Veterans in information technology have a sense of déjà vu relating to virtualization and cloud computing. Yes, they are new, but they are also reminiscent of old. IBM VM (Virtual Machine), a forerunner to today’s virtualization, was introduced in 1972. RSTS (Resource Sharing / Time Sharing) is a precursor to cloud computing that was introduced in 1970 by Digital Equipment Corporation.
In those earlier days, managing relatively scarce and expensive computing resources was the challenge. Sharing the cost of the computing resources made computing affordable. As a result of Moore’s law and huge advances in data networks, the cost of computing and information resources is no longer an issue. Information processing is available in the post-industrial world to [almost] anyone [almost] anywhere.
The old ideas may have come back, but they are coming back for a different reason. The driver today is keeping up with change. For competitive, risk, legal, and compliance reasons, companies need to stay up-to-date with technology. Even companies with great wealth find the endless process of keeping up with technology change to be a distraction. The pace of change in underlying technology has increased to the point where it consumes too much attention that could be focused on the core business.
Businesses are not worried that sharing virtualized infrastructure in the cloud will provide an advantage to their competitors. They are worried about being slower than their competitors to get on a cloud bandwagon that provides an advantage. The shared commitment to a cloud environment will keep a company more up-to-date, without distracting from the core business, at a cost no more than it would have cost to do it themselves.
Whether SaaS, utility computing, web services in the cloud, platform as a service, or some other formulation, there are increasing opportunities to contract-out the job of keeping up with technology. Whether HP, IBM, Google, Amazon, or a wide range of providers focused on specific applications there are providers ready to contract for that service. With the pace of change speeding up and increasing opportunities to contract-out the risky business of keeping up, those old ideas delivered in new ways are going to be around for a lot longer.
(I mention RSTS and VM in the post above because of my first-hand exposure to them. I used RSTS in 1978 at school, working on Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-11/34. I first encountered IBM’s VM in 1984 while working on Nixdorf computer’s 8890, an IBM 370-4300 plug compatible.)
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Case Management, Low on Hype, May Deliver the Promises of Its Ancestors
Provide workers the information they need to get their jobs done. It’s a great idea. Like most things, it’s been done before.
Provide workers the information they need to get their jobs done. That’s my one-line explanation for the knowledge-enabled processes of the 1990s.
What’s different now?
Software and solutions have been sold under the banners of knowledge management, content management, collaboration, workflow, business process management, and business process automation. All of those ancestors of case management have played their role, and in some cases, not lived up to the hype. Now the hype has been replaced by experience and the technologies have matured. The experience and maturity are being blended together into case management.
Unlike its ancestors, case management is low on hype. Unlike its ancestors, case management is not a stretch on the features of deployed solutions. The key benefit of case management is not new, unheard-of functionality. The key benefit of case management is to deliver easily-conceived functionality in a more productive user experience, with parameter-driven deployment, and with modest integration effort. Case management promises to remove technology barriers between content, data, process, and collaboration, to deliver the information the business wants, economically.
At first, EMC seems an unlikely candidate to deliver on this vision for case management. On further thought, case management may be the ultimate synergy of EMC’s eRoom, Documentum, Captiva, and Pro-activity heritage. eRoom achieved incredible heights of user appeal and deployability. Documentum has always been exceptionally integratable. Captiva brings world class ability to transform information on paper to electronic information, so that workers can get their jobs done. Proactivity offers the highest level of business process science. In its xCP product, EMC is showing strategic commitment to exactly this combination in the case management space. With this combination and commitment, xCP may be the product that exceeds industry hype.
Provide workers the information they need to get their jobs done. That’s my one-line explanation for the knowledge-enabled processes of the 1990s.
What’s different now?
Software and solutions have been sold under the banners of knowledge management, content management, collaboration, workflow, business process management, and business process automation. All of those ancestors of case management have played their role, and in some cases, not lived up to the hype. Now the hype has been replaced by experience and the technologies have matured. The experience and maturity are being blended together into case management.
Unlike its ancestors, case management is low on hype. Unlike its ancestors, case management is not a stretch on the features of deployed solutions. The key benefit of case management is not new, unheard-of functionality. The key benefit of case management is to deliver easily-conceived functionality in a more productive user experience, with parameter-driven deployment, and with modest integration effort. Case management promises to remove technology barriers between content, data, process, and collaboration, to deliver the information the business wants, economically.
At first, EMC seems an unlikely candidate to deliver on this vision for case management. On further thought, case management may be the ultimate synergy of EMC’s eRoom, Documentum, Captiva, and Pro-activity heritage. eRoom achieved incredible heights of user appeal and deployability. Documentum has always been exceptionally integratable. Captiva brings world class ability to transform information on paper to electronic information, so that workers can get their jobs done. Proactivity offers the highest level of business process science. In its xCP product, EMC is showing strategic commitment to exactly this combination in the case management space. With this combination and commitment, xCP may be the product that exceeds industry hype.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Get Ready for More Information about Product Origin
Point of origin is important for consumers, manufacturers, retailers, and governments. Technology and infrastructure are evolving to increase access to accurate point of origin information.
Consumers care where a product was made. Consumers of a given country are often more likely to buy a product that was made in their own country. For some products, consumers associate special value to specific countries and country of origin is becoming an important brand. For example, Columbia invests in consumer awareness of it coffee, Switzerland invests in consumer awareness of a range of products such as watches, and Volkswagen promotes German origin as a desirable attribute for cars. In some cases, not only country but region is an important distinction for consumers; some consumers want smoked salmon not from Canada, but from Nova Scotia or sparkling wine not from France, but from Champagne.
Because consumers care where a product was made, it’s important for manufacturers and retailers to communicate point of origin or point of manufacture to consumers. Manufacturers and retailers know consumers will favor goods from their home country and in some cases pay a premium for goods from a particular country or region. They spend money to promote the value of goods from a particular region, and those who can give consumers confidence in point of origin will be able to obtain a superior return.
Governments invest in their national brands, and maintaining integrity in point of origin information is important for protecting the brand. Governments want to enforce trade restrictions (e.g., United States does not allow the import of highly desirable cigars from Cuba) and keep accurate statistics on imports and exports (e.g., United States Department of Commerce restrictions). Governments want to collect import and value added taxes fairly and efficiently. Finally, governments want to control and track movement of some valuable commodities, such as antiquities and nuclear material.
The infrastructure and technology to confirm point of origin is developing to the stage where businesses and governments can begin to incorporate into their plans an increasing awareness and ability to track point of origin. Goods are increasingly identified with RFID tags and pass through intelligent portals when entering a leaving a country, warehouse, truck, or ship. Additionally, in-store hand held RFID readers are also being deployed. The Electronic Product Code transmitted by RFID tags can be used to confirm the origin of the product.
With point of origin information becoming increasingly available, branding and consumer awareness of micro-geographies will increase. For example, Consumers will always be pleased to know that their coffee comes from Columbia, but will be fascinated to know the specific grower who produced the coffee, and the growing techniques used by that grower. As the technology and infrastructure continues to develop, a whole new world of origin awareness is on its way.
Consumers care where a product was made. Consumers of a given country are often more likely to buy a product that was made in their own country. For some products, consumers associate special value to specific countries and country of origin is becoming an important brand. For example, Columbia invests in consumer awareness of it coffee, Switzerland invests in consumer awareness of a range of products such as watches, and Volkswagen promotes German origin as a desirable attribute for cars. In some cases, not only country but region is an important distinction for consumers; some consumers want smoked salmon not from Canada, but from Nova Scotia or sparkling wine not from France, but from Champagne.
Because consumers care where a product was made, it’s important for manufacturers and retailers to communicate point of origin or point of manufacture to consumers. Manufacturers and retailers know consumers will favor goods from their home country and in some cases pay a premium for goods from a particular country or region. They spend money to promote the value of goods from a particular region, and those who can give consumers confidence in point of origin will be able to obtain a superior return.
Governments invest in their national brands, and maintaining integrity in point of origin information is important for protecting the brand. Governments want to enforce trade restrictions (e.g., United States does not allow the import of highly desirable cigars from Cuba) and keep accurate statistics on imports and exports (e.g., United States Department of Commerce restrictions). Governments want to collect import and value added taxes fairly and efficiently. Finally, governments want to control and track movement of some valuable commodities, such as antiquities and nuclear material.
The infrastructure and technology to confirm point of origin is developing to the stage where businesses and governments can begin to incorporate into their plans an increasing awareness and ability to track point of origin. Goods are increasingly identified with RFID tags and pass through intelligent portals when entering a leaving a country, warehouse, truck, or ship. Additionally, in-store hand held RFID readers are also being deployed. The Electronic Product Code transmitted by RFID tags can be used to confirm the origin of the product.
With point of origin information becoming increasingly available, branding and consumer awareness of micro-geographies will increase. For example, Consumers will always be pleased to know that their coffee comes from Columbia, but will be fascinated to know the specific grower who produced the coffee, and the growing techniques used by that grower. As the technology and infrastructure continues to develop, a whole new world of origin awareness is on its way.
Monday, July 5, 2010
Evolving from Closed Loop to Open Loop RFID Applications
The capabilities of RFID and EPC are difficult to weave into routine thoughts and plans. They are such a departure from today’s technology, that even after many exposures to RFID and EPC, the influence of years of prior experience without them still injects a bias in planning the future. This bias is an adoption challenge that is holding back big returns for organizations and economies of all sizes.
One step to cope with the adoption challenge is to work on a small scale. Alan Sherman of OATSystems recently gave me an example of a small-scale success that is bringing RFID into every day life. An ambulance company previously spent hours with a manual checklist making sure the right equipment was in place to confirm the ambulance was ready for medical emergencies. With an RFID solution, this ambulance company now knows instantly whether essential equipment is in the ambulance, and they are incorporating RFID into ideas for the future of their mechanical maintenance.
Beyond the challenge of implementing closed-loop applications, the more difficult challenge of open loop applications awaits. The ambulance success and most accumulated RFID success stories are closed loop applications. In these applications, tagging and reading are performed on items while they are within the control of a single company. In open loop applications, tags and readers across multiple organizations work together, so that readers from a company can recognize tags and retrieve information about tagged items whether that company placed the tag on the item or not.
Envisioning open loop applications is more difficult than envisioning closed loop applications because it includes coordinated effort among many players about the fundamentals of reading tags, capturing related transactions (Application Level Events), and back-end systems. ATA-2000 and Produce Traceability Initiative (PRI) are examples of ongoing implementations that incorporate open loop thinking. ATA-2000, supported by the aviation industry via the Air Transport Association, defines cradle to grave tracing of aircraft parts, to support quality and efficiency in maintenance and regulatory compliance. PTI, supported by Canadian Produce Marketing Association, Produce Marketing Association, and United Fresh Produce Association, defines tracing or produce from growers, to packers, to retail locations.
ATA-2000 and PTI are exciting programs that are fundamentally changing the way business is done in aviation and in food supply. These types of open loop applications reflect a big way of thinking that produces big returns. They present an example that others can use to identify and envision additional open loop applications to unlock more of the big returns.
One step to cope with the adoption challenge is to work on a small scale. Alan Sherman of OATSystems recently gave me an example of a small-scale success that is bringing RFID into every day life. An ambulance company previously spent hours with a manual checklist making sure the right equipment was in place to confirm the ambulance was ready for medical emergencies. With an RFID solution, this ambulance company now knows instantly whether essential equipment is in the ambulance, and they are incorporating RFID into ideas for the future of their mechanical maintenance.
Beyond the challenge of implementing closed-loop applications, the more difficult challenge of open loop applications awaits. The ambulance success and most accumulated RFID success stories are closed loop applications. In these applications, tagging and reading are performed on items while they are within the control of a single company. In open loop applications, tags and readers across multiple organizations work together, so that readers from a company can recognize tags and retrieve information about tagged items whether that company placed the tag on the item or not.
Envisioning open loop applications is more difficult than envisioning closed loop applications because it includes coordinated effort among many players about the fundamentals of reading tags, capturing related transactions (Application Level Events), and back-end systems. ATA-2000 and Produce Traceability Initiative (PRI) are examples of ongoing implementations that incorporate open loop thinking. ATA-2000, supported by the aviation industry via the Air Transport Association, defines cradle to grave tracing of aircraft parts, to support quality and efficiency in maintenance and regulatory compliance. PTI, supported by Canadian Produce Marketing Association, Produce Marketing Association, and United Fresh Produce Association, defines tracing or produce from growers, to packers, to retail locations.
ATA-2000 and PTI are exciting programs that are fundamentally changing the way business is done in aviation and in food supply. These types of open loop applications reflect a big way of thinking that produces big returns. They present an example that others can use to identify and envision additional open loop applications to unlock more of the big returns.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
