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Joseph Sweeney |
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Joseph Sweeney is an IBRS advisor specialising in the areas of unified communications, collaboration, mobility and Microsoft products. Joseph is also engaged in research focusing on technology’s role in the education sector. Joseph is an accomplished business strategist and technology-marketing expert. He was a founder and Vice President, of Asia Online, where he assisted the start-up into one of Asia's leading Internet and on-line services. Joseph was the lead research analyst with Gartner covering Internet and business solutions focusing on the future of the internet and pioneered research into the future of the music industry, peer-to-peer networking, gaming and social computing.
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Content and records management: Changing principles
Electronic documents and records management solutions (EDRMS) from
yesteryear are failing to provide the flexibility and collaborative
experiences that today’s organisations require. In most
organisations, less than 10% of content has been placed in existing
EDRMSs. However, investing in a new EDRMS will not result in greater
satisfaction levels if new principles are not first adopted.
Web application performance: Who’s responsible?
Traditional approaches to web application performance optimisation
have focused on the physical network infrastructure, WAN
optimisation, and to a lesser extent application development. As web
applications become mainstream, the complex issue of ensuring they
remain responsive has received increased attention.
Web
application performance is impacted by physical infrastructure,
application design, software, specialised services and WAN
optimisation. This begs the question, who
is actually responsible for a web application’s performance?
IBRS recommends that a single person, or team, be responsible for
end-to-end web application performance, with direct governance of the
physical infrastructure, software and services needed.
Between a rock and a hard place: from XP to Win7 and ba...
Organisations that have fleets of Windows XP desktops will soon find
themselves squeezed to either embark on a rushed migration to Windows
7 or pushed into purchasing additional licensing from Microsoft. IT
Professionals managing the transition to a new Managed Operating
Environment (MOE) must factor in Microsoft’s convoluted
licensing options or run the risk of encountering higher than
expected costs.
Staying with Windows XP? Check your licensing complianc...
Organisations that still have Windows XP as their Standard Operating
Environments (SOE), and those that have plans to stay with XP for
near term, need to tread carefully with regards to Microsoft’s
licensing. While remaining compliant with Microsoft’s licensing
will not necessarily incur significant costs, falling out of
compliance will be costly. Organisations without Software Assurance
and those without an active Microsoft Volume Licensing Agreement at
risk with regards to falling out of compliance, especially if
purchasing desktops with Windows 7 pre-installed.
Azure: why not all clouds are equal
In the short-term, the soon to be launched Windows Azure platform is
likely to be misunderstood by IT enterprise architects and
under-estimated by in-house software developers. The notion of “cloud
computing” has become ill-defined and confused. In order to
understand where Azure and other cloud based solutions can benefit an
enterprise, it is vital to have clear definition of the different
classes of cloud computing and the trend of clouds towards greater
simplicity at the expense of flexibility.
IT trends in the Australian public sector
Public sector IT
departments are facing greater financial scrutiny as a result of both
the GFC and the Gershon Report. There is a broad mandate to reduce
‘business as usual’ costs. In order to prioritise
projects, manage expectations and drive down IT costs, IT
professionals need to understand the key technology trends in the
public sector.
Sketchflow: Microsoft’s new application development mantra – fail early, fail often.
Microsoft’s new Sketchflow product breaks many of rules of
software development and prototyping. Instead of taking an
architectural approach, where data requirements are identified up
front, Sketchflow places the focus firmly on user experience, with
the expectation that data and architectural issues will be dealt with
in good time. Sketchflow represents a quiet new development approach
by Microsoft and one that is worth examining, even if only for a
glimpse of things to come.
Microsoft trend spotting: What's in Tech-Eds heads?
This year’s Tech·Ed comes at a time when Microsoft is
attempting to recapture attention with products such as Windows 7,
HyperV, Office 2010, Visual Studio 10 and Silverlight 3. IBRS has
analysed Tech·Ed attendee patterns to identify key issues and
areas of interest for developers and enterprise architects for the
coming year. Topping the list is a range of desktop deployment
issues. However, this analysis also shows that some technical skills
that have been assumed to exist within IT departments are in fact
under-developed. These skill gaps must be addressed prior to new
desktop or unified communications deployments.
Windows Mobile 6.5: is that a Vista in your pocket?
With the exception of an improved web browser, Windows 6.5 offers
organisations little benefit over Windows 6.1, and developers will
find accessing the iPhone-like features cumbersome. Organisations
with Microsoft-based mobility initiatives shoul ...
Last word: The making of wisdom
At IBRS, we get to see our fair share of IT project failures. We often get called in at the last minute to explain why or how some project is going FUBAR and to suggest remediation tactics. What never ceases to amaze me is that so many of these project fa ...
SharePoint governance for federated organisations: what...
SharePoint’s rapid installation across organisations (and especially within the public sector) is leading to fragmented deployment, which is then causing difficulties when attempting to merge or share content and applications. Organisations that are part of a federation, such as Local and State Councils – can alleviate future integration bottlenecks, reduce investments in application development, increase the rate of eServices delivery and help ensure that stakeholders can share information, by adopting the governance practices from the open source community.
SharePoint licensing: minimising the bill update 2009
Microsoft licensing costs for SharePoint range from free to well over A$100,000. Minimising installation costs requires organisations carefully analyse user requirements, business needs and then narrowly define what SharePoint features are actually needed, then work through Microsoft’s licensing model, taking into account existing enterprise licensing arrangements. Savings of over A$30,000 on SharePoint deployments are possible through careful selection of licensing options.
Windows 7 for enterprises: What’s hot and what’s not
Windows 7 is ready for release and by now most organisations’ IT departments will have spent some time evaluating the product. While initial reviews have been positive, a fundamental question still needs to be asked – does this new operating system offer your enterprise anything of substantial benefit that would warrant its use?
Chrome & Windows War: what is it for good for? Abso...
The
recent media frenzy regarding Google’s soon-to-be-released
operating system is not a sign of a serious competitor to Microsoft’s
Windows Operating system – it’s the last gasps of a dying
IT topic. That is, the importance of the operating system. As the
computing power of underlying hardware on non-desktop devices
(SmartPhones, handheld devices, netbooks, game consoles and so on)
increase, and as consumers become increasingly technology savvy,
users are caring less about the operating system and more about the
overall ‘usability’ and ‘experience’ of the
applications on the devices, which are provided by user interface
layers that reside above the operating system. While operating
systems will remain a consideration for IT architects, they will
increasingly be a moot point for users. This has significant
implications for IT management.
Should we go with Microsoft Vista or wait until Windows...
A decision to migrate an enterprises desktop operating
environment from Microsoft Windows XP to Windows Vista in the near
term, or to wait until Windows 7 is available and proven, is both
technically and politically complex. The final decision depends ...
Overcoming Microsoft’s virtual desktop licensing:...
As previously discussed, organisations must be exceedingly careful about how they deploy Microsoft desktop products within a virtual desktop environment, or risk exposing themselves to potentially millions of dollars of unexpected licensing fees. Worse, Microsoft’s own staff and channels have been known to misinterpret how Microsoft licensing works within virtual desktop environments, which is causing
customers frustration, fear and potentially adding time and cost to virtual desktop initiatives.
Should we go with Microsoft Vista or wait until Windows...
A decision
to migrate an enterprise’s desktop operating environment from
Microsoft Windows XP to Windows Vista in the near term, or to wait
until Windows 7 is available, is both technically and politically
complex. The final decision depends heavily upon many interrelated IT
infrastructure factors, as well as business issues, not in the least
of which are end-user animosity against Vista. However, senior IT
executives and Enterprise Architects should not dismiss Vista as an
option, nor rush to Windows 7 without first a careful evaluation of
the risk and benefits of each.
Avoiding SharePoint scenarios that bite
SharePoint
is rapidly becoming a victim of its own success. Rapid tactical
deployments and uptake by individual departmental teams has led to
pockets of isolated information, which are growing in size at an
alarming rate. Also, lack of understanding a ...
Exiting Microsoft enterprise agreements: dancing with t...
Discontinuing a Microsoft Enterprise Agreement (EA) appears to be a quick way to reduce IT spend in the short term – which is especially attractive in the current economic environment. However, there are substantial financial risks involved in terminating an EA and organisations must be exceedingly careful not to open themselves to licensing liabilities. Exiting a Microsoft Enterprise Agreement requires its own business case review, looking at not only the obvious financial savings, but also at the risks, change management and mid-to-long term impact.
Creating a mobile strategy – do you have an over-...
Several models exist for planning
mobility around broad categories of mobile worker. While useful,
these models are being overused, placing emphasis on the wrong
aspects of mobility without deep consideration of the processes and
applications being a ...
