Author: Frank Gilbane (Page 55 of 75)

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.

Global Moxie Releases Big Medium 2

December 19, 2007 / Frank Gilbane

Global Moxie announced the release of Big Medium 2, a web content management system aimed at web designers. Big Medium 2 has version control, workflow, search engine, content syndication, granular editing privileges, Unicode support, but also lots of grace notes for content sites: Pullquotes, image galleries, podcasts, scheduled publication, visitor comments, a WYSIWYG CSS style editor and “other goodies”. Big Medium 2 is geared for designers who want a CMS that enables flexible designs but remains easy to set up without programming skills, just basic to intermediate HTML/CSS know-how. Once the designer configures the templates, he or she can hand the site over to content editors; no technical know-how is required to add or edit pages. Enter your text, images, podcasts and document downloads into Big Medium’s editor, and the software automagically adds the necessary links and pages to your site. Big Medium’s server requirements allow you to install it in nearly any hosting environment. Big Medium is a Perl application and runs on Unix-based or Windows servers with Perl 5.6.1 or higher. Big Medium is $185 per server installation (each install can manage an unlimited number of sites and user accounts, no extra fees). It’s free to try for 30 days, and it’s also a free upgrade for all current Big Medium customers. http://www.bigmedium.com/, http://globalmoxie.com/about

The New Environment for Content and Information Management Strategies

November 25, 2007 / Frank Gilbane / 0 Comments

The theme for the opening keynote panel: Content Technologies – What’s Current & What’s Coming? at our Boston conference this week is: change – and what it means for content and information management strategies.

Of course there is constant and rapid change in technology, but we are now entering an era of multiple tectonic shifts that will challenge IT and business strategists more than ever. And the changes are not all technological, even if largely caused or influenced by technology. For example, the computer-literate generation entering the workplace, consumer technology changing expectations in the workplace, and a sometimes desperate need to adjust or completely change business models.

Other fundamental changes affecting enterprise information management strategies include the speeding freight trains of mobile computing, cloud computing, enterprise software consolidation, and global e-commerce markets.

We’ll also take a look at some specific technologies and ideas that are often over-hyped or not well-understood. Many of these have an important role to play in enterprise information strategies, and the panel’s goal will be to help you think through what your expectations of them should be. Examples include technologies that go ‘beyond search’, social software networks, user-generated content, tagging, enterprise blogs and wikis, and e-books.

This is a lot to cover in an interactive 90 minutes, but our panel will certainly get you thinking, and provide some perspective for your discussions with other attendees, speakers, and exhibitors. Joining me on the panel are:

Andrew P. McAfee, Associate Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School
David Mendels, Senior Vice President, Enterprise & Developer Solutions Business Unit, Adobe
Andy MacMillan, Vice President, ECM Product Management, Oracle
David Boloker, CTO Emerging Internet Technology, Distinguished Engineer, IBM Software Group