Shared Spaces Reports

Inside Digital Media Interview, Sep 21

A Discussion on Collaboration Software Clients with Phil Leigh at Inside Digital Media

Phil writes:

Summary: What if you lived in New Zealand, but your work required that you collaborate on projects with customers located in the United States? We don’t think you could do this without a superior knowledge for the practical application of real-time PC-to-PC collaboration. Moreover, neither does our guest today who lives in Christchurch and runs a consulting business that helps customers utilize the tools available today. He also helps collaboration vendors design their products to be meet the needs of users in the future and thereby remain competitive in this fast-moving and challenging market.  

Today, PC-To-PC collaboration involves effectively utilizing one of, or a combination of several, among five generic software clients: (1) email, (2) instant messaging, (3) RSS, (4) collaborative workspace, or (5) Web Conferencing.  Our guest today provides a compelling analysis of the benefits and drawbacks of each application and outlines his ideas for one “Super Client” that integrates all of the features currently isolated in each tool.

He will be publishing a research paper next month to explain what the “Super Client” will look like and how it can be implemented. Earlier papers available at his website thoroughly analyze the strengths and weakness of today’s tools and tell us how they may be most effectively employed for the present.  

Subject: Today’s guest is Michael Sampson of Shared Spaces Research & Consulting. Michael has been an active researcher, analyst and consultant in the messaging and collaboration field since 1994. He works with customers to understand their current technology platform, their future business strategy, and then advise on the best alignment of technology and business strategy.

Length: The narrated PowerPoint presentation is covered in about 38 minutes.

Today’s interview is a Slide Show with voice-over of the conversation between Michael and me. To see the show, visit www.insidedigitalmedia.com and click on the interview for September 21st.

Collaboration Software Clients: Email, IM, Presence, RSS & Collaborative Workspaces Should Be Integrated for Business Communication ... Part 1. Strengths & Weaknesses, But Nothing's Perfect, Aug 23

Collaboration Software Clients: Email, IM, Presence, RSS & Collaborative Workspaces Should Be Integrated for Business Communication ... Part 1. Strengths & Weaknesses, But Nothing's Perfect is a free white paper from Shared Spaces Research & Consulting. The paper was written as an independent publication, without sponsorship from any vendor, so as to give a totally unbiased view of the needs of users from a collaboration software client.

Extract
Email—the collaboration software client of choice for most people—has been a wild success, with user adoption and message traffic growing rapidly since the mid 1990s. However, what we know as "email" today has some major problems, to which it must adapt or fade from relevancy. In addition, there are a plethora of new software clients that facilitate communication and collaboration, but they remain separate and non-integrated. The purpose of this paper is to return to first principles, discussing the types of software-facilitated interactions the information professional deals with on a day-to-day basis, and to propose a unifing vision for moving forward with collaboration software clients

.... Of the plethora of separate collaboration clients types on the market today, no single client is sufficient for the communication and collaboration needs of information professionals. A re-integration of the common key services of all of these offerings into a collaboration "super client” is needed.

The White Paper outlines Part 1 of an argument for a re-integration of capabilities in disparate software clients into a new collaboration "super client". Part 2, "Architecture & Key Capabilities of the Super Client" will be published in September 2004.

Timeline Update (11/09): Due to a significant up-tick in client consulting engagements, the publication of Part II has been pushed back to early 2005. Sorry!

(PDF, 27 pages, 836 KB)

Want more? Then check out the services on offer through Shared Spaces Research & Consulting, or take advantage of either a one-hour consulting hour or a full day strategic discussion forum on this topic. Contact Michael via email for more details.

Response to the META Group White Paper, “Messaging Total Cost of Ownership: Microsoft Exchange 2003 and Lotus Domino in Small and Medium Organizations”

I was surprised to see another poorly done white paper on Exchange vs. Domino so close to the Radicati fiasco of last week. However, this one is from The META Group (www.metagroup.com), which has traditionally published very good work. I’m greatly surprised at the lack of thoroughness and due diligence in preparing this paper. It is not available on the META Group web site (so it is probably not written by one of the META analysts, eg, Matt Cain), but is available from Microsoft’s competitive intelligence site on Exchange, at www.microsoft.com/exchange/evaluation/compare/METAEx2k3vNotes.asp.

Why am I writing this?

• It has always been difficult, if not impossible, for an analyst to compare Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Domino.


• Comparative TCO studies are very important, but are hard to do well. Many different items across the two comparative products need to be looked at the same. For the comparisons to be valid, the author must apply the same standards and use a consistent approach with both products.


• The META group has a good reputation in the market, so its work carries weight.


• The author has prefaced the report with specifically chosen words about how careful he or she has been. A casual reader would take that at face value.


• I believe there are fundamental flaws in this TCO study, and they should be taken into consideration when reading it.

Here’s the points at which I think the author has displayed a “lack of thoroughness and due diligence”:

Response to the Radicati Market Analysis Study of June 2004, Jul 23

I've been an analyst, researcher and consultant in the messaging and collaboration market since 1994. During that time, I've watched Microsoft and Lotus closely, commenting on many of their respective moves directly to clients, and in publications via Ferris Research. This paper is a response to The Radicati Group's recent White Paper, "IBM Lotus & Microsoft--Corporate Messaging Market Analysis" (June 2004), available at www.radicati.com/reports/single.shtml.

My overall analysis of its White Paper is that it is a headline grabbing publication lacking analytical rigor, logic and appropriate follow-through. The paper is unbelievable in this respect, making me wonder whether it is really an independent publication, or marketing material sponsored by Microsoft. The author seeks to compare two platforms that are entirely different in terms of scope and imagination, and then recommends a path for clients. I strongly believe that the author entirely misses the point, is totally wrong in the commentary on Microsoft's messaging strategy, and therefore provides market share growth figures that are just plain wrong.

Read the full article:

See Volker's Wiki Page for the overall response to the paper.