Magic Quadrant for Horizontal Portal

Magic Quadrant for Horizontal Portal Products, 2007 24 August 2007 David Gootzit, Gene Phifer, Ray Valdes Gartner RAS Core Research Note G00150038 The portal product market continues to mature, with most enterprises evaluating the products provided by a core group of commercial enterprise software vendors. Several horizontal portal vendors are leveraging Web 2.0 technologies and concepts to further differentiate their products.

What You Need to Know Enterprises continue to spend significant amounts of money on horizontal portals, but mostly on a core group of high-profile, enterprise-focused software vendors. Several vendors have exited the horizontal portal market. Although there have not been major new entrants since 1Q07, the possibility remains that vendors from related markets, such as business intelligence platforms or business process management suites (BPMSs), will attempt to differentiate themselves in their core markets by adding functionality to their vertical interfaces to make them more applicable to horizontal portal deployment scenarios. The potential also exists for a Web 2.0-oriented startup to focus on this area — in particular, some vendors describing themselves as providing "mashup" capabilities. Although software as a service (SaaS) has not yet emerged as a generally suitable horizontal portal consumption mechanism, a major consumer Internet-based personal start-page provider, such as Google, could also significantly alter the competitive landscape, although it would have significant technical challenges. Most organizations deploying open-source horizontal portals at this point do so on a limited basis, although interest in open-source portal alternatives has increased among large enterprises. Personal mashup tools, such as Microsoft Popfly, and mashup tool vendors are positioning themselves as alternatives to traditional horizontal portal products. Organizations evaluating portal functionality primarily consider vendors that have a heritage in business applications or software infrastructure. Selecting a horizontal portal product requires careful vendor evaluation to make appropriate trade-offs among functional capabilities, architectural fit and strategic direction. Use Gartner's Magic Quadrant in combination with other tools, including analyst consultation, when selecting a horizontal portal. The horizontal portal product market continues to develop along the general lines discussed in "Magic Quadrant for Horizontal Portal Products, 2006" and "Critical Trends Impacting the Portal Product Market in 2007 and Beyond," with the exception that Gartner’s prediction of a new vendor entering this market by the end of 2007 has yet to occur as of the time of publication. The 2007 Magic Quadrant for horizontal portal products (see Figure 1) has 10 vendors, down from 14 in 2006. Some vendors shifted their focus elsewhere and effectively left the market. Other vendors' portal-derived revenue has fallen to levels indicating low market interest in their portal capabilities. Return to Top Magic Quadrant Figure 1. Magic Quadrant for Horizontal Portal Products, 2007 Source: Gartner (August 2007) Return to Top Market Overview After two major waves of vendor consolidation, the horizontal portal market continues to coalesce around a core group of large independent software vendors (ISVs). In many ways, the portal market reflects one area of competition among the technology stack vendors. Portals play strategic roles in the stack strategies of several large ISVs, whether they serve as the focus of a service-oriented architecture (SOA) vision or as the foundation of their applications' interface strategies. Of the vendors profiled in the 2006 Magic Quadrant, only Hummingbird has been acquired. However, several vendors left the market by focusing their efforts away from horizontal portal customers toward other opportunities, or their market traction has slipped to negligible levels. Although no new vendors have entered this market since 2006, several enterprise software vendors in related markets, including several targeting BPM suites, provide some functionality traditionally associated with horizontal portals. Additionally, a range of consumer Internet-oriented personal start-page vendors could potentially develop an enterprise focus. Providing horizontal portal functionality through a SaaS model would be a possible strategy for one or more of these vendors. Personal mashup tools from vendors such as Microsoft and Yahoo could form the basis of enterprise offerings serving as alternatives to traditional horizontal portal products. Many mashup toolkit vendors are already targeting the enterprise space and could attract the attention of some buyers. Although adoption of open-source software (OSS) portals at an enterprise level to date is low among Fortune 2000 companies, some organizations have used OSS portals on a departmental or ad hoc project basis. Through 2009, less than 20% of Global 2000 companies will deploy open-source portals at the enterprise level because of lack of compelling advantages in cost, support, functionality and finish. However, Gartner does not expect this trend to continue indefinitely. First, Sun's support for an open-source initiative based on Sun Java System Portal Server 7 provides another open-source horizontal portal alternative, but one associated more directly with an established software vendor. Second, the combination of functional enhancements by commercial open-source portal vendors, with the second iteration of vendor-independent portal standards, such as Web Services for Report Portlets (WSRP) v.2 and Java Specification Request (JSR) 286, is likely to promote interest in OSS portal alternatives. JSR 286 and WSRP are expected to successfully address many of the limitations of the first iterations of these standards (for example, JSR 168 lacked a mechanism for interportlet communication), and these improvements should promote third-party portlet development that will benefit open-source horizontal portal alternatives. Interest in the Web 2.0 phenomenon is affecting the horizontal portal market. In addition to leveraging Ajax or alternative rich Internet application technologies to provide richer user interfaces, horizontal portal vendors are looking to the consumer Internet for inspiration in terms of functionality ranging from enabling an end-user mashup generation to communal tagging and social networking. Multiple horizontal portal vendors already support a mashup generation to a limited degree. Many of the technologies associated with Web 2.0 are making their way into shipping products and vendor road maps for 2008. Return to Top Market Definition/Description Gartner defines a portal as a "Web software infrastructure that provides access to, and interaction with, relevant information assets (for example, information/content, applications and business processes), knowledge assets and human assets by select targeted audiences, delivered in a highly personalized manner." Enterprise portals may face different audiences, including: Employees — business-to-employee (B2E) Customers — business-to-consumer (B2C) Business partners — business-to-business (B2B) A portal product is a packaged software application that is used to create and maintain enterprise portals. These products can be used to design vertical or horizontal portals. Vertical portals focus on accessing specific applications or business functions. Horizontal portals seek to integrate and aggregate information from multiple cross-enterprise applications, as well as specific line-of-business tools and applications. Most companies looking for portal functionality will deploy horizontal portal products, although many types of suites also contain horizontal portal frameworks. Portal services will be embedded in multiple product types, and an increasing number of enterprises will use these other product packages to obtain portal functionality. Return to Top Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria Vendors must meet four minimum criteria to be considered for the Magic Quadrant for Horizontal Portal Products, 2007: Achieved at least $3 million in annual portal-related product and service revenue during the 2006 calendar year Provide sales and support for the portal product in at least two of the following geographic regions: North America; Latin America; Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA); Japan; or the Asia/Pacific region Have the ability to sell an enterprise portal for deployment in a variety of scenarios, including B2E, B2B and B2C Provide portal functionality that meets all first-generation criteria, as defined in "Portals Are the 'Swiss Army Knives' of Enterprise Software" Return to Top Added No vendors were added to the 2007 Magic Quadrant. As in previous years, several vendors and open-source alternatives failed to meet one or more of the market inclusion criteria. Examples include, but are not limited to, abaXX Technology, DotNetNuke, Hitachi, Liferay, Red Hat JBoss, NEC and uPortal. Return to Top Dropped Four vendors included in the 2006 Magic Quadrant for horizontal portal products were not included in this year’s analysis. Vendors were omitted from the analysis if they no longer met the inclusion criteria, shifted out of the horizontal portal market or were acquired. CA no longer actively markets CleverPath Portal to new customers, nor does it derive sufficient revenue from the product as a horizontal portal, although the technology is leveraged to provide the interface for numerous CA products. Day Software does not derive sufficient portal-related revenue and has focused on the enterprise content management space. Hummingbird was acquired by Open Text in October 2006. Open Text is not selling Hummingbird's Webtop product. WebMethods does not derive sufficient portal-related revenue to meet the basic inclusion criteria, although portal functionality is present in webMethods Fabric and webMethods Business Process Management Suite. Additionally, Software AG, which acquired webMethods, has not indicated interest in the horizontal space. Return to Top Evaluation Criteria Ability to Execute Enterprises evaluating horizontal portal technology have a wide range of requirements for different audiences. A breadth of functions supporting different portal deployment scenarios, long-term vendor viability, a demonstrated track record of meeting customer needs and successfully expanding market presence are all important criteria for ability to execute in this market. A vendor that may not be rated highly in terms of its ability to execute in the general horizontal portal space may still provide compelling functionality supporting a particular portal deployment scenario. Table 1. Ability to Execute Evaluation Criteria Evaluation Criteria Weighting Product/Service high Overall Viability (Business Unit, Financial, Strategy, Organization) high Sales Execution/Pricing high Market Responsiveness and Track Record high Marketing Execution standard Customer Experience high Operations standard Source: Gartner Return to Top Completeness of Vision Vendors demonstrating an understanding of their customers' evolving needs, incorporating new customer demands into their product strategies and exhibiting technological innovation in their portal products exhibit completeness of vision in this market. Table 2. Completeness of Vision Evaluation Criteria Evaluation Criteria Weighting Market Understanding high Marketing Strategy standard Sales Strategy low Offering (Product) Strategy high Business Model low Vertical/Industry Strategy high Innovation high Geographic Strategy standard Source: Gartner Return to Top Leaders The leaders in this Magic Quadrant have a full range of capabilities to support all portal deployment scenarios, and have demonstrated consistent product delivery over a considerable period to meet customer needs, significant product innovation and continued success in selling to new customers. Return to Top Challengers There aren’t any challengers in the 2007 Magic Quadrant for Horizontal Portal Products. Return to Top Visionaries Tibco is the only visionary this year. Although it has exhibited vision regarding a range of portal capabilities, especially relating to its exploitation of Ajax, it has not exhibited the scope of delivery or the market presence of the leaders. Return to Top Niche Players The niche players in the horizontal portal product market focus on a more limited set of portal deployment scenarios or have limited geographic presence outside their home market Return to Top Vendor Strengths and Cautions BEA Systems Strengths BEA Systems offers two portal products. It positions AquaLogic Interaction as a credible offering for enterprises seeking a cross-platform horizontal portal product, while WebLogic Portal can be offered in conjunction with other WebLogic products to provide an integrated application platform suite for customers committed to Java. BEA has clearly articulated and implemented a strategy for how it will enable Web 2.0 concepts, such as social tagging and end-user-driven mashup creation, in new products and its existing portal offerings. BEA continues to play an aggressive role in portal specification definition efforts and in implementing support for relevant portal standards, including WSRP, in its products. In addition to its presence in the horizontal portal space, BEA is a leading vendor in several key related markets, including application servers, integration and BPM. Return to Top Cautions The decision to maintain two distinct code bases (rather than the original plan to use a common portal engine) between WebLogic Portal and AquaLogic Interaction may place a burden on BEA to devote sufficient resources toward the maintenance and enhancement of two products. Customers using WebLogic Portal continue to wait for BEA to fulfill its promise to extend the functionality found in Plumtree's Activity Servers (rebranded as Interaction Collaboration, Publisher and Grid Search) to work in conjunction with its portal product. Return to Top BroadVision Strengths BroadVision offers strong functionality supporting B2C portal deployments, especially those with an e-commerce component. Return to Top Cautions BroadVision has stabilized revenue and cut costs, but it has yet to demonstrate new growth. Enterprises still worry that it lacks long-term viability, and prospects remain wary. Return to Top Fujitsu Strengths Fujitsu is a large, financially viable global provider of services, hardware and software. Fujitsu enjoys a strong position in its Japanese home market. A growing customer base outside of Japan for Interstage BPM provides a cross-selling opportunity for Interstage Portal. Return to Top Cautions Despite some success with other elements of the Interstage product family, Fujitsu's Interstage Portal has not had significant traction outside Japan. Fujitsu lacks a clear strategy to address growing market requirements in the areas of collaboration, mashups, social software and rich client interfaces. Return to Top IBM Strengths WebSphere Portal has been successfully deployed by a large customer base across a wide range of complex deployment patterns. IBM has clearly articulated how WebSphere Portal will support end-user-driven mashup creation and leverage complementary offerings, such as Lotus Connections, to inject Web 2.0 concepts into the enterprise. IBM offers a compelling vision for unified application compositing and deployment across a variety of user interfaces, including WebSphere Portal, Lotus Notes 8 and Lotus Expeditor. The new Accelerator packaging strategy enables IBM to offer solutions targeted at more-tactical issues, while maintaining WebSphere Portal as the underlying platform. Return to Top Cautions Use of WebSphere Portal requires investment in the WebSphere platform. WebSphere Portal has experienced less traction in small and midsize businesses than in large enterprises. Although IBM has made improvements to the installation and configuration experience, customers report that for some deployment scenarios, the WebSphere Portal continues to be more complex to implement than some other leading portal products. Return to Top Microsoft Strengths Microsoft's strategy to offer an integrated suite delivering portal, content management, collaboration, search and business intelligence functionality through Windows SharePoint Services and Office SharePoint Server 2007 will appeal to many enterprises, not just those that deployed SharePoint Portal Server 2003. The effective delivery of portal and Web content management functionality based on a single repository and the product's collaboration features is driving widespread interest in and deployment of Office SharePoint Server 2007 in intranet replacement, B2E portal and extranet scenarios. Embedding Windows Workflow Foundation in Windows SharePoint Services will position Office SharePoint Server 2007 as a potential default document-centric workflow platform in many enterprises. Office SharePoint Server 2007 is not just part of the Office brand. Integration to other elements of the Office family will provide a push factor for many enterprises to deploy additional Office server products (that is, Exchange 2007) once the enterprise has deployed any single component of the Office family. Extensions to the "MySite" model in Office SharePoint Server 2007 include the ability for users to share information about themselves and their work with other users. Return to Top Cautions Office SharePoint Server 2007 did not become generally available until January 2007; many of the larger early adopters have not yet completed their implementations. Initial feedback regarding larger, decentralized deployments of Office SharePoint Server 2007 indicate room for improvement in management and replication functionality. Office SharePoint Server 2007 relies on .NET, raising concerns for Java-centric enterprises. Return to Top Oracle Strengths Oracle has a large customer base for Oracle Portal, and the product is tightly integrated with other elements of Oracle Fusion Middleware. Oracle Portal enjoys a reputation for ease of implementation and deployment. Oracle offers a variety of out-of-the-box portlets for e-business applications and has been building its out-of-the-box portlet library for acquired applications from Siebel and PeopleSoft. Oracle's acquisition of Stellent augments the vendor's content management capabilities, although initial integration efforts focused on WebCenter Suite, not Oracle Portal. Return to Top Cautions Oracle will continue to confuse customers and prospects, unless it clearly and consistently communicates usage scenarios for Oracle Portal and WebCenter Suite and defines the long-term relationship between the two to ensure Oracle Portal customers that further investment in that product is justified. Although Oracle has indicated plans to offer Web 2.0-associated functionality to Oracle Portal customers separately from WebCenter Suite, it has not provided details regarding potential packaging and pricing. Oracle's focus on WebCenter Suite as the cornerstone of its future user interface strategy means that organizations investing in Oracle Portal should also plan on eventually deploying WebCenter Suite. Return to Top SAP Strengths SAP continues to invest in SAP Portal as the linchpin of its NetWeaver strategy, and as the user interface component of its overall SOA strategy and xApps offerings. SAP is taking concrete moves to decompose SAP Portal so that select services can be leveraged outside the portal. The NetWeaver Business Client, a rich client interface, is powered by SAP Portal's user interface services. SAP offers a large catalog of iViews providing out-of-the-box connectivity and integration between SAP Portal and SAP business applications. Return to Top Cautions SAP Portal continues to be deployed in organizations with SAP applications, but it enjoys little deployment outside its applications customer base. SAP portal deployments are often limited in scope to providing access to SAP applications. SAP has taken far longer than most of its competitors to support JSR 168; support will be available starting in SAP NetWeaver 7.1. Although improvements to make the user interface more flexible are planned in a service pack to be released in 4Q07, SAP Portal provides limited options to change the look and feel of the portal experience when compared with the features that several of its competitors provide. Return to Top Sun Strengths Sun has leveraged its acquisition of SeeBeyond with its Java Composite Application Platform System (CAPS), functionality that can be used to augment Sun Java System Portal Server's portal integration capabilities, as well as making the combination a strong compositing environment. Sun Java System Portal Server has demonstrated scalability in several large, high-demand, high-security portal deployments. Return to Top Cautions Sun's portal product continues to lose visibility and market traction, although the provision of an open-source version of the portal, as well as the portal's inclusion in the Java Enterprise System, could reverse the situation. Return to Top Tibco Strengths Since its acquisition of General Interface, Tibco has exploited Ajax to improve the user experience that can be created using its portal product. Tibco offers strong functionality in complementary areas, such as application integration and BPM, that can be used in conjunction with its portal. Return to Top Cautions Tibco continues to sell its PortalBuilder and General Interface products primarily to its integration product customer base and as supporting components in new integration-focused projects. Tibco has not been able to highlight its Ajax capability as an effective differentiator in this market. Despite recent improvements, Tibco PortalBuilder's content and collaboration features are relatively weak when compared with those of several leading portal vendors. Few third-party application vendors provide out-of-the-box portlets specifically for PortalBuilder. Return to Top Vignette Strengths Vignette has numerous customers that have deployed high-demand B2C portals using its technology. A significant installed base for Vignette's enterprise content management offerings provides a ready-made market for cross-selling Vignette Portal and the complementary Vignette Builder. The combination of Vignette Portal and Vignette Builder provides a strong portal-centric composite application development environment. Return to Top Cautions Vignette lacks the financial resources of the other leaders in this market. Vignette experiences continued organizational and executive change. Vignette is forced to fight against market perceptions that it is an enterprise content management vendor that also offers a portal. Its relative lack of "mind share" in comparison with other leading portal vendors leads many customers to focus their evaluations on other vendors. Return to Top The Magic Quadrant is copyrighted 24 August 2007 by Gartner, Inc. and is reused with permission. The Magic Quadrant is a graphical representation of a marketplace at and for a specific time period. It depicts Gartner’s analysis of how certain vendors measure against criteria for that marketplace, as defined by Gartner. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in the Magic Quadrant, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors placed in the “Leaders” quadrant. The Magic Quadrant is intended solely as a research tool, and is not meant to be a specific guide to action. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. © 2007 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction and distribution of this publication in any form without prior written permission is forbidden. The information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Gartner disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. Although Gartner's research may discuss legal issues related to the information technology business, Gartner does not provide legal advice or services and its research should not be construed or used as such. Gartner shall have no liability for errors, omissions or inadequacies in the information contained herein or for interpretations thereof. The opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice.

Leven na ANDEZ x

woensdag 7 november 2007 11:31 door Rik Sanders

Digimeente is volledig open source

De midoffice-oplossingen voor de gemeentemarkt tieren welig. De open source variant ontbreekt natuurlijk niet. Zo maken Uden en Zeist gebruik van Digimeente. Dat scheelt flink in de kosten, beweren beide gemeenten.

Als het gaat om de aansluiting van het backoffice op het frontoffice kunnen gemeenten uit een aantal oplossingen kiezen. Via aansluiting bij de coöperatie Dimpact, het ICTU-programma GovUnited of de MidOffice Community (van de Gebruikersvereniging Getronics PinkRoccade) kan gebruik worden gemaakt van collectief opgezette oplossingen. Of er kan rechtstreeks zaken worden gedaan met leveranciers, zoals de gemeenten Uden en Zeist deden. Zij kozen voor Digimeente Midoffice van Green Valley en LogicaCMG.
Digimeente Midoffice is een oplossing waarbij het frontoffice van Green Valley is geïntegreerd met het midoffice van LogicaCMG. "Digimeente is inmiddels operationeel bij de gemeente Uden", vertelt Michiel Riedijk, directeur van Green Valley. "In Zeist werken we nog aan koppeling met de website. De oplossing heeft alles in zich om dé standaard voor het midoffice te worden. Dat blijkt ook uit de grote belangstelling van gemeenten die willen aansluiten."

Vertrouwen
Uden koos voor Digimeente na een selectieronde waarbij vijf leveranciers waren betrokken. Eisen die landelijk waren geformuleerd voor de inrichting van het midoffice, vormden daarbij het uitgangspunt. "De oplossing van LogicaCMG en Green Valley gaf ons het meeste vertrouwen dat wij een midoffice-oplossing konden ontwikkelen volgens die landelijke standaard", zegt Mannus Slomp, directeur Publiekszaken bij Uden. "Dimpact en GovUnited bestonden toen nog niet. Al was dat wel het geval geweest, dan hadden wij toch Digimeente gekozen." Zeist wist precies wat voor oplossing ze wilden. "Wij hebben de kennis in huis om te bepalen hoe ons midoffice eruit moet zien", vertelt Henk Verbunt, hoofd Facilitaire Zaken en ICT bij Zeist. "LogicaCMG en Green Valley boden ons de gelegenheid om zelf mee te werken aan de ontwikkeling van die oplossing."
Volgens LogicaCMG en Green Valley is Digimeente Midoffice de enige midoffice-oplossing die echt open source is. "Wij laten leden van de open source community zonder kosten profiteren van ontwikkelingen van zowel Digimeente zelf als van alle koppelingen met backoffice-systemen van partijen als Centric en Getronics PinkRoccade", laat Jan Willem Boissevain weten. Hij is account directeur Publieke Sector bij LogicaCMG. "Digimeente is onafhankelijk, interoperabel, transparant en duurzaam. Onafhankelijk, want gebruikers kunnen ervoor kiezen het onderhoud door andere partijen te laten uitvoeren. Interoperabel, want we passen volledig open standaarden toe. Transparant, want Digimeente is gebaseerd op technologie die als sinds 2000 operationeel is. Duurzaam, want we draaien mee in projecten van ICTU." Riedijk: "Het is echt open source zoals open source hoort te zijn. De broncode staat op de website van sourceforge en is inmiddels al meer dan vijfhonderd keer gedownload." De URL is http://sourceforge.net/projects/digimeente-mo/.

Probleemloos koppelen
Uden bevestigt dat Digimeente open source is. "Voor de koppeling van front- en backoffice gebruiken wij zonder problemen ook software van andere leveranciers", zegt Slomp. Verbunt vindt het nog belangrijker of je Digimeente goed kunt koppelen met andere software. "Op dat punt hebben we tot nu toe alleen maar positieve ervaringen", zegt hij. "Digimeente doet wat we willen dat het doet. Ook bijvoorbeeld als het gaat om DigiD en onze website waarvoor wij al jaren software van Green Valley gebruiken." Uden liep niet tegen problemen aan bij de koppeling van Digimeente met decentrale regelgeving en de gemeentebekendmakingen. Voor koppelingen met het backoffice van bijvoorbeeld Centric en Getronics PinkRoccade ontwikkelden LogicaCMG en Green Valley koppelpunten. Deze ‘digitale stekkers' stellen ze ter beschikking aan andere leden van de gebruikersorganisatie zodat die hun eigen koppeling kunnen realiseren. "Zo delen we kosten en kennis", zegt Riedijk.
Verbunt is blij met die aanpak van LogicaCMG en Green Valley. "Digitale stekkers die voor het midoffice nodig zijn, ontwikkelen zij snel. En het is natuurlijk prachtig dat anderen die ook kunnen gebruiken. Die aanpak past helemaal in de geest van open source. Wat dat betreft kunnen de gevestigde leveranciers van backoffice-oplossingen nog wat leren. Zij steken veel te weinig energie in ontwikkeling van digitale stekkers om hun oplossing aan Digimeente te koppelen. Het duurt lang voor die stekkers er zijn en dan werken ze vaak ook nog niet vlekkeloos. Het kost ons veel geld en moeite." Slomp is het op dit punt helemaal eens met Verbunt. Boissevain: "Wij laten zoveel mogelijk gemeenten elkaars kennis en ervaring delen, zodat ze ontwikkelingen op elkaar kunnen afstemmen. Dan hoeft niet iedere gemeente weer opnieuw het wiel uit te vinden."

Goedkoop
Is een opensourceoplossing goedkoper dan een niet-opensourceaanpak? "Wij brengen geen kosten in rekening voor de ontwikkeling van onze oplossing", zegt Boissevain. "Van gemeenten die daarna van de oplossing profiteren, vragen we een bijdrage voor deelname aan de gebruikersorganisatie. Met die inkomsten ontwikkelen we Digimeente door, op basis van de roadmap die we samen met de gebruikersorganisatie maken. Verder kosten de implementatie en het onderhoud natuurlijk geld, waarbij kleine gemeenten voor onderhoud minder betalen dan grote." "Onze keuze voor open source hing niet primair af van de kosten", zegt Verbunt. "Het gaat toch om verschuiving van licentiekosten naar kosten voor service en onderhoud. LogicaCMG en Green Valley kwamen met zo'n gunstig aanbod, dat meedoen met een aanbesteding van Dimpact of GovUnited voor ons totaal niet interessant was." "Dat geldt ook voor ons", zegt Slomp. "Ik hoor bedragen noemen voor alleen het proces van aanbesteding. Daar blijven wij ver onder."
Moet Digimeenten inderdaad dé standaard worden voor automatisering van het gemeentelijke midoffice? "Er zijn veel initiatieven," zegt Boissevain, "maar wij hebben een concreet werkende oplossing. Uden en Zeist tonen dat aan. Er is veel belangstelling vanuit andere gemeenten." Riedijk: "Standaardisatie zoals wij die bij Uden en Zeist hebben bereikt, zien we nog niet veel bij midoffice-oplossingen. Bij andere gemeenten is het toch vooral maatwerk." "Ik zie dat wij al stappen hebben gezet waarover andere gemeenten nog aan het nadenken zijn", zegt Verbunt. "Ik denk dat Zeist met deze oplossing op het gebied van elektronische dienstverlening eerder in de kopgroep dan in de staart van peloton zit." Voor Uden geldt dat zeker. "Mede door de inzet van Digimeente zijn wij in de landelijke monitor van advies.overheid.nl over de stand van zaken rondom de ontwikkeling van de websites gestegen naar de zesde plaats."

Gphone

Google lanceert softwareplatform voor smartphones

Steve is dan wel niet bang voor de ontwikkelingen bij Google, en terecht, waarom zouden ze bij Microsoft... maar dit ziet er toch wel weer aardig uit!

In plaats van een mobiele telefoon, zoals lange tijd gespeculeerd is, lanceert Google een open softwareplatform voor smartphones.

Google maakt de oprichting bekend van Android, een open softwareplatform voor smartphones. De software is ontwikkeld door de Open Handset Alliance, een industrieel samenwerkingsverband. Hiertoe behoren niet alleen fabrikanten van chips voor mobiele telefonie, zoals Broadcom, Intel, Qualcomm en Texas Instruments, maar ook mobiele providers, waaronder T-Mobile.

"We bouwen geen GPhone, maar stellen duizend mensen in staat om een GPhone te bouwen", zegt Andy Rubin in de New York Times. Rubin leidt binnen Google de divisie voor mobiele platformen. Rubin was medeoprichter van Android, een Californische startup die software voor mobiele telefonie maakte, en die in augustus 2005 door Google gekocht werd.

De eerste mobiele telefoons die gebruik maken van Android worden eind 2008 verwacht en worden gemaakt door verschillende fabrikanten waaronder LG, Motorola and Samsung.

Google zegt dat mobiele providers met het nieuwe softwareplatform hun kosten omlaag kunnen brengen en hun productontwikkeling kunnen versnellen.

Google stelt Android gratis beschikbaar als open source software onder de Apache licentie. Fabrikanten kunnen de software dus gratis gebruiken en er nieuwe funtionaliteiten aan toevoegen.

DigiD en BSC ontvangen Good Practie Label 2007

DigiD en de Nederlandse BurgerServiceCode hebben een Europese prijs gekregen, omdat beide projecten toonaangevend zijn in het kader van elektronische overheid.

DigiD heeft het EU Good Practice Label 2007 gekregen. Deze prijs wordt uitgereikt door het European e-Government Awards Consortium aan een toonaangevend Europees project in het kader van de elektronische overheid. Ook aan de Nederlandse BurgerServiceCode is het EU Good Practie Label 2007 toegekend.

Het EU Good Practice Label 2007 wordt toegekend aan hoog gewaardeerde projecten die zijn opgenomen in de Europese kennisbank www.ePractice.eu. In deze kennisbank zijn e-overheidsprojecten uit 32 verschillende Europese landen verzameld. Slechts 10 procent van alle projecten krijgt het label toegekend, nadat zij van deskundigen of gebruikers een zeer hoge beoordeling hebben gekregen.

DigiD is een gemeenschappelijk systeem van en voor de overheid, waarmee overheidsinstellingen de identiteit kunnen vaststellen van burgers en bedrijven die gebruik maken van hun elektronische diensten. De BurgerServiceCode is een gedragscode. De code bevat tien normen waaraan de digitale contacten moeten voldoen.

Microsoft visie in beeld - software en services

Software + Services

Social Networking - SharePoint as a Social Networking Solution

Overview of Social Networking

From the SharePoint team BLOG - A Exerpt of a soon to be publiched whitepaper from Microsoft:

Eric Charran (Senior Consultant in Microsoft Consulting Services), Dino Dato-on (SharePoint Ranger), and Greg Lang (Program Manager for Microsoft Enterprise Services Communities Tools and Infrastructure) have written a soon to be published white paper that addresses the topic of the importance of social networking in an organization and how to properly implement MOSS 2007 as a social networking solution.

The concept of social networking has recently experienced a great deal of visibility as a means to increase the productivity of information workers and organization members. Social networking as a concept involves the ability for a technology platform to provide enhanced information and interaction capabilities with regard to people and resources. Within an organization, the goal of a technology platform providing social networking is to enhance communication, collaboration and bring about productivity increases regarding day to day activities and projects.

Information workers can leverage existing organizational social relationships in order to quickly find resources and colleagues to assist in projects, help with identifying and unblocking daily work issues as well as provide a deeper understanding of team structures and organizational relationships. The application of social networking within professional organizations is designed to help members quickly navigate team structures and groups in order to achieve results.

Comprehension of the value that social networking systems provide to organizations can be provided by the review of some empirical studies that focus on productivity enhancements before and after implementation.

Social networking systems in the enterprise (commonly referred to as “Communities of Practice”) can help increase productivity and efficiency. Take for instance this finding from a study performed by Lesser and Storck in 2001: "Communities appear to be an effective way for organizations to handle unstructured problems and to share knowledge outside of the traditional structural boundaries. In addition, the community concept is acknowledged to be a means of developing and maintaining long-term organizational memory. These outcomes are an important, yet often unrecognized, supplement to the value that individual members of a community obtain in the form of enriched learning and higher motivation to apply what they learn."

Social networking also assists in the extinction of information and capability silos by identifying subject matter experts and resources. Information workers seeking these resources can use a social networking technology platform discover individuals and teams that are related to their initiative or effort. This process, supported by the right technology circumvents a traditionally elongated and arduous discovery and resource-seeking process.

Office SharePoint Server as a Social Networking Solution

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 adds a significant social networking context to its existing collaboration and communication features and capabilities. By providing a framework for the establishment of user profiles and the ability to understand the organizational hierarchy between these profiles, Office SharePoint Server can easily connect information workers and organization members together.

Using the concept of individual, customizable user profiles, Office SharePoint Server allows users to publish their own personal and team information to the organization. Combined with information from organizational directory services such as Active Directory or other Human Resource Information Systems (HRIS), Office SharePoint Server builds a foundational organizational hierarchy that is used to present workgroup and colleague information to organization members. This rapid method of presenting friends and colleagues in an automated fashion provides quick access for information workers to teams and extended resources. Office SharePoint Server logically extends existing organizational directory services, combined with additional information sources to knit together a team-based view of organizational relationships and presents them to the user.

Office SharePoint Server Social Networking Features

Through the use of Office SharePoint Server as a collaboration platform, organizations can benefit from the productivity and communication enhancements exposed by social networking features. SharePoint exposes social networking to information workers and organization members through the use of colleagues. Colleagues are a list of friends, team members and co-workers that are related to a specific person through the establishment of a user profile. Colleagues are presented to users through a user's personal site (My Site) and are built using foundational elements that are established when Office SharePoint Portal Server is implemented within the organization.

Based on the organization's implementation of products including Active Directory, Exchange Server, Live Communications Server 2005 or Office Communications Server 2007, Office SharePoint Server will mine this information at the individual user level to determine other team members, organizational managers and direct reports and virtual team members that should appear on an individual's colleagues list. The colleagues list, presented through web parts on an individual’s personal profile page of their My Site will list these related individuals and provide contact, presence and organizational information to visitors.

Through the use of colleagues, organization members can find subject matter experts, key contacts and business relationship owners in the enterprise and gain instant access to the methods of communication with those personnel. This aspect of social networking allows for increased lines of communications, quick decision making and an optimization of human resources.

Managing Heterogeneous Social Networking Source Information

While the organizational hierarchy import from an authoritative directory store (such as Active Directory) is how Office SharePoint Server builds its initial foundation for social networking, organizations often have supplementary sources of information that can be combined to provide increased or enriched personal profile information. Thus, when users are looking for colleagues, rich information from secondary human resource information systems or personnel databases can be combined with Active Directory to provide a deeper "picture" of the colleague. In many cases, Active Directory contains a minimum amount of information about personal details, contact and address information and reporting relationships. Other human resource information systems contain a wealth of rich publicly accessible personnel data that would assist the social networking presentation features of Office SharePoint Server.

The goal for many organizations is to optimize their social networking experience by combining heterogeneous personnel information into an Office SharePoint Server user profile. By combining this information and modifying user profile properties, organizations can enrich the presentation of team and colleague information to organization members. In order to accomplish this goal, organizations require a carefully planned strategy when combining multiple sources of personnel information to provide a rich user profile for social networking using SharePoint Products and Technologies.

The following sections outline the features, patterns and practices involved with implementing social networking with Office SharePoint Server in an organization. These strategies will assist administrators in offering a full-fidelity social networking experience to organization members that build on solid heterogeneous directory and personnel data management. By selecting and implementing a strategy for enriched user profile creation, Office SharePoint Server can present relevant colleague, organizational hierarchy and team information to information workers.

Social Networking in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

The following sections briefly describe the elements of social networking in Office SharePoint Server. These features allow organizations to implement social networking and leverage the aforementioned benefits of increase productivity and efficiency. A critical component to the social networking features is the establishment of a populated user profile object. The population of the user profile by supplying its fields with authoritative personnel data from external sources provides a rudimentary framework that Office SharePoint Server builds to establish social networking relationships.

Social Networking Features

The following feature list outlines the capabilities that are provided to organization members in the context of social networking.

1. My Sites

My Sites are individualized sites created for each user profile that contains personnel information about the user as well as personal and public views of information, documents and other content. The My Site can contain personal and targeted blogs, wikis, lists and web parts displaying colleagues and other profile information. The My Site allows users to present information about their skills, individuals they know as well as other social information to visitors.

My Site Public Profile:

My Site Private View:

2. Colleagues Web Part

The colleagues web part allows users to present their mined and compiled colleagues to visitors. The colleagues list is a presentation of other organization members that the specified user works closely with in terms of organizational structure, interaction (i.e., email conversations and instant messaging contact lists) and group/site memberships. SharePoint can make recommendations regarding a colleague based on commonality of interactivity with these small groups, but users can also manually add and remove colleagues.

3. Colleague Tracker Web Part

The colleague tracker web part allows organization members to privately view their list of compiled colleagues and to modify their views and inclusion in their colleagues list. The colleague tracker web part allows for the presentation of recommended colleagues and allows the user to modify colleague tracking by profile information. For example, users can modify the colleague tracker to present updated colleagues when anniversaries, profile properties, authored documents and blogs change. Additionally, scoping the presentation can occur when users choose to view colleagues specifically for the user’s workgroup or organization-wide.

4. SharePoint Sites, Links, and Membership Web Parts

These web parts provide the ability for users to view their own Office SharePoint Server site, group and mail list memberships and links as well as those that they have in common with others. Additionally, visitors can view a user’s memberships, Office SharePoint Server Sites and distribution group memberships.

5. In Common With Web Part

Office SharePoint Server provides a summary view of information relating to the memberships, organizational managers and colleagues that a visitor has in common with the owner of a My Site.

6. Presence Information

When coupled with Office Communications Server and Exchange Server, presence information indicating online instant messaging status, Out of Office messages and contact information is displayed whenever user information is presented (i.e., colleagues and colleague tracker web parts, etc.).

7. People Search

Office SharePoint Server supports the discovery of team members, colleagues and other individuals by exposing a search interface in which information workers can search on the organization’s personnel. Results are returned to users and are presented in terms of social distance and relevance for grouping. The search can further be refined by user profile attributes including job title and alternatively be viewed based on search term relevance.

People Search on the term “Contractor” displayed by social distance:

8. People Search By User Profile Property

In addition to the various methods organization members can search on individuals using the people search capability, user profile properties displayed on the public profile property page of information worker’s My Site can automatically conduct a people search for individuals with the same property and value grouped by social distance. For example, individuals with a specific interest can select by clicking the interest from their own My Site profile and find others with a similar interest.

People Search initiated from the public profile page for Jesse Merriam for the term “Photography” displayed by social distance:

Social Networking Components

While the user profile population is critical, there are various other hierarchical components that build on each other in order to present the social networking features in Office SharePoint Server to users. The components enumerated below are fundamental in the role that Office SharePoint Server plays as a foundational element for social networking in an organization. These native components assist in assembling a social networking “picture” of personnel information and relationships based on data from heterogeneous sources and mined interactions.

1. User Profile

The user profile is a foundational component that collects and stores data regarding users of an Office SharePoint Server implementation. The profile contains a set of default fields that are extensible by administrators and customizable for organizations. The fields can be sourced from a variety of personnel information within an organization directly and combined to form a holistic view of users. As depicted in the figure below, data sources that populate user profiles can originate from Active Directory as well as an organization’s Human Resource Information System (HRIS) via the Business Data Catalog (BDC). By combining this information, enriched data regarding an individual’s skills, area of expertise, title, job description, etc. can be exposed through Office SharePoint Server’s social networking features.

Example Data Sources of an Office SharePoint Server User Profile:

While the scope and full description of the user profile object are beyond the scope of this documentation, it is important to understand that consistency and accuracy of the user profile information (and ostensibly the accuracy of presentation of this data in social networking functions) is important. The strategies discussed in this document will assist administrators in organizations to craft an information architecture that eliminates conflicting user profile information from disparate data sources.

The user profile is the core foundational object that enables Office SharePoint Server to accurately serve as a social networking solution. The user profile is used to construct an organizational hierarchy and eventually colleagues for users.

2. Organizational Hierarchy

The organizational hierarchy is a critical construct that allows Office SharePoint Server to begin the establishment of colleagues for users. The organizational hierarchy is built directly from fields within the user profile object for each user.

It is of vital importance that the organizational hierarchy is reviewed and accepted by the organization as it is one of the critical foundational elements of Office SharePoint Server’s social networking capabilities. If the organizational hierarchy is not accurate, all further mining and relationships between colleagues can be adversely affected. The best way to ensure that the hierarchy is accurate is to validate the information supplied to the user profile and resolve any differences and inaccuracies between the data sources that feed the profile.

The information in the user profile is used to tie together individuals to managers and peers. Once the hierarchy is established, it can be displayed on user’s My Site as well as used in the analysis to create a list of colleagues. For this reason, it is important to implement an information architecture that provides the user profile with the most accurate information for personnel, teams, colleagues and membership information.

3. Colleagues

Colleagues represent a core underpinning of the social networking experience. By enumerating colleagues and displaying them on user’s My Site and profile information through various web parts, organization members can easily view and connect with individuals that hold relationships to specific teams, initiatives and interests.

Colleagues are built on the information constructed from the organizational hierarchy. Thus, immediate peers, managers and direct reports are included in a specific user’s list of colleagues. They are also further enumerated by a mining process. Office SharePoint Server analyzes interactions of individual users by mining instant messaging contacts and Microsoft Office 2007. SharePoint communicates with the Office 2007 clients (i.e. Outlook, Communicator, etc.) using an ActiveX control whenever a user is added as a member of another user’s colleague and has consented through his/her My Site. .

The following figure outlines the process by which colleagues are constructed and presented in Office SharePoint Server. The organizational hierarchy is depicted as a foundational element that is coupled with contact information mining. Web parts on the user’s My Site and public profile allow for the presentation of colleague information in the context of relation to the specified user as well as an interface for managing colleague mining suggestions and manually adding and removing colleagues.

Hierarchical Structure of Colleague Formation and Presentation:

Accuracy of source information that feeds the user profile is critical to correct colleague presentation. As depicted above, if user profile information is inaccurate (either being fed from Active Directory, or an alternative BDC source), the organizational hierarchy will reflect these same inaccuracies. Thus, colleague formation and presentation will be similarly affected and present seemingly incomplete or incorrect results.

Planning for the implementation of profiles as part of the Office SharePoint Server implementation process involves a long and careful consideration of the information sources of user profiles, authentication privileges and rights for user profile modifications as well as My Site management and social networking feature configuration. See the following guide for additional information and tools on planning for people and profiles.

See the Plan for people and user profiles guide, part of the Planning and architecture for Office SharePoint Server 2007 documentation.

Conclusion

As a social networking platform, Office SharePoint Server provides an easy to implement and administer method for organizations to begin to leverage the benefits of social networking. Administrative staff needs to understand the strategies for coalescing heterogeneous personnel data into the Office SharePoint Server user profile object to ensure that the social networking associations between organizational members are accurate.

Use the BDC or external data source for non-core User Profile fields that require consistency when creating Social Networking features

The Business Data Catalog can easily supplement custom or non-core User Profile fields. These fields can be custom fields that are added to the user profile by administrators in response to demands by the organization to store additional, business-specific information about users. These fields are not used or leveraged in social networking connections within Office SharePoint Server. However, the same strategy should apply to these fields as well. The fewer sources custom or non-core fields have, the easier it is to manage the information architecture surrounding these fields to present a consistent picture of heterogeneous data within the user profile.

Preserve core User Profile fields to originate from the same data source (preferably AD)

Conversely, to aid in the establishment of a reliable and consistent social networking foundation, single-sourcing the user profile information from an authoritative data source (i.e., Active Directory) is preferred. Active Directory represents a widely implemented store of personnel and account information that Office SharePoint Server integrates with natively. Thus, as a store for multiple sources of identify information, it presents an expansive method of coalescing heterogeneous personnel data sources into a true authoritative store of information that can be used to populate the Office SharePoint Server user profile.

As organizations invest in various software packages to be the authoritative information store for various aspects of personnel information, it is important to design an information architecture and technical solution around the inclusion of this data into Office SharePoint Server as part of a user's profile. As such, a strategy is required to ensure that data from these sources don't conflict, overlap and cause inconsistencies in the social mining involved in creating colleague matches.

Windows Server 2008 - No pricing difference WSS 3.0

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 will return to being available as a separate download for Windows Server 2008 customers. There is no pricing difference though and WSS will remain no additional charge for our Windows Server customers. This is notable for Windows SharePoint Services customers who have downloaded any of the Windows Server 2008 evaluation code, as the return to offering WSS as a separate download will take effect with the next Windows Server 2008 release candidate.

Share Your Point

SharePointPedia

Content recommendations or recommended reading. The first MSCOM hosted SharePoint based application that has support for Windows Live ID authentication and integration with Microsoft's "RegSys" user profile system that is used across all Microsoft.com properties

SharePointPedia.com is a web site where people discover and share useful content about SharePoint and SharePoint related products and technologies. It’s a social computing application built on top of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007. Anyone with a Windows Live ID may become a registered user and can then submit content recommendations or requests, leave comments, or just vouch for whatever they like.

Note that SharePointPedia is not a wiki. It’s a “pedia” in the sense of being a compendium of useful content, but rather than being limited by just wiki functionality, it leverages the much broader set of capabilities in SharePoint. SharePointPedia is also about community, where you can find and connect with others, who have similar interests as you or who have recommended content relevant to you.

	Announcing SharePointPedia -- community driven content recommendations and requests

Andez 2

Andez 2 gunningen bekend

In ANDEZ-2 participeren de gemeenten Barendrecht, Barneveld, Maastricht, Utrecht, Veghel, Venlo en de vier Friese gemeenten Achtkarspelen, Dantumadeel, Dongeradeel en Kollumerland die zich hebben verenigd in een samenwerkingsverband genaamd NOFA (Noord-Oost Friese Aanpak). Heel symbolisch begonnen zij negen maanden geleden aan de door EGEM gecoördineerde aanbesteding met ondersteuning van M&I/Argitek van Prof. Dr. Ir. Wouter Keller. Deze tweede aanbesteding borduurde voort op de succesvolle ANDEZ-1 aanbesteding van Alphen aan den Rijn, Nieuwegein, Delft, Ede en Zoetermeer.

Het bestek van ANDEZ-1 is op onderdelen uitgebreid en de waardevolle lessen uit deze eerste aanbestedingsronde zijn erin verwerkt. Na een intensieve beoordeling van de aanbiedingen, selecteerden de gemeenten vier consortia, te weten Bull (met SECVenture en Bentley), Centric (met Segment en Avanade), Inter Access (met GX Public, Baas & Roost Advies) en PerfectView (met Kodision en Macaw), voor deelname aan het Proof of Concept (PoC).

Op 12 oktober maakten de deelnemers aan ANDEZ-2 bekend voornemens te zijn te komen tot de volgende gunningen:

• Barendrecht: Centric
• Barneveld: Centric
• Maastricht: Inter Access
• NOFA: Inter Access
• Utrecht: Bull
• Veghel: Centric
• Venlo: PerfectView

End User SharePoint

Prima overzicht van een aantal functionaliteiten van Microsoft Office SharePoint Server. Doelgroep van de video's END USER SHAREPOINT.

End User SharePoint

Create and Configure a Blank Site (Download Documentation)

1. Introduction and Overview (1 min 26 secs)
2. Create the Site (3 mins 15 secs)

Create and Configure a Templates Library (Download Documentation)

1. Create a Templates Library (1 min 37 secs)
2. Configure the Templates Library (2 mins 43 secs)
3. Upload Templates to the Templates Library (6 mins 41 secs)

Create and Configure the Main Document Library (Download Documentation)

1. Create a Document Library for Holding Basic Content (1 min 57 secs)
2. Create Content Types to Attach to the Library (5 mins 53 secs)
3. Attach Content Types to the Library (2 mins 35 secs)
4. Create Content in the Document Library (3 mins 07 secs)
5. Add Metadata Columns to the Document Library (3 mins 10 secs)
6. Configure the Default Document Library View (6 mins 00 secs)
7. Summary of Progress (1 min 06 secs)

---

Screencast Archive

Each screencast is related to a post, so if you want to know the context, you’ll want to refer back to the post. You can request a new screencast by making a comment in the Screencast Request post.

• Topic: Library Management
  Screencast: Send a Copy of Document to Another Library
  Time: 4 mins 01 secs
  Post: Send a Copy of a Document to Another Library
  
  Screencast: Local Check In Feature with Word, Excel and PowerPoint
  Time: 3 mins 45 secs
  Post: Videocast - Local Check In Feature in MS Office
  
• Topic: Calendars
  Screencast: Consolidation with content query webpart
  Time: 4 mins 30 secs
  Post: Calendar Rollups: Is there a solution?
  
  Screencast: Consolidation with a list webpart
  Time: 4 mins 57 secs
  Post: Calendar Rollups: Is there a solution?
  
• Topic: Web Parts
  Screencast: Display the same Document Library List in Multiple Sites
  Time: 3 mins 45 secs
  Post: Display a Document Library List in Multiple Sites