| (Reports available from
Burton Group)
Application Platform Strategies research documents:
1. March 2004: Microsoft’s
Next-Generation Platform Strategies: Understanding Whidbey/Yukon
and Longhorn in Context Summary: Microsoft is
currently in overdrive, with its .NET strategy reaching fruition
and its next two major waves of product strategies having been unveiled
in October 2003. In this report, Senior Analyst Peter O’Kelly explains
how Whidbey/Yukon and Longhorn fit into Microsoft’s next-generation
platform strategies and provides recommendations for enterprise
planners seeking to prepare for the next waves.
2. April, 2004: Data,
Documents, and Database Management Systems in Context: Toward a
Renaissance of Data Management
Summary: The last decade
has been tumultuous for data management, with the rush to the Web
at times relegating DBMSs to reduced roles, and the advent of XML
blurring historical boundaries between data and documents. Enterprises
now face significant data management opportunities, and many historical
challenges are fading fast due to new hardware/software capabilities
and economics, and advanced DBMS capabilities. The first step toward
capitalizing on the opportunities is a renewed focus on data management
fundamentals, starting with logical data modeling. Many other long-standing
data management challenges can now be automated, if an enterprise
first establishes robust data models.
3. June, 2004: DBMS Market
Dynamics: Enterprise Manifest Destiny and Open Source Disruption
Summary: This is a great
time to be a database management system (DBMS) customer, as DBMS-related
platforms, tools, and applications have never been more powerful,
productive, flexible, and affordable. It’s a challenging time for
DBMS vendors, with increasing high-end market consolidation among
IBM, Microsoft, and Oracle, and with growing pressure from open
source DBMS alternatives.
4. June, 2004: XML
Modeling and Mapping: Tumultuous Transformation in the Grand Schema
Things Summary: Extensible Markup
Language (XML) modeling and mapping tools will help to make XML
both ubiquitous and invisible. Building on key standards such as
XML Schema and XQuery, and coinciding with a broader shift to service-oriented
architecture applications, the tools will buffer developers and
users from low-level XML details while exploiting the full power
of XML. Ultimately, the early XML evangelists who proclaimed a brave
new business-to-business world may have been right, albeit woefully
optimistic on market impact timing. XML is now emerging from a tumultuous
adolescence to transform many facets of enterprise architecture,
and XML modeling and mapping tools will accelerate the trend.
5. October, 2004: Communication and Collaboration: Compelling Convergence or Continued Chaos?
Summary: Communication and collaboration offerings are in the midst of an important transformation. Previously constrained by proprietary, costly, and complex products and services, and recently impacted by severe spam and security problems, the offerings are now moving to a new, standards-based model that will be much more productive for organizations and individuals.
The new model is built on a foundation of channels for communication and workspaces for collaboration. Thus, it has unprecedented potential to improve productivity and responsiveness by keeping users focused on business tasks instead of technology and tool concepts. It also has important potential for addressing increasingly broad and stringent regulatory compliance requirements.
6. January, 2005: IBM, Microsoft, and Oracle: Competing to Lead the Next Wave of Enterprise Communication/Collaboration
Summary: The enterprise communication/collaboration market is in the midst of a major transition. Enterprise communication is deeply entrenched in the form of enterprise messaging, but it’s now expanding to include real-time services and personal computer (PC)/telephony integration. Enterprise collaboration, historically dominated by IBM Notes/Domino, is shifting to new database management system (DBMS)-based alternatives from IBM, Microsoft, and Oracle.
These next-generation offerings will facilitate comprehensive and seamless contextual communication and collaboration, thereby improving enterprise productivity and responsiveness while also addressing expanding regulatory compliance record-keeping requirements. The broad and deep infrastructure required to compete in the emerging market will further concentrate application platform market share among IBM, Microsoft, and Oracle.
7. March, 2005: Blogs, Wikis, and Beyond: New Alternatives for Communication and Collaboration
Summary: Blogs and wikis represent important opportunities for communication channels and collaborative workspaces. Because they are simpler to create and use than traditional enterprise-oriented alternatives, blogs and wikis are very effective for relatively basic communication/collaboration scenarios, and they’re also very well suited to address inter-enterprise needs.
Blogs and wikis are, in many respects, among the leading indicators of what’s to come in future releases of products such as IBM Lotus Notes/Domino and Microsoft Exchange/SharePoint. The traditional enterprise offerings include broader and deeper capabilities in terms of security, integration, and application development, so blogs and wikis should be considered more complementary than competitive.
8. May, 2005: Revolution in Real-Time Communication and Collaboration: For Real This Time
Summary: Forty-year-old real-time visions such as the AT&T Picturephone have, until recently, been primarily the realm of science fiction. But the real-time communication and collaboration revolution, ranging from IM to pervasive and contextual real-time tools and services, is now bringing formerly tantalizing real-time visions to fruition. Properly managed, real-time tools and services will help foster significant productivity and responsiveness improvements, along with dramatic cost reductions in travel and other traditional coordination tasks. Mishandled, the real-time revolution may result in security, privacy, and competitive liabilities.
9. November, 2005:
Data Modeling: Not Just for Databases Anymore
Summary: Data modeling is definitely not just for databases anymore. Data modeling was once a somewhat rarified practice, used primarily by people who had the words “data” or “database” in their job titles. The limited applicability of data modeling was partly a function of inadequate techniques and tools and was partly the result of exorbitant modeling tool pricing/licensing.
Although it has increasing utility for database design, data modeling is also pivotal for data analysis, visualization, communication, and collaboration. The rapid expansion of Extensible Markup Language (XML) throughout application platforms ensures that, in the future, people who are proficient in data modeling will be more productive than non-modelers. 10. January, 2006: Data Management in SOA
When and how should database management systems (DBMSs) be used in service-oriented architecture (SOA) applications?
Collaboration and Content Strategies research documents:
11. May, 2006: Communication, Collaboration, and Content:
Compelling Convergence
12. May, 2006: Wikis in the Enterprise: Democratizing and
Directing Collaboration and Content
Management
13. May, 2006: Blogs, Wikis, and Beyond: New Alternatives
for Communication and Collaboration
14. May, 2006: IBM, Microsoft, and Oracle: Competing to
Lead the Next Wave of Enterprise
Communication/Collaboration
15. May, 2006: update to "Revolution in Real-Time"
16. July, 2006:
Communication, Collaboration, and Content Model
17. October, 2006: Hypertext and Compound/Interactive
Document Models: Collaboration and Content
Management Implications
18. April, 2007: Asynchronous Collaboration Alternatives
19. May, 2007: VantagePoint 2007: The Storm Before the
Calm
20. July, 2007: update to IBM/Microsoft/Oracle report
21. October, 2007: XQuery and Its Implications for Content and
Data Management
22. January, 2008: What's Up, .DOC? ODF, OOXML, and the
Revolutionary Implications of XML in
Productivity Applications
Data Management Strategies research documents
23. May, 2008:
Database Management System Market Dynamics: New Horizons for Enterprise Data Management
24. May, 2008:
Capitalizing on the Renaissance in Data Management
25. June, 2008:
Data Management Model
26. June, 2008:
XML Schema Languages: Controversy and Convergence in the Grand Schema Things
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