Ozzie on the Shift to Cloud Computing … Ray Ozzie recommends that firms get first-hand experience with cloud-based services, by moving email and collaboration there. “Speaking at a JP Morgan event in Boston, Ozzie said that enterprises still don’t trust that they will be provided with the high service levels they would need to move applications onto large networks run by a small number of vendors …. The best way for them to have more confidence in cloud computing is to take some applications that are more cloud-friendly — such as e-mail and employee collaboration — to the cloud, Ozzie said. This is why he sees Microsoft’s Exchange and SharePoint software as the obvious first choices for cloud deployment.” More

OneDrum for Office … OneDrum introduced the closed beta of its real-time collaboration platform for Microsoft Office. “The application is designed to add secure, synchronised file sharing and version management, simultaneous, multi-author document creation and editing, and communication and co-ordination tools …. OneDrum also aims to let multiple users author and edit the same document simultaneously, displaying every users’ edits on the screen in real time. The software will also store a local copy of the document on the computer of all those involved, allowing them to access and modify the latest version of the file while offline. Any offline changes will be synchronised with other users, and conflicts resolved, as soon as the user reconnects to the internet.” More

Secure Collaboration for Accountants … XCM Solutions announced a partnership with Praura for the creation of a secure document collaboration service. “Praura has been selected by XCM Solutions to provide secure document sharing and delivery solutions to its clients in the accounting market. By integrating Praura with its existing workflow products, XCM will now be able to offer accountants a fully integrated tool that blends secure document management and distribution capabilities with their award winning workflow solutions. Praura is the web’s premier provider of online document sharing and collaboration tools for the professional services market.” More

Warning on Groove Becoming SharePoint Workspace … Seth talks about the challenge of easy-to-use collaboration tools, like Groove. “Learn from history – because it is technically easy to deploy does not mean a deployment should not be planned. The greatest strength of collaboration tools was that they were easy to deploy, could be provisioned by users, required no IT planning or involvement. The greatest weakness of collaboration tools was that they were easy to deploy, could be provisioned by users, required no IT planning or involvement. Ahh, you noticed that this strength is also a weakness? That is because tools like Notes quickly went out of control and created a sprawling mess of information. An information Shanty Town – with no standards, managed infrastructure, rules for content stewardship or ownership. Don’t make this mistake.” More

UC and Enterprise 2.0 … Eric comments on a session at the Interop conference about unified communications and Enterprise 2.0. “At the same time, Mike tossed a bit of cold water onto the tendency of E2 proponents–as happens with every hot new technology–to suggest that their pet technology is going to displace the “old” way of doing things. The notion, for example, that Twitter and its kin will replace email is absurd, and Mike advised the E2 backers in the audience not to sell their solutions against email; he pointed out that email didn’t gain success by being positioned as a voice mail replacement–even though among some users, it has become essentially that. Instead, Mike said, social software should be presented as solving specific use cases.” More

Motivating UC Users … Blair makes some suggestions about how to motivate people to use UC capabilities. “To sum up, in order to motivate end users to use their UC capabilities, begin the process with a sponsorship team and head cheerleader, get your CXOs to set an example, get users throughout the organization excited about UC, and provide the training necessary to encourage proper usage of the solution.” There’s some interesting comments to Blair’s piece, eg, “It’s not so simple!” More

Hamilton Beach Going to Google … Ed (from IBM) attended the webinar about Hamilton Beach switching from Lotus Notes to Google, and found much to be perplexed about. “For the migration itself, it’s been a basically five-month process for 500 users. Hamilton Beach had to hire two business partners to handle the migration and coexistence. They needed 12 PCs running in parallel to do the data conversion during a gradual migration process. Oh, and the Domino directory is *still* used as the master directory, somehow syncs up with Google, and of course means that they are still running Domino servers for mail (and “we’re still going to have Notes applications”). The presenter stuck to the punch line that they are saving 60% of their costs. As we discussed last week, there’s no way this reflects the reality of the situation. Could they have upgraded to Notes/Domino 8.x in that nine month period? Could they have implemented Domino clustering? Remote access? iNotes for browser usage? Notes 8 user experience? It seems like any one of those would have made an improvement to their Notes/Domino environment, at a fraction of the cost of migration.” More

Other Things
– Your BlackBerry or your wife.
– More from Cisco on Collaboration in Motion.
– Plantronics released a new Bluetooth headset.
– Paul comments on 55 ways to get more energy 🙂
– Dump your TV, and get more time.
– Rocky Oliver is back to running his own shop, now called Onyx Creek Technologies.
– Amazon updated its Kindle for iPhone application.
– ShowDocument, for document co-authoring.
– EMC released a free developer edition of Documentum, its document management platform.
– NuevaSync offers over-the-air synchronization of calendaring services with mobile devices, eg, Apple iPhone.