Oracle Launches Beehive
Oracle recently announced the launching of its new collaboration product titled "Beehive". Its capabilities include email, calendar, workspaces, and other collaboration tools. It comes both as an on premise solution as well as on demand solution. It has been touted as competition for Microsoft's messaging and collaboration products, Exchange and Sharepoint. At $120 per user seat, it is not really a small to mid sized business product. For me, this is a better product than Microsoft's recently launched "online productivity suite", because it offers intergrated messaging and collaboration, while with MS's OPS, Sharepoint Online, Exchange Online, Hosted Unified Communciations server and LiveMeeting come as separate products.
I was going through its product sheet, and thought i would do a comparison with HyperOffice, a web based collaboration suite targeted primarily for small to mid sized businesses.
|
|
Beehive |
HyperOffice |
|
Fully Integrated |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Email Server |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Calendar |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Workspaces |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Instant Messaging |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Discussions |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Contacts |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Linking |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Task Management |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Mobility |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Document Management |
No |
Yes |
|
Notifications |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Outlook Integration |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Oracle Products Integration |
Yes |
No |
|
Voicemail |
Yes |
No |
|
Zimbra Integration |
Yes |
No |
|
Focus |
|
Small to Mid Sized Companies |
The Prophecy - SaaS Ends in Two Years
I came across an interesting article on ZNet, something of a kill joy, a bubble burster. Going against the overwhelming rush of opinion to the opposite, as well as recent happenings which confirm that even the big guys think the same, Harry Debes, CEO, Lawson Software made a statement - "SaaS is a trend which will collapse in two years". Now, being a SaaS guy, I have to admit my sensibilities were a little hurt, but the courage of this guy has to be admitted. You can read the whole article here and see if the point of view works for you.
Rather than pontificate on the issue, I thought i would share some comments for the obvious torrential debate that followed in the comments section of the article. Some excerpts:-
“While it (downloaded software) might be good for Lawson's bottom line and investors, it has no benefit to the customer that's dealing with an ever web-reliant workforce. Sure, Lawson’s ERP niche is geared toward dinosaurish industries, but that’s not what SaaS is addressing.”
“Whether SaaS companies can generate superior returns over conventional models is perhaps questionable. However the absolute economic value that SaaS delivers to the end user is quantifiable and indisputable.”
My favorite:-
The SaaS market will 'collapse' in two years
[Harry Debes, CEO, Lawson]
I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.
[IBM Chairman Thomas Watson, 1943]
“There is no need for any individual to have a computer in their home.”
[Ken Olson, President of Digital Equipment Corp, in 1977]
“No one will need more than 637 kb of memory for a personal computer. 640K ought to be enough for anybody.”
[Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, in 1981]
You get the drift!
Unified Communications go Online
.
Wikipedia defines unified communications as follows:-
UC is "an industry term used to describe all forms of call and multimedia/cross-media message-management functions controlled by an individual user for both business and social purposes". This potentially includes the integration of fixed and mobile voice, e-mail, instant messaging, desktop and advanced business applications, Internet Protocol (IP)-PBX, voice over IP (VoIP), presence, voice-mail, fax, audio video and web conferencing, unified messaging, unified voicemail, and whiteboarding into a single environment offering the user a more complete but simpler and more effective experience.
Although I may be using the term in its loose sense, off late, there have been developments in the internet industry, which made me think of the expression – “unified communications on the net”. The specific developments are:-
1) Microsoft declaring its hosted “productivity suite”, a collection of its popular solutions - Sharepoint, Exchange, LiveMeeting and Communications Server, offered as hosted products, at a joint monthly price.
2) Cisco aquiring PostPath, an email and calendar software company, to reinforce its WebEx web conferencing software. As some blogs reported “Cisco said it will also extend the email and calendar functionality of its flexible software-as-a-service-based collaborative platform that includes instant messaging, voice, video, data, document management, and web 2.0 applications.”
3) Google gradually building out its suite of online productivity software - Google Pages, Google Apps, Gmail, Gtalk etc, and positioning itself as a business solution, while solutions like Gmail and Gtalk have always been seen as consumer products.
The common thread in the above is rather obvious. The attempt to offer the following as a single hosted product – email, calendars, task management, contact management (traditionally called messaging software), document collaboration, intranet/extranet/webpage publishing and customization, forums, IM (they call it collaboration software), audio conferencing, whiteboard, application/desktop sharing, and online presentations etc (called web conferencing). How can one NOT call a single solution with all the above a “unified communications” or “total collaboration” solution.
Traditionally companies have had to look at three products to serve the above needs. Obviously, there are great synergies to be obtained from seamless data flow between these traditionally segregated solutions. For example, web conferencing, which is basically a way to set up meetings, would gain from being integrated with calendring, as it would gain from integrating with document management, as documents need to be distributed and collaboratively worked on during meetings. It would especially be benifical for growing organizations, which are complexity-phobic and cost-phobic to be able to access all the above features from a single web based console, at a reasonable monthly fees.
Exciting and heartening as the above developments are, one has to admit that the above attempts at an online unified communications solution are not quite there. Microsoft’s productivity suite just offers three pieces of the puzzle for a single pricing. Hosted Sharepoint, Exchange, LiveMeeting and Communications Server are un-integrated, and bare bones (vanilla) solutions, and not suitable for small organizations because they need to be configured and integrated to have a usable solution. Google doesn’t really have a web conferencing solution, and to consider Gtalk as one is a stretch. Even otherwise, its products seem more suitable as end customer, stand alone products. And Cisco’s dream product is not here yet.
Quite suprisingly, there is another product, which is not as hyped as the above (although it is has been a well respected provider in the SMB domain for the last more than 8 years), which comes close to the “dream” solution. The solution I’m talking about is HyperOffice, a web based provider of “total collaboration” solution.
They have long provided integrated messaging and collaboration solutions under their fragship product, HyperOffice, which has been positioned as a “Sharepoint alternative” and “Exchange alternative”. Aspects of messaging, tie very logically with aspects of collaboration. The solution design is roughly as follows – “workspaces” for individuals with tools like personal desktop, mail client, personal document management, to do lists, personal address books, and personal calendaring etc. The second level is “workspaces” for groups (teams, departments, clients or partners) with tools like group desktop, group calendring, project management, group address books, group document management, forums, and polls etc. So an individual has access to his personal workspace as well as the group workspaces he is a member of. Recently, HyperOffice also launched HyperMeeting, its web conferencing solution, which integrates completely with HyperOffice and adds the missing piece to the puzzle.
It scores on all the criterion of being complete, integrated, simple and ready to use.
HyperOffice Introduces HyperMeeting
HyperOffice recently launched HyperMeeting, a robust and easy to use web conferencing solution primarily meant for the small to mid sized business segment. Like HyperOffice, HyperMeeting is web based. Users simply need to sign up online and start conferencing.
HyperMeeting includes the usual range of features like PowerPoint presentations, whiteboard, desktop sharing, application sharing, file distribution, full conference recording etc. One unique feature is the ability to easily switch between administrator and audience with a simple click.
But what really sets the solution apart is it’s ability to fully integrate with HyperOffice, HyperOffice’s (pardon the confusion) rich collaboration and messaging suite. The synergies to be had from integrated messaging, collaboration and conferencing are tremendous. This also makes HyperOffice’s the most comprehensive web based productivity suite, even exceeding Google products (google does not have a full fledged conferencing tool) and Microsoft’s recent “Productivity Suite”.
In spite of the hype and hopes surrounding Microsoft’s Online Services, it has really fallen short. The “productivity suite” may offer all the pieces of the puzzle – messaging (Exchange), collaboration (Sharepoint) and conferencing (LiveMeeting), but the pieces don’t fit together. They’re piecemeal, bare bones solutions, which will need to be configured and integrated by the users themselves.
HyperOffice, with integrated HyperMeeting, on the other hand, offers a single console, ready to use solution in which all pieces of the puzzle communicate with each other perfectly.
Sharepoint Study - Careful before you use Sharepoint for public facing websites
I recently came across a very interesting report on Sharepoint by J Boyce. The report titled “Best Practices for Using SharePoint for Public Websites - A Business Person’s Guide”, outlines the reasons why organizations opt for SharePoint as a solution for public facing websites, the pitfalls of doing so, and discusses the shortcomings of the oft touted arguments for selecting SharePoint as a collaboration solution. The report is well researched and well founded, based upon extensive interviews with SharePoint experts, consultants and organizations spread all over the globe.
Some prominent recommendations and observations of the study are as follows:-
- Extreme caution is enjoined while using Sharepoint as a solution for public facing websites as it is certainly not as safe and risk-free as many like to think.
- More often than not, the decision to opt for Sharepoint is an IT decision and not a business decision, leading to a disconnect with business objectives.
- Common arguments in favor of selecting Sharepoint – Works best with MS Office, match for current and future requirements, a safe choice; are deconstructed.
The report comes at a not so cheap 135 pounds. But the investment is well worth it for companies considering opting for Sharepoint.
