Category: Content management & strategy (Page 184 of 468)

Note: The CTO blog content has been integrated into this blog. This post is only still here because we’re picky about these things, and the old permalink need a place to go.
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What is the CTO Blog?
The content technology CTO Blog is hosted by the Gilbane Group as a service to the content and information technology community. The purpose of the blog is to facilitate ongoing discussion and debate on technologies, approaches and architectures relevant to enterprise content applications. (Note: Obviously the blog is live, but it won’t be officially launched until late August or Early September.)

Why have we created it?
CTOs have a wealth of critical information about technologies that is not always accessible to enterprise customers. When it is, it is often filtered through marketing or PR staff. CTOs also have demanding jobs, and have limited time available to meet with each other with customers, or with other industry influencers. Some CTOs have their own blogs, but in many cases these are not widely read. This blog is intended to encourage communication both between vendor CTOs and between enterprise customer CTOs and vendor CTOs. We have been asked by multiple CTOs to provide this channel.

Who can contribute?
Any CTO is welcome, and anyone who has an equivalent role. If you are not sure whether it makes sense for you, ask us at: ctoblog@gilbane.com. We understand that small companies might have a founding CEO who acts as the CTO (me, for example), and large companies may have multiple senior technology strategists that in effect act as CTOs for divisions. We invite all vendors, enterprise customers, system integrators, and analyst and consulting firms to participate. Anyone may comment on blog postings.

What topics will be covered?
Any topics relevant to enterprise applications and content technologies are welcome. We have set up a starter list of categories at https://gilbane.com/ctoblog/ that suggests the range. Our contributors will help us expand this list. This is a business/technical blog and not intended for personal, political or other types of content.

How can you become an author?
Send an email to ctoblog@gilbane.com if you would like to contribute to the blog, or if you have questions about doing so. If you meet our CTO or equivalent criteria you will be set-up as an author and listed as such on the blog. Each author has full posting and commenting permissions, and also will have a direct link to all their own posts (of the form “https://gilbane.com/ctoblog/firstname_lastname.html). If you don’t have a blog, this might be all you need.

What if I already have a blog?
Chances are there will be content that makes sense for your own blog that might not make sense here, and possibly vice versa. In any case, relevant cross-posting is OK.

Are there minimum contribution requirements?
No. Nor are there maximum limits. You can post just once or every day.

• What other rules are there?
  Submissions by anyone “representing” approved contributors (for example, PR folks) are not allowed. Anyone is able to comment.
• There will be very little moderating. However no personal attacks, “flaming”, or uncivilized posting will be allowed.
• No pure marketing or sales content is allowed, but it is fine to talk about products and their existing and planned functionality, and even to argue for a particular approach, strategy, or philosophy.
• The CTO Blog has a creative Commons license associated with it that only restricts commercial use, so, for example, re-posting to or from your own or other blogs is fine.

Is this a Gilbane Group platform?
Only physically, in that we host it and moderate it. Our own opinions may be found in comments or on our analyst blog at https://gilbane.com/blog/.

The conference schedule for our Fall Content Management Technologies event, November 28-30 at the Westin Copley in Boston, is available at: . Topics to be covered in-depth include:
* Web Content Management (WCM)
* Enterprise Content Management (ECM)
* Collaboration, Enterprise Wikis & Blogs
* Enterprise Search & Search-based Applications
* Enterprise Digital Rights Management (eDRM)
* Automated Publishing
* Enterprise User Case Studies
Conference track descriptions are available at:
Speakers and complete session descriptions coming soon.

Update 7/24: Let the talks begin… With the review of the Symphony bid now officially postponed, the door widens for what could be an interesting bidding war in the ECM market. Asking for at least 10 cents more per share than OpenText has offered, Hummingbird has rescheduled the Symphony bid review for August 18th while negotiations take place. Considering both suitors are shareholders, (OpenText’s 22.3% versus Symphony’s 18%) it is unlikely that either will back out without some amount of drama.
Update 7/13: According to a press release, the Hummingbird Board of Directors will not issue a recommendation on the OpenText bid before July 25. Until that time, it is advising Hummingbird shareholders to “take no action,” and support the Symphony acquisition. Interestingly, the review of the Symphony deal will take place July 21. We’ll keep you posted.
Clearly the door was open. Altough I called myself “stunned” that the bid for Hummingbird was not a technology to technology play, I remain so given that OpenText was not the player I thought “most likely to acquire.” In fact, it was no secret that OpenText was one of the players “most likely to be acquired!” I’m thinking the final yearbook for the class of 2006 may have more surprises.
The OpenText bid is a “lock-up” agreement, which according to Information World Review, means that Hummingbird shareholders agree to a deposit from OpenText and not to withdraw from the deal. (Subject to timing and regulatory compliance issues.)
Aside from the many debates to be had on the consolidation effect of this deal, Hummingbird shareholders and financial analysts must certainly be gratified at the 20% increase in the OpenText versus Symphony bids. More at Image and Data Manager Online, CMS Watch, and Bloomberg.
Whether this deal happens is still up for grabs. OpenText’s bid is due by the end of the week. We’ll keep you posted.

As a former glue person, I spent numerous hours trading acronyms and definitions with IT analysts on the subject of data and process modeling in the content versus data worlds. Circa 1999, my friend Bob Boeri and I even went so far as to relate logical data models and data dictionaries to DTD structures, using Near and Far Designer as analogous to the more entrenched data modeling tools.

Our goal was to create “common ground” between IT’s deep but solely data-centric view of business applications and the needs of various business units whose focus was decidedly document-centric. Once our “data is content and content is data” analogy was mantra, we had an easier time with subsequent process modeling discussions; i.e. “what we want our content to do with your data” and vica versa. (Reminiscent of those “how did your chocolate get into my peanut butter commercials”)

In the ECM and BPM intersection, those discussions are once again becoming commonplace as more and more complex business processes require hybrid combinations of unstructured content, structured XML content and traditional data from back-end systems. Hence, information analysts that work with IT and business units must define a common knowledge base of process modeling requirements, flows, and techniques.

More than simple workflow (a.k.a “create, edit, approve, publish”), process models for functions such as compliance, claims processing, and contract management need to combine data-centric techniques with the content-centric, human-driven interactions these functions require. In fact, just as data sources are now hybrids, so too are the processes that require, manipulate, and share them. The BPM suite market is increasingly adding simple document management functionality at the business monitoring level to account for content-centric requirements.

More interesting is the market’s approach to workflow, which still appears either data-centric or document/content-centric in terms of standards modeling languages. In fact, a BPM suite vendor’s architecture choice for process modeling and execution is also a clue to their data versus content strengths via support for XPDL (XML Process Definition Language) versus BPEL (Business Process Execution Language). Highlights:

• XPDL – initiated and managed by the Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC), XPDL is decidedly human workflow-centric and more oriented for document-driven processes. No surprise that workflow, document management pure-plays, and some ECM players with BPM modules have strong XPDL modeling and processing engines. More info at
• BPEL – originally submitted to OASIS from IBM, Microsoft and BEA, BPEL is decidedly data-centric and more oriented for straight-through processing. No surprise that platform and middleware vendors entering the BPM suite market have strong BPEL modeling and processing engines. More info at BPELSource and
• OASIS One of the more significant questions at the ECM and BPM intersection is, “Where is the best of both worlds in terms of process modeling for complex workflow that is a human and data-driven hybrid?”

We’ve been monitoring acitivity in the BPM market with an eye on the connections between ECM and BPM technologies as they apply to content-centric business processes and applications. The evolution of BPM suites has been particularly interesting and in many ways, analogous to the patterns that formed the current ECM suite market. Technology convergence, vendor consolidation, a full slate of interchangeable acronyms, and rising levels of market confusion surrounding the definitive list of suite-level components are all evident as the BPM suite market continues to define itself. Sound familiar?

BPM suites are clearly an emerging market. Broadly defined as the ability to model, execute, simulate, and optimize business processes, the market consolidates technologies such as analytical modeling, rules design and execution, workflow, data aggregation, and process optimization into a single platform vision. Numerous pure-play BPM providers within each technology segment are evolving toward “the vision” in different ways.

I am positive that this is not a “never the twain shall meet” situation when it comes to content strategies and ECM technologies. Process and content are siblings; it is only a matter of time before many of the isolated technologies that support both will merge in a more tangible manner than simple workflow. This kind of ECM and BPM intersection is more complex than the traditional integration of the BPM market’s straight-through processing (STP) expertise with data-centric, transactional content. Rather, it will be an emerging focus on what we view as process content, or content that travels through a complex, human-driven, interactive, and iterative lifecycle.

EMC’s acquisition of ProActivity is a tangible indicator of this evolving intersection, demonstrated as well by BEA’s acquisition of Fuego, FileNet’s ongoing investment in its BPM components, the progression of DM/BPM players such as Global 360 and Hyland Software, and Lombardi Software’s integration with Microsoft Office. Stay tuned for more as the market heads toward cohesive vertical and horizontal solutions — critical for both traction and helping the user community understand implementation value. We’ll keep you posted.

As we reported yesterday, IBM announced the release of DB2 9, which is the official release name for Viper, their effort to incorporate XML content into a relational database. Microsoft and Oracle have their own strategies for doing this, and once all their work settles down and starts to get seriously deployed, building enterprise applications will never be the same. It has been 20 years since the early demand for databases that could handle marked-up content (SGML back then), and there have been many products developed to manage SGML/XML repositories since then – Astoria, Berkley DB XML, Ipedo, Ixiasoft, Mark Logic, Software AG, Vasont, X-Hive, and XyEnterprise are some currrent examples.
There has been lots of debate over the years about the best approach to managing marked-up content, and it is safe to say that there is not a single answer. This means that you need to understand what the differences are between them – and it won’t be easy for those of you new to the unstructured data world – this is much trickier than the relational data world. In spite of the huge benefits of the major DB players providing serious XML support, the wide variety of content application requirements will ensure a long-term need for quite a few specialty vendors, whether they are targeting vertical applications or horizontal components. The good news is that even with many different XML application schemas, it continues to get easier to integrate all kinds of XML data.
Bill points to an article in eWeek here. Also see Dave Kellog’s comments and links to other articles.

For Immediate Release:

6/5/06

New Session Just Added – WhiteHouse.gov: Utilizing Technology to Communicate the President’s Agenda Online; Free Technology Showcase of Content Management Solutions 

Contact:
Welz & Weisel Communications
Evan Weisel, 703-323-6006
Cell: 703-628-5754
evan@w2comm.com

Washington, DC , June 5, 2006. The Gilbane Group and Lighthouse Seminars in cooperation with CMS Watch, today announced that it has pulled together an all-star line-up of government executives set to share with attendees how they use content management solutions to help accomplish their missions at the inaugural Gilbane Conference on Content Technologies for Government. Taking place June 13-15 at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington DC, this event also offers a free technology showcase where attendees can meet with leading content management vendors to see product demonstrations.

Speakers include executives from the GAO, FAA, NASA, FirstGov, Navy, Forest Service, EPA, OMB, World Bank, NPR, White House, GPO, International Trade Commission, Department of Energy, Social Security Administration, and many more.

Just announced, a new session titled “WhiteHouse.gov: Utilizing Technology to Communicate the President’s Agenda Online” presented by David Almacy, Internet and E-Communications Director, The White House, has been added to the schedule on June 15 at 3:30 pm EST. As the Internet continues to rapidly evolve, Federal government Web sites are constantly adapting to meet the needs of their visitors. The White House’s Internet and E-Communications Director will provide a brief overview of the White House Web site and discuss how technology is being used to assist in communicating the President’s message to a growing online audience.

Also on display throughout the event will be the Tera Byte 100 Lab.

— The Emergent Relationship Analytics Solution (TERAS) indexes and searches terabytes of multi-lingual, semi-structured text, extracts those pieces of content that are important to the analysts (names, phone numbers, addresses, company names, monetary amounts, etc), and uses the extracted metadata to enhance the categorization of documents and document components. Extracted entities are “marked” within the data so that they can be retrieved, and, the text data can be mined to identify indirect relationships. “Collection” metadata is captured and indexed by the system (e.g., the date/time that the information was collected), allowing temporal queries and retrievals. This very high speed and high efficiency indexing and retrieval system supports search operations across disparate data types. These search operations include fully integrated text and metadata search, as well as ontology-based text mining.

In addition to this special lab, several vendors will offer product demonstrations, including:

— “Aquilent provides Web presence and information management solutions for Federal agencies. On display will be case study examples of improving the user experience for FirstGov, USPS.com, and others agencies.”

— CM Pros is a membership organization that fosters the sharing of content management information, practices, and strategies. Join CM Pros today! www.cmpros.org

— CrownPeak is defining the future of content management with its cost-effective software services for Web content management and site search. Gain complete control over your web site management. www.crownpeak.com.

— Ektron will demonstrate CMS400.NET V6.0’s new features for creating and managing interactive websites and applications, including blogging, web analytics, polls/surveys, forums, content ratings, AJAX-enabled search, enhanced multi-site support and localization.

— eTouch Systems will launch eTouch SamePage Solutions for Government – industry’s first wiki supporting Section 508 compliance while delivering rich functionality and wiki ease-of-use with enterprise-grade scalability, security, and reliability.

— Idiom(R) Technologies optimizes the globalization supply chain by aligning global enterprises, language service providers and translators. Award-winning WorldServer(TM) software solutions expand market reach and accelerate multilingual communication with a proven platform for automating translation and localization processes.

— Mark Logic Corporation provides the industry’s leading XML content server. Mark Logic helps government agencies build custom publishing systems, integrate, repurpose and deliver content, and search and discover information.

— Percussion’s Rhythmyx CMS allows organizations to efficiently manage their Web and portal content, documents, and digital assets. Rhythmyx is rated in the Top 6 WCM vendors in the Gartner WCM MarketScope for 2005.

— Recognized throughout the industry as the fastest to implement and easiest to use, RedDot CMS and LiveServer extend usability, deliver more relevant content, and make site administration simple.

— Sitecore’s pure .NET web content management and portal software for growing and evolving organizations provides ease of use, flexibility and scalability, while seamlessly integrating with existing Microsoft platform investments.

To view the full conference program, visit: https://gilbane.com/gilbane-conference-washington-dc-2006/

About CMS Watch 

CMS Watch(TM) is an independent source of analysis and advice on content management and enterprise search. In addition to the freely-available articles on its website, CMS Watch publishes vendor-neutral technology reports that provide independent analysis and practical advice regarding web content management, records management, and enterprise search, and portal solutions. These reports help sort out the complex landscape of potential solutions so that project teams can minimize the time and effort to identify and evaluate technologies suited to their particular requirements. For more information, visit www.cmswatch.com.

About The Gilbane Group 
Gilbane Group, Inc. serves the content management community with publications, conferences and consulting services. The Gilbane Group administers the Content Technology Works(TM) case study program disseminating best practices with partners Software AG (TECdax:SOW), Sun Microsystems (NASDAQ:SUNW), Artesia Digital Media, a Division of Open Text, Astoria Software, ClearStory Systems (OTCBB:INSS), Context Media (Oracle, NASDAQ: ORCL), Convera (NASDAQ:CNVR), IBM (NYSE:IBM), Idiom, Mark Logic, Omtool (NASDAQ:OMTL), Open Text Corporation (NASDAQ:OTEX), SDL International (London Stock Exchange:SDL), Vasont Systems, Vignette (NASDAQ:VIGN), and WebSideStory (NASDAQ:WSSI). https://gilbane.com.

About Lighthouse Seminars 
Lighthouse Seminars’ events cover information technologies and “content technologies” in particular. These include content management of all types, digital asset management, document management, web content management, enterprise portals, enterprise search, web and multi-channel publishing, electronic forms, authoring, content and information integration, information architecture, and e-catalogs. http://www.lighthouseseminars.com.

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We have added a new session to our Washington DC conference the week after next. David Almacy, Internet and E-Communications Director at The White House will provide a brief overview of the White House web site and discuss how technology is being used to assist in communicating the President’s message to a growing online audience.

Also, EMC is now going to host a reception at the conference (which is at the Reagan Building) on June 14th, 4:30 – 6:00pm.