Author: Frank Gilbane (Page 51 of 71)

Beyond Search and Search

February 1, 2008 / Frank Gilbane / 0 Comments

As many of you know from our press release at Gilbane Boston, two of the reports we will be publishing in the next few of months have to do with search. Lynda Moulton, who runs our Enterprise Search consulting practice is working on Enterprise Search Markets and Applications: Capitalizing on Emerging Demand, and our colleague Steve Arnold is writing Beyond Search: What to do When you’re Enterprise Search System Doesn’t Work. Lynda’s report covers the “Enterprise Search” market, what organizations are doing with the variety of technologies considered to be enterprise search products, and what their experiences have been. By the way Lynda is collecting experiences about implementations and would love to hear about yours.

Steve’s report is a look at what is coming next, and is largely, but not only, based on an analysis of what Google is doing, what they are planning on doing, and the emerging ecosystem they are creating. This is fascinating stuff. Steve has recently launched a must-read blog, Beyond Search, where you can get a peek at some of what will be in our report. For example, see his thoughts on enterprise search terminology.

Both reports will be important tools for enterprise IT strategists and executives. We’ll keep you posted on their progress.

CM Professionals Board Election Results

January 30, 2008 / Frank Gilbane / 0 Comments

Congratulations to the new board at CM Pros!

The results were announced last night. The new directors are:

Joerg Dennis Krueger, Managing Director and vendor-independent consultant and analyst with Cara Europe Ltd in Germany, is committed to expanding the CM Pros community in Europe.
Tony Pietrocola, President and Co-founder of Tenth Floor Interactive has more than 10 years in the content management industry and will work to market and expand the recognition of CM Pros.
Paul Trotter, Founder and CEO, Author-it, New Zealand has worked with content management for the past 12 years and plans to use his practical “make it work” experience to champion CM Pros member benefits.
Andrew Wilcox, president and founder of Everage Consulting, Canada, has served as Technology Manager for CM Pros and plans to follow through with the technology initiative currently in process.
Barry Schaeffer, president of X.Systems.Inc, focuses on handling the organizational impacts of information technology changes and is dedicated to developing a body of CM Pros knowledge.

The four new Directors replace two outgoing board members, Mary Laplante and Emma Hamer, whose terms expire this month. Directors Linda Burman and Travis Wissnik remain on the Board until January 2009. Barry Schaeffer joined the board in late 2007, filling the remainder of resigning Director Joan Lasselle’s term.
It’s great to see the association continue to grow, and to have generated enough board nominees for a competitve election.

By the way, I believe the Executive Director position is still open.

Press Release: Gilbane Group Announces New Practice to Help Enterprises Leverage XML Technologies and Business Solutions

January 29, 2008 / Frank Gilbane / 0 Comments

Decades of experience with XML technologies and content strategies provide unique ability to help organizations make appropriate technology choices and leverage industry best practices. New blog at https://gilbane.com/xml

Cambridge MA, January 29, 2008. Gilbane Group Inc. today announced the launch of a new practice area dedicated to helping organizations of all types utilize XML technologies and best practices. Well-known industry expert and long-time Gilbane associate Bill Trippe will be the practice’s Lead Analyst. Trippe is joined by industry veterans and Gilbane senior analysts Leonor Ciarlone and Mary Laplante.

Gilbane’s XML Technologies and Content Strategies Practice is designed for IT and business managers who need to gain control of critical content, increase collaboration across enterprise applications, improve efficiencies through faster and more flexible information distribution between business partners and customers, and implement new business models that can keep pace with today’s internet-speed competitive requirements. The amount of XML content being generated today is staggering, as large infrastructure providers like Microsoft, IBM, Google, Oracle, and others offer tools and technologies that generate and manage XML information, While many organizations are taking advantage of XML within departmental applications, most companies are not even close to taking advantage of the XML information being created and utilized by popular applications including office software and database repositories. Significantly, many executives are unaware of the XML content and data that are untapped assets within their organizations.

“As most of our customers know, XML (and before that SGML) technologies and applications have always been core to our content and information technology consulting and coverage.” said Frank Gilbane, Gilbane Group CEO. “Our team has deep expertise that comes from roles in enterprise IT organizations, software development, standards bodies and industry associations involved in development and adoption of markup language technologies for key business and government applications. While XML cuts across all our analyst and consulting activity, today’s proliferation of XML content means that many businesses need to consider XML as strategic to their information infrastructure. Our group’s experience and market knowledge uniquely qualify Gilbane to provide that expertise. I am thrilled that Bill Trippe, who is always in demand, will be the lead analyst and consultant for the Group.”

“Project leaders, IT managers, and business executives have always depended on Gilbane Group to help them understand the value of applying standards and technologies to their businesses,” said Bill Trippe, Lead Analyst, XML Technologies and Content Strategies Practice. “With this new practice, we are bringing together research, best practices, and advice and guidance on XML implementation and technology acquisition that they cannot get from any other single source.”

To learn more about Gilbane Group’s XML Consulting and Advisory Practice, visit the group’s new blog launched today at https://gilbane.com/xml/ or send an email to xml@gilbane.com.

Our “New/Old” XML Practice

January 28, 2008 / Frank Gilbane / 0 Comments

Today we announced our new “XML Technologies & Content Strategies” consulting service. The service will be led by Lead Analyst Bill Trippe, who is joined by Mary Laplante and Leonor Ciarlone. See the press release, and Bill’s introductory post on the practices new blog at https://gilbane.com/xml. Bill, Mary, and Leonor all have long and deep experience in this area and make an exceptionally strong team. You can reach them at: xml@gilbane.com.

You’ll note the “New/Old” in this post’s title. Many readers will know that this is because we have always been involved in XML consulting, and before it existed were involved in SGML consulting, which of course is where XML came from. In fact, though we have changed the name of the company a couple of times, our original company was formed in 1986 to advice to organizations like the DoD, Department of Commerce, Lockheed, Fidelity, American Airlines, and many more, on the use of descriptive markup languages and meta-languages like SGML. In fact I first met Bill in 1987 when he was at Mitre investigating SGML. You can still read a lot of our monthly reports from the 90’s that cover markup technologies, although Tim Bray, who edited the Gilbane Report in the late 90s and is one of the authors of the XML standard didn’t write much about it then since XML was still in “stealth” mode. It was also important then to stay neutral about standards, which obviously would have been tough for Tim at the time.

So if we’ve been doing this all along, what’s new? In short, critical mass, information infrastructure, and demand. The sheer volume of XML being created is reaching a level that demands enterprise strategic attention. XML is already part of many organizations information infrastructure whether they know it or not. And while many of our consulting clients are focused on specific applications, there are also many who are looking at the big picture and really want to understand what information encoded in XML can do strategically for their business. More from today’s press release:

Gilbane’s XML Technologies and Content Strategies Practice is designed for IT and business managers who need to gain control of critical content, increase collaboration across enterprise applications, improve efficiencies through faster and more flexible information distribution between business partners and customers, and implement new business models that can keep pace with today’s internet-speed competitive requirements. The amount of XML content being generated today is staggering, as large infrastructure providers like Microsoft, IBM, Google, Oracle, and others offer tools and technologies that generate and manage XML information, While many organizations are taking advantage of XML within departmental applications, most companies are not even close to taking advantage of the XML information being created and utilized by popular applications including office software and database repositories. Significantly, many executives are unaware of the XML content and data that are untapped assets within their organizations.

Reminder: Speaker Proposals Due Today

January 15, 2008 / Frank Gilbane / 0 Comments

Proposals for Gilbane San Francisco are due today! See http://gilbanesf.com/

Microsoft and FAST

January 9, 2008 / Frank Gilbane / 0 Comments

Yesterday was obviously a big day in the enterprise search space. “Enterprise search”, as opposed to web search news, doesn’t usually make the New York Times, Wall Street Journal Boston Globe etc. We (especially Lynda!) spent a lot of time yesterday just dealing with all the inquiries. Lynda posted her initial thoughts before the analyst call yesterday, as did Steve Arnold. Both will certainly have more to say. In addition to their blogging keep an eye out for the two reports we’ll be publishing this Spring: Enterprise Search Markets and Applications: Capitalizing on Emerging Demand, by Lynda Moulton, and Beyond Search: What to do When You’re Enterprise Search System Doesn’t Work, by Steve Arnold.

Gilbane San Francisco call for papers deadline coming up!

January 3, 2008 / Frank Gilbane / 0 Comments

The deadline for proposals for panel participation or presentations for:
Gilbane San Francisco 2008 at the Westin Market Hotel, San Francisco, June 17 – 19, 2008 is January 15.
Visit http://gilbanesf.com/ to see the topic areas we are focusing and then see how to submit a proposal.
If you’ve never been to one of our events and want see what we have been covering in our conference programs you can view the programs from Gilbane Boston 2007 and Gilbane San Francisco 2007.
If you have additional questions about speaking, send them to speaking@gilbane.com.

Content Management Professionals – Executive Director Job Description

December 27, 2007 / Frank Gilbane / 0 Comments

As we reported last month, CM Pros is looking for a new Executive Director. There is now a full job description available on the CM Pros site.