Protected: Share Info and Party Tips at ShareFEST
March 8, 2012
MessageSolution for Managing SharePoint Data
March 8, 2012
We have here another attempt to tame SharePoint’s content wild ponies: “MessageSolution Showcasing SharePoint Governance and eDiscovery Platform at Microsoft SharePoint Technology Conference 2012”, reports SeattlePi. The write up declares:
By integrating award-winning enterprise archiving policy with SharePoint’s record center functions, MessageSolution has created a framework to automate eDiscovery and manage risk in SharePoint distributed farms. Now SharePoint administrators can regulate compliance, remotely offload Blobs to optimize SharePoint storage space and server performance, as well as search and restore objects instantly without the need for additional IT assistance.
For those who may not know, a Blob (also written BLOB) is a Binary Large Object. By offloading these objects from a SharePoint server using Microsoft approved EBS and RBS protocols, MessageSolution can speed up tasks in the SharePoint environment. This comes in handy when searching and restoring data for legal discovery proceedings. Furthermore, the article asserts, the tool reduces storage requirements with a high compression rate and single-instance storage.
Designed for both mid- and large-scale organizations, the product also sports a unified index; retention management; legal holds with hold notifications; a unified user interface and index; and federated search. The product’s focus on back-end design, according to the write up, means fewer hassles during installation and maintenance as well as a reduced backup time. See the article for more details.
MessageSolution’s SharePoint Management Solutions and its Enterprise eDiscovery Platform will be showcased at the 2012 SharePoint Technology Conference February 28-29 at the Union Square Hilton in San Francisco (booth #808).
Founded in 2002, MessageSolution has assembled a team of veterans from a number of other Silicon Valley enterprises. The company prides itself on providing solutions that simplify the complex processes of archiving and eDiscovery, including managing language differences, for organizations around the world.
Search Technologies stands ready to assist clients with search and content processing services for Microsoft SharePoint environments.
Iain Fletcher, Search Technologies, March 8, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
There Something Brewing in the PLM Market
March 8, 2012
The product lifecycle management (PLM) market is on the rise. The top three PLM vendors, Dassault, Siemens and PTC, are faced with new challenges and new challengers like Autodesk. The Oleg Shilovitsky’s article PLM Perfect Storm 2012 takes a look at how all of this is brewing and what the aftermath may look like.
It seems that one of the draw backs of all top three vendors is their reliance upon the larger companies. They “failed to deliver scalable PLM solution for mid-range manufacturing companies” and they “didn’t deliver any PLM product to the market of small manufacturing companies” either. Even though Autodesk has entered the PLM market and taken on cloud-based solutions, it is not clear what path they will take.
Shilovitsky believes:
“[l]arge PLM companies have a lot of money to play the future PLM game. They have a lot to win as well as to lose, in case something will go wrong.
So where do smaller, more niche companies fit into this perfect storm? It seems to us that they could be the shining light in this storm. Companies like Inforbix will continue to bring a new look to PLM. They provide cutting-edge solutions that help users access product data located in multiple systems. While the Autodesks and the Dassaults of the world are busy slugging it out for PLM supremecy, Inforbix will be revolutionizing PLM solutions.
Jennifer Wensink, March 8, 2012
Customizing SharePoint to Build a Powerful Intranet Portal for your Users
March 8, 2012
An organization’s intranet is the company home for news and collaboration. A successful intranet also needs to be powerful, yet user-friendly. Can SharePoint accomplish all of this out of the box? The topic is addressed in HR Communication’s publication, “Just How Much Customization Does SharePoint Need?”
The answer is not black and white. Amy Schade, Director of User Experience for the Nielsen Norman Group, says one big factor is getting the software to work for your company’s culture. The experts weigh-in:
Does that mean you have to load SharePoint down with third-party applications? It depends. IBF CEO and founder Paul Miller observed that Duke Energy was a winner last year, basically using SharePoint “out of the box.” Bert Sandie, director of technical excellence at Electronic Arts’ EA University, said a great intranet “should look like one thing,” even with third-party apps. It ought to look like tools people use at home, such as Facebook and Flickr. IBF Live co-host Paul Levy observed, ‘SharePoint out of the box doesn’t lend itself to that experience’.
An out of the box design that keeps users in mind may not be SharePoint’s strongest characteristic. But it doesn’t take much to customize your farm to work for the masses. Instead of bogging down your SharePoint system with third party applications, save time and money on implementations with one lean solution. We like the feedback from Fabasoft Mindbreeze customers. The Chamber of Commerce, Upper Austria had this to say:
Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise provides our staff quickly and efficiently with all the information they need. The service center staff is able to respond to requests without delay, as all relevant information is found with only one query. This even further improves the quality of our customer services whilst simultaneously minimizing effort of our staff.
Look for quick results from an out of the box solution at Fabasoft Mindbreeze.
Philip West, March 8, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Protected: Activate SharePoint Features Before You Start a Project
March 7, 2012
Brainware Acquired by Lexmark
March 7, 2012
Lexmark, the printer outfit located about an hour from the goose pond, is now in the back office, document imaging, search, and eDiscovery business. Like Xerox, Lexmark sees an opportunity in owning document centric software. The price of entry for Lexmark, a company which has had its share of revenue and product innovation challenges, was $148 million. Brainware is in the capture, manage, and access business along with printers and ink.
“Lexmark Acquires Brainware Parent BDGB Enterprise” reported:
Brainware, which provides data capture and enterprise search solutions, will become part of Lexmark’s Perceptive Software business unit. Brainware CEO Carl Mergele will stay with the company, and report to Scott Coons, Perceptive Software’s president and CEO and Lexmark vice president.
Brainware has a patent on tri-gram technology. The idea is that one access an index which creates three letter strings. The system works when performing patent research. By copying the claims from one patent and searching a corpus processed by Brainware, the relevance ranked list of hits provides a useful adjunct to key word and fielded search. Tri-grams are often not enough, so Brainware added support for controlled term lists. The combination added some utility to the firm’s search solution.
Brainware’s moment of insight was its push into the back office. As other search vendors were chasing the traditional documents in the office, Brainware tackled the problem of paper. Not surprisingly, few traditional search vendors paid much attention to Brainware, conceding the sector to ZyLAB, some imaging integrators, and Brainware.
The approach paid off. Compared to the somewhat lackluster performance of such capable search vendors as Coveo and ISYS Search Software, Brainware continued to add clients. The company cut a deal with Oracle, which surprised me and my colleagues in Harrod’s Creek. The denizens of Sea World Parkway realized that Brainware’s approach was able to solve some back office woes that Oracle’s formidable array of solutions could not. SES11g is not what one wants processing the text from random forms and documents which clog the enterprise arteries.
How will Lexmark leverage Brainware? One hopes that Lexmark figures out a way to navigate choppy financial waters. The merry band of Brainware owners are probably going to replace their HP and Canon printers with Lexmark gear. Worth watching how Lexmark leverages this $148 million purchase. For those of you who don’t calculate the relative buyout delta between Autonomy and Brainware, Hewlett Packard paid 67 times as much for its search acquisition Autonomy.
Stephen E Arnold, March 7, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
SharePoint 2013: Speculation and Musings
March 7, 2012
With SharePoint 2013’s hotly anticipated release, Bjorn Furuknap weighs in, speculating on the various features that will be made available. His blog entry, “SharePoint Server 2013 Features,” provides details on some rumored 2013 additions.
SharePoint Server 2013 keeps many of the existing SharePoint 2010 features, such as: Excel Services, Access Services, InfoPath Forms Services, User Profile Service, Search Services, Business Connectivity Services, and PerformancePoint Services. In addition, however, there are new, or at least radically expanded services, such as: Content Management Service, Translation Services, Workflow Services, SharePoint Quiz Client-Side Object Model Protocol, Education Services, and Work Management Service.
While every edition of SharePoint gets better, increasing ease-of-use and efficiency, it sometimes seems that SharePoint is simply keeping up with third-party solutions that are much more agile and current in terms of new releases. One particular solution that does a great job of staying current with its suite of solutions is Fabasoft Mindbreeze.
With Fabasoft Mindbreeze, updates are not a belabored three-year overhaul, but an efficient revamp every quarter. Felt needs are met quickly and efficiently. Read more about actionable information, one of the latest additions to Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise Winter Release 2012:
With most search engines you can search and find. With Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise you don’t just find, you can instantly use the information without any intermediate step. The search query delivers an e-mail address, for example – click on this address directly within the preview to write an e-mail to the selected addressee.
So while SharePoint 2013 is greatly anticipated, consider if it is worth the wait or if the addition of a third-party solution can meet your organization’s information needs.
Emily Rae Aldridge, March 7, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Kenesto Breaks Free of Traditional PLM
March 7, 2012
Technology companies are continually releasing new products, but one that caught our eye was Kenesto. They have created a new cloud-based, business process automation system for manufacturing. Engineering Matters takes a closer look in their article Kenesto: A New Take on PLM.
Kenesto “is markedly different from almost all of the software systems that support product development today.” These differences allow “new activities that organizations cannot get by using today’s PLM systems.”
“[t]here is a strong need for creativity and innovation in engineering. Today’s PLM systems with rigid process definitions seem ill suited to support that need. And that’s why I feel something like Kenesto with something that looks and feels more like routing to support ad-hoc activities than a workflow enforcing predefined processes seems like a better fit. The great news is that Kenesto can support both.”
Like Autodesk PLM360, Kenesto “is decoupled from PDM, making it a finer granularity system that can be adopted more readily.”
We are excited about Kenesto’s new take on PLM. There are many technology companies that are taking PLM and putting their own spin on it. For example, Inforbix has successfully changed how manufacturers find, reuse and share product data.
Going beyond traditional PLM parameters will only lead to bigger and better things for Kenesto, Inforbix and manufacturers using their solutions.
Jennifer Wensink, March 16, 2012
Lucid Imagination: Pushing Forward with Enterprise Search
March 7, 2012
ZDNet recently reported on the enterprise search software provider Lucid Imagination in the article “Lucid Imagination Wants to Make Enterprise Search Easy.”
According to the article, there is a problem that exists within many enterprises today. Companies are creating an increased amount of data than ever before, but are simultaneously unable to turn the majority of that data into useful information that can be easily accessed.
Lucid Imagination has proposed a solution to this problem by packaging several formerly open source Apache Solr/Lucene products into a search platform called LucidWorks.
the article states:
“Lucid Imagination is competing with a number of other companies, such as Innovent Solutions and Search Technologies, that hope to make Apache Lucene/Solr a part of enterprise tool-kits. Lucid hopes to stand out because of the enhancements it has made to the open source software to make it easier to use, help it index a larger number of data source, and increase the levels of security protecting the resultant search solution.”
We believe that Lucid Imagination’s product stands out among other similar providers and look forward to seeing more of them in the future.
Jasmine Ashton, March 7, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Protected: Recycle the SharePoint Way
March 6, 2012
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