Table of Contents

   Editor's Note
   Upcoming Events
   Quick Hits
   News and Announcements
   Social Networks and Collaboration.
 

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Editor's Note

Welcome to the June 2004 issue of the Inside Collaboration Newsletter.This month In The Guru’s corner" I look at both Social Networks (SN) and Social Network Analysis (SNA) and their application to collaboration.  The big question I am asking is not so much "how do you make money with a social network?" As Friendster memberships have proven you can. But rather in business oriented Social Networks where is the value? Some vendors say combining SNA with SFA or CRM is the way to go, others say combining it with information discovery is the best way to get value, After reading this article, I hope you will be able to have your own opinion about this emerging technology. Some of the SNA vendors even made onto our "Technologies to Watch" list.

Since this was a big month for briefings for CS, mostly by RTC vendors with either new products or services or new entrants into the market, we thought some of them were worthy of putting on our "Technologies to Watch" list.  The first of these is somewhat unlikely, it is a vendor that actually used 12-14 other RTC tools until they built their own, which they have been testing it internally for the last 18 months. That vendor and new entrant to the RTC market is Oracle. It is no surprise that they are focused solely on the enterprise market for RTC, which is a native market for them.

In contrast, many of the other players in the RTC market either focus on the consumer, or offer their technology as an (ASP) service.Many of these vendors try to be "all things to all people."   But with 50 + vendors in this marketplace, that strategy will not hold for long.

Another vendor that we were briefed by recently is iLinc (www.ilinc.com), which now offers four applications based on their original "LearnLinc" technology. These four applications are: LearnLinc, MeetingLinc, ConferenceLinc, and SupportLinc.  This is very similar to what both Centra and WebEx have done in expanding their product line to get out of training and into the rest of the enterprise. However, iLinc is one of the first RTC vendors we have talked to that understands that they have to move up the food chain and are focusing (wisely) on three (vertical) markets: High Tech, Financial Services, and Professional Services.

We were also briefed by a competitor for Intranets.com (www.intranets.com), from Australia called AdWeb with their tool called Intranet Dashboard (http://www.dashboard.net.au) which was pretty cool, except that it did not support any real time collaboration (only asynchronous). Nevertheless, Shell bought 80,000 seats and is actively using this tool.

Over the last few months we have expanded our news and announcements section into two sections. The first section "Quick Hits" covers much of what happens in the collaboration market in a very concise format with just the news headline and a URL for more information. News and Announcements on the other hand takes a look at some of the more pivotal announcements that occur each month in more depth and also include the CS analysis of the event.

We also want to get briefed by yo u... our subscribers. Later this month you will be getting a request to do a short e-mail survey, and renew your subscription to "Inside Collaboration." In this survey we will be asking about a few new features for the newsletter that we need some feedback on, so we do appreciate your filling out the survey when you get it.

CS Collaborative Technologies Taxonomy

Collaborative Strategies has revised its functional taxonomy in 2004 as you can see we are seeing some profound changes in the technology landscape.  We see a convergence around the DPM/Virtual Team and Process Tools area (middle box) and we see that more and more some of the functionality of collaboration is being driven into the infrastructure layer. This is not only being done by larger vendors like Microsoft and IBM/Lotus, but also by smaller vendors to help leverage their departmental deployments into enterprise deployments.

If you are a vendor of collaboration technologies and you have not briefed us in the last 6 months please get in touch with us ASAP and bring us up to date on your collaboration tools.

While technology plays a critical role in terms of how organizations collaborate today, technology is, in general, an en abler of the interpersonal interactions that comprise collaboration. Economics, corporate culture (behavior), and internal politics (leadership) also significantly impact the efficacy of such implementations. Most news events in the e-collaboration and KM spaces focus on products and services rather than the more complex human issues associated with these tools. We believe that a true ROI for collaborative technologies requires a holistic or systemic approach and need to examine three areas: people, process and technology.

CS Publications and Services

CS has a program for ongoing industry and customer research and has produced reports on several of the functional technology markets identified here.

Reports that are currently available include:

• Distributed Project Management Update 2003, Volume 1 (General DPM tools) Fall, 2003 (New Year special- buy Volume 1 and get Volume 2 for free)   For more information go to DPM Report 2002/3
  
• Real Time Communication and Collaboration Industry Report 2003
  Published in October, 2003. This report will be published in 3 volumes: Volume 1: on e-Meetings, Volume 2: Virtual Classroom, Volume 3: Web Conferencing/Streaming
  For more information go to RTC Report 2003

Refer to the CS Web site (www.collaborate.com) or call (415-282-9197) for more details on these reports, or to give us feedback on this issue of Inside Collaboration.

CS Service Offerings:

CS currently has three types of service offerings for collaboration vendors:

• Strategic Engagement: This is often how we get started working with a collaboration vendor, and is a short-term engagement that focuses on one specific issue or problem.
• Selling Collaboration: This is a longer-term engagement focused on the creation of specific sales process content for a vendor's sales force to be able to use immediately for qualifying prospects, identifying the economic buyer, controlling the sales conversation, establishing credibility and closing the sale.
• Partnering Program: This service is for those organizations that want to leverage CS's knowledge of the collaboration market, technology expertise and relationships. This knowledge and relationships can be used to help create marketing partnerships, develop sales channels, or for M&A. This program is longer term and is based on a small retainer with a performance bonus.

CS is currently working on service offerings for end-user organizations. If you have suggestions on services you would like to see from us, or are interested in any of the services listed above, please contact Mike Dressler at: miked@collaborate.com.

Technologies To Watch:

CS analysts are always getting briefed on new collaborative products, releases and services. In addition we are working on the TAXONOMY PROJECT to map the collaborative space (over 1000 vendors). Once in a while, we see some new or emerging technology that we think is exceptional, either in concept or implementation. We decided to start a list of these vendors and products, and the May, 2003 issue of Inside Collaboration, lists the charter members for the TTW list. Since then we continue to add one or two vendors each month, that show us technology interesting and unique enough to make the list. If you believe your company or software should be on our TTW list, please contact me directly to set up a briefing with one or more of our analysts at (davidc@collaborate.com).

• Entopia combines Social Network Analysis with information discovery (www.entopia.com)
• Oracle Real Time Conferencing - Well thought out real time tools for the enterprise. See: tryconference.oracle.com
• InterWise ECP Connect, unlimited Audio/Video/Data conferencing for the extended enterprise for a fixed cost. See: www.interwise.com
•  NetScreen Secure Meeting Appliance - an e-meeting in a box! Focus is on security and cost reduction. See:www.netscreen.com
• Conferencing- Intranets.com, A very slick integration of real time functionality into an otherwise asynchronous collaboration vendor that is focused on SMBs. See: (www.intranetsmeeting.com)
• Meeting Edition 1.0- Raindance- a sophisticated integration of audio and video conferencing with sophisticated access rights and features like "follow talker." Offering a free 1-to- 1 service to start. See: (www.raindance.com)
• ShareITNow- Encounter Collaborative- Like Glance.net, this is a simple approach to web/data sharing for e-meetings (www.encounter.net).
• Accolade 5.0 from Sopheon - a very thoughtful approach to the problem of new product development (www.sopheon.com)
• First Virtual’s Conference Server 7.0 - interesting integration with MS Server 2003 (www.fvc.com)
• Kubi Software- e-mail oriented collaboration (www.kubisoftware.com)
• Hyperwave - eConferencing Suite - moving into the e-meeting space
  (www.hyperwave.com)
  Imanage - WorkSite - an interesting combination of asynch/synch collaboration
  (www.imanage.com)
• SiteScape- the addition of process oriented templates/modules to the newest version of this e-meetings tool. ( www.sitescape.com)
• Truereq - Thoughtful collaborative requirements gathering tool for project management (www.truereq.com)
• Collaboration CONTROL!- DYS Analytics provides an interesting management tool that takes the next step in the collection and reporting of data and metrics for Domino and Exchange management. (www.dysanalytics.com).
• EReview - By Web4 is an elegant document, review and markup program that meets many of the CS e-meeting criteria. (www.ereviewonline.com)
• Ever want a really simple screen sharing solution? Glance's minimalist, but well thought out approach, is also reflected in their commodity pricing,900 customers in six months, and profitability. For more information, or a free trial see (www.glance.net).
• BrainEKP 3.5- helps you to create, manage, and find content in a graphical, relationship-oriented metaphor. See: www.thebrain.com
• e/Pop Web Conferencing by WiredRed, takes a presence-oriented approach to web conferencing and offers good audio and video support; see: www.wiredred.com

Options For Sponsorship:

After two years Inside Collaboration reaches about 7000 interested readers. We are looking for some vendors that might want to sponsor this newsletter. We believe this to be a cost effective way to reach a very targeted audience.If interested we can provide you with newsletter demographics. Sponsorship will also include a chance to be part of our guest editorial, as well as your logo on the newsletter. We are looking at a trial sponsorship that would involve 3 sponsors for 3 months, we currently have one sponsor and have 2 spots left. if you are interested please talk to David Coleman, the Inside Collaboration editor at (415) 282-9197 or davidc@collaborate.com.

INBOX Conference and Trade show; June 2-6, Marriott, San Jose, CA
See: www.inboxevent.com/2004

BASEX Strategic Thinkers Forum ; 6/8 NYC, 6/13, LA.
Building Portals and Collaborative Business Environments 2004
http://www.strategicthinkers.com/special04

Communication & Technology Food Chain Conference, 6/7-8, Plaza Hotel, NYC
See: http://www.cibcwm.com/conferences/tech04/

INFOCOMM 2004 June 8-11, Atlanta Track on Collaboration. For more information   
See: http://infocomm04.expoexchange.com/

Virtual Communities, The 7th International Conference, June 14-15, Crowne Plaza Promenade Hotel, The Hague, The Netherlands.
See: http://www.infonortics.com/vc/vc04/vc04.announce.html

SUPERCOMM, McCormick Place in Chicago June 20 – 24.                                          see: http://www.supercomm2004.com/

Wainhouse Research Summit, July 14-16, held at the Colonnade Hotel in Boston, Massachusetts
See:http://www.wainhouse.com/wrsummit/

5th International Conference on Information Communication Technologies in Education" , July 2004, Greece
See: http://www.ineag.gr/ICICTE

National Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-04) July 25-29, 2004, San Jose, California, see: http://www.aaai.org/Conferences/National/2004/aaai04.html

Distance Learning 2004, 20th Annual Conference, August 4-6, Madison, WI 
See:http://www.uwex.edu/disted/conference/

Project World Washington DC, September 27-30
See: http://www.projectworld.com/pwevents.asp?eid=BA1004

Organizational Effectiveness through Collaborative Excellence, September 27-29, Fort Worth, Texas
See: http://www.workteams.unt.edu/conf/Fall2004/Call-for-presenters-2004.htm

Streaming Media West Conference and Exhibition, October 26-28, 2004, Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, California
See: www.streamingmedia.com/west.

Hyland Software, Inc. Files for Initial Public Offering of Common Shares and
Partners With Quintek For Insurance Industry Solution
See: www.onbase.com

Applied Systems Transforms Customer Training Through Centra's Collaborative Learning Solution
See: www.centra.com

BT.com Standardizes on Interwoven-BEA Portal
See: www.interwoven.com

Bank Mandiri Trains 17,500 Employees with IntraLearn
See: www.intralearn.com

Entopia Announces Integration Into Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server
See: www.entopia.com

IBM Lures 1500 New Customers to Lotus Domino In 24 Months
See: http://www.lotus.com/rw/press.nsf/0/BDF270EF976E93EE85256E7D00694100

FVC Enhances Rich Media Learning at Language College in UK
See: www.FVC.com

Centra Announces China Telecom as Strategic Business Partner
See: www.centra.com

Intranet Dashboard Used By 80,000 At Shell
See: www.dashboard.net.au

Microsoft Announces 6 Sigma Accelerator for Office
See: http://www.microsoft.com/office/solutions/accelerators/default.mspx

Documentum Delivers New Standards-based Portlet Development Toolset and Portlets
See: http://www.documentum.com/solutions/cm_portals/index.htm

Intel, Adobe, and Interwoven Launch 'Innovate' Worldwide Tour
See: www.interwoven.com/innovate

MCI and Microsoft Join Forces to Deliver Communication/Collaboratin Solutions
See: www.mci.com/conferencing

TMC and SIPfoundry Partner To Advance the Development of Open Source IP Telephony
See: www.tmcnet.com

Dilithium expands 3G videoconferencing to the laptop
See: http://www.dilithiumnetworks.com/

Beta program for Microsoft Live Communications Server 2005 Started
See: www.microsoft.com

ViewCentral and Centra Partner
See: http://www.viewcentral.com/viewcentral/news/pr_6_2_41_centra_partnership.asp

Microsoft Weighs In with Speech Server 2004

Microsoft Corp. took another step forward in its strategy to make the business value of speech technology more broadly available to mainstream enterprise companies as Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates launched Microsoft® Speech Server 2004 at the co-located AVIOS~SpeechTEK Spring 2004, Microsoft Mobile Developer Conference (DevCon) 2004 and Fawcette Technical Publications' VSLive! San Francisco 2004 events. Speaking to an audience of more than 4,000 during his keynote address, Gates spoke about the developer opportunities and business value Speech Server will enable, which analysts say will change the industry dynamic.

Immediately following Gates' keynote, Kai-Fu Lee, corporate vice president for the Microsoft Speech Server product group, will take the stage at the AVIOS~SpeechTEK portion of the conference to detail Microsoft's efforts in speech technology and demonstrate real-world customer and partner applications based on Speech Server.

Microsoft is breaking new ground in the speech industry by becoming the first company to offer a single platform that combines Web technologies, speech-processing services and telephony capabilities. The Speech Server enables companies to unify their Web and telephony infrastructure and extend existing or new ASP.NET Web applications for speech-enabled access from telephones, mobile phones, Pocket PCs and Smartphones For more information on MSS see: http://www.microsoft.com/speech/

The big news at the co-located Microsoft Mobile DevCon/VSLive!/AVIOS-SpeechTEK conference last month was Bill Gates' launch of Microsoft's surprisingly low-priced and Web-friendly answer to the limitations of speech interfaces for all forms of interactive, self-service tasks, Microsoft Speech Server (MSS) platform. MSS is based on the long-talked about SALT (speech application language tags) language, rather than the VoiceXML standard for integrating text and speech Web application interfaces. Microsoft claims that SALT will simplify the development of interactive applications that share common application code, while supporting the different voice/visual interface requirements of mobile, multi-modal user devices. 

Like other disruptive technologies, this announcement will cause enterprise organizations to think twice about migrating from their legacy speech-oriented application tools to accommodate converged application interfaces. Not only do we see this announcement as breaking price barriers for speech-enabled applications in the relatively “greenfields” SMB market, but its practical exploitation of multimodal SALT will help push the whole market toward multi-modal user interfaces for many mobile online applications. We at CS see the MMS as a way to quickly integrate into CRM applications, and expect to see a number of CRM vendors offering this functionality before year end.

IBM/Lotus Releases Workplace 2.0

Release 2.0 of IBM Lotus Workplace offers enhanced flexibility through additional platforms, databases, and directories through a server based environment---all in harmony with existing customer investments and needs. Release 2.0 of IBM Lotus Workplace includes two new products that are enabled by the IBM Workplace Client Technology:

IBM Lotus Workplace Documents 2.0 is a low-cost, standards-based collaborative document management offering for browser users, and a rich client experience, with more advanced capabilities for high-end users. The product makes it easy to capture, store, manage and provide access to collaborative business documents such as engineering drawings, sales proposals, product plans, documentation, e-mails and more. It also helps manage the complete life cycle of office documents from collaborative authoring to review, approval and archival.

IBM Lotus Workplace Messaging 2.0 is a cost-effective, standards-based product that extends the reach of messaging infrastructure. Lotus Workplace Messaging 2.0 is secure, scalable, easily deployed and can be integrated across existing infrastructures to take advantage of current IT investments. It is a richer client experience than typically found in desktop applications, enabling users to communicate more directly to an extended community. IBM Lotus Workplace Messaging 2.0 provides a solution for organizations seeking a simple, cost-effective alternative for communicating information to large numbers of “deskless” employees, and includes extended productivity features required by other workers through a common shared environment.

Release 2.0 of IBM Lotus Workplace also includes the unified release versions for these existing products:

IBM Lotus Workplace Team Collaboration 2.0 combines instant messaging and awareness, Web conferencing, team workspaces and threaded discussion capabilities to help dispersed teams drive projects to completion. Now, business users can work faster and more easily with colleagues across the globe through self-service tools to create new workplaces with membership controls or simple electronic forms for a specific business purpose

IBM Lotus Workplace Collaborative Learning 2.0 is a modular, open, scalable learning management system that helps training departments deliver online courses, schedule classrooms, organize courseware libraries and manage student enrollment activities. It helps streamline and manage an organization's classroom-based and e-learning programs, resources and courseware, making training programs more accessible and cost-effective. IBM Lotus Workplace Collaborative Learning 2.0 is the next release of IBM Lotus Learning Management System.

IBM Lotus Workplace Web Content Management 2.0 provides templates and automated services that content creators without technical skills can use to collaborate on content, build workflows for approving content, lay out pages and links between pages, and properly store and archive content once it expires. The product enables all users to rapidly create portlets that personalize information without programming resources, so content is rapidly channeled into the portlet without need for specialized skills. With its rapid point-and-click interface, it helps relieve IT and Webmaster bottlenecks by placing end-to-end Web content management in the hands of content experts for information updates that happen in minutes, not days. For more information see:
http://www306.ibm.com/software/swnews/swnews.nsf/np/jmae5yapen

This was a big announcement for IBM/Lotus and the product team is on the road talking to analysts and press over the next few weeks so you might see more than a few articles on this announcement. IBM's standard's-based development and collaboration platform also is part of a new software model from IBM. This new model allows middleware to reside on the desktop rather than the server giving the user increased flexibility in managing the software. The role middleware has played on the server usually was to insulate application developers from the changes in the underlying hardware and operating systems. IBM executives believe the new software model brings together the best qualities of Web-based computing and PC desktop environments by letting the middleware reside on the client instead of the server.

 In Q4 of last year, Lotus announced WebSphere Portal 5, and updated Workplace messaging. In Q1 of this year they announced Notes/Domino 6.5.1 which included IM, web conferencing, team workplace and Domino Document Mgr. By year end Workplace 2.5 will be released and ND 7.0 with Workplace integration.

In the marketplace is is like watching two 800-bs gorillas circling each other while everyone else scrambles to get out of the way of the coming mayhem! Both Microsoft and IBM/Lotus seem to be pushing collaborative functionality down into the infrastructure layers as quickly as they can. Both companies also tout their software as a platform for development (which does not leave room for too many other platforms in the collaboration space). It will be interesting to see if IBM/Lotus hits all of their release dates, but we think by LotuSphere next January, we should see an integrated Notes/Domino WorkPlace platform, which is a powerful punch aimed at Bill Gate's face!

New Interwoven CDM Portlets for BEA WebLogic

By introducing Interwoven CDM Portlets for BEA WebLogic Portal 8.1, BEA customers can benefit from Interwoven's collaboration and document management platform. Interwoven CDM Portlets provide BEA WebLogic Portal users with all the features of Interwoven WorkSite MP. Because Interwoven CDM Portlets come with full documentation and sample code, customers can easily develop and customize the portlets to meet individual their business needs.  

The following portlets are now available:  

-- WorkSpace Subscriptions -- WorkSpaces allow for users to collaborate on all types of business functions. Using this portlet, members can maintain a personal list of the WorkSpaces for their projects, with instant access and visibility into the status of those business processes. Users can also quickly create new collaborative WorkSpaces from this portlet using a wizard and process templates;

-- Search -- Users can search the content repository using a hybrid of metadata, full-text, and scope (e.g. specific workspace) criteria allowing very accurate results. The search engine returns both content and collaboration items including tasks, calendars, and discussions. For the first time, users do not need to leave the portal to sift through the results;

-- My Tasks -- Users can stay abreast of tasks assigned to them. More than simply a to-do list, tasks contain all the associated information -- templates, instructions, and drop-off location for deliverables so contributors have all the information they need to complete the job. Individuals can filter the list by status to ensure only the most important tasks are presented;

-- My Calendar -- WorkSite MP acts as a personal secretary, ensuring meeting invitations from team WorkSpaces are not lost or forgotten. With a few toggle switches, event coordinators can request Web conferences and telephony services, and event reminders for attendees. Users can download events into their favorite personal information management tool;

-- Checked Out Documents -- The checked out list consolidates all items currently locked by the user, and provides a visual reminder to the user of the date they are due back into the repository. Users can also check in documents directly from this portlet.  

The alliance of BEA and Interwoven can give enterprises a powerful platform to empower business users. With features such as full text and meta-data searches, workspace views, and subscription lists, Interwoven CDM Portlets help BEA customers overcome the challenges posed by distributed workforces, complex business processes, and compressed sales cycles. Users can view personal content such as subscriptions, checked out documents, and workflow inboxes from within the WebLogic Portal. Interwoven handles this seamlessly within the BEA WebLogic Platform.   Availability The Interwoven CDM Portlets are available immediately. For more information on the Interwoven-BEA relationship, events, and Webcasts, please visit www.interwoven.com/bea. For more information see: www.interwoven.com

Before iManage was acquired by Interwoven they had a strategy of creating WorkSite so that it not only could be sold by them, but was also architected to be an OEM product. One of the first vendors to integrate Worksite into their product was Primavera. Now we see WorkSite being integrated into portals like BEA's WebLogic. We at CS expect to see the WorkSite technology licensed to other vendors that need to integrate collaboration, and if this keeps up, Interwoven will have a nice royalty stream from all the license deals it has using the WorkSite technology.

Interwoven Releases WorkSite MP 4.0 

Interwoven Inc. developer of enterprise content management (ECM) technologies announced Interwoven WorkSite MP 4.0, enterprise-class collaborative document management software for multiple platforms. The new version features improved usability, better business-unit level configurations, and enhanced compliance capabilities. WorkSite MP 4.0 brings collaborative document management to front-office professionals (such as lawyers, consultants, and other domain experts) improving employee effectiveness and productivity, and enabling business managers to easily solve compliance challenges. As enterprises embark on collaborative projects such as new product introductions, deal and contract management and other general project management, they face common bottlenecks that stand in the way of peak performance. WorkSite MP 4.0 enables companies to solve the most daunting collaboration and document management challenges.

WorkSite MP is an Internet-based product suite that delivers collaboration and document management solutions capabilities to allow teams, departments, and divisions of even the largest enterprises to collaborate, build, and share information and manage projects. The software is available in a browser-based interface, integrated with front-office applications such as Microsoft Office, Outlook, and Lotus Notes, or as portlets for the industry's most widely used portals.

For Enterprise-Class Collaborative Document Management WorkSite MP 4.0 is a true multi-platform collaborative document management solution, and is built from the ground up to tap the power of the open computing standards of J2EE and XML. This provides unmatched flexibility in being able to leverage existing corporate standards and multiple-platform support while at the same time delivering unmatched system performance and interoperability. Plus, the unique caching and security model of WorkSite MP 4.0 keep a company's collaborative content safe, secure, yet at the same time, readily available to those with proper access rights both within and beyond the company.

Key Features of Interwoven WorkSite MP 4.0

-- Records Retention - WorkSite MP 4.0 has the ability to declare items including documents, folders, and even entire workspaces, and apply retention rules that govern retention and disposition of specifically identified items. Records managers can use an administrative console to manage declared items;

-- Offline Mode - This module enables users to add and edit content including documents, collaborative items such as discussion threads, calendar items and even an entire workspace -- all while disconnected from the repository. It includes conflict resolution when users re-synchronize content, maximizing productivity for busy, on-the-go professionals; -

- BEA Portlets - Portlets expose personal content such as subscriptions, checked out documents and workflow inbox, within the BEA WebLogic Portal. Portlets offer an alternative home page for companies with employee and partner portals;

-- Virtual Folders - These aggregate content from across the repository using a combination of full text and metadata search criteria. Virtual folders help users leverage organizational knowledge and efficiently re-use it within their projects;

-- Configuration Tools - Individual departments can now completely localize their interface to an enterprise repository centrally managed by IT, helping to drive the adoption of corporate document management practices by bringing enterprise technology to business users in a form that is intuitive to them;

--.Net SDK - Companies can leverage their Microsoft skills to customize the desktop applications through the fully documented .NET software development kit. OEMs can use the SDK to develop full .NET applications.  

Availability Interwoven WorkSite MP 4.0 will be available in June. For a full list of product features and benefits, visit http://www.interwoven.com/products/worksite_mp/.  

IManage who developed WorkSite before being acquired by Interwoven, was a document management company with a large market share in the legal market. As mentioned above, they built WorkSite as a distributed team and document management tool with an architecture that is easy to OEM, but they have also been doing some significant enhancements to WorkSite. Not only do they now integrate with BEA, but you can work on content off-line, and even create a virtual folder for your virtual team. This type of software, when used correctly can really help the productivity of distributed teams, and also help with issues such as compliance and governance. But WorkSite has lots of competitors, eRoom (part of Documentum/EMC) has had off line working for several versions now, and lets not forget OpenText who has been on an acquisition binge for the last few years. It is about 6 months post merger for iManage, and it looks like some new features for WorkSite are finally available.

Study Shows Harrah's #1 in IT Portfolio Management with Niku

A recent study conducted jointly by Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and DiamondCluster, a management consulting firm based in Chicago, found that Harrah's Entertainment, Inc .ranked best overall for "Best Practices" in IT portfolio management.

Harrah's, operator of 26 casinos in 12 states, uses IT Management and Governance (IT-MG) software from Niku Corporation to drive what the study has described as a "synchronized" approach to aligning IT investment with business strategy.

Entitled "IT Portfolio Management: Challenges and Best Practices," the study included interviews with 130 senior IT executives from Fortune 1000 companies. It revealed three stages of sophistication among companies applying IT portfolio management:

-- Stage One: Defined -- a company has defined and documented key components of the portfolio and has a basic understanding of metrics for success;

-- Stage Two: Managed -- the organization has additionally linked project selection with budgeting cycles, and established standardized portfolio management processes; and,

-- Stage Three: Synchronized -- the organization has aligned IT investment portfolios with business strategy and provided feedback loops to assess the actual return on IT investments.

With only 17 percent of the companies surveyed rated at Stage Three, Harrah's ranked first overall in successfully aligning IT with strategic business goals and demonstrating concrete business value for each IT initiative. Mark Jeffery, assistant professor of technology at the Kellogg School of Management, and co-author of the study notes that" Harrahs, unlike at the majority of organizations, IT is not a cost center at Harrah's, but a focused strategic and operational contributor to the business."

Clarity(TM), Niku's enterprise software for IT-MG (formally named Niku 6 and recently upgraded to include significant new functionality), enables Harrah's to inventory all current and proposed IT initiatives, then segment the portfolio by business unit, product, lifecycle stage, or corporate strategy (for example, growth, cost reduction, or new business channel program). To bring the alignment of IT and business objectives full circle, the software also provides companies like Harrah's with powerful tools for managing delivery and execution of portfolio plans and for the assessment of results, ensuring that investments are truly delivering the value expected. For more information see: www.niku.com

Studies like these are great for Niku and a feather in the cap for Harrah's, but one has to wonder what is going on at the other 83% of the IT organizations that are at Stages 1 & 2? It is hard to believe that an IT organization in a Fortune 500 company is not able to be managed to the point where it is supporting the enterprise's business strategy? Sounds like they need better collaborative tools!

Raindance Gets Application Viewing Patent

Raindance Communications announced the addition of its application viewing patent to the company's growing patent portfolio -- which already includes patents for Voice-over-IP, as well as for record and playback functionality. Considered a key feature in today's web conferencing platforms, application viewing allows users to collaborate on presentations and documents as if they were in the same room. Raindance's application viewing patent covers the ability for meeting moderators to share any desktop application or screen image with participants in the meeting. Once a modification has been made, the technology automatically records the edit and distributes it to meeting participants through a continuous refresh functionality, keeping everyone up-to-speed on the changes. For more information see: www.raindance.com

This announcement had some of the CS analysts wondering what was so new and different here that it required a new patent? We talked with Todd Vernon, one of the founders and CTO of Raindance, who told us that the original patent for a cluster of technologies (including applications sharing, VoIP, collaborative web browsing, etc.) all date back to 1996 when Raindance first filed for them, and that these more recent patents are continuation patents.  When asked if Raindance would turn into the next SCO and begin suing the rest of the RTC industry over these patents, Todd stated that Raindance typically uses patents such as this one defensively, and to create value for the company through intellectual property.

iLinc Communications ACQUIRES Glyphics communications

– iLinc Communications, Inc. (AMEX:ILC), developers of one of the most feature-rich, secure and scalable Web conferencing and collaboration software, announced it has acquired privately-held Glyphics Communications, Inc. to offer integrated phone conferencing technologies and services as part of its product offering. Glyphics is a full-service provider of comprehensive phone conferencing solutions. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Glyphics provides phone conferencing solutions for many large corporations, reaching a wide range of markets and business opportunities. These organizations, including the American Medical Association, LANDesk Software , Homestore.com, and Muzak, rely on Glyphics to deliver business-critical meetings, seminars and training events to their members.
For more information see: www.ilinc.com .

In a recent briefing with iLinc management, we found that Glyphics is only the first of the acquisitions of audio conferencing vendors that iLinc plans to make. However, this acquisition is significant for iLinc, in that it boosts the company size from 65 to 110 and revenues from $10M to $15M. iLinc's stated targets in these acquisitions are customers and revenues not technology. Although with Glyphics, they do get some good event-oriented reservation technology,and a customer support center. iLinc is interesting in two areas: first, they are one of the only web conferencing vendors we have talked to lately that has not integrated PSTN and VoIP (but it is on their product roadmap); second, they, more than many of the other web conferencing vendors realize that they can not be everything to everyone, and so have wisely chosen to focus on three verticals (high tech, financial services and professional services), all three of which are big adopters of collaboration technologies. CS expects to hear a few more announcements out of iLinc later this year, either for additional acquisitions, or new enhancements with their 7.4 release.

Wireline Data Services Spending by Type in the SOHO Business Market

SOHO firms will spend the greatest portion of their wireline data services budget on value-added services, primarily on broadband services (DSL, cable, etc.), but also including the limited spending that these customers make on voice-over-X (VoIP, VoDSL, etc.) services, VPN services, managed services, and other telco-delivered managed services.  This category of data services expenditures is expected to reach just under 50% of their wireline data services budgets in 2003.  Spending in this area is growing rapidly, with growth estimated at 45% in 2004, and declining to 25% by 2008.  At this time, SOHO businesses are expected to spend roughly 65% of all SOHO wireline data expenditures on value-added services.

Internet access is the second largest category of SOHO telecom spending, estimated at roughly $449 million in 2003, roughly 24% more than 2002 expenditures.  Growth is expected to continue at similarly high rates, rising in 2004, before slowing to about 22% by 2008, at which point SOHO firms are expected to purchase roughly $1.5 billion worth of Internet access services.  Private line services currently account for roughly 15% of SOHO wireline data services spending.  However, expenditures on these services are expected to decline over each of the next five years, as SOHO firms replace these high-end lines with more cost-effective broadband alternatives.  By 2008, this market's expenditures on private line services are expected to fall to just $181 million.

For more on the categories of Wireline Data Services spending in the SOHO business market, check out In-Stat/MDR's Dynamic Data File report, "The Data Nation: Wireline Data Services Spending and Broadband Usage in the US Business Market, Part Four: SOHO Businesses (1 to 4 Employees) - Advance Report", report number IN030959BB, available online at: http://www.instat.com/catalog/ecatalogue.asp?id=188

InStat tracks some of the infrastructure markets that CS does not. What we see from these preliminary figures is that the SOHO market, which usually have small budgets and are not usually leaders in this type of infrastructure adoption, will mostly have broadband access by 2007-2008, and that many of them have this today. With the infrastructure getting more robust and able to support rich media, and gas prices rising to $3/gallon, it is not hard to see more and more people working/collaborating from home offices. Often these people might be part of a distributed team, or on multiple teams. The rapidity at which this infrastructure is being adopted bodes well for the "ubiquitous collaboration" future I proposed a few issues ago.

Social Networks and Collaboration

By David Coleman

VCs have invested millions in Social Networking companies like Friendster, LinkedIn and ZeroDegrees. Even more recently a new class of company that supports Social Network Analysis (SNA) like Spoke or Visible Path have been the beneficiaries of VC largess. So what is all the hoopla about Social Networks and why should you care? What does Social Networks or SNA have to do with collaboration?

Social Networks, or "trusted networks" are the new hot technology for 2003-2004. VC's are investing in them, and they are a natural way for a social animal, like humans to do some things.  Like refer friends to a movie, a restaurant or each other. It is also a good way to find others with common interests. This can have a business twist to it in the procurement part of supply chain management. In collaboration trust is critical, and who are you going to trust more than your friends, or the friends of your friends, or the friends of your friends' friends.. you get the idea!.  Social networks seems like a reasonable outgrowth of collaboration. Lets hope it is not too much of a fad and is taken to far, or that the vendors promise too much.

Its the Network Stupid!

What are social networks? Well, chances are if you frequent the Internet you are part of one. Essentially Social Networking is the ability of Internet-based technologies to greatly enhance the efficiency of acquiring knowledge about your friends, colleagues or acquaintances.

Online social networks are webs of relationships that grow from computer-mediated discussions. The webs grow from conversations among people who share a common affinity (e.g., they work for the same company, department, or in the same discipline) and who differ in other ways (e.g., they are in different locations, keep different hours, specialize in different disciplines, work for different companies). When the people are distributed across time and space, then these conversations need to take place online, over an intranet or private internet forum.

For example, with Friendster if you find a friend in the system (which is highly likely because that is usually how you get asked to join one of these networks) you can look at their friends and imply that since you both like your first friend that you might have things in common or like each other. So rather than waiting for a cocktail party where you might get introduced to this person by your friend, you can ask for an online introduction and speed the process along. Friendster happens to be great for people in their 20s and 30s who may not like the bar scene and want some kind of filtering, to hook up.

It is interesting that social scientists that have studied these networks have found that:

• Most people do not know much about their own social network (the average person knows about 500 people)
• That the path chosen to a target (date, mate or job) is not necessarily the most efficient path, and traversing social networks is an en efficient process
• Granovetter, and others have show that the more degrees of separation there are, the less value the path has for an action to happen.

Stories and Scenarios

Let's look at a scenario:  Person A is a salesman at company XYZ, and he is looking for some help on a difficult technical proposal for a prospect. Being an outgoing guy, he normally would let his fingers start dialing and work through is network to find the expertise he needs to finish his proposal.  But using social network technologies he is able to identify through these tools that his colleague B knows colleague C, who knows Expert D. Using the SN tool A persuades B for an introduction to C and C for an introduction to D.  So far so good. But A has had to rely on the good graces of B&C and may in fact "owe them one" for this introduction. In addition, in some SN's there may be a burden placed on the "introducer" and doing an introduction (of any kind) might obligate B or C to some additional action (like getting feedback on the A-D interaction, or to put A's problem into a context that D would understand). But even without worrying about those issues, once A gets to D and makes his request, D might legitimately ask "what's in it for me?" 

A real life example of this occurred a few months ago through LinkedIn, a business-oriented SN, I am a member of. I got a request from someone I knew that someone I did not know wanted to talk with me. In this case it was a junior member of a venture capital firm. Intrigued, I said OK, and was contacted by e-mail by this person, who quickly turned me over to a more senior person at the VC firm that was considering an investment in a company in an area that CS has expertise in (collaboration). Once the introduction was made, the VC started asking questions about the market, their firm, potential competitors, etc.

Having been introduced by a friend, we tried to answer the VC's questions, but since our knowledge and experience are what we charge for, we did not want to give too much away, and my colleagues and I agreed to bound the interaction to about an hour's worth of our time, since the VC was not paying.  We thought that this would give the VC a good idea of our expertise and they might want to use us for something later (but we were not holding our breath).  The VC followed up with additional e-mails and phone calls, and one of my colleagues and I ended up spending several hours of unpaid time looking at this start-up for the VC and giving them our recommendation. If this request had come by e-mail, or phone (more normal channels) we probably would have talked to them about fees within the first few minutes, bounding the interaction that way. My point here is that there is benefit in the SN for the "requestee", but not always for the "answerer." For SN's to create value, they have to create value for both sides of the equation.

Social Network Analysis (SNA)

SNA tools by contrast allow you to analyze social networks.  They provide "sociaograms" or maps of the interactions of various individuals in a company, community, value network, or other type of organization.  Up until a few years ago SNA, was a small, but interesting academic discipline, which has grown 10X because of sudden interest over the last few years. One of the values of this type of analysis is you can see who is talking, interacting, collaborating with who, and sometimes the pattern of interactions is indicative of a problem, lack of information flow (bottleneck), or other situation that needs to be addressed for the health of the organization.    

The contention of many of the SNA vendors is that their tools, in analyzing a social network can provide you with information that allows you to take some new action. Since all relationships, interactions or collaborations are based on trust, and trust requires some type of interaction or information in context, then a logical inference would be that SNA tools allow you to identify and improve relationships. This is one way to create value. 

SNA tools and technologies are a bit more straight forward in that they can provide value to several areas of the business: HR, Sales, Support, etc. Some vendors like Entopia, Visible Path and Spoke, have tied these tools to SFA, CRM, BI/Competitive Intelligence or Help Desk and Support tools to add value. Stanley Wasserman, the chief scientist at Visible Path claims that through an API they are able to plug into salesforce.com and improve close rates by 22%, cut deal cycle times by 27% and increase the size of the deals sales people were working on.

Another way to add value is for consultants, with expertise in SNA to come in, and using a variety of tools (iFlow, Pajek, etc.) analyze various types of organizations and then based on the patterns of interactions, draw some conclusions. Figure 1 shows the interactions within a corporate R&D group.

Figure 1: SNA of a Corporate R&D function
From Rob Cross http://www.robcross.org/

The Ties That Bind

The interactions between individuals in social networks are often characterized as "ties" and there are: strong ties, weak ties, and bridging ties, to indicate the type of relationship there is between the two individuals in the network. In a famous paper by Mark Granovetter of Stanford University called "The Strength of Weak Ties" he showed that you can reach more people through distant friends and acquaintances than you can with close friends.  With close friends you have "strong ties" you interact with each other a lot, may think alike, or have similar attitudes and opinions. Your friends of friends or acquaintances are much weaker ties in your social network, and allow you to come into contact with a greater diversity of people than your strong tie, friends would. In a variety of research studies, it has been shown that it is best to look for a date, mate, or work, through these networks with weak ties.

Ron Burt, another social network analyst, looks at the areas between networks, which he calls "structural Holes." In his classic paper called  Structural Holes: The Social Structure of Competition   Burt states that networks with "holes" -- that is, unbrokered connections -- present the most opportunity. A successful actor is one with ties to many points in the network who can uniquely fill one or more of those holes. To that end, Krebs -- who is writing a book on his experiences with social networks and business organizations -- plans to mine Amazon, map out the communities of interest relevant to his themes, and tune his presentation to optimally broker among them.

The Small World Problem

Many of you have played the Kevin Bacon game online or seen the play "Six Degrees of Separation." The play title alludes to some pioneering research by Stanley Milgram at Harvard in the 1960's that determined that there were about 6 people between you and anyone else in the world. Today, Columbia University is continuing this research but looking at how the Internet expedites social networks. You can participate in this research at: www.smallworld.columbia.edu .

Valdis Krebs, a well known social network analyst believes that Metcalfe's Law (network value is N 2 , for N users) and Reed's Law (network value is 2 N , for N groups) are great in theory, but of limited practical benefit:

Show Me The Money!

So what is the value of these Social Networks and SNA tools? Why have all of these venture capitalists pumped all this money into these start-up companies? Howard Reingold, a pioneer in the field on online communities (see his latest book called "Smart Mobs" http://www.smartmobs.com/index.html) believes that thoughtfully planned and knowledgeably implemented online social networks can enable an organization to:

1. Create an early warning system.
2. Make sure knowledge gets to people who can act on it in time.
3. Connect people and build relationships across boundaries of geography or discipline.
4. Provide an ongoing context for knowledge exchange that can be far more effective than memoranda.
5. Attune everyone in the organization to each other's needs – more people will know who knows who knows what, and will know it faster.
6. Multiply intellectual capital by the power of social capital, reducing social friction and encouraging social cohesion.
7. Create an ongoing, shared social space for people who are geographically dispersed.
8. Amplify innovation – when groups get turned on by what they can do online, they go beyond problem-solving and start inventing together.
9. Create a community memory for group deliberation and brainstorming that stimulates the capture of ideas and facilitates finding information when it is needed.
10. Improve the way individuals think collectively – moving from knowledge-sharing to collective knowing.
11. Turn training into a continuous process, not divorced from normal business processes.
12. Attract and retain the best employees by providing access to social capital that is only available within the organization.

SNA can provide quantitative support for the kinds of management decisions now made solely on intuitive judgment. Here's the scenario:

OK, Jon, you're working in marketing, and we've mapped out your personal network. You're fine within marketing, but you're not linked well enough to sales and engineering. We think that's important. Your professional development goal next year is to forge new connections with engineering and sales.

Conclusions

Social Networks and the tools that analyze them are very interesting. They give us a view of something that was previously unseen, and in many ways give us unique information about both formal and informal networks we participate in.  Today, some of the SNA tools can be used to identify HR issue, or look at how well groups in a conglomerate are working together after a number of mergers. And just like collaboration, these tools support the fact that these networks are built on trust, and without that there would be nothing to analyze.  Some early vendors in this space are (wisely) trying to apply SNA tools to more traditional networks in sales and support to derive additional value for the enterprise.  But value for SN and SNA's is still somewhat merky...it is easy to see the great potential these tools and networks have, but not always easy to monetize them. We at CS will keep a close eye on this technology and developing market and will report to you again in the near future.

SN & SNA Tools, Networks and Resources

Friendster: http://www.friendster.com/index.jsp,
NetFriendships.com http://www.netfriendships.com 
FriendFinder.com http://www.friendfinder.com  
LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/home?trk=logo
Ryze Networks http://www.ryze.com/
ZeroDegrees http://www.zerodegrees.com/
Spoke Software http://www.spoke.com/
Visible Path http://www.visiblepath.com/
Entopia http://www.entopia.com/
iFlow  http://www.orgnet.com/  
Ecademy  Ecademy.com
Orkut http://www.orkut.com/
Tribe www.tribe.net
Meetup www.meetup.com
Contact Network Corporation http://www.contactnetworkcorp.com/
Pajek http://vlado.fmf.uni-lj.si/pub/networks/doc/

David Coleman is the Founder and Managing Director of Collaborative Strategies, and the editor of the “Inside Collaboration” newsletter. He is the author of two books on groupware, and writes the “Guru's Corner” column for the newsletter. He can be reached at davidc@collaborate.com or 415-282-9197.

Collaborative Strategies makes every effort to bring you timely, accurate information on collaboration and knowledge management. However, we are part of a rapidly evolving market ourselves and events occur during the publication of this newsletter every month that we do not become aware of or that happen post-production. If you know of such events, please contact David Coleman at Davidc@collaborate.com so we can note these key events in the next edition of this newsletter.