RIM: One Year Later

Thorsten Heins, RIM CEO

What's up with RIM lately? A year ago, the company was pronounced dead. The revenue was collapsing, the company was losing market share, and the press was having a field day with delivering disaster stories about the BlackBerry maker. When Thorsten Heins was named the new CEO in January 2012, I was cynically thinking that here was another of those German technology company CEOs who will show us how to run a business the "proper way". Just remember Michael Spindler at Apple, Eckhart Pfeiffer at Compaq, and Leo Apotheker at HP!

However, Mr. Heins has so far proven me wrong. While it is way too soon to speak about a turnaround, he has clearly managed to calm the company down. The revenue has stabilized, the string of bad news about various mishaps and calamities has seized and the press is yet again buzzing with excitement about the next model of BlackBerry. As a result, the stock has bounced back from the summer lows.

Living in Waterloo, Ontario, where RIM is the largest employer in the region, I can also see that the doomsday scenarios haven't come true. There has been no massive exodus. The housing market is relatively strong and houses are selling fast. No thousands of “For Sale” or “Going Out of Business” signs. When recruiting, I see more resumes with RIM experience than a year or two ago but there are no RIM bread lines at the local Starbucks. After the layoffs last year, most of the workforce has been quickly absorbed by the more than 850 high technology companies in Waterloo; my employer OpenText among them.

The RIM stock has bounced back from its low levels 

Sure, RIM is far from being out of the wood works. The company continues losing market share and several of the big RIM customers have publicly jumped the ship. The BlackBerry PlayBooks has been officially declared a flop and working on a BlackBerry phone comes today with the same image as driving a Ford Crown Victoria. The pressure is on. All eyes are now on the soon to be released BlackBerry 10 which will be the most significant innovation since RIM switched from a 2-way pager to the BlackBerry smartphone. All the chips are on one number: the BlackBerry 10. It has to be a success - RIM won't get a third chance.

So far, the BlackBerry 10 looks solid. There is plenty of buzz about it and the "leaked BlackBerry 10 picture" campaign is working like a charm. The technology blogs are loving it and reporting about it daily. Most of those reports are very positive. While I am not much into following celebrities on social media, I noticed that RIM has engaged them as well - just the other day, the marathon champion Paula Radcliffe tweeted about her BlackBerry 10 crush. If the BlackBerry 10 fails, it won't be RIM Marketing's fault.

BlackBerry 10 (Photo: closari on Flickr)

RIM is now finally doing the right thing to address their key weakness - the shortage of applications. Last weekend, RIM was running another “portathon” and actually offering cash to developers for porting their apps to the BlackBerry OS. While $100 per application might not be much, I suspect it is more than what some of those apps earn in their lifetime. This is something that even Microsoft has yet to learn. In fact, the battle for the 3rd place mobile OS - after Google Android and Apple iOS - will be fought between RIM and Microsoft and the outcome is wide open today.

The bottom line is that RIM managed to get itself a little bit of a reprieve. This is no time to declare victory, but if the new product hits the mark, there is a sufficiently large and loyal customer base that will embrace it. Let’s hope the BlackBerry 10 delivers!

Big Data Solution for the Big Security Problem

Recently, I wrote about the content security dilemma. As much as we are trying to secure our information without completely giving up on convenience, we can barely stay one step ahead of the bad guys. The hackers, equipped with easily available immense computing power are using brute-force attacks to overcome even the most sophisticated authentication and encryption technologies.

The inconvenient truth remains, that we don’t really have any practical security today outside the perimeter security measures offered by encryption. As soon as the information leaves the secure repository, it is basically no longer secure. If I share a report with you via email, social software, or shared folder, I can only hope that my trust in you will be rewarded by your discretion. If not, you can easily share the document with anyone and I can’t do anything about it.

So what do we do? How do we secure our data in transit? After all, we have to make it travel to put it to work. Data locked up in a vault is of limited value. The answer isn’t easy and it will likely consist of multiple measures.

First, we will adopt advanced means of authentication to ensure that it really is the right person accessing the data. I have described some of such advanced authentication in the above mentioned article - ranging from multi-factor authentication to, yes, chip implants.

Next, we will employ our social media networks as a mean of collective endorsement of authenticity. Authenticity is an issue for both, the people and the information assets. Is the message from Barack Obama really from the President or from an imposter? Is the report I’ve received the right report or has it been substituted by malicious disinformation? Endorsement by a group of people doesn’t completely solve the problem, of course, but it adds another hurdle for the bad guys. Just think of the product reviews on Amazon. Sure, they can be fake but it is a lot of work to fake them and so most of them can be trusted and so can be the products they endorse.

Finally, we will see a greater use of analytics to identify any suspicious behavior - just like the credit card companies do today. The idea is that they trust every transaction as long as the transaction remains within the expected pattern of behavior. When the behavior deviates from the expected pattern, you get one of those calls. Most of us have received a call alerting us to a fraudulent transaction at some point. The system works. It may not prevent the initial fraudulent transaction but with a sufficient audit trail, that transaction can be investigated. What’s important, though, is that the timely detection prevents any subsequent transactions.

This is a big data problem in need of a big data solution.  Analytics software will be reviewing the behavior patterns of people accessing data and detecting any behavior that is out of the norm. Such behaviors will be flagged for investigation while the system shuts down any additional data exposure.

Yet again, there is no perfect solution in sight. But we may have a few options to stay ahead of the bad guys. Because for the foreseeable future, information security remains an arms race. The only way to defend ourselves from the ever smarter hackers will be our ever stronger defenses.

Social Media is Evolving. Are You?

I have quite a few friends and acquaintances who are steadfastly resisting any temptation to join Facebook or Twitter. When I ask them why, I usually get some version of “I don’t care about what people are having for dinner”. That’s actually interesting because I do vividly remember the times some 2-3 years ago when both Twitter and Facebook were flooded by such mundane updates. But that has changed.

In fact, I rarely see any message about what people have for dinner anymore. Sure, there is the occasional picture of a spectacularly prepared dish or a cool looking drink but those are usually somewhat interesting. Thanksgivings, of course, comes with dozens of pictures of dead birds on Facebook but that’s part of the spirit - kind of like Christmas decorations. For the most part, the “what’s for dinner” updates have disappeared today.

One or two years ago, most of my running friends including myself were diligently sharing daily updates about our training runs. As a runner, nothing motivates me more than knowing that my friend Joe in Boston is ahead of me in weekly mileage or that my friend Andreas in Germany will compare my pace to his. But I got the message from my non-running Twitter followers and Facebook friends - sometimes rather explicitly - that they don’t care about that level of detail of marathon training. Once, I was even asked how I lost all that weight while getting the unsolicited advice to reduce those running updates in the same conversation... I reduced my training log updates and I noticed that all my running friends did so as well.

What happened is that we have evolved in the way we use social media. What appeared like a great idea and initially received positive responses from our followers, became less interesting and eventually perhaps even annoying. Ultimately, that made us figure out that this is not the right use of social media...for the moment. You can rest assured that the way social media is used today will likely be different a year from now.     

I wonder about those “denialists” who decided to ignore social media altogether. One day, they may join after all - likely when looking for a job - and they will go through the same learning curve - but years behind. I also worry about all of the marketing departments who are fine tuning their marketing campaigns assuming that the way we use social media will remain the same. Well, it won’t. Because social media is evolving. Are you?

PS: When you don't have something interesting to say on social media, it’s OK not to say anything...

Content Management Predictions for 2013

It’s January 1st and as in previous years, I am writing my predictions for the year ahead. Since I have the habit of reviewing my previous predictions in December, I end up waiting with the new ones until January. That has the advantage that I can read everybody else’s predictions first. But there is also pressure to be at least little different. With that, here we go, here are my Technology Predictions for 2013:

1. Facebook hits rocky grounds
I predict, that Facebook will actually lose active users in 2013 or that the volume of interactions will slow down. Obviously, the adoption of any free social service is based on the fine line between the value received vs. the price we pay. That price is measured in exposure to advertising (annoyance) and privacy loss. Under pressure to generate profits, the social vendors will cross the line. The ads are becoming too annoying, particularly on mobile devices, the privacy concerns and endless terms of use changes are becoming too sneaky, and the marketers are increasingly seeing social media as another channel for spam. That will backfire and the usage will go down in 2013.

2. Everything will be digital
The Razorfish founder Jeff Dachis once famously proclaimed that “everything that can be digital, will be digital”. Well, he was wrong because with the advent of 3D printing, everything will be digital. The blueprints and CAD drawings for any object will become a mainstream content type and allow us to load them into the printer and create (almost) any object. For 2013, I predict a major resurgence of engineering drawings management which has been a niche of enterprise content management for years. In 2013, it will gain importance beyond the traditional sectors like oil & gas and architecture, engineering and construction (AEC). OK, I might be pushing my luck on the timeline here but hey, no point predicting what already happened. Right?

3. The rise of intellectual property management
When CAD drawings enter the mainstream and become valued intellectual property (IP), there will be a new wave of piracy. Because the day will come when instead of buying the latest Rolex, it will be much cheaper to get the blueprints from PirateBay and make it yourself. This will generate a new wave of demand for security and IP management. The need for security is obvious - companies will guard their blueprints from thefts and industrial espionage, The new demand for IP management will enable legitimate licensing and sub-contracting work using CAD drawings and any other types of content assets. By the way, I’m predicting a rise in demand. I’m not so sure we will find a practical solution in 2013.

4. Internet of iPhone things
Mobility has been on my list in some form in previous years and it won’t be missing in 2013 either. There has been a lot of talk about Kevin Ashton’s Internet of things already but in 2013, the main focus of innovation will be on devices and systems that use smartphones as a point of control. In the consumer space, we will see more and more new devices such as the Nest thermostat, the Belkin WeMo switch, or the Lockitron door lock. In the enterprise, we will start using smartphones for similar purposes - to control office and lab equipment, to replace authentication tokens, or to open secure doors.

5. Mobile market predictions
As for the mobile device manufacturers, I predict that Apple will continue to dominate by all metrics except for market share which is perhaps a less important metric anyway. It’s like comparing Porsche with Kia - who cares about their market share? What matters more is revenue, earnings, reliability, and customer satisfaction. Google Android will be the most common mobile OS, to a large extent due to feature phones being replaced with Android based phones even by people who don’t use their capabilities much. There will erupt a brutal price war among the Android device vendors in 2013. RIM will continue facing challenges but it will hang on to their niche - there are enough highly loyal users in love with the keyboard and its business usability of email and calendar. Microsoft will continue struggling as their new devices are too expensive and lag behind in application support. I also predict that Microsoft will be forced to go multi-platform with their software strategy in 2013.

6. Censorship will succeed
Governments around the world, including many US agencies, believe that this “free for all, anything goes Internet” is evil. They have been repeatedly launching attempts to control, regulate or censor the Internet by law. So far, they have only succeeded in places like China while most other attempts have failed so far - just remember the SOPA and PIPA proposals that both failed in 2012 and so did the recent UN Internet conference in Dubai. With so many government initiatives to control at least some aspect of the Internet, however, it is inevitable that some of them will succeed. In 2013, we will see the first laws passed in the US or in the EU that will have a practical impact on how we use the Internet for business by introducing new demands for compliance, legal risk mitigation and data sovereignty. BTW, I am really hoping that I get this one wrong as I am a strong proponent of a free, uncensored, and unregulated Internet.

7. New wave of computers
Forget the smartphones and tablets-  they are so 2012! In 2013, we will see the emergence of a new wave of computers that will look very different. They will have the shapes of watches, glasses, helmets, goggles, jewelry, and various pieces of clothes. Typing will be replaced by dictation and gestures - Apple’s Siri may be going through some growing pains but it shows the way. Similarly, Microsoft Kinect and the Leap Motion Controller show how useful can gestures become. The display will move from a screen to head up display (HUD) which will evolve from fighter jet pilot helmets to glasses (like in the Google Glass project) and eventually to contact lenses. The Kickstarter is full of amazingly creative ideas today - just check out the Pebble watch!

8. Responsive web design will be the buzz
With the proliferation of mobile computers and with the new wave of devices coming, there will be an even greater demand for an optimal viewing experience on every type of device, no matter what the screen size, form factor, display resolution, or its technical capabilities. Unfortunately, it is becoming exceedingly expensive for companies to support multiple versions of their mobile websites and mobile apps to deliver the optimal experience to each device. Responsive web design (RWD) promises a solution for this problem by taking advantage of new concepts such as fluid grid design and flexible images. I predict, that RWD will be quite the buzz in 2013.

9. Security finally becomes a market
Information security is an interesting issue. Every customer I speak to emphasizes how critical security is for their organization. Yet, when I probe deeper, the only security measures I usually find are firewalls, HTTPS and strong passwords - perimeter security measures designed to keep the bad actors out rather than to protect the information. The elephant in the room is the fact that information security is still very much an unsolved problem in most organizations. Particularly when we consider the balance of security and convenience, security is a tough nut to crack. For 2013, I predict that customers will finally start to take security seriously. Security will move from words to actions and customers will begin implementing real security measures to protect their information. That leads to my final prediction for 2013:

10. IT strikes back
Consumerization, mobile devices, and social media have conquered the enterprise IT fortress in the last few years. IT departments have been declared obsolete and users have taken over. Well, that will change in 2013. Enterprises come to realize the security, compliance, legal exposure, and intellectual property risks that the new technologies introduced. The CIOs will be asked to address this issue. The solution will likely manifest itself in more stringent corporate policies, greater control of the devices, and more forceful ways to extend the company’s control over its information. No, I am not predicting the end of any of the new technology trends - they are here to stay. But I am predicting that enterprises will find ways to exert more control over their information. The information belongs to the company and not to the users... and certainly not to the consumer services. The IT departments will be responsible for that.

Well, that’s it. These are my predictions for 2013. I hope that you disagree with some of them - otherwise, I would think I wasn’t trying hard enough ;-) In any case, I plan to review the success of my predictions in December. Until then, I hope you will check out my blog from time to time.

Happy new year!

Are We Teaching Obsolete Skills?

This blog post is about education yet it has to do with technology in many ways. The issue at hand is the current educational system and the wrong focus we place on teaching obsolete skills.

Indeed, most of our education is wasted on learning the hard skills like calculus and memorizing the formulas for amino acids. Sure those skills are probably critical to those of us who go on to become mathematicians or chemical scientists but that’s only a very few of us. On the other hand, all of us need almost daily more of the soft skills such as effective communication, public speaking, negotiation and leadership. With a few exceptions, these skills are not taught today on any level of education.

Every engineer needs to know how to use one of these, right?

It’s ironic, if you ask me. We get all this education to be able to live more prosperous lives yet prosperity rarely comes from spelling or algebra. Prosperity usually comes from the ability to sell yourself, negotiate a decent salary and communicate well about what you have accomplished. Sure, you need to know some spelling and algebra to avoid looking like an idiot but we should accept the fact that most of us work in front of a computer all day long. That computer provides plenty of assistance for spelling and multiplication. However, the computer can’t take over conflict resolution, problem analysis or financial planning. Yet we all need those skills every day!

By the way, how is our current education doing at teaching us to use that computer? Well, not that great. In fact, most knowledge workers are expected to learn those skills along the way while doing homework. The results are knowledge workers with no concept of data structure, drowning in information overflow, and in general, suffering from some degree of technophobia. Today, the basics of PowerPoint design are much more marketable skills than calculus.

I watch my children learning their spelling and multiplication everyday - years of hard training that should be reduced by half. Technology is changing the learning needs and yet our learning system is adapting way too slowly. Nobody is teaching how to use an abacus or a slide rule anymore even though those skills were considered essential some 50 years ago. Yet our kids spend years learning to write in cursive which nobody uses anymore.

Russian abacus.

There is a difference in education between the continents today. Europe and particularly Asia are putting even more emphasis on the hard skills, producing brilliant engineers who struggle to land a job. America is at least a small step ahead in teaching the soft skills. In general, Americans appear to be much more at ease at public speaking than their European or Asian counterparts. Guess what, the US educational system teaches this soft skill from kindergarten starting with “show-and-tell” - something that European kids rarely do.

As much as America’s worried about losing its edge on the international scene, at least its educational system is a little more relevant. No wonder that American universities are always among some of the most prestigious in the world. Clearly, teaching soft skills is not just an American challenge and other countries might face it even more.

My point is that we are teaching skills today, that were relevant back in the 1950s. Or, back in the 1850s. Our education system has to keep up with the technical innovation of the present time. In fact, to be truly effective, we should be teaching a curriculum now that will be relevant when our kids actually enter the workforce. Today, they start their first jobs with academic skills that are irrelevant to actually do that job!

Images: Wikipedia Creative Commons and public domain.

Can We Solve the Security Dilemma?

I recently wrote a blog post about the need to strike the right balance between security and convenience. In this post, I'd like to examine the ways to find that balance amid ever raising security requirements. The challenge lies in the fact that the traditional security measures such as strong passwords are becoming increasingly insufficient. The computing power available to every hacker today is simply so immense that brute-force attacks are rather easy to execute. Note: a brute-force attack is an encryption decoding technique that uses vast computing power to quickly try all possible combinations of characters - until the right key is found.

So, how do we overcome this problem?

The solution isn’t easy, particularly given the security and convenience trade-off. Strong passwords force us to use longer passwords and passphrases that have to include a combination of letters, numbers, special characters, etc. that cannot be found in the dictionary. We all know that such passwords are less convenient, particularly when entering them on a smartphone but the benefit of this trade-off is higher security. Alas, not much higher, as strong passwords can be still broken with brute-force attacks.

Multi-factor authentication takes things to the next level by combining passwords with another authentication mechanism such as one time passcodes or tokens. My bank, for example, gave me a one-time passcode generator the size of a credit card that I use for some of the more important transactions. I don’t need it to check my account balance but I do need it for money transfers. That, by the way, is a good example of the security-convenience balance in a practical use case.

The next level of security can be provided by biometrics. Today, retina scans are the way the government identifies citizens at border crossings who use the Global Crossing or Nexus service. It seems to work and for a long time I thought this would solve the authentication problem for good. However, the biometric signatures can be falsified and even stolen which not only compromises the security but also introduces a new identity theft challenge. No, I am not talking about stolen fingers and eyeballs like we see in the movies - I am talking about the series of data points that biometric scanners look for. Same is true for a DNA-based authentication, by the way. I am not aware of any practical DNA authentication use cases outside of science fiction today, but the signature files for DNA samples could be falsified or stolen just like any password.

Biometric security could be even more vulnerable as a result of genetic research. There are various initiatives underway today to build an open source library of decoded human genomes for the purposes of genetic research. That is a great cause which I fully support. However, there may be a dark side to it - as there usually is with any scientific discovery. I am not a genetic scientist but I wonder if the human genome could be used to reproduce biometric features such as fingerprints, retinas, or DNA samples. After all, a lot of the genomic research is aimed at the ability to reproduce vital human organs...

One day, we might be voluntarily or involuntarily implanting chips into the human body for the purposes of strong, fast, and secure authentication. Some of this is already happening today. We are chipping our pets to find them when they get lost. We are tagging prisoners under home confinement. We are traveling with passports containing our biometric data. A chip using some type of RFID technology could transmit our identity to various applications to identify us. The chip could do so frequently - perhaps every few seconds - to continuously validate the identity of the user. That is, until someone finds a way to falsify the chip signature...

Clearly, solving the security dilemma is not easy. Just like any high stakes game, there may never be a perfect solution. Instead, it will be a race. We will keep inventing better authentication while trying to stay a step ahead of the bad guys. Every time the good guys invent a new security measure, the crooks will find a way to beat it. Hence a new level of security has to be invented - without completely sacrificing convenience. And so it will keep going round after round.

2012 Predictions Scorecard

It’s the end of the year, the time when many pundits like to publish their predictions for 2013. I have already started working on mine but since I am not an industry analyst, I like to first revisit how I did with my Content Management Predictions for 2012. So, here is the scorecard for my 2012 predictions:

1. Big Data will be the hype of the year
Boy did I get this one right! There is hardly a day without some article published about the Big Data revolution. Throughout 2012, Big Data was the solution for the problem - any problem. You take 10 experts and you’ll get 10 definitions of Big Data. In reality, most people started saying Big Data when they just meant ‘data’ or when they meant ‘understanding the data’ which really means analytics. Yet, no conversation could go on and no press article could be written without mentioning Big Data. Big Data became the hype of the year.
Verdict: Hit, Score: 1/1

2. “Social” becomes a feature
This prediction has also come true. Salesforce already had released Chatter last year, now SAP has Jam, and Oracle has different social offerings integrated with the respective applications: Oracle Social Relationship Management, Oracle Social Network, Oracle Social Marketing, etc. OpenText (my employer) ships today OpenText Tempo Social as well as capabilities such as Social BPM which is a social-based decision-making step in a business process. The stand-alone social software market is being rapidly consolidated with players such as Yammer acquired by Microsoft and the once red-hot Jive trading below the level from 12 months ago.

My prediction that SharePoint 15 - now called SharePoint 2013 - would be the catalyst for this featurization of social software has also come true. Well, at least that was the message about Yammer that Microsoft offered at the SharePoint Conference 2012.
Verdict: Hit, Score: 2/2

3. SharePoint will solve every problem, again
My prediction was that Microsoft would freeze the market in 2012, with aggressive marketing of the not yet shipping SharePoint 2013. That’s what happened with every previous version of SharePoint and it was not a stretch to expect that it would happen again. Yet, Microsoft has had a different idea. They have bet the farm on Office 365, Windows 8, and Surface. SharePoint didn’t get anywhere near the attention of the years past. In fact, Microsoft recently increased the pricing of SharePoint by 15% which makes me speculate that they have reached the point of market saturation. This move suggests that Microsoft came to the conclusion that new features no longer help to add new customers. I’ve failed on this prediction as SharePoint is obviously no longer a strategic priority for Microsoft (I’m sure the SharePoint product team will disagree with me but well, my blog my opinion...Besides, I’m losing a point here, OK?)
Verdict: Miss, Score: 2/3

4. Rise of the hybrid cloud
Throughout 2012, it became apparent that the cloud is the way to go. Many original concerns related to cloud deployments such as security have been set to rest. That said, customers are in no rush to move their existing applications, and certainly not existing data into the cloud. That leads ultimately to discussions about what information should reside in the cloud and what should remain on premises. A private cloud is a popular alternative when concerns about issues such as legal discovery and data sovereignty arise - as the public cloud services are usually fairly ignorant about such issues. Finally, I also see that some of the mature cloud vendors developed many on-premises add-ons and integrations - just see how Salesforce is being integrated with on-premises ERP and Marketing Automation software. All of that mix of public, private, and on premises deployments is basically the idea behind a hybrid cloud.
Verdict: Hit, Score: 3/4

5. Cloudy outlook for open source
My argument here was that the cloud would obscure the open source argument - if I’m running my software in the cloud, who cares if it is open source or proprietary, right? On one hand, I stand behind my prediction. Customers using cloud services such as Evernote or Dropbox don’t care whether such services are based on open source software or proprietary code. That said, many of the clouds have been heavy adopters of open source technology, primarily motivated by the need to keep the cost as low as possible. That actually promoted open source to some degree in 2012. Also, my point above about integrating cloud applications with on-premises software makes open source cloud applications interesting for developers again. Hence, this one is a tie.
Verdict: Tie, Score: 3.5/5

6. Consumerization is here to stay
Oh yes, consumerization has taken hold in the enterprise. The new term is “bring your own device” or BYOD. If Big Data was the top buzzword on 2012, BYOD was a close second. Consumerization arrived and it is wreaking havoc in the enterprise. The plethora of mobile devices in the enterprise is actually a much lesser problem than the consumer-class services that are being used by employees with no regard to corporate policies, regulations, legal exposure or compliance. I expect that fixing this issue will be a major source of my paycheck over the next ten years.
Verdict: Hit, Score: 4.5/6

7. End of convergence
My argument was all those electronic gadgets will not be replaced by your smartphone. This is  one that many pundits might disagree with. I’ve been reading about how smartphones are replacing cameras and GPS devices. Yes, they do, when you don’t have a camera handy and forget to bring your GPS! Similarly, the iPad didn’t replace my laptop and I have my little Canon camera always with me. While the Swiss Army Knife is very cool and every guy wants to have one, it doesn’t replace your bread knife, butter knife, and carving knife.
Verdict: Hit, Score: 5.5/7

8. HTML5 won’t kill apps
On November 19th, Apple supposedly reached 1 million apps submitted to the App Store. Those are native apps. There is nothing wrong with HTML5 and it will gain a huge popularity but no, it hasn’t replaced the native apps in 2012.
Verdict: Hit, Score: 6.5/8

9. Tipping point for analytics
Analytics have been enjoying a big buzz in 2012. Mostly because of Big Data - analytics seem to be the universal cure for all aches related to Big Data. In fact, when people say Big Data, they usually mean “understanding the data” and that’s where analytics comes in. Analytics are hot and a lot of innovations occurred in 2012. At OpenText, we've released Auto-Classification - a new product based on a powerful content analytics technology. Other vendors are following suit. Yet, analytics have not quite entered the mainstream as I had predicted. It’s happening but it takes longer and I’ll call it a tie.
Verdict: Tie, Score: 7/9

10. ECM, what’s next?
I had predicted that the industry’s quest to find a replacement term for ECM would continue but that we would stick with ECM yet again. We did. The vendors tried various terms. AIIM’s “systems of record” and “systems of engagement” terminology actually stuck, but it didn’t replace ECM. In fact, even the hip new vendors like Box are now talking about Content Management. OpenText introduced its new positioning leading with Enterprise Information Management (EIM), but ECM remains a key EIM category. ECM is still the term that rules.
Verdict: Hit: Score: 8/10

Well, that’s it. The score of 8 out of 10 is not bad, is it? This has been an exciting year. The convergence of many technology trends continued and their impact on the enterprise started to take shape. 2013 will be even more interesting, I’m sure! I plan to publish my 2013 predictions in the first week of the new year. Until then, Merry Christmas and a happy new year!

Microsoft at an Inflection point

The year 2012 will go down in history as a major milestone for Microsoft. The once dominant company started the year under tremendous pressure after continuously losing users, market share, and hipness to a new breed of vendors driving the perfect storm of change. This change is based on the shift to mobility, social software and cloud computing and companies such as Apple, Google, LinkedIn, Dropbox, and Amazon are Microsoft's new arch-enemies.

Microsoft wasn't sitting idly by watching the market forces unfold, though. In fact, it is hard to find any blemish on Microsoft's execution in 2012 and the company delivered on all key battlegrounds. With Office 365, Microsoft demonstrated that they are all-in at betting the farm on the cloud. With the purchase of Yammer (and Skype before), they are making great strides to become a force in social software. Microsoft Windows 8 operating system is attractive, innovative, and differentiated. With the help of Nokia, Microsoft delivered some impressive smartphones and the Microsoft Surface tablet is receiving good reviews (well, until they announced the pricing earlier this week).

Measured by their product execution, Microsoft turned things around in 2012 and the company is cool again. The problem is, however, that Microsoft continues losing users and market share. According to comScore, Microsoft mobile OS market share has continued declining and remains in the irrelevant territory with 3.2% (IDC gives them 3.6% which is about the same - really bad). Gartner predicts, that 90% of enterprises will skip Windows 8 and consumers are wishing for Apple devices under the Christmas tree. Finally, early indicators suggest that the Surface is not selling well either.

Why is that, you wonder? Microsoft designed a perfect combination of operating system, devices, social tools, cloud, and even enterprise applications. All of it is beautifully integrated and does (almost) everything you need. The problem is, that it only works with Microsoft.

That's right. Just like in the old days when the Wintel architecture used to dominate the market with well over 90% market share, Microsoft continues building products that assume we live in a Microsoft-only world. Do you want to access any of the Microsoft consumer services? Well, you need a Microsoft email account like Hotmail. Do you want to work with a Microsoft application from an iPad or an Android device? Tough luck, you will always be a second class user at best. Wanna search? Get used to Bing!

Microsoft's continued insistence on this puritanical approach to architecture is creating an interesting dilemma. A Microsoft-only environment may work great but you will only find such an environment on the Microsoft campus. If you use any non-Microsoft platforms, the appeal of Microsoft’s closely-integrated architecture diminishes fairly quickly. That includes pretty much everyone as over 96% of users today have a mobile device running something other than Windows.

Microsoft is finding itself in completely unfamiliar territory. The world is not all about Microsoft anymore. Do you want to share documents with friends? Chances are much higher that they have a Dropbox account rather than a Microsoft SkyDrive account. Do you want to create a professional community of interest? Everybody has a LinkedIn account while Microsoft Live has...does it still exist? Do you want to use SharePoint from a Mac or an iPad? Tough luck! You may be better served by another ECM vendor.

Microsoft’s finding itself on an inflection point. While they are delivering some very competitive products, those products have been built for a Microsoft-only world that no longer exists. To address this problem, Microsoft will have to open up and mandate all its groups to go multi-platform. That might be their only chance to start gaining market share again. That's a tough pill to swallow for a company that has single-vendor architecture in its DNA. It is a particularly difficult move, given that Microsoft's top competitor, Apple, has persevered through decades of single-digit market share to become the world’s largest company - based on a puritanical single-vendor architecture!

Security and Convenience - The Balance Matters

In our world, where information is the ultimate strategic resource, security is important. Very important. But security usually stands in the way of productivity and convenience.

Take something like strong passwords and the need to change them regularly. We could significantly increase the system security if we mandated very long, strong passwords with 256 characters and if we mandated them to be changed every day. The data would be very safe with these passwords. Of course remembering such passwords would be highly inconvenient, if not impossible, and changing them daily would be annoying. Want even higher security? How about 1024 character long passwords that have to be changed every hour?

Practical security today has to reach a compromise; a balance between security and convenience. We have to keep pushing the barriers on security without annoying users so much that they either give up or develop behavior that actually compromises the security altogether. In my password example above, people would lose productive time every day and they would likely have no choice but to write the password down every morning on a piece of paper kept right next to their monitor. All of those passwords lying around would severely compromise the security of the system which would achieve exactly the opposite from the intended result. If you are interested in learning more about password related challenges, I recommend reading the recent Wired article titled Kill the Password: Why a String of Characters Can’t Protect Us Anymore.

Clearly, there is a constant tradeoff that we have to make between security and convenience. However, not every organization is the same in terms of how strong their security needs to be  and how much inconvenience they can impose on their employees. I often meet customers who are on very different points of the spectrum, from very casual to utterly paranoid.

Of course nobody will admit that they have a casual attitude towards security. However, consider the differences between retail, manufacturing, and, yes, many technology companies which often get by with relatively simple security (I know, there are always exceptions) versus organizations such as military installations, intelligence agencies, and nuclear facilities. These operate on a completely different security level and have no choice but to impose a lot of inconvenience on their employees.

Think about all of the employees working at Internet startups in Silicon Valley and about how much security hassle you could put them through - not much! James Bond, on the other hand, never tires of opening the cafeteria doors using his palm and voice print. Apparently, high security standards come with some jobs (or companies).

What’s important is that one size doesn’t fit all when it comes to security. Different organizations face different security problems and their solutions have to be adjustable. For example, a two-factor authentication may be appropriate in some environments while a biometrics based authentication is a good fit in others.  Getting the balance right between security and convenience is important - the balance matters!

Social Is Now a Noun

Inspired by the tremendous growth of Facebook and its endless ability to compel users to share, communicate and engage, companies have been trying to convince their employees to do the same at work. They hope that the same type of technology will help employees to share, communicate and engage inside the enterprise just as they do in the consumer world. Sometimes it works, although many companies are learning that just because you build it, they won’t necessarily come.

Social software is a very hot space right now.

What’s interesting, though, is how the industry struggles to find the right way to describe what it is we are doing here. The idea is not new, actually. Collaboration has been around for well over a decade and the benefits this new breed of social software offers is very similar to what collaboration did back in the early days of eRoom and OpenText Livelink. Heck, Lotus Notes has been called collaboration - the history of collaboration goes back to 1989! But of course we can’t use the old name ‘collaboration’ for this new hip, social software, can we?

Dedicated collaboration/social software is becoming rare

So the industry went on a long journey, searching for the right term. We started with extended collaboration, extended enterprise collaboration, collaboration software for the enterprise, team collaboration, and content collaboration and that apparently wasn’t cool enough, even though all these terms are still being used by various vendors. Then we borrowed the term social networking since that was how we used to refer to the thing we did on Facebook back then. That didn’t last very long and new terms came along including social software, social communities, social workplace, social business, and social collaboration. At some point, the industry even briefly toyed with the idea to seriously call this software category the Facebook for the Enterprise.

That, thankfully, didn’t take hold and so the journey continues. The latest trend is using just the word ‘social’. Yeah, I know, it is an adjective but old rules like grammar shouldn’t stand in the way of progress and world domination. And so, social became a noun.

More and more, social capabilities are built into enterprise applications

Well, maybe, the search will be over soon. It is becoming increasingly apparent that ‘social’  is becoming a feature rather than an industry. Social capabilities are increasingly becoming integrated into other enterprise software - from content management, business process management, customer experience management, to CRM and ERP. So, perhaps we don’t have to worry about what to call the space because it is not a space at all - it is an integral part of enterprise applications.