Cloud computing - The Cloud needs smarter devices

A while ago Steve Balmer CEO of Microsoft declared that Microsoft is All In at the Washington State University, starting the campaign well known today. Back then Microsoft provided us with a definition on what Cloud is in their opinion:

The cloud is a computing model where physical computers are abstracted in a way to enable people, whether they are at work or play, to have access to there data across devices. Interact with friends, families or colleagues, make better decisions and power the world businesses.

Dimensions
Microsoft highlights five dimensions of The Cloud:

• The cloud creates business opportunity's and responsibility
• The cloud learns and helps you to learn, decide and take action
• The cloud enhances your social and professional interactions
• The cloud wants smarter devices
• The cloud drives server advances that drives the cloud

The Cloud wants smarter devices

 

In the light of this subject I found the following news publication from a week ago interesting: microsoft and Ricoh anounced a global partnership:

 

Ricoh and Microsoft Partner in Cloud Business

Combining Microsoft's cloud services with Ricoh's nationwide sales and support

structure to drive enterprise IT deployment and utilization
Ricoh Co., Ltd. (head office: Chuo-ku, Tokyo; CEO, President and Representative Director: Shiro Kondo), Ricoh Japan Corporation (head office: Chuo-ku, Tokyo; CEO, President and Representative Director: Kenji Hatanaka) and affiliated sales companies in Japan (hereinafter referred to as the Ricoh Group) and Microsoft Co., Ltd. (head office: Shibuya-ku, Tokyo; President and CEO: Yasuyuki Higuchi) have announced that they will partner in cloud business.

Overview of Partnership

1.Joint development and provision of solutions by the Ricoh Group and Microsoft

The two companies will offer solutions that combine Microsoft's cloud services for the enterprise including Exchange Online, SharePoint Online and etc., with Ricoh's helpdesk, deployment support and other services. They will also combine these services with Ricoh's NETBegin BB Pack Select, an information system integration and maintenance service for small and midsized businesses used to date by 90,000 companies in Japan, to generate synergy with the aim of gaining 200,000 users nationwide over the coming three years.

2.Training of human resources for cloud service rollout

With respect to its rollout of cloud services, the Ricoh Group will apply its well-developed on-site information system sales and support structure to the development of cloud business. To this end, Microsoft will provide training to 11,700 sales personnel and engineers of the Ricoh Group around Japan to enhance their understanding of relevant products and technology.

3.Joint marketing, sales and support

Microsoft will leverage Smart Business Center, its general information website for small and midsized businesses, to disseminate information, hold seminars and otherwise further strengthen its collaboration with the Ricoh Group to implement sales promotion activities, sales and customer support.

Ricoh Japan plans to leverage this partnership to double its sales of Microsoft products in Japan to \20 billion within the coming three years. Ricoh too will further accelerate the global rollout of all of its IT services through applying the achievements and success stories of its partnership with Microsoft in Japan to its global business. Microsoft will continue to work with the Ricoh Group to promote the deployment and utilization of IT by businesses.

Partnership Background

As a leading Microsoft Large Account Reseller (LAR) and Microsoft product solutions partner in Japan, the Ricoh Group has long provided Microsoft products to a wide range of customers from small to large enterprises. Ricoh currently sells over \10 billion worth of Microsoft licenses annually through a well-developed sales and support structure manned by approximately 7,700 sales personnel and 4,000 engineers stationed in 310 sites (including group companies) that provide the same high quality customer services throughout Japan. Ricoh has also been looking into the possibilities for applying the strengths and expertise that it has built up over the years to the handling of Microsoft's cloud-related offerings.

Microsoft for its part has long sought to drive the further take-up of its Microsoft Online Services through cooperating with partners equipped with rich sales and support capabilities for serving customers nationwide.

The two companies decided to work together in the cloud business because they felt that combining Microsoft's products and technological capabilities with the Ricoh Group's sales and support networks will enable delivery of cost reductions, shorter deployment time and other cloud service strengths backed up by a structure for providing the same high quality support as for on-site systems.

January 25, 2011
Ricoh Company, Ltd.
RICOH JAPAN Corporation
Microsoft Co., Ltd

Social Media can be powerfull - even for Social Media

A rumour started a chain reaction. Yahoo! will shutdown the social bookmark service Delicious. The tag #Delicious ended up as a worldwide trending tag. (however a lot of the tags are just about Delicious). The twitter account @delicious must have noticed, as they are claiming in their profile: The official Twitter account for Delicious from Yahoo!. We listen to people talking about Delicious, and we respond. Yay.

So Yahoo! discovered that their early introduced services is appreciated and responded by placing a blog post : Whats next for delicious. So it looks like this early public folksonomy service will survive.

Still wondering what will hapen to Yahoo! as a company. Early 2007 their was a serious rumour about a take over from Microsoft. In the same period Microsoft took over the highend search technology from FAST. The takeover did not succeed. However mid 2009 Microsoft and Yahoo! ended up with an agreement - Microsoft will power Yahoo! Search.

Now December 17th an article describes how the employees of Yahoo! are reacting on these socialmedia attention.

Is Yahoo! preparing to sell just a little bit more than 'just' their folksonomy service?

The Cloud? It is truly amzing!

During a cloud event mid march 2010 organised by ICT~Office in Utrecht, Gartner analyst and VP Jeffery Mann unveiled his view on the battle field of the Cloud. Cloud computing in his opinion will be dominated by just a few big players. During this event only a few suspects where present: Google NL(Erik de Muinck Keizer) Microsoft NL(Peter de Haas) and Jeffery Mann from Gartner to give his opinion.

In the presentation of his analyses Mann predicts that a few big enterprise players are going to dominate the cloud vendor market: IBM, Cisco, Google and Microsoft. Google is the young cowboy, they are trying hard and doing OK, but have some trouble getting there.

Google
Back then it was Security. 'China gate' dominated the news and Google tried to downplay the issue. Now mid October 2010 a new issue arrose about collecting WIFI data during taking pictures for Google streetview, again a big failure.

Google has "no plans" to resume the collection of WiFi network data via its world-roving Street View cars, according to a report by Canada's privacy commissioner reprimanding the web giant for collecting WiFi payload data as well as network info.


"Google still intends to offer location-based services, but does not intend to resume collection of WiFi data through its Street View cars," the report said. "Collection is discontinued and Google has no plans to resume it."

IBM

In the last month I visited and studied the vision of IBM on their market and cloud in particular. IBM is a wonderfull technology company. They do understand what technology is comming, what technologyis needed... But cloud is NOT about technology! It is about technique withhout the technology, predictable services for predictable cost.

Mann thinks IBM will play a important roll as a technology leader in the future, but have no clear vision on cloud.

Microsoft
The best bet on Cloud leadership is Microsoft according Mann.

Seven Month Later...
Now October 2010, seven month later Microsoft launched their 4th evolution of SharePoint as part of their WAVE14 releases May this year. Just Five month later Microsoft launched the beta of Office365, the online suite, in 13 countries.

I never experienced such a rapid addoption of a new platform as with SharePoint 2010. Now just a few month later end users demand solutions based on this new version. Today just one week after the beta release of Office365 customers are asking for solutions based on the new generation of the online suite, even though it isn't released in The Netherlands yet as beta!

In their analysis presented in the "Cloud Computing: Changing the Vendor Landscape" presentation, two other Gartner analysts (David Cearley and David Mitchell Smith) predict that two vendors will be perceived as both leaders in cloud computing as in enterprise computing. That's a lot of market for two leaders!

Again Microsoft is part of this analysis and together with VMware, Microsoft is one of the two future leaders according to these analysts. In this analysis Gartner is looking for future leaders in this combined area of Cloud and Enterprise computing. Candidates are typically origine from one of these domains.

Overall, Crearly and Smith say only Microsoft and VMware have full lines, although their offerings are very different from each other.


Smith said Microsoft's choices were "insanely complex" as it offered all sorts of products in all sorts of ways. It is an enabler of cloud services within companies, a provider of its own services, and also sells services through third parties. It has products for both public and private clouds, and it offers lots of SaaS applications (some hosted, some really cloud-based, and some moving in the cloud direction), and its Azure products, which offer a hybrid of infrastructure and platform as a service.


Microsoft has "one of the most visionary and complete views of the cloud," Cearley said. In some respects, he said, in a few years, you may think of their enterprise offerings as private versions of their cloud offerings. On the other side, he said, many of the specific offerings aren't fully mature yet. But Smith noted that software moves faster on the cloud.

That last sentence is what seems to happen at this moment. Even before changes are there or mature they seem to be addopted. It is truly amazing.

BPOS became 'UNION' becomes ? -

During a webcast Microsoft Office Division will announce changes a lot of partners are waiting for a while now. My biggest disapointment during my visit to Microsoft World Partner Conference in Washington last summer was the lack of information in the area of BPOS or codename UNION.
My expectation was that the new name, functionality and more important the release dates would 've been unveiled during this biggest partner event of the Softies. Well the anouncement is there:


Announcement From Microsoft Office Division
Oct. 18, 2010


Microsoft Corp. will announce news from its Office Division, live from San Francisco via webcast, on Oct. 19 from 8 to 8:30 a.m. PDT. Check back here to watch the webcast live!

I do hope they will meet up the expectations.

The Cloud? Are you serious?

Microsoft is claiming to be a very seriouse player in The Cloud Business. The latest campaign with a kickof at the Washington University by Steve Balmer is called 'We are all in'. So what is the status and where are they going?

Microsoft is well known by most people. Most of the people ever using a PC since about 1980 is a customer (paying or not) of this company. Most company's are using one or more software products of Microsoft. Over 6 million copy's of their most famous product Microsoft Office sold.

The world is changing

The way Microsoft is delivering their software to the users is changing. They do not actualy delivering software, but aiming to deliver services. Office delivered this way is called Office Web Apps. If you question the strategic move to The Cloud check out the succes: in the first 100 days it went live, Microsoft picked up 20 million users for Office Web Apps.

More changes

Another BIG online area of Microsoft is productivity - 'Business Productivity Online Service' or short BPOS. BPOS encompasses products like Exchange, SharePoint, Office Communication Server (OCS) and Forefront. Microsoft is preparing to move into the Wave 14 with BPOS (now called codename Union). Exchange and SharePoint will move to the 2010 version, OCS and Live meeting are becomming Linc and the Office Web Apps are added to the offering.
SharePoint 2010 is the 4th evolution of the product (products like Office are in their 10th or so) and is becoming very mature. Since the focus on online Microsoft decided to design and develop all of their products with The Cloud in mind.

Microsoft is expected to unveil more about the new name and changes in the new version Oktober 19th.

These changes are even more interessting for Microsoft partners because they will be able to add their added value solutions on top of the platforms and ship the total solution. Expectations are very high.

Are you serious?

So IS Microsoft serious? The focus on the online business is succesfull. BPOS has seen 3x growth this year, with now over 40 million paid seats. These seats are comprised of smaller businesses and many large enterprises. Well that's serious business.

Also Microsoft recognizes the importance of differentiation in the markets. Live@edu is The Cloud offering based on BPOS targetting the Educational market, BPOS Federal is aiming on the US governmental market. BPOS Federal is told to be more secure.

Are you secure?

To be able to claim this more secure environment Microsoft has added up the suite with a set of industry standards:

• International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 27001
• Statement on Auditing Standards (SAS) 70 Type I and Type II
• Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)
• Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA)
• Title 21 CFR Part 11 of the Code of Federal Regulations
• Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 140-2
• Trusted Internet Connections (TIC) compliance

If one desides to invest in such list of industry standard compliancy's this means they are pretty serious about their goal. BPOS Federal is available for US only. The list of additional industry standards apply to the normal BPOS offering.

After five million years of evolution, is it possible that the future of humanity is humanity itself?

“Since the dawn of time, humanity’s long journey has led us to countless discoveries,”  “Yet with each leap forward for civilisation, more people have been left behind. But our quest has taken us to a completely new horizon.”

“History is about to be rewritten. This time human beings will be at the centre -- and the machines will be the ones that adapt. After five million years of evolution, is it possible that the future of humanity is humanity itself?”


These sentences where used on the E3 while introducing the Kinnect last June in LA. For those who do not know what Kinnect is: This product is the result of Project Natal, which aim is (was) a project that introduces full-body motion-sensitive controller. In other words: the controller is YOU.

The game industry is serious business estimated $48 Billion today, but potentially growing massively. When adopted by a large group not using games today because of the trouble of a controller as we know it today.

When I witnessed the Kinnect during the Microsoft WPC10 in Washinton DC I started thinking about the application of this technology in other areas.

How will the eXperience of a hotel guest change, when he is guided through the services available when entering the room for the first time. 'Real' interaction with a personal host, recognising YOU. Will a natural interactive interface change the way we will search for information, connect to our peers and share our knowledge? How will presentation of information change when we use this interactive interface browsing through the information sources. Remember the minority report, is the future now?



Me myself believe that this development will lead to a whole new way of using technology in daily life and business solutions.

The future of productivity - Roadmap announcements BPOS

Wave 14 to The Cloud

This year Microsoft is releasing the last new versions of their Wave 14 program. Lot's of their major server and client products have been updated with new functionality. More important ALL of them have been redesigned and developed with The Cloud in mind.

With the launch of Exchange, SharePoint and Office 2010 earlier this year, Microsoft began to work to update BPOS* with the new capabilities that these products deliver. Microsoft started with their biggest customers. They have dedicated cloud deployments and now are fully deployed on the 2010 wave products.

In the next update, Microsoft will bring decades of on-premise innovation to the cloud for the multitennant SKU as well. Functionalality will get very close to parity with our server solutions.

WPC10 announcements

During the last Microsoft World Partner Conference in Washington DC a few announcements were made about the Online Roadmap. Microsoft did not provide exact dates for these releases. Buzz is that a preview of the new BPOS offering before the end of this calendar year. I wonder if that will happen...
More accurate and a bit more likely is the estimated timeframe of the delivery of the updates to each of the managed services and new online platform capabilities within this fisical year (Jul '10 - Jun '11).

Microsofts call for action to partners and cutomers is to get ready for this wave and the 'online tranistion', to focus on Business Model transformation and getting customers ready and deployed.

What functionality to expect?

A Lot of sessions at the WPC covered cloud services and next wave BPOS (codename 'Union'). These slides from the slidedeck of session 'CLD09 The Future of BPOS: Next Generation of Microsoft Online Services' provide insight in the updates to come.

SharePoint Online
The functionalities in this slide give insight in what to expect, check the original deck for the detail slide or drop me a note.

Office Communications Server '14' Online
OCS on-premise will be released this fall. Most functionality will move to the online services during 2011. Do not expect to be released in the first update.

Exchange Online

These are three of the most important server products that will add a lot of functionality to the Microsoft Online offering and great opportunities to extend the business solutions that support productivity. Mind that all this functionality is delivered in a total productivity suite and combined with the office 2010 client software provide a great experience in a familiar environment for the end user. Office 2010 (Web Apps) is also part of the Online offering.

* BPOS (Business Productivity Online Services) or Microsoft Online Services is a proposition of Microsoft; Enterprise class software delivered via subscription services hosted by Microsoft and sold with partners

First Recap Microsoft World Partner Conference #wpcdc #mspartner

Sitting on the couch I try to kill my jetlag and recap the 2010 Microsoft World Partner Conference in Washington DC of last week. At this moment not all content is online jet and in my opinion we lack the keynote video of Kevin Turner COO of microsoft the most. I will cover that part later. For those who want to take a peek, read the transcription.

 

Last year WPC09

The wpcdc was usefull but not as spectacular as the one last year in New Orleans (WPC09). Every event is produced different arround a theme. The theme of last year, in the middle of the worldwide crisis was about change. Kevin Turner and Steve Balmer talked about the worldwide reset. - chack out the last year videos of these keynotes.

 

It was not only the change resulting the crisis that hit us all, but it was the enormous opportunity and the energy how it was brought to the stage last year. Kevin Turner had a five point game plan back then.

1. Be realistic about the causes of our challenges - environment vs strategy
2. Prepare for an unknown length and depth of downturn
3. Deepen and strenghten our customer and partner relationships
4. Grow our marketshare and compete to win
5. Response with a sense of urgency

Also last year there were a lot of realy changing new products to announce by Microsoft. Wave 14 is implemented since the 2009 WPC. This means that the most important products of Microsoft like Microsoft Windows 7, Microsoft server 2008, SQL server 2008R2 and of course the new release of SharePoint 2010. Just a few products from the wave 14 have to be released in the next few months.

 

Last but not least the new partner program was announced at the last WPC in New Orleans, 12 months ago now. So just 6 months to go.

 

What happened last year?

The Wave 14 product released are a big succes for Microsoft, no doubt. Never experienced such a big demand in the market with a new server product like SharePoint 2010 so soon after it's release. Clearly the market picked up the possibility's this new version delivered to the market. Never met such a confidence in a new release from the perspective of the market as we experience now with SharePoint 2010.

 

The change in the partner program is implemented in a few fases. I mention two with impact for us Microsoft Partners:

• Customer Satisfaction (CSAT)
• Competences

 Measurement of the customer satisfaction is now obligated to meet the partner competence requirements. when reenrollment is necessary this customer survey must be carried out. The competences itself are changed recently. Other names, other requirements, some competences are new. In this fase this will have just a limited impact on the partner status.

 

Most obviouse result is that the Partner status will change in the new Microsoft Partner Network. Microsoft Gold partner will change.

 

The biggest Buzz last year and still very hot is the cloud. Microsoft is ALL IN.

 

Does Microsoft meet the expectations this WPC10?

About 13.000 attended this event. That is a lot!

 

This year Kevin Turner presented his game plan. 4 this time.

 

1. Leading with the cloud
2. Driving Windows 7
3. and Office 2010
4. Growing share by competing to win

The wave 14 products are released, just as expected and doing very well. The announcements of the release of a few products left in the wave 14 are confirmed nothing more. Not spectacular, but most products are released just a few months ago. We all knew there wouldn't be to much new in this corner. Take a look at the points of Kevin Turner. Ofcourse the opportunity of software renewall of Windows and Office is HUGE and betting BIG on cloud can be found on the first place... Still not spectacular. 

 

In the partner program some things changed. The titel on the Microsoft partner badge is changed from Microsoft Partner Network to just Microsoft Partner. Well, partners are partners, not a network. Most spectacular was the announcement a very little while before the start of the event that Allison Watson will be succeeded by Jon Roskill as corporate VP worldwide partner group. She was still all over the program. Well her name was and the name of Jon not... Check out the transcription of her latest speech at the WPC10.

The change to Jon Roskill was downright disappointing. He will be great I guess, but till now I did not see that. Everyone I spoke, felt the same I am afraid. He lacks the energy of Allison, looks like he has no confidence and is not able to fascinate the audience. At the beginning of his carreer he looks upon a huge challenge. The challenge to lead Microsoft and it's Partner Network to the next and last fase.

 

The last thing happend this year is the cloud. We are all in is what Steve Balmer, Kevin Turner and all other excecutives shouted. Betting big on Cloud. Well I believe that BUT, it is very disapointing that we heard nothing about the renewall of BPOS the current name of the current online business productivity proposition of Microsoft. I expected the BETA release would be announced at this event. It looks like this will not happen till Q1 2011.

Ofcourse Microsoft announced the Azure Appliance, but that's about all folks. A small ray of hope is the fact that this means that Microsoft CRM Online will be in the same release pace as the new BPOS wave...

Something is changing #il

Yesterday June 22nd I was one of the speakers on the third SharePoint and Storage session at Microsoft NL organised by Ricoh. In between we organised a roundtable discussion on the same subject at our headquarters in 's-Hertogenbosch.

Since quit a long time now I'm advocating the possibility's the Microsoft stack with SharePoint as platform can come available for your organization. In the last say three years I build the competence at Ricoh and in the last two years the productline Ricoh Document Store has been build.

I personaly had a special experience during the seminar. We used some surveys to measure the 'mood' of our public. Last November and December generaly the public was not convinced of the document management capability's of the SharePoint platform. Now about 9 mounth later and a lot of talking, some major developments and last but not least a new version of SharePoint released last Mai 12th this mood has changed dramatically.

The public was convinced of the possibility's and was looking for the reallife cases and best practices to use it now and with the upcomming changes in the SharePoint 2010 platform on premise and ofcourse the promisses of SharePoint online based on the new funtionality's.

Opportunity's for us ISV's and Integrators. We finaly can concentrate more on the functionality that adds the most vallue to the business processes and productivity of our customers.

The content of the seminar can be found on the YouTube and SlideShare channels of Ricoh.

Bill Clinton Guest Speaker at Microsoft World Partner Conference 2010 Washington DC #WPC10

Last year Microsoft World Partner Conference was in New Orleans. I loved that city, loved this BIG event. Last year I bumped into Jesse Jackson at the Hilton near the Ernest N. Morial convention center while drinking a beer at the bar.
This year the guest speaker at the conference will be Bill Clinton. Well I'm VERY currious what this former worldleader can tell and learn us about working together in this rapidly changing world of information.

Google kan het weer niet laten

Grappig om keer op keer optredens en publicaties van Erik de Muinck Keizer tegen te komen waarin hij zijn verhaal voornamelijk als tegengeluid naar Microsoft brengt. Deze keer claimt hij in een interview in Computable het pure Nieuwe Werken. Terecht ook dat hij door deze opstelling dan weer eens op de vingers wordt getikt indien hij weer eens wat feiten vergeet te vertellen zodat het hele verhaal in het juiste perspectief wordt geplaatst. Waarom is Google niet gewoon trots op dat wat ze op dit moment hebben bereikt en waarom geen solide onderbouwing voor de 'cloud only' keuze waar Microsoft dat wel helder voor haar 'cloud en services' proposities neer weet te zetten?
Inderdaad is de ervaring dat een pure cloud benadering ook haar nadelen kan hebben, getuige het optreden van Erik zelf tijdens een ICT~Office event in Utrecht even geleden waar hij zijn presentatie niet helemaal kon afronden ivm het ontbreken van een (snelle) verbinding. Als ik me niet vergis is in het vergelijk dat daar door Gartner analist Jeffrey Mann ter afsluiting van het betoog van Google en Microsoft is gehouden nogal helder aangegeven wie op dit moment het meest volwassen in de markt staat.
Het is en blijft een keuze van de klant. Het is hij die bepaald of hij waarde hecht aan lokaal werken, zekerheid of flexibiliteit en in welke verhouding deze geleverd moeten worden.
Naar mijn mening werkt het beter om vanuit eigen kracht toegevoegde waarde aan te tonen een transparante houding en vertrouwen vormen daarvoor een basis.

Enterprise Search as part of Business Productivity 2 - Seminar Amplexor (B)

Yesterday june 3rd I attended at a Seminar organised by Amplexor in Diegem near Brussels airport Belgium. Amplexor profiles itself as a pure Content Management company and provides their customers wih services on ECM. In the opening presentation of Eric Pieters (CEO). The ECM offering of Amplexor is devided amongst four quadrants: Web Content Management, Document Management, Intranets and COllaboration and Information Architecture and Search. The later was the subject of this seminar.

I was not the only Dutch attendent. Sjoerd de Valk of Winvision, who I met at the Las Vegas SharePoint Conference last year, came to hear the story too.

In my earlier blog I explained that I was triggered by the description of the content of this seminar. First by stating that Enterprise search projects very often are started with a high ambition. In the session of Paul Hermans this was explained on a lively manner.
In my opinion the common mistake to start with a under estimated complexity should be taken even more serious. Before starting to implement a enterprise search infrastrucure, be sure you have a vision and a strategy on information. That's an important start indeed. Next do not start to implement the Search infrastructure before you have a Access and Authentication infrastructure you can use to implement the search upon. True, but not that easy too! Third do not try to implement this huge one interface, this single user experience for all users or rolls in the entire enterprise. Build applications on top of the search infrastructure layer. Last but not least pay attention to the user, manage the change and build trust.

Not a bad apporach. In my opinion it is smart to devide the information demand of the enterprise into smaller chunks. When this is done in the 'envisioning fase' where the vision and strategy of the information access is build, the implementation of different information goals can be split up. More smaller projects, building the total enterprise search ambition over time.

The experience of Amplexor in this field wasn't illustrated with a lot of customer cases. Overall a nice session. Thanks Paul.

The last parts of the seminar the technology and functionality of the search infrastructure was presented by two people of Microsoft. Both former FAST employees; Wolgang Mederle and Hilde Rietveld. Most of the stuf I've seen before on SharePoint or other Microsoft conferences and events. Important to notice is that the promises of Microsoft and FAST in 2008 when FAST was acquired by Microsoft are fullfilled in the new product versions of FAST and Microsoft SharePoint 2010.

Important additions as advanced people search as part of knowledge managment, facetted and federated search, ranking and search advise are now available in the new products.

Nice work FAST and Microsoft.

There are some good comparison sheets available on the Microsoft Technet side. For example the poster were the product specs are compared:

• SharePoint Foundation 2010
• Search Server 2010 Express
• Search Server 2010
• SharePoint Server 2010
• FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint

 Another nice source in Thechnet is the Getting Started with Enterprise Search in SharePoint 2010 Products and  SharePoint Server 2010 Enterprise Search, FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint

So are there some examples that use these technology's. There were some demo's based on real life enterprise search implementations:

Scirus - a scientific database /try flu. By filling in a search query you get results in body. On the left bar there are two main sources for the results: journals and other web. These are facets. You can refine your search by choosing journals or the federated other websources. On the bottom there is another part that can help you to refine your query with advised keywords.
Times online - by opening a topic (search) a newspaper site is composed. A topis is realy a composition of related articles post on the same position of the page. Again you can recognise the facets and federated search results on the left. On the backend of this site Times has implemented a business model. Content of Times itself is sold for further reading.

Some other examples:

• Wolters Kluwer
• Read Elsevier (MOSS and ESP)
• NXP
• Thomson Reuters

Enterprise Search as part of Business Productivity

Tomorrow - June 3th - I'll attend the Enterprise Search Seminar organised by Amplexor in the Pullman Diegem (B). High expectations given the program. I hope they manage to meet my expectation. The first session planned will set the stage. The approach of this session helping businesses to succeed by aiming on a realistic goal is interesting.

The second session however has my biggest attention. Search as part of the Microsoft vision in the field of Business Productivity supported by a single search platform. If they manage to show some cases to support the scenario they will meet my expectation.

Why my interest? Well Business Productivity is key for businesses. In the competence cluster needed to establish the functionality in an organisation that will be able to optimize the productivity, the development of Search will play a very important roll.

The technological developments due to investments are enormous. Microsoft made a big leap forward with the acquisition of FAST in 2008. I remember the session of Zia Zaman (VP Global marketing FAST back then, now CTO LG) at the soldout SharePoint conference in Seattle (2008) where he showed the FAST product that now is incorporated in the SharePoint 2010 platform.

In that session he explained how the market was devided. Google as the biggest one on the internet (the other approach in the Microsoft vision) but more important the field of enterprise search dominated by Microsoft and FAST.

I loved the longtail slide in his presentation back then. I have to look it up and will add it later.

June 3th:

Oké found it. This picture tells us how the market is (March 2008) devided between the big three and the rest. On the left the Big three devide 30% of the information access market. Most of these search query's are based on internet search scenario's. On the right most of the 70% of the search query's are about Enterprise search data access (ESP). This part is dominated by FAST. Now two years later Microsoft has adopted and integrated a lot af the FAST search capability's in there SharePoint 2010 platform. Picture the total of the Microsoft market and the ESP market (the business productivity part) in the long tail together. That's a very big chunk of the total, but more important: the money is on the right side.

Microsoft SharePoint 2010 server - NEN2082 gecertificeerde implementatie [QNH] bij Gemeente Nieuwegein

waar zijn we nu helemaal mee bezig?

Even geleden heb ik al eens melding gemaakt van de pre-release installatie van Microsoft SharePoint server 2010 door QNH bij de Gemeente Nieuwegein. De implementatie van het DMS/RMA is door de ECB geaudit en NEN2082 gecertificeerd. Dat is bijzonder!
Bijzonder knap om te beginnen in een markt die in het midoffice segment sterke vertegenwoordinging kent van spelers als BCT, Cirkel en een aantal andere partijen. QNH is met hun oorspronkelijke IBM practice en de wat later ontwikkelde Microsoft practice vooral bekend als specialist op het gebied van Business integration. De gemeente markt is - zeker in het DMS/RMA domein - nieuw.
Bijzonder om dat het gaat om een implementatie die samen met Microsoft voor de officiele release van SharePoint 2010 op 12 mei 2010 is gerealiseerd.
Wat ik nu vooral bijzonder vind is dat ook de collega gemeenten in Nederland (ca 400 in het totaal) met grote getalen deel hebben genomen aan het seminar dat rondom deze case is georganiseerd in Nieuwegein op 19 mei j.l. Dat daar op dat moment het succesverhaal is gepresenteerd door Pieter van der Hoog van de gemeente Nieuwegein zelf en dat het NEN 2082 certificaat door Dick Marijnen van het ECB is uitgereikt aan de burgemeester.

Een kort uitreiksel van het verslag van een aanwezige toehoorder:

Ik heb gisteren een congres (voor gemeenten "only") bezocht waar 2 cases zijn behandeld van de gemeente Nieuwegein en de Gemeente Venlo. Onder de titel "waar zijn we nu helemaal mee bezig?" is de stand van zaken omtrent e-Dienstverlening in Gemeenteland aan de orde geweest, en meer specifiek van de gemeenten Nieuwegein en Venlo. De partner die het Document management systeem (DMS) en het Records management systeem (RMA) heeft ontworpen en geimplementeerd, is QNH. Er zijn een aantal unieke kenmerken die mij opgevallen zijn aan deze cases:

De aanleiding en het NUP

De keuze voor een volledig op Microsoft technologie ingerichte front en mid-office van CRM-ERP
Een gecertificeerde DMS en RMA archieffunctie.

De aanleiding:

Zowel Venlo als Nieuwegein zijn gestart met het herinrichten van processen en systemen vanwege een aanstaande verhuizing naar een nieuw stadhuis, respectievelijk in 2013 en 2011. Voor Venlo gold nog een extra argument, namelijk dat de dienstverlening aan burgers en bedrijven op een onacceptabel laag niveau stond. Dit heeft allereerst geleid tot een forse reorganisatie waarbij een hoog percentage ambtenaren uitstroomden (30% werd genoemd), en een even fors percentage op basis van geschiktheid (competenties) weer instroomde. Omdat e-Dienstverlening afdelingoverstijgend is (dienst overstijgend, en niet dienst/afdeling centrisch) is een herinrichting van processen en systemen noodzakelijk. Verder speelt een belangrijke rol dat men geen ruimte, en dus geld, wenst te besteden aan het papieren archief in de nieuwe huisvesting.
De projecten die onder de paraplu van het NUP zijn gedefinieerd zijn niet de dominante factor geweest. Dit beeld werd bevestigd door meerdere vertegenwoordigers van gemeenten waarbij het niet opleggen van echte sancties leidt tot een gedrag van "het zal mijn tijd wel duren".

2. De keuze:

De belangrijkste argumenten om zowel de front en midoffice technologie van Microsoft te omarmen zijn:
Geen problemen met systeemintegratie, alles van 1 fabrikant en 1 leverancier.
Geen problemen met leveranciers die naar elkaar wijzen als systemen niet naar wens werken, en de klant als pingpongbal gebruiken.
Alleen de interfacing naar externe partijen (databases) moet ingeregeld worden.
Lange ontwikkeltijd voordat het 1e product live kan (bijvoorbeeld "parkeervergunningen"), snelle doorlooptijd voor de volgende producten.
Door de toegenomen transparantie en de ontsluitingsmogelijkheden gaat de frontoffice (KCC) steeds meer taken van de mid-office overnemen. Doelstelling is dat 80% van de vragen die men krijgt door de front-office beantwoord en afgehandeld kan worden.

3. Certificering:

De inrichting van het DMS en de RMA zijn conform de NEN2082 specificaties gerealiseerd. Het European Certification Bureau (ECB) heeft dit certificaat overhandigd (En heeft ook de audit uitgevoerd). Nieuwegein is de 1e nederlandse gemeente die met een gecertificeerd sharepoint 2010 platform aan de slag gaat. Een gecertificeerde DMS/RMA platform is de eerste voorwaarde waar men aan moet voldoen om toegang te krijgen tot de overheidsmarkt.

Wat verder opviel:

Marktsituatie:
Een veelgehoorde karakteristiek als gesproken wordt over de gemeentemarkt en haar leveranciers (op het gebied van DMS/RMA), is dat deze markt volledig dichtgetimmerd zou zijn met leveranciers als Circle, Decos, BCT, Hummingbird, Alfresco, etc. Opvallend is dat QNH een relatief nieuwe partij is (opgericht in 2004, 500 werknemers) en met een concept dat volledig gericht is op de Microsoft product suite, toegang heeft verkregen tot in ieder geval 2 gemeenten. De belangstelling is echter groot. Er moesten (op het congres) stoelen bijgeplaatst worden vanwege de grote belangstelling van collega gemeenten. Ik schat dat er ongeveer 120-150 bezoekers waren. Dit suggereert ten minste dat e-Dienstverlening kansen biedt voor nieuwe partijen.


[met dank aan Gerard Schuckman voor het waarnemen]

It has been busy, get used to it.

Last month or so it has been a very busy period. I visited an Executive briefing of Microsoft in Redmond where we discussed the Microsoft Online and Cloud propositions. I visited an EBC about this theme about a year ago and back then a lot of promisses where made.
Well the Microsoft Cloud Azure is released and it seems this will become a real succes. Still a lot of development is needed to make this technologie and functionality available for the masses. In the end IT infra will become a utility.
The biggest promise was made towards the Microsoft Online community. Business Productivity Online Services or short BPOS has become codename Union. The name BPOS wasn't exactly sexy or appeling. Well the speed in the online market is enormous and that surprised everybody, even the marketing of Microsoft. But what's in the name. Well there are a lot of changes to be taken in mind.
Today it is not posible to deploy solutions with custom code on the Microsoft Online environment. So for 'us' ISV's and other Microsoft partners the added value opportunity's where somewhat limmited. Well suspect this to change. Microsoft is still a company that sells licences (on-premise or as an online utility) and depents on added value thrue it's partner channel.
When this issue is solved, whit it a LOT of functionality will become available. For instance SharePoint 2007 has evolved to SharePoint 2010. A big change with lot's of opportunity's. There's a lot of material out there to help you compare the different versions. BPOS today is based on SharePoint 2007, the server version or Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS). But as discussed a lot of functionality is not available in the multi tennant Online version BPOS. When UNION will hit the market (and me personaly expect it won't be that long to happen), a lot of the new SharePoint 2010 server functionality will be available ONLINE!
So what can I tell you about the changes... Not a lot NDA I'm sorry. But think about the goals of SharePoint (one place to SHARE your thoughts, the informaton or better the knowledge (tacit information), think about the developments in the social media tooling all arround us), take a look at the new functionality of SharePoint 2010 and you can imagine what will be subject of change yourself.
I can also explain what I do not like about SharePoint 2007, or what in my opinion is laking in that version. For instance SharePoint 2007 was still siloed. It was hard to make it one place to share your information. Searching information acrose a collection of sites was hard, maintainn the same enterprise structure for your meta information is not provided automaticaly in SharePoint 2007.
What do you think about the wiki functionality in SharePoint 2007? Well I love wiki's, but hate the poor suport in the SharePoint 2007 version. Ever tried to ad a picture? or a link? In Sharepoint 2010 wiki is everywhere, every page is a wiki and of course the tooling fits with a great user experience.
What do you expect from an online information and collaboration platform? Well you expect it to integrate with your onpremise environment if needed. You expect to be able to collaborate despite of the virtual wall between departments, but what about your company as an boundary object? You build extranets to reach to a higher business productivity even between company's, even if it is a very small company of one person who has some project business with you for a very short time and want to log on anonymous.

Well you can picture this for your self.

When? July the Microsoft World Partner conference will take place. Take a look at the keynote's of Steve Balmer about Online and Cloud strategy We're all in - is the new slogan. Given the growing attention IT utillity is given from the midmarket business my answer is soon. It is going to be busy!

Ook Ricoh levert oplossingen op basis van Microsoft Online diensten #li

'Wanneer u online bent kunt u via Outlook zien wie van uw collega's bereikbaar is, en heeft u altijd inzicht in agenda's. Ook kunt u videovergaderen, en uw bureaublad delen op afstand. U heeft bovendien altijd de laatste documenten binnen handbereik - óók als u niet op de zaak bent.'

Dit is de belofte zoals op de nieuwe site voor Microsoft Online diensten staat geschreven. Ricoh Nederland levert al meer dan 10 jaar aan haar klanten. De laatste jaren - als Microsoft Gold Partner - worden oplossingen op basis van SharePoint gebouwd. Deze oplossingen zijn inmiddels door ontwikkeld naar producten als de Document Store van Ricoh. Hiermee wordt een verbinding gelegd tussen de wereld van het papier en de digitale informatie.

Documenten spelen een belangrijke rol als informatiedrager binnen bedrijfsprocessen. Enterprise Information Management, Informatie Engineering en de logistiek die deze informatie op het juiste moment in de juiste vorm op de juiste plek brengt zijn specialismen die in de oplossingen zijn terug te vinden. Specifiek voor een aantal processen zijn hier frameworks voor opgebouwd en geven templates invulling aan de behoeften. Zo kent iedereen de vraag en de daaraan gerelateerde problemen om een factuur van een leverancier efficient door een organisatie heen te begeleiden.

Het besef dat het klassieke Document Management slechts voor een deel de huidige bedrijfsprocessen ondersteund wordt steeds groter. Denk aan de ontwikkelingen waar Microsoft in haar nieuwe SharePoint 2010 release de mogelijkheid biedt om documenten in een set te verzamelen. In de overheid kennen we deze relatie tussen documenten en informatie als ´een zaak´, in de verzekeringswereld of de advocatuur wordt wel gesproken over een dossier of een case. Ricoh heeft deze functionaliteit in haar Frameworks opgenomen en biedt de mogelijkheid om naast het document ook de hele set van gerelateerde documenten als een dossier te behandelen.

Steeds vaker komen documenten in digitale vorm binnen en de integratie met deze digitale stromen worden steeds beter. Feit is dat in de huidige wereld nog steeds erg veel informatie in een ongestructureerde vorm op papier wordt aangeleverd. Postkamers hebben nog steeds een zeerbelangrijke rol in het verzamelen van deze binnenkomende stroom en het voorbewerken en afleveren van deze gegevens op de juiste plek in het bedrijfsproces. Efficiente en effectieve verwerking is de eerste stap in de besparing in het informatielogistieke proces. Door een deze informatie stroom te digitaliseren en te integreren in een digitale postkamer waar verschillende informatie kanalen (digitaal en analoog) samenkomen wordt dit proces in gang gezet.

Lang niet elk bedrijf ziet het beheer van de ondersteunende informatiesystemen als taak. Men ziet op tegen de complexiteit en de kosten die de investering met zich meebrengen. Ontwikkelingen die de laatste tijd beschikbaar komen geven een antwoord op deze behoeften. Al een aantal jaren is het met de grote beschikbaarheid van grote bandbreedte via het internet heel goed mogelijk om (een deel van) een systeem buiten het eigen bedrijf te plaatsen. Een voorbeeld van deze ontwikkeling zijn de online diensten van Microsoft. Ricoh investeerd in deze ontwikkeling en brengt haar oplossingen naar deze online platformen. Naar verwachting zullen in hewt verlengde van de release van het Microsoft SharePoint 2010 platform 12 mei 2010 al vrij snel de online varianten beschikbaar komen.

Voor die bedrijven die graag van hun beheer af willen, maar de infrastructuur en de data binnen het eigenbedrijf willen houden is een appliance een oplossing. Een combinatie van server, software matige oplossingen en het beheer in één. Direct beschikbaar.

22 juni 2010 organiseerd Ricoh haar vierde seminar over SharePoint in het auditorium van Microsoft Nederland in Schiphol. Er zijn geen kosten verbonden aan deelname.

Microsoft Excecutive Briefing Center visit about 'Cloud' with a special event at the end: 'the ASHcloud'

The 13th of April me and my collegue took a plane to Seattle. We planned our trip back to The Netherlands on the 18th. Well... The volcano 'Eyjafjallajökull' on Iceland changed the plans of a lot of people depending on the 'Cloud'. It took us some extra days to get back to Europe.

Cloud was the theme of the Microsoft Excecutive Briefing. Azure and BPOS. These developments at Microsoft are huge. Major investments in this area. Checkout the -We're All In- statement of Microsoft CEO Steve Balmer at his keynote at the University of Washington.

During this briefing the latest developments were unveiled. We had the opportunity to take a look at the investments in datacenters all over the world. More important is the evolution in the way the datacenters are build, a different level of utilizing 'flexponsive' computing and storage.

This is the layer 'Azure' is build on. Eventualy most of Microsofts products will be ported to this platform in the cloud. At this moment BPOS is not yet build on the Azure platform.

BPOS (Business Productivity Online Suite) is the name of the suite that includes Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Office Live Meeting and Office Communications Online. This package with this terrible name has been given the code name 'Union' and will be rebranded. Expect this to happen at the WPC10 (Microsoft Worldpartner Conference) in Washington DC July this year.

The functionality set of Union is much, much more comprehensive than the functionality available now in BPOS. The first step is the launch of all wave14 developments (Exchange2010, Office2010, SharePoint2010 etc). One of the biggest complaints in the market (partners and customers) was the problem that the SharePoint part of BPOS lacked the possibility to be customized. Well you have some possibility's to make changes, but no custom code in the multi tennant BPOS environment. A single tennant environment (dedicated version) is available from 5000 seats. This is all going to change.

The pricing per seat per month has been changed since the introduction about a year ago. In the Netherlands you can have the functionality of a total set for just €8,52 pppm. So you get a Mailserver; a collaboration site where you can store your documents, share information etc; one can setup online conversations and even choose to do so if a person appears to be available (presence). Think of the infrastructure needed to build and maintain this in your own datacenter!

SharePoint 2010 and NEN2082 BUZZ - vervolg

Onlangs liet ik een BUZZ achter op deze BLOG over de prérelease implementatie van SharePoint 2010.

Inmiddels heeft QNH zelf gepubliceerd over deze implementatie bij de gemeente Nieuwegein. De ECB heeft implementatie in de praktijk getoetst volgens de Nederlandse Recordsmanagement norm NEN2082. Zoals Dick Marijnen van de ECB aangeeft een zeer waardevolle stap om substitutie mogelijk te maken.

SharePoint 2010 wordt 12 mei 2010 officieel released.

Met het hoofd in de wolken en de voetjes van de vloer

ICT~Office. SaaS en Cloud seminar.

Afgelopen week (11 mrt 2010) heb ik het Seminar van ICT~Office bezocht waar het platform werd gegund aan twee grote spelers uit de wereld van de IT - Google en Microsoft. Voor Google was Erik de Muinck Keizer aanwezig. Microsoft had Peter de Haas afgevaardigd.
De ontwikkeling van SaaS en het begrip Cloud meer algemeen werd door de analist Jeffrey Mann vanuit Gartner 'perspectief' belicht.

Alle drie de sessies waren de moeite van het bekijken zeker waard, maar één issue is bij me rondblijven zingen tijdens de afgelopen dagen.

Security.

De vraag of bedrijven hun informatie aan de Cloud kunnen toevertrouwen is een altijd terugkerend onderwerp. De grote jongens die een rol spelen in Battle Zone Cloud (Microsoft, Google, Cisco en IBM - Jeffrey Mann, Gartner) nemen dit uitermate serieus als essentiële basis van hun proposities. Hoewel het vertrouwen vanuit de markt nog niet eindeloos is, lijkt het vertrouwen in de grondhouding van deze leveranciers ten aanzien van het onderwerp wel te groeien.

Opvallend.

Opvallend echter is dat Google licht laconiek omging met het issue. Toen het publiek daar Erik de Muinck Keizer op aansprak en refereerde naar het China incident van begin dit jaar startte hij zijn verweer wel door te zeggen dat hij die indruk niet had willen wekken en dat Google dit zeer serieus neemt. Echter in de toelichting hanteerde hij dezelfde argumenten als eerder in zijn betoog.

Bunker en bezemkast

Google heeft in de wereld een enorme capaciteit aan rekencentra staan. Deze voldoen aan zeer zware eisen. Een veel aangehaald certificaat de laatste tijd is de SAS70 certificering en dan wel de Type II.
De trajecten om te komen tot deze certificering zijn niet flauw en veel van de processen en maatregelen die getroffen zijn om deze certificering te bereiken worden niet zomaar openbaar gemaakt. Google hanteert hierin een heel gesloten beleid, zo merkt ook Gartner op. Ze laten niet eenvoudig in hun keuken kijken en dat beleid wordt ook meerdere malen door Erik de Muinck Keizer tijdens zijn verhaal en ook later in zijn toelichting expliciet vermeld.
Eén van de argumenten die wordt aangehaald is dat dit te maken heeft met het risico dat daarmee de certificering kan vervallen. Nu werp ik me niet als expert op als het gaat om de beveiliging en de exploitatie van rekencentra in het algemeen en SAS70 certificerings trajecten in het bijzonder. Wel ben ik al een aantal maal op bezoek geweest in zo'n bunker. Enfin. Prima dat Google dit beleid hanteert en voorzichtig is met de wijze waarop ze hun rekencentra en de beveiliging daarvan hebben ingericht. Ik heb daar geen moeite mee.
Minder plezierig voel ik me echter bij het gebruik van deze SAS70 certificering in een presentatie om te benadrukken dat een onpremise installatie van een applicatie nooit hetzelfde security niveau kan bereiken als een enterprise cloud oplossing vanuit een bunker. Eerlijk gezegd verwacht ik niet anders.
Als dan bovendien Google ook nog klaagt dat ze zich in negatieve zin in de picture spelen als er zich eens een keer een security incident voordoet, dat de pers daar massaal op springt. Wat verwacht je dan? Maar het wordt wel licht irritant indien je dan naar alle security incidenten op de zoemende pizzadozen in de bezemkast van de gemiddelde MKB'er of zelfs enterprise onderneming wijst. Nee, de pers maakt daar veel minder geluid over. Het incident op die schaal is echter in geen enkele verhouding met een security breach bij één van de ondernemingen die graag als megavendor in de Cloud Battle Zone gepositioneerd wordt door Gartner.

Het oordeel van Gartner

Gartner had de gelegenheid om de derde en laatste sessie op het podium te brengen. Daarin bracht Jeffrey Mann op een ontspannen manier overzicht aan in de battle zone en volwassenheid van de mega vendors volgens de analyse van Gartner. Daarin werd ondermeer Security implementation geduid als 'serious work needed' en is ook de service afspraken (SLA) naar de klant nog niet optimaal. Even later werd door Jeffrey Mann een aantal punten belicht die tot een doomscenario zouden kunnen leiden. Voor Google heeft Gartner een drietal punten in het kader van security en eigenlijk nog meer op het gebied van vertrouwen aangehaald.

• Blocked access to information
• Government regulation
• Privacy and Trust crisis

Oef. Dit zijn serieuze bedreigingen indien je als pure Cloud speler de enterprise markt wil bestormen.

In de herkansing

Tot slot was het aan een panel om haar oordeel te geven en aan het publiek om vragen te stellen. De wijze waarop Erik de Muinck Keizer de opstelling t.a.v. security had overgebracht werd aan de kaak gesteld. Het China incident was daarbij het concrete vraagteken wat geplaatst werd. Een laconieke opstelling en wegwuiven van het probleem was de beschuldiging.
Beide partijen, Google en Microsoft kregen de gelegenheid om uitgebreid toelichting te geven. Helaas herhaalde Erik de Muinck Keizer zijn eerder aangehaald verweer. Een gemiste kans om met de voeten op de vloer te komen.

Het resultaat?

Het resultaat van deze opstelling is dat de indruk van een laconieke opstelling t.a.v. security enkel versterkt werd. Misschien zelfs arrogant ontkent of van de hand werd gewezen.

Tot Slot

Laat ik toch vooral duidelijk stellen dat ik geloof in de intentie die Google en ook de andere leveranciers in het speelveld het onderwerp security uiterst serieus nemen. Dat de ontwikkelingen op dit gebied enorm zijn, maar de aanpak van Google deze dag was niet handig te noemen.

De presentaties zijn door ICT~Office aan de aanwezige bezoekers verzonden. De slidedeck van Peter de Haas is zoals gewoonlijk ook in zijn slideshare te vinden. Die van Google die ontbrak tot nu toe, maar misschien dat deze nog volgt.

SharePoint 2010 and NEN2082 BUZZ

During a prérelease SharePoint 2010 implementation a succesfull NEN2082 audit has completed. Last time the certification of SharePoint 2007 took till mid 2008.

I can not reveal the source nor the details about the case yet but... I expect this news will go public whitin a short period.