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EMC DMX Meets the Europeans
By Joyce Tompsett Becknell
This week EMC announced the new Symmetrix
DMX family in New York, Berlin, and Tokyo. The announcement is positioned as
a breakthrough new architecture for the first time in ten years. EMC believes
that the new products will provide significant performance improvements as
well as better overall price/performance. The European press was particularly
interested in whether EMC believed this announcement would vault them back
into first place in the high-end market.
For the launch, EMC focused its messaging on the new
architecture and its vastly improved performance and scalability. EMC
executives patiently walked audiences through the differences in
architectures between their products and the competitors’, and they inundated
us with performance tests demonstrating product superiority. Presumably, EMC
thought a highly technical message was its best approach worldwide. At the
same time, it seems that European audiences are looking for a slightly
different message now. In the boom times, European IT managers tended to be a
little less prone to hype than their American counterparts. Now here in
Germany, unemployment has reached 11%, and the other major European economies
are also struggling. You are more likely to read about companies reducing
operating costs, consolidating architectures, and looking for better
manageability than about those looking for the latest cool technology. The
technology companies that are succeeding in these tough times are the ones emphasizing
how their products and services address customer concerns and improve their
business rather than those dwelling on speeds and feeds.
That said, if you listen
closely to EMC’s message, it is abundantly clear that the company has a good
business story to tell. EMC is the only company offering storage that has any
relationship at all between its midrange and high-end products. It is the
only storage company that offers continuity across products as well as over
time. It is the only storage company that a customer can purchase from and
know that new products will be relatively easy to assimilate as they are all
related to each other. And EMC is the only storage company to offer
modularity at the high end in addition to traditional monolithic boxes. These
are messages that demonstrate an understanding of customer business needs as
well as technology needs. They are the kinds of messages that reassure the
customer that EMC can be a trusted advisor. The answer to the European press
questions of how EMC can capture more market share here is not just a
technical one. It is about the ability to articulate an understanding of
customer business problems, to demonstrate that the EMC solution offers the
best approach to tackling these business problems, and demonstrating that it
is the best partner to do just that. Europeans like to purchase from people
they know, that they trust, with whom they have developed relationships. If
EMC can take on this role for its customers in Europe then yes, it can win
back major market share in the high-end again.
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Kaiser Permanente Plans AMR
Implementation
By Charles King
Kaiser Permanente has announced that it is planning
to deploy an automated medical records (AMR) system for its 8.4 million
members and 12,000 doctors nationwide. The HMO said it will use an
integrated, next-generation AMR system developed by Epic Systems that will
allow both doctors and patients to access health care records. Epic’s
solution is based on an integrated data depository that contains all clinical
records and ancillary information. Kaiser claims the new system will
eliminate problems endemic in paper-based systems and will provide staff
efficient access to current patient information. According to a Kaiser
spokesperson, the new system will cost approximately $1.8 billion and take
three years to implement.
Kaiser’s AMR plan may not qualify as anything new,
but it does have some twists that make it worth discussing. Other medical
organizations including the Veterans Administration have been aggressive in
their use of AMR technologies, and Epic Systems’ AMR solutions are well known
and regarded. Kaiser itself began developing its own in-house AMR system with
software assistance from IBM nearly a decade ago and began deployment in
1997, but implementing the system has been an exercise in teeth pulling that
would be more appropriate to a dental practice than a medical HMO. In fact,
one of the most singular elements of this deal was Kaiser’s willingness to
step away from its own stalled project, admitting in the process that working
with Epic will save the company nearly $1 billion over implementing the in-house
system. This is not especially surprising, given Kaiser’s history of
innovation and success in a medical industry notable for ongoing HMO
flame-outs. But the effects of this deal will be felt far from the corporate
boardroom. From a medical practice perspective, Epic’s solutions are
well-known for providing Web-based document access for both doctors and
patients. Over time, this could provide a powerful tool for both medical
education efforts and doctor/patient interactions.
So who are the potential winners and losers in this
deal? If it delivers promised efficiencies, the new system could prove
critical to helping ensure Kaiser’s corporate health. The deal will likely
also provide a feather for Epic Systems’ cap and some long green for its
pocketbook (and those of IT partner buddies including HP, IBM, Oracle, and
Microsoft, among others). However, there are some technological and human
concerns on the table, as well. On the tech side, we are curious to learn
about the data storage solutions Epic will utilize for this system. Since
patient medical records demand high levels of privacy and are subjected to a
range of government regulations, they are typically stored on
security-compliant tape- or optical-based WORM (write once, read many)
solutions. These technologies may provide medical records in a timely enough
fashion for scheduled medical exams or consultations, but we have concerns
over how effective they will be for delivering records in emergency
situations. In fact, this area is one where the high availability of
disk-based storage solutions could potentially shine. On the human side, we
have some concerns whether doctors and their patients will view the Web as a
boon or barrier to healthcare. Traditionally, good medical care has been
associated with the “human touch” of doctors, nurses, and other healthcare
professionals. That may be an unrealistic expectation in a medical industry
where cost pressures are constant, profit margins are shrinking, and many
hospitals are drowning in red ink. From a practical standpoint, AMR solutions
may provide a lifeline the medical industry needs to survive, but they also
signal a profound and elemental shift in the interactions between doctors and
their patients.
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Being All That It Can BEA
By Jim Balderston
BEA Systems has announced the availability of two
new editions to its Java application server stable with BEA WebLogic Express
and BEA WebLogic Server, Workgroup Edition. The two new products are designed
to have lower price points than the company’s WebLogic Server, and
correspondingly lower capabilities, with what the company said was an eye
toward department level installations from both budgetary and functionality
points of view. The BEA WebLogic Express product is designed for building and
serving Java Server Pages and Java Servelets and is focused on applications
like corporate Web sites. Projects requiring full J2EE capabilities would be
more suited for the WebLogic Server, Workgroup Edition, the company said. The
Workgroup Edition product will support up to twenty end users with all
features found in the full WebLogic product, including support for Enterprise
Java Beans.
BEA has tried — like many other companies — to make
its living selling as high up the corporate food chain as possible. Getting
CEO or CIO buy-in for an installation can have a streamlining effect on
closing larger, more substantial sales, as the seller has convinced the
people who make the decisions for the people who write the checks. For BEA —
and many others — the idea of selling to the top negated the need to struggle
through the Byzantine maze of corporate approval processes for division-wide
or (shudder) department-wide installations. Those problems belonged to
somebody else.
But as we move forward into a more saturated market,
and one that is drudging its way through a significant economic downturn that
has all but plugged the IT capital investment spigot, we can see BEA’s logic and perhaps its inspiration as well. Now is
not the time to try and convince CEOs to spend large amounts of money on new
enterprise-wide products. However, a sales pitch to the department level may
have much more appeal to a cash-strapped CIO who is also trying to manage
parallel IT structures: BEA on the enterprise level and something entirely
different on the departmental level, requiring a whole different set of
skills, software, manuals, and experience. Two parallel systems, two parallel
IT staffs. In such a scenario, BEA moving downward into the enterprise makes
a great deal of sense for both the company and the enterprises they support.
Enterprise IT will get to leverage their capabilities supporting BEA
application servers and BEA gets some excellent exposure to what department
level users actually need, want, and use, something that may not be well
understood or transmitted from C-level business executives to BEA product
developers. Such information could help BEA be all that they can BEA.
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Linux in Europe: Software Vanguard?
By Joyce Tompsett Becknell
Last week it was announced that KDE, an interface
for Linux, had been upgraded and will now include some of the server-side
work that the German government-funded Kroupware project has been focused on.
KDE has been particularly focused on the client side; it is used for example
in Linux versions from SuSE, MandrakeSoft, and Red Hat. With
this announcement, the Kolab server product — which has similar capabilities
to Microsoft Exchange Server, such as email and calendar — has been added. Future versions will include more of the Kroupware
client-side software developments. Kroupware is a project initiated by the
German Bundesamt fuer Sicherheit in der Infomationstechnik (BSI), which is
the federal agency for IT security. The agency was
looking for companies to provide open source groupware for both clients and
servers, and in September last year, three companies were chosen to do the
work. The three companies are erfrakon from Stuttgart, which does the
conceptual work as well as the server implementation; Intevation
from Osnabrueck, which does product coordination; and Klarälvdalens
Datakonsult AB, from Värmland,
Sweden, which oversees the client implementation work.
The Linux movement in Europe is barreling ahead. Arguments
continue in the U.S. over whether Linux is ready for primetime. It has been
conceded that Linux is useful for infrastructure servers and a serious player
for that purpose. However, the story usually runs something like… well, no
one is using Linux for enterprise applications yet… and then they talk about
the dominance of Microsoft ISVs. This is a true story for the United States. However,
out here in the part of space known to U.S. marketing directors as ROW (rest
of world), Linux is alive and seriously kicking its
way to the top. Out here in the “hinterlands,” along with running water and
electricity European populist tendencies are gravitating toward open source
software. After all, it was a European (a Finn no less!) who invented Linux,
and based it on an operating system that had been written by a Dutch
professor. The truth is that the idea of the Bazaar, the sense of communal
development, is an attractive idea in Europe and other geographies (e.g.
Asia, Latin America, Africa). This communal spirit is of course one of the
driving forces behind the European Union, so it is no surprise that they too
are seriously looking at ways to move several member governments’ IT systems
from Microsoft-based systems to Linux. As was pointed out in the press this
week, they have commissioned a UK firm to do a feasibility study on just
that.
The truth is that many ISVs outside the U.S. are not
tied to the Microsoft platform as they are in the U.S. And they also like the
idea of having a major technology movement that originates from Europe, and
to which they can contribute. And while pundits in the U.S. make predictions
for where Linux will hit the brick wall of acceptance for enterprise
applications, Europeans are quietly and steadily investing federal money into
making sure that doesn’t happen. So while Linux is not taking the corporate
world by storm as most technologies have, it is continuing to grow through
grass roots and governments, in regions where governments can and will try to
set technical direction and fund entrepreneurial work. To truly understand
Linux and open source, it would be useful to stop thinking of
one-size-fits-all-global-software-with-minor-regional-adjustments-compensated-for
and start thinking of modular, regionally-focused software designed to allow
users to take what they want and use it as they need. That
kind of software doesn’t fit the traditional software company model and the
traditional understanding of where products fit. The dominant model has been
the one that worked in the U.S., because that has been the dominant market
for IT. But the room for growth in ROW is much larger over time, and Linux
just may be the key to understanding and taking advantage of that potential.
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Microsoft Bemoans Linux in SEC
Filing
By Charles King
According to news stories, Microsoft last week filed
a regulatory statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission listing
potential risk factors in its future business dealings. Along with “General
Economic and Geo-Political” risks, possible litigation and the lack of profit
realized from some recent offerings, Microsoft stated that increasing market
acceptance of the Open Source software model could cause sales of the
company’s products to decline. If this was the case, Microsoft indicated that
it may have to reduce the prices it charges for its products, and revenues
and operating margins may consequently decline. To bolster its concerns,
Microsoft pointed out efforts by the governments of Germany and South Africa
to promote the replacement of Microsoft software with Open Source solutions.
At a practical level, Microsoft’s SEC filing
qualifies as little more than an example of the common sort of CYA financial
gamesmanship played by many, if not most, publicly held corporations.
Potential risks to future profitability often read like the “Acts of God”
exclusions commonly listed in insurance policies, and exist as little more
than precautionary laundry lists companies can point back to if and when
earnings hit the proverbial fan. We do find a couple of Microsoft’s
cautionary threats of interest, specifically the global economic and
geo-political risks, and the company’s recent run of profitability-challenged
products. Beltway cheerleading aside, the U.S. economy remains a somnolent
ghost of its once vigilant self, and the inability or ineptitude of slow-footed
regulators to correct existing loopholes or bring market rigging miscreants
to justice has helped to further undermine investor confidence. Toss in
months of escalating saber rattling in the Mid-East and goofy nuclear
gamesmanship in the Far East, and you have a set of circumstances even
Microsoft’s formidable market presence may find overwhelming. In fact, the
company’s recent new venture woes may be a simple indicator of just how tough
it is to find, let alone create, market oxygen in the current puny
atmosphere.
That said, what are we to make of Microsoft’s
depiction of Open Source/Linux as a threat as formidable as or more so than these
others? Despite the real advances Linux solutions have enjoyed, the claim
resonates hollowly if examined closely. Yes, Linux has found increasing
traction among certain classes of business users and their IT vendors. Yes,
these successes will likely continue as Linux becomes more scalable and ISVs
deliver more Open Source business solutions. But the time that Linux might
pose a serious threat to Microsoft in the business world, let alone on
consumer desktops, remains in the cloudy future. While Linux’s most
enthusiastic large vendor supporters (IBM and HP) have claimed to be making
money on their Open Source efforts, those successes account for a mere
fraction of the company’s current sales/profits. So what is the source of
Microsoft’s ongoing penguin anxiety? While we hesitate (a bit) to play
amateur psychiatrist, perhaps what we have here is a simple case of tertiary
navel gazing. It is interesting to note that Linux’s successes have to an
extent paralleled Microsoft’s implementation of increasingly aggressive, even
autocratic licensing strategies. By the time enterprises began looking for
the exits, Linux had discarded its training wheels and was ready to roll. So
is Microsoft’s problem a fish-happy seabird turned carnivorous raptor? We
think not. Note to Microsoft: When all else fails, get your head out of your
belly button and take a look in the mirror.
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Oracle Extends Application Server to
Wireless
By Myles Suer
Oracle announced this week new wireless features for
its Oracle9i Application Server that add support for XHTML 2.0. Oracle claims
the new wireless features will make it easier as well as more cost-effective
for developers to build and deploy mobile technologies across the enterprise.
Oracle9i Application Server will also provide a unified platform for J2ME and
Multi-Media Messaging (MMS) development models.
Oracle’s announcement offers a literal demonstration
of how the application server platform space is continuing to subsume
additional functionality. From a wireless prospective, companies like XORA
and Jarna must see their business models at
increasing risk. Beyond the wireless support for XHTML 2.0, a number of
additional changes are in process in the market, as players like IBM and
Oracle tie their application server products closer and closer to their SQL
database applications. It will be interesting to see whether this connection
and its advantages increases pressure on BEA, a Web Server-only company, to
merge with SyBase or even Oracle, making real
rumors in the Valley concerning such a move. Regardless, we see the
Application Server as the Hub for Internet-enabled applications especially as
application connectivity becomes one of the Web’s core features. We believe
this will have increasing impact on the application software market,
eventually offering vendors the ability to easily break apart or blend
packaged and blended applications in ways similar to recent Siebel offerings.
At the same time, tools for making it easier to design Web-delivered
applications may over time reduce the barriers for custom application
development. We see the potential here for the enterprise to both leverage
packaged software for its best advantages and extend it where/when it fails
to solve a specific customer problem. In all, the industry is in the midst of
a major evolution and the application server is increasingly at the center of
this change.
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