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Collaborative Thinking

Perceptions on collaboration and social software by Mike Gotta


Social Network Sites: Webinar TodaySeptember 30

FYI ... short notice but still time to register and attend. Timely - we just published a reference architecture template on social network sites so if you are a Burton Group client, check out the document here (note: client access required). I'll cover some of the basics in the report during the webinar today.

IT Best Practices for Enterprise Social Networking – Burton Group Webinar

Free Live Webinar – September 30, 2008 at 2 pm ET

With the popularity of consumer sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace, and Bebo, IT professionals are facing an increased demand to review and implement social networking capabilities for their enterprise. There are numerous technical and functional items that need to be taken into consideration when developing an enterprise social network.

Unfortunately, since social networking for the enterprise is relatively new, best practices and feature/function requirements are not clearly established or widely available. Based on his extensive social computing experience, Mike Gotta has established a common set of infrastructure architectural components and capabilities that IT should consider when implementing an enterprise social network site.

Join Burton Group and NewsGator for a live webinar on September 30, 2008 at 2 pm ET that will cover:

  • A definition of enterprise social networks
Cisco WebEx Connect QuestionsSeptember 25

Recommendation: People should be examining Cisco's announcements this week more broadly that just a SaaS Collaboration/Web 2.0 play and/or as an update on its UC/video/telepresence efforts. The evolving puzzle pieces will lead to an maturing SaaS, PaaS (Platform as a Service), and Cloud play. Compare/contrast Cisco with those trends in the market.

Predictions:

  • WebEx Connect will need a strong IdM (Identity Management) play and will do so either through expanding what exists within PostPath or through an acquisition or a deep partnership. This will be a "cloud based" IdM play - not on-premise (to which it would federate with existing solutions). The cloud-based identity service will be key to expand on social networking aspects that will emerge around WebEx Connect.
  • More acquisitions - perhaps one of the mashup, or PaaS, or feed syndication platform vendors or a mobile player.
  • More partnerships - perhaps with Jive or other white label/hosted social/community platforms vendors.

Below are a random collection of questions in my head as I sit and listen:

DoJo Questions (Disclaimer: I don't cover Ajax/widgets per se so these questions are based on little knowledge and might be offbase or not relevant)

  • What is Cisco's position on OpenAjax Alliance?
  • Where will Cisco go concerning OpenAjax Metadata specification?
  • Where will Cisco go concerning OpenAjax Hub (secure mashup runtime)?
Notes From Cisco WebEx Connect SessionSeptember 25

Rough notes taken during this morning's presentation on WebEx Connect:

  • How does IT meet the competing demands from end users where end users can obtain solutions from the consumer market with updates to tools occurring at a much faster rate than traditional enterprise IT software.
  • Need a new architecture and approach. Want to support a 3-6 month delivery cycle.
  • But, need to maintain security, compliance, and other policies
  • Cisco Collaboration Architecture: higher level of services (presence, messaging), designed for other people to extend (mashups), designed for enterprise environment (policy management)
  • Unified Communications + Web 2.0 + SaaS supported by a network services layer linked to API strategy (based on web services) and Cisco developer services program, etc
  • Leverage Cisco network expertise (Cisco Intelligent Network)
  • WebEx Media Tone Network
    • 9 globally linked data center, 99.99 reliability, hot site redundancy, peering with BGP, audit against ISO-17799 and SAS70 Type II standards
    • Intelligent, secure, reliable, and scalable global delivery
    • 125K WebEx sessions per day across 94 days
    • Operational Support System: software deployment, site/resource provisioning, usage monitoring, network performance, etc
  • WebEx Connect Collaboration Services
    • e-Mail
    • Presence
    • Instant Messaging
    • Shared Workspaces
    • Vo
Oracle OpenWorld 2008 Keynote NotesSeptember 22

Partial notes from opening keynote (Charles Phillips)

  • Investing around $3B in research-related activities; 1200 patents
  • 50 acquisitions over last 5 years; 1 out of every 3 employees are non-Oracle (prior to expansion) - went from 40K to 85K employees
  • 3 basic businesses: database, middleware and packaged applications (CRM, ERP, Financial, HR, etc)
  • 25% growth over last years, stock up 18%
  • Theme: Complete - Open - Integrated
  • Packaged Applications
    • Horizontal (ERP and CRM)
    • Vertical (Industry specific - automotive, chemicals, CPG, etc)
  • Application Integration Architecture (AIA)
    • Integrate any application, Oracle and non-Oracle leveraging standard middleware, pre-built standard integration
    • Formalize integration methods, "packaged integration" similar in concept to packaged applications
    • Comment: data/object models at all levels (people, business, technology), meta data and meta models are likely key for this framework
    • Comment: Standards are not always available for all types of integration so challenge of leading standards effort or moving ahead in a way that remains open (will be especially true for emerging areas related to social networking)
  • Horizontal Application Product Strategy
    • Applications Unlimited - new functionality in current applications that is enhanced via Fusion Middleware and includes lifetime
Cisco Announces Definitive Agreement to Acquire JabberSeptember 19

This is a bold move by Cisco (given it's commitment to SIP) to expand industry thinking around presence as well as expanding its thinking around real-time applications given the type of development capabilities made possible with XMPP. 

So suddenly, I see both Avaya and Cisco as the new thought-leaders when it comes to presence (especially in regards to "social presence").

Microsoft and IBM are locked into yesterday's view of presence and where it needs to go.

Question: What will Avaya do since they OEM'd their XMPP capability based on Jabber's platform.

The solution will show up first in the WebEx world (e.g., Media Tone Network, WebEx Connect) and then follow with an on-premise implementation.

Federation will emerge as well between the cloud/SaaS world and on-premise implementations.

Given XMPP's use within the government and financial sectors, this move will also help Cisco expand its customer relationships with those organizations.

(added after original post)

Involvement with the XMPP Standards Foundation will provide Cisco with opportunities to grow the community and partner ecosystem interested in XMPP from both an open source and open standards perspective.

XMPP support will also help interoperability w