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Market Roundup March 3, 2006 HP
Announces First Combined OpenView and Peregrine Offering IBM Tivoli Express Automates Mid-market Management |
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HP Announces First Combined OpenView and Peregrine Offering
HP has announced its first combined offering of OpenView and
Peregrine technology. This offering combines HP OpenView Service Desk and
Peregrine’s AssetCenter and targets customers who are seeking to improve IT
service management efficiency, reduce costs, and enhance service levels. With
the AssetCenter integration, customers will now be able to identify, track, and
optimize all IT assets such as software, PCs, mainframes, and most anything in
between with the goal of improved service desk productivity and enhanced
service levels through immediate access to asset information. This latest
offering forms the foundation of the HP Active Configuration Management
Database (CMDB) strategy, which was announced at the HP Software Forum Asia
Pacific. HP’s Active CMDB strategy is a standards-based SOA that automatically
synchronizes management data, allowing customers to combine information sources
for a comprehensive view of IT. The company indicated that it already has
3,000+ customers with a CMDB that holds all relevant information about the
system components in an IT service as well as the relationships among those
components. This includes all incidents, problems, known errors, changes, and
releases, as well as corporate data about employees, suppliers, locations, and
business units. HP’s Active CMDB strategy is to allow HP and other vendors to
populate and consume data consistently within the database with a goal of
unifying disparate data sources. To achieve this, HP will use an open and
extensible SOA that enables the translation of data between different sources
to provide a unified view of IT.
Well, time certainly flies when you are having fun. It was
just about three months ago that the Peregrine acquisition was final, and now
we are already seeing integration of some of the code bases. Given the
predilection towards extreme engineering that at times has fixated HP on
getting things “right” at the expense of expediency, this change took place in
record time. To us, this is a good thing: good for HP, good for its customers,
and potentially good for users and the marketplace overall. The Active CMDB
strategy of offering a multivendor-populated data store that is accessible
through straightforward Web services should be, in our view, well received by
IT professionals charged with the daunting task of managing the plethora of IT
assets in any organization. While there have been excellent management tools,
such as OpenView, for quite some time, they have too often lived in a siloed
universe, with a limited view of the totality of the IT infrastructure. This
was rather silly in the 20th century and simply not an acceptable solution for
the 21st.
So is this a case of HP simply making the world a better place for all, or is there some sustainable strategy beneath all of this? The answer, at least to us, is a strategy for the long haul with respect to OpenView. The last few years have demonstrated that the value propositions for many different products have continue to evolve in light of commercial competition, or open source for that matter. What was once value-add is nowadays clearly the ante just be considered a player in the game. Collecting a subset, even a substantial one, of the IT assets on the network and in the datacenter and managing them in a database does not a 21st-century management solution make. The value we see in management is its ability to manage the totality of IT, not just sections of it. Ultimately, one universal driver’s seat by which to manage and operate the datacenter and out through its network tentacles will simply be the requirement, nothing less. We see HP’s Active CMBD strategy aligned with this eventuality and we are quite pleased to note the holistic approach that it offers. Nevertheless, for any organization, achieving this holistic Holy Grail will not happen overnight, but HP’s position in the management marketplace is substantial and the company is in a good position to help drive the overall market behavior and expectations. Overall, we are impressed by HP’s speed in integrating the first pieces of its Peregrine technology, but perhaps more so, we are impressed by the company’s strategic direction that is implicit in this latest technological coupling.
IBM Tivoli Express Automates Mid-Market Management
IBM has announced new versions of its Tivoli products aimed
to small and mid-sized companies under the banner of Tivoli Express. The
products are designed to help companies automate infrastructure management,
including PCs, servers, storage, and security. The products are based on the
same Tivoli technology targeted at large enterprises but in a more affordable
offering and redesigned for easier deployment and use. The new products have
been designed to accommodate how SMBs actually deal with administrative tasks
such as managing server workloads, application monitoring, data protection, and
password verification. IBM worked with over forty business partners in
redesigning the products for SMBs, focusing on partners who were expert in
management and security to make sure that IBM’s development efforts were truly
targeted to the right audience. According to IBM, it hasn’t simply changed
feature sets. Instead it has added new installations and changed graphical user
interfaces where necessary. The four products include Tivoli Identity Manager
Express, to block insider attacks and help bring new users on board more
quickly; Tivoli Storage Manager Express, which provides inexpensive automated
backup and recovery; Tivoli Provisioning Manager Express which provides
inventory management and software distribution to collect, store, and maintain
hardware, software, and asset information; and Tivoli Monitoring Express, which
brings IBM’s autonomic capabilities such as self-healing and self-correcting
across servers, operating systems, and databases.
This announcement from IBM is an interesting dovetailing of
two of the hottest races in computing right now: the race for the management
market, and the race for the SMBs. IBM’s Tivoli products have not traditionally
been considered as easy to use or well integrated, and so have suffered in both
markets despite having some excellent points. IBM’s recent overhaul of the
Tivoli product line and its re-architecting of some parts for improved use in
mid-markets can only improve Tivoli’s chances of gaining market share for both
enterprise and mid-market customers. IBM seems to have learned the important
lesson that SMB products should not developed by taking enterprise versions and
chopping off bits to fit them into an SMB container. SMB products need to be
built for the SMB markets from the ground up, even if they have 95% or more DNA-sharing
with their enterprise siblings. By creating an umbrella for Tivoli Express and
providing multiple components under that umbrella, IBM has given partners and
customers an easy way to sort out which versions are for them and which
products best match capabilities to customer needs. By engaging the partners
early in the development process, IBM has also helped to ensure that the all-important
channel also believes in the credibility of SMB versions of Tivoli.
Well, despite the coolness factor of appliance-like management for the mid-market, it cannot be said often enough that simply putting an appliance for something like security or backup is not a replacement for good business practice and proper IT processes. These devices are designed to aid and abet security and management; to enable overworked and underpaid IT managers to do more and to do it more efficiently, automated management usually implying less chance for human error, particularly if multiple systems or applications are involved. This means that business partners should still have some opportunity to help customers adopt best practices or evolve processes to the next level. IBM has positioned this product in particular for health care and hospitals, a sector undergoing lots of process change and relying ever more on technology to enable better management of information. Tivoli Express products can fill a necessary part of the equation, but it is incumbent on IBM and the business partners to help these companies use them to their maximum capability.
EMC’s eDiscovery Solution for Electronic Catch and Release
EMC recently announced its newest product for the capture
and retrieval of enterprise information, eDiscovery Solution. Building on the
EMC Centera platform, these newest applications are aimed at automatic
retrieval and archiving of email, messaging, and electronic documents by
sitting between the user and the application. EmailXtender, an application in the
eDiscovery suite, archives email messages to Centera using EMC DiskXtender,
another application in the suite. When a search is needed, the ECI Adapter
extracts the results of the search and saves the individual message files into
the content server and categorizes them according to the matter being searched.
The information is then saved until it can be edited, reviewed, and/or
inspected. After the matter that started the search is finished, the retrieved
and saved data is then sent back into the archive from which it came.
Since the majority of enterprise records and information are
in electronic form, it makes sense to employ a technological method for quick
and accurate retrieval and sorting of that information. To this end, EMC seems
to be placing itself into direct competition with Enterprise Vault, Symantec’s
answer to the electronic discovery question, thus highlighting the fact that
customers may be becoming more aware of their own vulnerabilities concerning
potential legal action and so are perhaps in search of more than one answer.
The burgeoning area of electronic discovery seems to be showing rapid signs of
expansion, the boundaries of which look to be constantly changing.
The rules concerning any Request for Production are currently being revised; a situation that may be of interest for any enterprise that thinks it might at some time be involved in litigation. Legal documents are covered under client-attorney privilege and so are exempt from the discovery process. Trade secrets are also exempt. Therefore, everything that is retrieved electronically in a Request for Production will most likely need to be reviewed by the enterprise’s lawyers, whether those are inhouse or outsourced. Thus an unholy alliance between a legal team and an IT department may form, the consequences of which will in all probability rip a hole in the fabric of the space-time continuum and create a direct link to the underworld. Or perhaps the consequences won’t be so dire; merely a small black hole the size of a cubicle will form. A quick check in Babelfish.com reveals that there is no option for “Geekspeak to Legalese,” so communication between the two departments is probably going to be an issue, and only the first of many. The two departments don’t usually deal with each other on a daily operational basis, but with the growing need for electronic discovery, the mutual avoidance policy will most likely change. Organizations may respond in various ways to the frictions that may be generated between the two camps, perhaps by ensuring the heads of the departments enforce “play nice” policies, not allowing any interdepartmental rivalries, or maybe issuing little mini-dictionaries. In any case, both lawyers and IT people will most likely need assistance in wading through the ocean of electronic documents, messaging, and email that any enterprise creates. EMC seems to be positioning itself to provide that assistance; perhaps they could assist departments within companies to work as seamlessly as their applications.
Microsoft Reveals Previously Unseen Vistas
Whetting our appetites further for the next version of
Windows, Microsoft this week announced the forthcoming versions of Vista and its
market segmentations. In sync with Windows XP, Microsoft will offer six
versions of Windows Vista to business and consumer customers. There, however,
the similarity ends as Microsoft is taking a different approach with Vista in
response to numerous requests from a demanding customer base. Whereas XP
versions were technology-oriented, with versions for Media Center, Tablet PC,
and 64-bit computing, Vista will be based on scenarios. XP was not oriented to
particular customer segments, and as a result users were forced to make
tradeoffs if, for example, they wanted to use XP Pro on a tablet computer. The
new versions of Vista will have three for consumers and three for businesses.
For consumers, Microsoft will have Home Basic, its entry level product; and
Home Premium, which will be a replacement for both Media Center and Tablet PC
editions of XP. For businesses, Microsoft will offer Vista Business, which will
be an upgrade for Tablet PC; Professional x64, and XP Pro. Windows Vista
Enterprise is a new product, which is designed for large organizations with
complex requirements for their users and data. Microsoft will also offer Vista
Ultimate, which will have all of the features of Vista Home Premium and Vista
Enterprise for users who want both home and work capabilities in one computer.
Finally, for selected emerging markets, Microsoft will offer Windows Vista Starter
as the replacement for Windows XP Starter Edition. The Home Basic and Premium
editions, as well as Vista Business and Vista Ultimate, will be available
through retail channels and on OEM PCs with pre-installed OS.
Vista is giving us a view of the new Microsoft, finally
moving away from the notion of one OS fits all or that an end-user OS should be
platform-oriented rather than user-oriented. We might even dare say that
Microsoft understands there are not only business customers and consumer
customers, but also those of us road warriors who take our systems with us
everywhere, as entertainment centers for lonely nights on the road and
seemingly endless airplane trips as well as our portable office and the center
of our work universe. Of course sorting out this positioning for those who sell—and
more importantly for those who buy—will take some time and positioning. Not
only does Microsoft have to get users excited about the somewhat frightening
notion of upgrading an operating system (or thousands of them)—some out there
are still hiding from XP SP2—but they are also going to have to help users
understand where they need to go next based on what they currently have and how
well it’s meeting their needs. The go-to-market will need to be clear and
focused to get maximum upgrades. Large organizations in particular are going to
be worried about change management issues.
At this point, it all looks like a good idea on PowerPoint, although exactly what features are being added will require a bit of time to sort out. One of the problems with Microsoft’s products is that there are more features in any given product than most of us have the time and bandwidth to explore fully. In addition to helping customers understand which product and when, Microsoft also needs to help pick key features and highlight them so that customers don’t just upgrade the product and continue to use it as they have more or less for the last ten years. Helping users understand the key differences and new benefits will greatly increase the likelihood of early adoption across all scenarios and versions. It’s not just more stable and more secure, if it genuinely enhances the everyday user experience, that’s something worth having.