Real Story Group. Make Better Technology Decisions.

Are you an Intelligent Customer? Lessons from HMRC

Added By Matt Mullen on 3-Apr-2012

This month's CW500 presentation in London was delivered by Phil Pavitt, CIO at HMRC (Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs, the UK tax man), who described a programme within his department to drive cost savings within IT. To provide some perspective on the IT estate that exists within HMRC: it is the largest in Europe and the 15th largest globally, controlling in excess of 1b transactions, totalling more that £1.2t in payments through the government banking system. (This is apparently larger than HSBC performs, globally.)

Historically IT in UK government doesn't have the greatest of reputations ... Continue Reading

UK Government Cloudstore - not yet ready for prime time

Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 23-Feb-2012

The IT press here in the UK have heralded the remarkable launch of the government's G-Cloud Cloudstore. The timing was certainly impressive: In just four short weeks this online services directory and procurement application went from contract to launch.

Yet I remain a bit puzzled as to why the service has gone live at all, since ... Continue Reading

What is the sound of one hand clapping?

Added By Kashyap Kompella on 13-Dec-2011

A recent conversation with a large global enterprise about their Digital Asset Management project reminded me of the Zen Kōan – "Two hands clap and there is a sound. What is the sound of one hand clapping?" The project in question has weathered some turbulence ... Continue Reading

Talking Digital Asset Management in Europe

Added By Kashyap Kompella on 16-Nov-2011

Amidst all the talk of gloom and doom in Europe, we present an article where the words “Europe” and “Crisis” don’t have to be uttered in the same breath...

The Europe edition of the Creatasphere Digital Asset Management conference in the Hague brought together DAM customers, vendors, and consultants for a few days.  Bringing this event to Europe is fitting ... Continue Reading

Case Management and the Lexmark acquisition of BPM vendor Pallas Athena

Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 19-Oct-2011

Yesterday we learned that Lexmark, best know for its printers, had acquired Netherlands-based BPM (Business Process Management) vendor Pallas-Athena. This follows in the path of Lexmark's acquisition of Perceptive Software, a document management company (evaluated in our Document Management reviews) ... Continue Reading

Unfiltered SharePoint Advice in Washington D.C.

Added By Jarrod Gingras on 12-Oct-2011

On the heels of the Microsoft event, the timing of the SharePoint Symposium being held in Washington DC in just three weeks (November 2-3, 2011) could not be better. ... Continue Reading

On Trial for Software Kick-Backs

Added By Theresa Regli on 16-May-2011

In Boston, USA for most of the month of May, I've been following with interest a local story about former Massachusetts Speaker of the House Sal DiMasi. A federal grand jury recently indicted the former Speaker and three of his associates on charges of conspiracy, wire fraud, and mail fraud, after DiMasi allegedly wielded his power to procure multimillion-dollar contracts for a software company, Cognos ... Continue Reading

Autonomy makes yet another acquisition

Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 16-May-2011

Well, it has been almost a year since Autonomy CEO Mike Lynch announced that his firm was to make a major acquisition. Today it happened. ... Continue Reading

Selecting Software in the Federal Government

Added By Tony Byrne on 13-Jan-2011

I recently had the chance to sit down with the famous John Gilroy of Federal Tech Talk on Federal News Radio in Washington, DC. The 30-minute show aired earlier this week, but you can listen to or download the archive ... Continue Reading

Digital Asset Management 2011 Market Preview

Added By Theresa Regli on 21-Dec-2010

I'm excited to wrap up the year by writing a "State of the Market" on DAM. This has been a very busy year for us here -- our DAM subscriber numbers increased substantially and our customer inquiries for personalized help in a DAM procurement were near-constant. Could it be that DAM might finally be hitting the mainstream? ... Continue Reading

Transactional Document Management - The core of ECM

Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 24-Nov-2010

"Transactional document management" is a term not used often enough in my opinion. For it is, as the phrase goes, the "meat and potatoes" of ECM ... Continue Reading

Should you be worried about Autonomy?

Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 14-Oct-2010

In the past week mega-vendor Autonomy saw its share price plummet by 20% -- a huge drop by anyone's standards. Much discussed in the financial press, it's also news that will be much discussed and publicized by Autonomy's competitors ... Continue Reading

Justifying the cost of e-government

Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 9-Jul-2010

There is an outcry in the UK at the moment over the cost of building and maintaining Government websites. The figures released by the government relating to individual department website costs ... Continue Reading

UK Budget Cuts and Public Sector IT

Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 22-Jun-2010

In the UK today, the new Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osbourne will announce his emergency budget details. The one thing we know in advance is that this will contain some of the most severe cuts in recent history ... Continue Reading

Day 2 UK Roadshow - SharePoint skepticism

Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 15-Jun-2010

Day 2 of the UK AIIM Roadshow and we are here at the Reebok Stadium Bolton (home of Bolton Wanderers football club). Theme of today amongst the attendees seems to be ... Continue Reading

The case for Case Management - and Business Intelligence

Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 8-Jun-2010

Both IBM and now EMC have recently touted their improved Case Management capabilities, so I thought it timely to take a look at this area in a little more detail ... Continue Reading

Google opt-out -- another blow to web analysts?

Added By Phil Kemelor on 7-Jun-2010

A few months ago, Google promised to make it easier for website visitors to opt out of tracking by sites that employ their free Google Analytics service. Their announced solution last week strikes me as a bit of grandstanding on one hand ... Continue Reading

One document management vendor to rule them all?

Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 18-May-2010

Case in point: Today I chatted with the good people of Elkhart County, Indiana, about their experience of trying to consolidate all their document management needs to a single provider ... Continue Reading

EMC Documentum for your Case Management?

Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 17-May-2010

One of the more interesting and surprising things to emerge from last week's EMC World event in Boston was that the core Documentum Content Server has been repositioned into the xCP (Intelligent Case Management) product stack. ... Continue Reading

Records Management on the rise?

Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 12-Apr-2010

I just finished reading an excellent article in Hedge Funds Review called "Records management in the new regulatory environment." It's piece that echoes much the same message I've been preaching for years now: ... Continue Reading

Self Service Document Management

Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 8-Apr-2010

When trying to explain what Document Management is to friends and family curious about my work, I often give ask them to think about the last time they visited the doctor or a hospital ... Continue Reading

What to look for when evaluating WCM and DAM workflow services

Added By Tony Byrne on 16-Mar-2010

Yesterday we released a new advisory paper on workflow. The briefing focusses in particular on what you need to look for (and what you can dispense with) in Web CMS and Digital Asset Management environments ... Continue Reading

Evaluating vendor proposals - Kill your spreadsheets

Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 15-Mar-2010

As you may know, a lot of our work at the Real Story Group involves helping people make the right information management buying decisions. Not surprisingly, one of the most common areas where our customers seek our counsel is with vendor scoring and assessment methodologies ... Continue Reading

Can US Government agencies really use Google Analytics?

Added By Phil Kemelor on 24-Feb-2010

Does Google Analytics' new availability on apps.gov mean unfettered availability of the free analytics tool for US federal government agencies? A story in SearchEngineWatch might lead you to think so, but key leaders in the Federal web analytics community point out ... Continue Reading

Have you considered the V in DAM?

Added By Kas Thomas on 18-Jan-2010

Last week, I blogged about the increasing trend toward verticalization in the Search & Information Access space. As you may know if you've been reading our Digital & Media Asset Management Research ... Continue Reading

Searching for Terrorists

Added By Adriaan Bloem on 8-Jan-2010

What if finding that one bit of information is of vital importance? Well, it may not have been the main story angle of last month's attempted terrorist attack, but we've certainly heard a lot about how good information management might have prevented the attempted airline bombing. ... Continue Reading

Tagging your web content

Added By Adriaan Bloem on 31-Aug-2009

It's one of those elusive dreams of web content management: a completely metadata-driven publishing model. Especially when there's lots of content, and a variety of sites or channels targeting different audiences. Wouldn't it be great if content more or less automatically found its way to the right places? ... Continue Reading

Will NYC go with Google Analytics?

Added By Phil Kemelor on 1-Jul-2009

Just read an interesting post on Tom Miller's blog summarizing NYC Mayor Bloomberg's keynote note from the Personal Democracy Forum ... Continue Reading

Are Times Changing for US Government Web Analytics?

Added By Phil Kemelor on 17-Jun-2009

It may be that we are on the verge of significant changes to the US Federal government policy on the use of persistent cookies ... Continue Reading

eXo merges with JBoss - a game changer?

Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 14-Jun-2009

In the past week two open source portal initiatives decided to merge efforts: going forward eXo will now be a part of the Red Hat JBoss Portal ... Continue Reading

Making sense of CMS Watch....

Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 11-Jun-2009

At CMS Watch we evaluate an awful lot of products, and making sense of all this research can be a challenge. ... Continue Reading

SOA and Records Management

Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 5-Jun-2009

An announcement caught attention the other week, though I don't have much insight into the details yet. In short a new RM (Records Management) standard has emerged ... Continue Reading

EMC Documentum opens the kimono

Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 4-Jun-2009

Earlier this week EMC announced that it was providing more extensive development support for Documentum. This is something we had to comment on, as in our various product evaluations we have long called out EMC Documentum for providing relatively poor support ... Continue Reading

What Obama will learn on the way to better federal websites

Added By Tony Byrne on 11-Mar-2009

In calling for greater "online transparency" (i.e., more, better, faster web content) along with more "citizen participation" (i.e., user-generated content), the Obama administration is going to encounter a technology marketplace ... Continue Reading

When public agencies select software

Added By Tony Byrne on 19-Nov-2008

I recently had a wide-ranging interview with Government Computer News ... Continue Reading

When the project honeymoon ends

Added By Tony Byrne on 24-Oct-2008

I've been advising a large enterprise in the midst of a somewhat complex Web CMS and Component Content Management implementation ... Continue Reading

Uncle Sam pushes Records Management and Archiving...and Meridio too

Added By Tony Byrne on 4-Apr-2008

The Gimmal Group's Dan Elam recently pointed me to an important and seemingly under-reported ... Continue Reading

U.S. Treasury will spend $28M on ECM in FY2009

Added By Kas Thomas on 12-Feb-2008

According to the latest Report on Information Technology Spending for the Federal Government, the U.S. Treasury Department is requesting $28.2 million to spend on Enterprise Content Management systems in Fiscal Year 2009, up from ... Continue Reading

Uncle Sam cracks down on vendor selection abuse

Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe on 5-Sep-2007

While nattering to a U.S. attorney while traveling back from Kuala Lumpur last week I was directed to this ongoing story. You can read all about it here, but in short the U.S. Department of Justice is suing Accenture for allegedly receiving kickback-like payments from technology suppliers it recommended and/or implemented at DOJ. The alleged fraud was a collusion with big-name IT suppliers (e.g., HP, Sun) and smaller vendors (e.g., Vignette) to ... Continue Reading

What business leaders should ask from distributed web teams

Added By Tony Byrne on 24-Mar-2007

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When cops won't use their ECM system

Added By Tony Byrne on 29-Jan-2007

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Major consolidation of UK gov't websites

Added By Tony Byrne on 11-Jan-2007

The UK government CIO has just announced an audacious plan to collapse more than 551 (out of 951) government websites down to 26. The other 400 will come under review too. Doubtless this will save on hardware and software, and perhaps fulfill the long-desired (but rarely realized) dream of Web CMS as a shared service. ... Continue Reading

Explaining RSS to President Bush

Added By Tony Byrne on 20-Jun-2006

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Is managing content in public agencies really much different?

Added By Tony Byrne on 6-Jun-2006

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Content and technology standards in New Zealand

Added By Tony Byrne on 9-Dec-2005

... Continue Reading