What I want – smartphone, tablet, laptop and desktop – nivarna….

From what I see day-to-day there is increasingly less focus on what is going on in the realms of desktop OS. As browsers are getting steadily more and more advanced, and vendors are now getting behind HTML5 and CSS3it is making browser apps a much more pleasant place to be. Furthermore the ‘technical native’ generation are entering the workforce and as a result they are happy with the concept of browser-based apps. Also of note is that the strangle hold that Microsoft has had on the desktop OS world is beginning to relax: in 2003 Windows (in one flavor or another) accounted for nearly 94% market share, as of March 2011 this figure is now 86% (source WC3 stats). That represents quite a slide – and a 2% reduction in the last year alone. More interestingly it seems that Windows 7 (their best OS yet) hasn’t increased the market share yet even Vista caused an up-tick…  IDC announced yesterday that  Global PC shipments declined 3.2% during the first quarter of 2011 (1Q11) compared to the same time last year and that will have a knock on affect for the revenues of the likes of Microsoft. The world seems to be changing – and it seems things like tablets and smartphones may be the cause of this.

Now this is where there is an opportunity… let me explain…

When Motorola announced the Atrix I thought they were on to something – I really liked some of the ideas but the truth was it was a case of being close but not getting the cigar. I loved the accessories but all in the price is just too hard to swallow and that the netbook/laptop options meant I would end up running a Linux desktop which just isn’t for me (I know – I know – Linux is a great os but I’m not a fan)- so I remain a walking catalogue of consumer electronics….

If I could have a smartphone, that I could ‘dock’ into a tablet that I could then click onto a keyboard (for my laptop) and then when at my desk dock into a cradle to give me access to my multiple screens, mouse, keyboard (and touch screen aspect of the tablet for control etc) – each time increasing the processing power, resolution capabilities and storage then I believe we would have world peace 🙂 – well I for one would be happy. If I could go seamlessly from one device to another with access to same docs, (perhaps have a cloud based storage mechanism) or at least remote access to the files on the cradle whilst traveling then this would be a winner. Especially as this would also be a mobile/desktop soft-phone. Microsoft, Apple and increasingly Google (enter ChromeOS) are well positioned for this strategy and I have a feeling that this is where Apple are going – maybe that is the basis for the iPhone5 nano rumors and the huge new data-center… after all this would again change everything.

Now it’s time to bitch about the iPhone.

OK – I may ave finally reached the end of the honeymoon period with my iPhone4. I had some teething problems with it when we first got together, things like not being able to accept ICS invitations etc – but all those issues are in the past, but this week… my rose tinted glasses may have finally been removed…

Two major problems have finally worn me down:

1. BATTERY
2. HEAT

So I got used to the fact that I’d be lucky to get more than 24hrs worth of battery life out of the iPhone4, with moderate use – and provided I didn’t let my children near it but I’m now down to around 10 Hours tops. This is a MAJOR problem, as I’m not glued to the phone all the time in fact in terms of phone calls today I’ve made a total of 4 calls each less than 5mins in length, I used it to listen to podcasts this am for 1hr total and I’ve checked emails a they have arrived so today would be a low usage day. Oh and it was charged overnight.

As for the heat, well if I used the phone for more than 2-3 mins either to make a call or for apps the screen would get very hot. I’ve never had this issue before and my first attempt at fixing the issue was a full reboot – no joy. Eventually I closed down all the open apps and repeated the reboot and this seemed to fix the issue. This was a real surprise I’d not been doing anything that different in terms of my usage (or that of my children who seem to take control of it every weekend!)  and I thought that the concept of backgrounding apps on the iPhone was that the apps were put into a state of suspended animation so as not to consume resources – is this no longer the case?

I’m blaming iOS4.3.1 for my troubles – 4.2 presented me none of these issues. Am I now returning from the dark-side and the cult of Apple? Is it time to move to Droid – or horror of horrors back to BlackBerry?  Well I will be trying out the new BB devices when they come out over the next few months but before I issue divorce papers to my iPhone I will see if iOS 4.3.2 will repair my relationship.

The universal dashboard – Lync Group Chat in Sharepoint

Last year we completed a Project where they wanted to create a ‘dashboard’ for their users which combined all their knowledge ‘Stories’ in one UI to form what they call a picture.

The idea being that if you work in a particular team you would have access to all the same information as the rest of the team, combining CRM with research systems and transactional tools. 

We then took this concept a step further and created an automated process where every time a trade is posted to their order management system it is posted to the relevant channel with links back to the CRM tool (Dynamics), as well as updating the view to show either the client’s transactional history or  other transactions in the same stock.

The feedback from the end users was so positive we took the bespoke concept and productised it to work seamlessly with .Lync 2010 and SharePoint 2010 (as well as 2007 and foundation editions).

You can see the product brochure here: WebChat for SharePoint

Why I’ve divorced my blackberry.

So the background is that I’ve been using the blackberry in anger now since 2003-4, my first was a 7100 – I think… I can’t say I loved it to begin with – more suffered it – as I had to have access to email all the time and living in an area with no broadband was an issue.  I was working at Parlano – and our whole way of working was based on using group chat so I only had email contact with customers. It was when I moved to Reuters (now Thomson Reuters) that I discovered the blackberry crack – and soon became addicted, due to the integration with our mail and calendar system (Exchange) – Reuters had an email culture and it was the defacto way of communicating.

So, roll on a couple of years to July 2010, now working at Formicary. I got a free upgrade opted to go for an iPhone – I wanted to see how the other half live, and as Formicary are RIM partners we get the new BlackBerry devices just before launch so I would still be able to get a new RIM device from work so it seemed sensible to try something new.   So swapped to using the iPhone and HATED it…. there was no way to accept calendar requests, the email delivery was slow, so I bought a SIM card adapter and went back to my BB Bold and I used the iPhone as an iPod… and my children loved playing games on it.

Then the Torch arrived on my desk…. here were my findings:

Negatives

the home screen -when I unlock the device I have to expand the menu tray, this adds an extra click which is a click too many.

touch screen – the select functions are pretty inaccurate, in fact it is fairly inaccurate for touch sensitivity for all functions.

screen keyboard – is unusable for writing messages, in portrait mode you get about two lines of visible space to type and in landscape you have about two lines. Also the keyboard is pretty clunky to use on-screen it would be better to use Swype style keyboard.

switching between menus- appears very slow to switch from one screen to the next – for instance from the ‘all’ to the ‘favourites’.

Voice calls – the mute button doesn’t seem to function 100% of the time when on calls you think you have clicked it and you don’t hear the audio indicator yet it is muted and the other way around too. Also I seem to accidentally end calls when I use the handset pressed to my head – not sure why…

Pinch/stretch – not very slick, seems to be a bit hit and miss, often you end up selecting instead of stretching/shrinking

Always calling people by accident – made myself very unpopular when I was working in the USA for two weeks and kept calling home or other random people

Positives (well there was one at least!)

I like the new style phone keypad (on the screen) for making phone calls. – much quicker for dialling numbers.

Desktop Manager 6.0

Couldn’t even get the thing to start – despite 3 re-installs… ended up having to revert to DM5.

All in all I found the user experience far better on the Bold 9000 – and as the Torch was touted to be the challenger to the iPhone I was very disappointed.

Fast Forward – iOS 4.2 was released and I could accept meeting invites on my iPhone4, I stopped using the Torch. I got used to the screen based keyboard and started adding apps like RSS readers and other productivity tools.  I liked it. I then lost it…. it was the first phone I’ve lost in years and I was genuinely gutted. I then had to argue with my insurance company (the lifestyle group) and went back to using the torch 100% of the time and realised how much I’d grown to love the world of iOS. I was in mourning.

Finally my claim was resolved and I was able to replace my iPhone 4 – and we had finally implemented exchange 2010! woo hoo – it wasn’t even my birthday!- I am now VERY happy – So much so that I have now handed over the BB Torch to be used for testing in our lab.

Lync Group Chat the hidden UC gem – Part of the Microsoft Core CAL from August.

I did a seminar at UC Expo at the beginning of the month. you can see the ‘slides’ here. Once again it was an opportunity for me to get up on the now very well worn soapbox and evangelise about the benefits of using Persistent Group Chat, how it is used (from places like the theater of war to the worlds largest investment banks) and why everyone else should be  using it too.

Since then it has been announced that Group Chat will be included in Microsoft’s Core CAL – which I believe is a great move for customers. Group Chat when implemented correctly will revolutionise how your company works. I’ve seen it time and time again, and I challenge anyone to give it a go.  Group Chat used to be limited to the investment banking industry due to cost, the licencing announcement means that this is definitely not the case anymore.

Go on – have group chat love at your place of work…..

#iPad2 vs #PlayBook and the other #Tablets out there.

Well RIM’s Playbook is coming out in a couple of weeks time, and I’m hoping to get to play with it properly in the office next week. When I got a limited opportunity to use it back in January I was impressed, it felt snappy and well-built (unlike the plastic feeling Android tablets I’ve tried out) – I even liked the form factor – maybe 7″ is enough to satisfy?? Who knew…

Since then we’ve seen a few more contenders come out to challenge the iPad v1, most notably the Xoom, even if flash support isn’t quite there yet as well as a new galaxy tab. Whilst these new tablets all look nice and had better specs than the iPad This reminds me of the Dawn of home computing in the early 80’s I can remember debating with my friends in the playground which we would be best to buy a, zx spectrum a c64 or a BBCb….

Take a look at some of the UK computing mags from back then:http://www.magforum.com/computer/computermagazine…

Anyone else got a feeling that history is repeating itself? Back then the key lesson to be learned was that it was the apps that dictated where the market was headed so the tablet vendors should bear this in mind especially so for new entrants like RIM and HP. The users will flock to use devices that have the richest app ecosystem – today that is iOS, no argument – I witnessed the queues outside the Apple shop in Cambridge yesterday and iPad2 is going to be another success story.

There is a lesson for Apple here too though, they need to keep the developer community happy to ensure they get the best apps and content available for their devices to stay ahead of the competition.  Having read (and seen first hand) how hard it is to get up and running to develop using PlayBook  RIM need to up their game fast to ensure that they don’t end up an also ran in the Tablet race – as they are going to be playing catch up with iOS and Android even if they grandfather in BlackBerry apps or perhaps add some sort of emulation.

The other interesting thing about the trip to Cambridge yesterday is that it made me think more about how it seems the desktop/laptop OS market monopoly of Microsoft is getting less strong these days, walk past a coffee shop ( I was in Starbucks) and of the 5 laptops in use all were MacBook pros (same in airports) and soon we may start seeing more of things like chromeOS and even webOS devices too.

“Getting the message” The art of building corporate communities

Over the past few years we have seen the world’s largest software and hardware vendors commence battle for mind- and market-share in the Unified Communications (UC) space. Additionally, the traditional providers of voice communications have been moving towards conquering the desktop domain and maintaining their market share. What’s more, the increase in available bandwidth has given software companies the opportunity to push Voice and Video over IP as a new market. This provides businesses with obvious cost savings and increases employee productivity.

These propositions of reduced telephony and travel costs combined with an increase in efficiency contain wisdom and the fact is that enterprises can, and do benefit from implementing UC strategy. In reality, whilst all of these companies try to provide innovative ways of reducing the overhead of doing business, they are actually ‘building a better mousetrap’; or at least a less expensive one. As a matter of fact, they should ask themselves if they need to catch mice in the first place or consider going out to buy a cat!

This paper highlights the ways in which companies could implement software tools to change the way they work and communicate:

• ^· This will yield benefits that are more than simply a reduction in costs.
• ^· The returns on investment may be harder to quantify but they deliver lasting change and build a truly collaborative environment that welcomes the new world of work and the consumerisation of enterprise technology.
• ^· The way we work is transforming, it’s now time to embrace the change.

To read the full paper please download it here: Getting The Message White Paper

Salesforce.com – Chatter – or just noise.

In one way shape or form I’ve been involved in enterprise social networks since early 2006, so you could say I started late. Not as late as it seems as salesforce.com with their corporate social networking tool ‘Chatter’. The concept of an enterprise social network is a good one however like all these things the value is all about the execution of that concept and here is where I think they have got it wrong. The have simply stolen Facebook changed the name and said that it is ready for the corporate world.

I don’t agree. The world of the consumer and corporations are very different and people want and need different things. The consumer world is now more in touch with new technology like smartphones, tablets and social media however their use  doesn’t all translate exactly into the enterprise and this needs to be understood by vendors as well as organisations implementing the technology.

So here is a list of what I think should be considered before jumping on this bandwagon:

1. Individuals: A company is more than just the sum of its parts, gone are the days of a job for life. In an information economy – arguably the greatest asset of any organisation is the intellectual capital and collective wisdom (or in some cases stupidity) rather than one person, the larger the organisation the truer this becomes. If you are looking for an answer to a question you care that it is answered and you don’t want to have to track down the person to answer it for you.

2. Ego: Ah yes I hear you say what about things like linked-in, that is a business tool, but like blogging this is a way of promoting a profile not as a business tool. Yes there are discussion and groups on there but this functionality is a way of connecting with people outside of your own organisation. There will be people who use these new tools to shout from the roof tops, however the saying an empty vessel makes the most noise I believe is true and in my experience the people who are doping REAL work don’t often have the time to talk about it! (says I – busy writing this post!)

3. Marketing: Social networks are a great way of doing ‘below the line’ marketing, promoting your brand or defending it, however few companies have got it right… yet.. I can understand the benefit of using these types of tool for corporate communications but to really drive this sort of use there needs to be dedicated resources to manage and promote it.

4. Content: In a corporation people follow data, documents and content – they don’t follow people. The very idea of listening to an unending stream of unfiltered consciousness (in the form of status updates, micro blogs or blogs) fills me with dread… and having people ‘follow’ me, well on a personal level that is fine, I am interested in what my friends and family are up to but at work? Just plain odd. Lets imagine for a second that this takes off in your organisation and has become a way of capturing the organisational consciousness and building a sense of belonging (YES this is what I was told was one of the goals of the project one of the companies I work with was) – then what happens when someone leaves – do you delete their profile? If so what of their posts, their wall, their followers? HELP?  or worse still what happens if you don’t, gone are the days of a job for life – in this study the average period of employment for those aged between 18 and 44 is a little over 2 years. So if the content stays do you end up with a directory full of people with tombstones as their profile picture? This will do wonders for morale! The saying ‘you can pick your friends but not your family’ is also true for work, few people can choose who they work with. There will always be people who get on better than others.

5. Just because everyone else is doing it: Back in the early days of the intranet every company had one, or in some 10,000 sites (you know who you are!) – it doesn’t make any of them worthwhile or useful. Many intranets ended up being only used the host of the canteen menu or an out of date corporate phone book. The typical causes of failure included most of the items listed in this table:

6. The causes of intranet failure were many, but the same holds true of social networks. And the larger the organisation the truer this is. Rather than follow what the current technology trend is, decide first if it will deliver business value and then choose a tool that fits with how you operate as a business. DO NOT change your business to fit the tool.

7. Security: Finally be aware that information can leak, make sure that if sensitive information is being discussed that only the right people have access to it. Leaking of valuable and or sensitive information can have all sorts of adverse consequences, from humiliation or career limitation of an individual to damaging a corporate image or reputation, or even intellectual property theft.

This rant is not directed just at salesforce.com but can easily be applied to the likes of CISCO (with Quad) and Lotus (connections). There is innovation to be tapped into from the consumer world but a like for like copy just isn’t going to work.

Our new Lync2010 Group Chat WebPart for Outlook.

And this is what it looks like:

So you may be asking why…. well because we wanted to do this is the short answer.

The longer version is that when Microsoft first acquired Parlano back in 2007 every customer thought that this would herald a new dawn for MindAlign. It didn’t. Whilst they (Microsoft) have done a good job on the back end, the comments we most hear from those out there that are using Microsoft’s Group Chat  (OCS or Lync) is that they want a unified client. Furthermore those that have deployed the group chat console have complained about CPU and memory utilisation and that it looks and feels ‘clunky’.

This is a little unfair but I for one subscribe to the concept of a 4th generation of collaboration tool (thanks for that strap-line Matthew W. Cain – Gartner!) . The idea here is all about convergence of collaboration technology to provide a universal dashboard to the user. I’m not certain I agree 100% however there are many elements that I think are on the money – the key one being is that end users don’t like having too many applications running on their desktops.

As a product idea adding the group chat functionality to outlook for me is an obvious choice, think about it – if you were to walk around a typical office where Microsoft is in use you will see outlook on 99.99% of all the desktops either full screen or in the system tray. According to Litmus outlook has 43% market share of email client usage. moreover if you were to ask the average user what collaboration tool they use the answer would be outlook, as to them collaboration = email.

Lets face it email has been abused – it is no longer a way of replacing paper based memos and has become far more conversational – but it is asynchronous. This new product provides a way of bridging the gap and draws people into the synchronous world of chat without relying on the user to log in and become familiar with a new system. If you combine this with our email connector tool it also allows you to map email distribution lists to chat rooms, thus weaning the users off email.

Here is the Group Chat for Outlook Brochure.

Nokia and Microsoft get married

Nokia have always been very good in the hardware space, the reliability and build quality is always good, Microsoft make good software. The thing Nokia and MSFT must both understand is to deliver a user experience that is second to none. They can get by with not being the first, thy just have to make sure they are the best. This is what Apple have done consistently – they are NEVER the first, but when they do something they do it the best…