as content authoring, publishing, rights management, collaboration, and compliance, the Microsoft roadmap included highways such as Live Communications Server, Exchange Server, Project Server, Sharepoint Services and Rights Management Services with interconnected avenues such as LiveMeeting, OneNote, Office 2003, and InfoPath. According to Raikes, the vision — branded “Office System” — represented the company’s transition from a client applications provider (read: desktop/workgroup market for content technologies) to a client, server and services provider (read: enterprise market for content solutions.)
Thursday’s collaboration briefing was a solid message about the technology areas in which Microsoft feels “comfortable”, and in the words of the presenter, “areas in which we consider ourselves best of breed.” (Kurt DelBene, Corporate VP, Microsoft Office Servers Group) Considering that the primary flavor of the presentation stressed providing software and services as platforms for partner-driven solution development, it was interesting to note when “best of breed” was mentioned in the same breadth as “out of the box capabilities.” IOW, the ability of Microsoft to continue directly competing against ECM, DM, WCM, and portal vendors should clearly not be underestimated.
We haven’t looked closely at the PRISM Metadata effort in a while, but the group reached a milestone recently with the release of version 1.2 of the specification. It looks like the recent update focused on some enhancements around RSS and RDF.
In an article for EContent Magazine in late 2003, I wrote:
If you google “XML,” you do get a stunning 20.5 million hits, which is about four times as many as “Britney,” but—sensibly—half as many as “God.” So I guess XML falls short of omniscience. Still, the prevalence of XML has led to its being a too-ready answer to seemingly every question about information technology in general and content management in particular. The assumption seems to be that, no matter the requirement or problem, XML is the answer.
Updating those searches for today’s results on Google, I get 119 million hits for XML, which is now about six times as many as “Britney,” and now only 10 million fewer than “God.”
Every few months my wife and I have a party. Apart from the goodness of
seeing friends, it also forces us to get the house cleaned up. A good thing all
around.
It is in this same spirit that Stephen Ashton, director of Global IT business management
at the investment bank Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein says that Sarbanes-Oxley
is good for IT. (See the article, "Sarbanes-Oxley
‘Good for IT‘", by Andrew Donahue published yesterday by ZDNet
UK.) Despite having 10% to 15% of the banks total headcount currently
committed to compliance ( !! ), Ashton feels that the gain is greater
than the pain. “We have just completed a data center review. The thing that came out of it was that we have
tons of information but very little knowledge. There is a lot of partial and inaccurate data in our
systems." Ashton also talked of now having to invest in bringing
together disconnected "silos" of information that had just developed
over time, without planning. Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein is now
investing in cataloging and integrating this information to make it useful.
We don’t really decide to have parties to get the house cleaned up. But
it is a nice side-effect. Are readers finding good side-effects of
Sarbanes-Oxley compliance?
Interwoven, Inc. and Landor Associates announced that the two companies have entered into a strategic partnership in which Landor is now reselling MediaBin Asset Server, Interwoven’s Digital Asset Management (DAM) product, as a component of many Landor Brand Management and Marketing systems. Landor’s Brand Management and Marketing systems provide clients with instant access and control over virtually any branding situation or promotional opportunity. These systems simplify the process of visual asset development and classification, enabling clients to manage a brand consistently in every medium. By employing the transformation capabilities of Interwoven MediaBin, Landor can provide a new level of targeting and visual personalization for clients’ brand marketing campaigns. Under the terms of the agreement, Landor has become a worldwide Value Added Reseller (VAR) for Interwoven’s MediaBin product line. Landor is integrating Interwoven MediaBin software into Brand Management solutions that support any form of branding expression including: packaging, advertising, promotional items, websites, signage, business cards, brochures, vehicles, or retail environments. www.landor.com, www.interwoven.com
According to an article in Monday’s Financial Times, China
Construction Bank, one of China’s "Big Four" state lenders, is
considering shelving its plans for listing its shares on the New York Stock
Exchange. Presumably, the reason for skipping the NYSE listing is the
expense and trouble of compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley.
There could also be another side to the story, according to the FT
article. It is also possible that Sarbanes-Oxley would shed light in dark
corners that the bank might like to keep dark. Other Chinese banks have had
large amounts of assets tied up in non-performing loans and have run into
obvious problems with corporate governance. For example, according to the FT
article, "Chinese media reported on Monday that two officials at Bank of China – another Big Four lender which is planning a $3-$4bn international IPO – had fled the country following the disappearance of up to Rmb1bn ($121m)."
Yep, looks like an internal control problem to me.
So, maybe the problem with Sarbanes-Oxley is that it might do what we would
expect it to do — protect investors.
Anyway … China isn’t the only place outside the US to have trouble with
Sarbanes-Oxley. According to a Tuesday Financial Times article, SEC
Chairman William Donaldson gave a speech that day at the London School of
Economics in which expressed willingness to try to find ways to ease the burden
of filing requirements for foreign companies. Under current rules, foreign
filers must meet Section 404 requirements for reports filed after July 15 of
this year.
To me, this ties back into the thinking expressed in yesterday’s post on
"Bad
News or Benefit." It seems likely that the details of SOX
compliance will get tinkered with over the next year or so as the SEC works to
find the balance between the cost of the regulations and the benefits that they
deliver. If a company approaches Sarbanes-Oxley strictly from the
standpoint of meeting compliance requirements, these changes will be
frustrating, adding to the cost of compliance.
On the other hand, if a company takes a broader view–moving beyond mere
compliance–and approaches internal control as part of a plan to improve
performance and governance–then the potential changes in deadlines and
modifications of requirements are just noise of on the side of the arena–the
goals and direction of the bigger game are not changed.
