Workshare has released an update to Professional 5.2 that focuses on speed and stability, welcome news for anyone using this great tool. They even added support for Windows 7 for those firms adopting it ahead of the first service pack release. Foremost, the Protect client has been entirely rewritten to increase stability and speed and lower its footprint in Outlook. That means that using Protect will be seamless and reduce interruptions, letting you be more productive.

Other key features in the SR3 release include 

Protect

• Faster email address resolution for Outlook users -  Protect will determine whether an email is external or internal up to 425% faster.  This drastically reduces the time for Protect to pop up. This is an out of the box improvement which is automatically used on all email.
• Re-architecture of Email Scanning - Protect no longer scans the body of an email just by highlighting it. This drastically reduces Protect processing within email and means the user experience of navigating/opening/auto previewing is much faster- no more “sticky” Outlook
• Faster PDF Generation -  greatly increased the speed of PDF Conversion across multiple document sizes up to over 200% than earlier releases.
• No More Blocked Emails - Not only is the error-handling improved, Protect now never blocks an email and (where possible) will inform the user why the document could not be cleaned.

Compare

• Ability to name a default filename for Redlines and/or Use Doc ID/Doc Numbers from within the DMS– no more over long comparison filenames.
• Save/Email Redline as .doc/PDF, Edit in .doc, Send as .doc

Workshare users should be sure to update to SR3 for increased performance and a more stable work experience. To get more information about this release, please email or call Stacy Fischbach (sfischbach@sagesol.com) at 202-478-7600.

Workshare is a tremendous utility that should be a key component of any attorney's workflow, if it isn't already. Workshare Professsional provides document comparison, review and security, available "right-out-of-the-box" as they say. SAGE can help to get the most out of this valuable tool, from purchase through to training and support.

Know what to buy. What is the right product for your firm and for the way you work? Do you need to Professional with all of its features, or just Protect for metadata removal or Compare for document comparison? What payment option makes more sense for you - a subscription license, or a one-time fee. Based on your needs, SAGE can advise you which product and licensing scheme would be best for your firm, factoring in cost, need, and return on investment.

Configuration. At the heart of Workshare are policies – policies are settings that determine what Workshare does and under what conditions. Getting those policies right is vital to getting the maximum benefit from Workshare. At SAGE, we work closely with firms to craft Workshare policies to meet specific needs. We then provide documentation on those policies for reference, review and future revision as necessary.

Training & Support. SAGE provides group and one-on-one training in Workshare so users are well versed in the features and workflow to make them highly productive. An attorney with a quick question can call SAGE's OnSight Support Center every business day from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. and most holidays.

Getting the most out of Workshare is easy with the right help. SAGE is always prepared with expert staff and our keen focus on doing what is best for your firm.

SAGE will be hosting webinars this Summer on a number of hot topics. These webinars are free and all are welcome to participate. Each webinar happens between Noon and 1 P.M. EDT, so please spend your lunch with us.

First up is our popular Metadata 101 webinar, "Your Documents, Your Undoing" (7/15) which discusses the risks from metadata and sensitive content in your documents. We discuss methods and strategies to mitigate those risks using tools like Workshare Protect and best practices.

Next is our webinar on Getting the Most From Your IT Budget (7/23). In it, we provide some benchmarks for what your IT budget should be, and how to stretch it to extend your capabilities. During the webinar, we discuss where IT provides maximum value to a firm and how to balance user support, projects, and regular maintenance.

MS Office is more than just spreadsheets and documents. In August, we debut a new webinar on Doing More with MS Office (8/19). For this webinar, we describe new uses for accounting, CRM, and HR from old standbys like Word, Excel, Access and Outlook, and illustrate what can be done with newcomers InfoPath, OneNote, and Groove.

Sign-up for SAGE Wisdom webinars on our web site. If you have any topics that you would like to learn more about, let us know in the comments or drop us a line.

Here is this week's gems from around the Web:

"Core" Multiplier: Intel says look for thousands of computing cores on future chips. Intel has staked its future on multiple computer cores on a single chip. While a new 8-core chip will soon, debut, an Intel official tells software developers to "start thinking about tens, hundreds, and thousands of cores now." Now everyone needs to figure out how to program for them.

MS Tests Office Subscription with "Equipt". Microsoft is testing the waters with an MS Office subscription service at the consumer level. For $70/year, consumers can get the Home and Office version of the suite with MS OneCare security software. Could a business version be far off?

Hyper-V makes an early debut, set to turn up the heat on VMWare. In a move surely to presage the coming apocalypse, Microsoft released a product early. MS' new Hyper-V server virtualization looks to take on market leader VMWare. C|Net blogger discusses some ways MS can penetrate the virtualization market. In true Microsoft fashion, one strategy is to throw money at it. Surprise!

Have a happy Independence Day and enjoy the long weekend!

SAGE will have not one, but two speakers at the Annual Conference of the Association of Legal Administrators next week in Seattle, Washington.  Speaking on topics ranging from getting more out of Microsoft Office to future trends in technology, be sure to attend the sessions Monday and Tuesday hosted by SAGE President George Nicholson and Tony Buffkin.

SAGE President speaks on Monday, May 5, 2008 from 2:15-3:30 on "Future Tech That Breaks With Tradition." He will discuss how the pace of technological change is accelerating and what that means for mobile computing, tapping into the power of the Internet computing, and managing the torrent of information that will be available to us all. George opens up his crystal ball for a fun and enlightening look at technologies being tested today that will change how we work in just a few short years.

On Tuesday, May 6, 2008 from 2:15-3:30 PM, Application Specialist Tony Buffkin will discuss how to get more out of Microsoft Office for your law firm needs. From accounting to marketing, lawyers to administrators, Tony shows ways to use MS Office to make your office more productive and capable.  He will describe new uses for old standby's like Word, Excel, Access and Outlook, and illustrate what can be done with newcomers InfoPath, OneNote, and Groove.

If you are attending the ALA national conference, be sure to sit in on George's and Tony's sessions.

Now that you have hung your shingle you are thinking about your IT needs. Not just the laptops and Internet connection for you and your partner or two, but a year or two down the road when the practice takes off. That was the topic that SAGE's fearless leader, George Nicholson, spoke about at the 2008 DC Judicial Bar and Conference last Friday, April 11, 2008. George's advice to small firms and those attorneys looking to strike out on their own: address as many IT requirements as possible with the resources you have available.

For any small firm, IT purchasing is a matter of walking the line between getting by with the IT that will work today, or buying IT for tomorrow's growth. The accounting and finance package that works great for three attorneys will fall apart when there are twenty. The cost to upgrade to the mid-market package includes the price of the software, plus the cost of converting the current data from the old system, training, consulting, and any impact on productivity and billable hours. Viewed from that perspective, does it make more sense to buy the mid-market package from the outset?

This calculus--part crystal ball, part gamble, part investment--is the balancing act that George spoke about as part of the panel discussion. Having a good technology partner becomes vital to help you come up with a calculus that is right for your firm. Come back because we will have more posts about this topic.

IT sometimes harkens back to 12th grade microeconomics class--namely, "opportunity costs." This post over at the Freakonomics's blog brings up the issue of lost time and productivity from a seemingly innocuous software update that cost the author an hour. The larger point that author makes is that the longer you wait to update, the more costs you can incur.

So are you asleep yet? Wake up!

The article highlights hidden costs in IT, where users wait for software updates or create time-consuming workarounds due to glitches, or little to no training. The longer one waits to resolve these issues, the higher the costs. Updates and patches that promise fixes or new features can often have unintended consequences that wreak havoc on your firm network or personal device. Testing, daily maintenance, prevention, and proper training are important to keep costs down, especially hidden costs.

A friend of ours working in the e-discovery processing business recently received an 18 gigabyte PST that had to be processed. In the e-discovery arena, a first step with electronic data we receive is to search for any PSTs and determine their size. The larger the file, the longer it will take to process for attorney review. In this instance, the immediate problem was that the file could not be copied to the network server. Every attempt failed as the copy process kept timing out.

Our friend went to “The Oracle”, as he likes to call Google, and searched for a software solution. He found a program called GatherBird Copy Large Files. After installing the shareware version, he copied the file without issue. Whew! Today’s technical glitch solved.

We all need to be prepared before we find ourselves in a similar situation. If you know of other products available to the litigation support and e-discovery community capable of copying very large files, please post a comment and share your experiences.

The sales numbers have come in from Windows Vista, and they are not good. Despite Microsoft's spin on Vista sales, it is not the blockbuster product it was touted to be, whether in sales or capabilities. That has left many tech and business pundits to ponder why: Was the previous version XP that good that there is no reason to switch? Is Vista that bad? Or is the technology and industry shifting to reduce its relevance?

Here is a question to ponder in the New Year: Is the operating system as important as it once was?  And will it continue to be so in the future?  In fact, it could be argued that operating systems have diminished in the public's psyche while the web browser has ascended. Most people use online e-mail applications like GMail and Yahoo! Mail, while headline grabbing social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace exist only online. Applications once only found on PCs have been migrating to handhelds -- like e-mail. While Apple's iPhone stole the spotlight from Vista in 2007, business people have been e-mailing like crazy on Blackberries while Gen Y is all thumbs sending billions of SMS messages. Then there is the success of Salesforce.com and the many applications hosted over the Internet, whose only interface is the web browser.

There are more reasons why the days of powerful, high profile operating systems may be on the wane. Basic staples of computing like word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations going online with Google Docs. If you are part of the 94% of Americans who have no idea what Google Docs is, you may still use Word or Excel remotely via Citrix over the Internet. New virtualization technologies allow that same hardware to run multiple operating systems, and different operating systems simultaneously. (This article was written in Google Docs on a Mac that has a virtual copy of Windows XP running on it.)

So will 2008 mark the decline of the operating system?  We will see.  Share your thoughts in the comments!

In late 2006, Google purchased online wiki provider JotSpot, leading to speculation to when the search engine behemoth would launch “Google Wiki.” Fortunately, many eager for the supposed service didn’t hold their breath, because nothing has happened since. Until last week, that is, when JotSpot reemerged in a somewhat different form, to be called “Google Sites.” In short, it’s Google’s competitor to Microsoft’s SharePoint.

Before people start creating PowerPoint charts and Excel spreadsheets proving that SharePoint has many more features, understand this is Google’s vision of a SharePoint competitor much like its Google Apps are a different vision of the standard office suite. It is stripped down and networked, but goes after the same functionality: the ability to create intranets, extranets, and project management tracking sites. Just like SharePoint.

The question we have: will this be a “platform” or a “product.” SharePoint is a “platform”—here are the blocks, now build what you want—like a box of Legos. Before Google swallowed JotSpot, it was mostly wiki and collaboration products—built web applications for specific purposes—a Lego car or spacecraft kit. SharePoint suffers from the perception that it is an intranet application out-of-the-box, which isn’t the case. If Google Sites provides some instant gratification and makes it easy and secure to set up Intranets, wikis, and extranets, then SharePoint has a serious competitor on its hand.

Another day, another prediction from uber-research firm Gartner that software licensing costs will fall significantly over the next decade. The study cites seven reasons; one is software and applications delivered via a web browser through the Internet. Such services are usually priced on a subscription basis-either monthly or annually. This is definitely a trend to watch as it will save you money and overcome disadvantages of traditional

Software by subscription has been called by various names, such as ASP (Application Service Provider) and SaaS (Software as a Service), but are defined by provisioning through a network (such as the Internet) and usually on a subscription basis (monthly or annual). The advantages are:

• the software is dynamic – constantly improving and changing without having to wait for a shrink-wrapped release and launch party. No need to wait 18-36 months for a box with new features and updates, they become available when the developer has them tested and ready.
• No deployment to desktops and laptops.
• It is available anywhere there is a web browser rather than trapped on the office desktop or the laptop you left in the hotel room.
• Sometimes subscription fees can be tax deductible if deemed an operating cost (insert standard disclaimer about talking to your accountant or tax lawyer).

What are the downsides? The Internet connection become even more important, although the new Firefox 3 browser and Google Gears are developing ways to work offline. Web interfaces have made tremendous strides in the past year, but still have a ways to go before the match their desktop brethren. Finally, let the bean counters look at the long term costs and whether it makes sense compared to traditional upfront licensing fees (don’t forget the service agreement at 20% annually)!

This blog post over at 37 Signals about the preoccupation with the number of features in software development made us think of the flip side: the allure of a multitude of features in purchasing software for a firm. Rather than focusing on benefits to the users, we are guilty of tallying up the features added since the last release. Other pitfalls include:

Different features appeal to different constituencies. When looking at putting software on everyone’s desk or expensive enterprise applications, justifying the large expenditure means getting majorities on management committees to sign off. So we play to our audience, touting different features to different principals to get them to sign-off on the purchase.

Even incredibly smart people fall for the “more is better” argument. Quantity is viewed as value when the price is similar. That value is completely lost if the software becomes too complex or confusing to use. Microsoft’s latest release of Office is notable for its rethinking of the interface after market testing found that users were requesting “new features” that were already in the software but hidden behind menus.

The devil is in the details. Next to lawyers and politicians, sales people are great parsers—saying less to portray the product as delivering much more. Once in users hands, features that looked great on the spec sheet and the tightly scripted demo do not work as promised or their benefits are not as great as expected.

The end result is usually confusion and never-ending calls to the help desk. As consultants, administrators and IT managers, we have to manage the purchasing decision much better. We must frame the purchasing discussion around critical features, not an accounting of a myriad nice-to-have ones. Software purchasing decisions should focus on benefits to the firm rather than appealing to building coalitions through feature-“pork.”

We have been off the blogging for a week, so if you were out over the long holiday weekend like we were, here is what you may have missed.

Windows Server 2008 Delayed too… 2008. Surprise! Microsoft has delayed the launch of a major operating system.However, this slip pushes back other Microsoft products, like its Viridian Hypervisor for server virtualization that is supposed to get them into the virtualization market in a big way. And as we all know, it means that much longer until the first service pack is released, which is when most people make the jump to a new operating system.

Speaking of Service Packs: Vista SP1 Coming Winter 2008. Rumors of its arrival have swirled for a few months, but Microsoft makes it official, hoping that it will drive sales of the troubled OS. Shortly after its release, Microsoft is expected to release Service Pack 3 for Windows XP.

…Speaking of the Virtualization Market.This EWeek article has a rundown of the latest developments in the industry where VMWare had a successful IPO and is flush with cash, Citrix bought XenSource, and Microsoft is still looking to make inroads.

The Next-Gen Web Application, in Five Easy Steps. AJAX, Web Services, Dynamic Data, Offline Availability and data flexibility are hallmarks of the next generation in web applications. Indeed, now is a time of great experimentation in web sites and web applications and each of these characteristics are in use today to varying degrees. Combine these with the next generation of mobile devices like Apple’s iPhone, and the Web will be where you work, no matter where you are.

We have been booked for a number of speaking engagements in the next few months, and it seems they all want to know about IT trends for law firms. We thought it would be fun to crowdsource our reader’s thoughts on some of the trends we see. This is what we are following:

Server Virtualization (also tied closely with disaster recovery). Virtualization technology has matured and makes real sense for firms of many sizes. Most important, it facilitates disaster recovery and business continuity efforts that many firms are implementing today.

Data-vaulting. The future of back-ups are online. Time to throw away those back-up tapes you forgot to swap anyway.

Managed IT services. Remote monitoring and management of IT for 24/7/365 coverage. Small firms get experience, expertise, and the complete package for maximum value for their IT budget, while larger firms can get preventive measures like daily server checks that would otherwise be neglected.

Online Services. Work is moving to the web. Many applications have already moved online like accounting, IP, and CRM, and more are coming. Meanwhile, newsfeeds (RSS) and search are revolutionizing information like e-mail revolutionized communication.

Outsourcing. The timeless sturm-und-drang of in-house vs. out-source extends to practically every corner of the firm, including litigation support, facilities, and even secretarial.

Paperless. Ah, the holy grail. The paperless office seems closer today than ever, but it means some drastic changes in workflow and a rethinking of your equipment and IT.

Vista/Office 2007. From the meat-and-potatoes department, the shift will eventually happen, although no one seems very excited about it.

Give us your feedback on the comments. How would you expand on our points? What are we missing?

Here is a quick update on where you can find SAGE experts speaking on IT topics of interest to the legal and professional services communities.

A Mighty Outlook and PowerPoint 2007 – September 19, 2007 at Noon: SAGE’s Dave Carns and Tony Buffkin wrap up our three part series on Office 2007 for the Information Services and Technology Section of the ALA Capital Chapter. The focus this time is on the latest version of PowerPoint and whether Outlook 2007 is up to the daunting task of managing our email, information, and contacts.

IT Solutions for Small Law Firms – September 25, 2007 at Noon. The Small Firm Management Section of the ALA Capital Chapter is hosting this event. The question for small firms is always how to do more with less? Outsourcing, web services, and mobility provide exciting opportunities for small firms, letting them act big while still maintaining their agility. We will look at these opportunities in detail while also discussing “bread-and-butter” issues like Windows Vista and Office 2007.

We are also firming up speaking engagements on disaster recovery and other topics in October and beyond.

Here is our Friday installment of what is being said on the Internet that administrators and IT pros at law and professional services firms should know.

Where did my Excel commands go? The transition to Office 2007’s new “fluid interface” is causing some consternation with many who have become accustomed to the keyboard shortcuts and menu commands in Excel 2003. Computerworld published this handy cheat sheet mapping the old locations for commands from Excel 2003 to 2007. For more on what has changed and what is new in Office 2007, check out our free online webinar “Compelling Enhancements in Office 2007” on August 15, 2007 at 2:00 p.m. EDT.

Businesses cautious on Vista upgrade. A new poll says that only 2 percent of businesses are running Vista, and only 9 percent more planning on upgrading in the next three months. Now, we know firms that just went to XP last year, so this wait-and-see attitude doesn’t surprise us. Some reasons cited include old hardware that won’t run Vista and training.

Contracts online, should lawyers be worried? Business 2.0 has an article on a Spanish company putting contracts online to cut out the lawyers. More than that, they are throwing in some value-added with their dashboard that has a timeline of negotiations, comments, and more. Inside Opinions sees the move as complementary rather than completely disruptive.

Census Bureau information to your newsreader. Following up on our post on great government web site mash-ups, Robert Ambrogi points out that the U.S. Census Bureau has RSS feeds and podcasts on a number of statistics like “Aging Population,” “Foreign-born Population,” and more.

For more stories filtered for administrators and IT pros in legal and professional services firms, get our supplemental newsfeed, available here through Google Reader.

Better Google Searching Tips: We humans are lazy. That is the genius behind Google. By just entering a keyword or two into a search box, it works really well. For those of us who don’t have the luxury of laziness, like paralegals, this article at Law.com’s Legal Technology has great advanced searching tips in Google.

• Choose or exclude search results from particular web sites;
• Choose the number of results per page;
• Learn how an asterisk can “fill in the blanks”; and
  
• find all the web sites linking to page or site.

30 Acrobat Tips: It’s only for Version 8 and it is promoting an online webinar for Adobe, but this PDF of 30 tips in Acrobat has some gems.

• Better conversion of TIFF and PowerPoint files;
• Choosing sheets from Excel files;
• Search PDFs in a directory;
• Optimizing file sizes; and
  
• Comparing documents.

Let’s face it: selling is a finely honed science, complete with product demonstrations and presentations aimed to disarm the most cold-hearted penny-pinchers out there. We have seen hard-nosed negotiators swoon during sales pitches over enterprise applications like document management, ready to fork over hundreds of thousands of dollars in the heat of the moment. Cooler heads often prevail, thankfully, but applications always look great in general, when looking at the level of “features” and “benefits” only. When it comes to really knowing how great a fit an application is, the devil is –as they say – in the details.

Here is a tip to better evaluate software.

1. Make a list of the “killer” features that you believe will be most important and/or beneficial to your firm.

2. Have the sales rep provide references of other firms using those same “killer” features.

3. Call the references and talk about their practical experience using those “killer features specifically. Focus on the benefits they have realized; hidden costs; and user complaints and compliments.

Keep discussions specific. People can be overly complimentary when talking in general about an application. When focusing on particular items, they can be brutally honest. And that is what you need to make a fair evaluation.

So how about extending server-based virtualization to notebooks? Neoware (and Wyse) has been building them for a while now, and has found a suitor in computing giant HP. HP has been pushing virtualization from the hardware and storage sides, but looks to be making a bigger play in the arena with this acquisition. Between the Internet and virtualization technologies, the mainframe may be making a comeback!

How about running that database on a virtual server? Maybe not. Databases require good I/0 performance, which may not be available on a virtual machine.  This Q&A reiterates a point we have been making in our presentations on virtual computing that stresses I/O intensive applications are not the best candidates for virtual machines.

So how do I compare performance on virtual machines? VMware is glad you asked, because they just developed a benchmark to test virtual machines. So now we can await the results to see if VMware continually beats out other virtual computing competitors like Microsoft, Xen, and others using their “open” benchmark.

First Service Pack for Windows Vista May Land Any Day Now. According to this article at Yahoo! Tech, Microsoft is rushing out the door Windows Vista’s first service pack to fix many nagging problems and hopefully bolster sales. Speeding up file copying and shutdown times are evidently the first order of business to put some shine on the OS that has met a tepid reception critically and commercially. Many firms and corporations having been waiting for this service pack before even contemplating upgrading to Vista, which is why Microsoft may have pushed it from their announced 2008 release date. Still, many patches can create more problems than they solve, so the advice remains the same: wait and see.

We have updated our separate newsfeed of IT news for law and professional services firms filtered by the experts at SAGE. You can also view it online here (Thanks to the wonder that is Google Reader).

We read a ton of newsfeeds to stay updated on the constantly changing information technology field, and we comment in this blog on just a small fraction of what we read. There are a number of stories that just don’t make the cut for the blog, but are newsworthy nonetheless for IT pros and Administrators in law and professional services firms. Those stories are available through the feed, and you don’t have to wade through all the stories we do in a given day.

Some stories appearing just today in the feed include:

• Smarter Ways to Work With PDFs
• Spam Filter Causes Lawyer to Miss Court Date
• Court Ruling Could Have Major Impact on E-Discovery
• Microsoft eyes new ways to sell Office

On Wednesday, July 18, 2007, SAGE and the IS&T section of the ALA Capital Chapter will hold our second session in a series of presentations on the ins-and-outs of Microsoft’s Office 2007 Suite. This session covers the exciting new feature enhancements to Word and Excel 2007: what is new, what has changed; and what that means for your everyday tasks.

SAGE’s Director of Consulting David Carns and Application Specialist Tony Buffkin will guide attendees through common tasks and show how the new versions of Office and Excel improve productivity and compare to the older versions. They will also discuss issues such as integration with other systems like document management, among others.

The session will be held at the offices of Hobbs, Straus, Dean & Walker, LLP, located in downtown, Washington, DC at 2120 L St. NW - Suite 700. To register, please contact Kenny Mitchell at 202-383-3402 (email: kmitchell@wbklaw.com) or Scott Forrest at 202-822-8282 (email: sforrest@hsdwdc.com).

Your document management, accounting and finance, and CRM applications are probably using SQL Server for their internal database, making it one of the most common enterprise applications that you completely forget about. Until something goes wrong, and you are painfully aware of its presence.

SQL Server is a very stable and robust program, but that is no excuse to let it go neglected. Pop quiz: how many licenses/copies of SQL Server exist in your firm? Be sure to count those licenses for enterprise applications that use it to store their data. And while you are at it, where are the databases located? Are there maintenance plans in place and are the databases being backed up? What is their current size and rate of change?

These are just a few items you should know about your SQL databases. Becoming reacquainted with your SQL Server installations is the first step. Scheduled check-ups and a full audit will ensure that the rest of the firm can remain blissfully ignorant that one application plays such a large role.

If something worked fine, used to be that you would endure its minor glitches and idiosyncrasies that came with many years of faithful service until it just rusted out, fell apart, or blew up. Unfortunately, software isn’t like that. Case in point: those trusty Windows 2000 servers chugging along, hosting our apps from accounting to terminal services. Problem is that Microsoft dropped free support for Win 2K licenses two years ago, and paid support will go black in June 2010. In other words, we are halfway to no support whatsoever.

Those workhorse servers should be upgraded to Windows Server 2003. Soon. Especially if they are hosting mission critical applications like accounting or document management. Quite simply, the cost of supporting them will outweigh the benefits, as any issue that requires Microsoft’s involvement will likely cost you. The greater danger is that the equipment that the Win 2K Server sits on is aging as well.

Drop us a line in the comments or e-mail us if you have questions about moving specific server applications from Windows 2000 Server to Windows Server 2003. BTW, free support for Windows XP will expire in January 2008!

What Would You Do With a Bargain Basement Supercomputer? While Microsoft continually seeks out new markets and new competitors to conquer (old Star Trek riff), they have set their sights on the supercomputing market with a “low-cost” solution for small companies. If you have a spare $50K laying around for the software alone, MS says you can get your own cluster of servers acting like a supercomputer.

Why would law or professional services firms want a supercomputer? Conceptual searching and relationship analysis for litigation support, for one. What would you use a supercomputer for?

Collaborating on the Web? Read the Fine Print. Between Lawyers has a post and comments on using online web services like conferencing or data storage. The issues include possible data breaches like when GMail was hacked and having a third party between lawyer and client.

Blame Tech Problems on the Planet Mercury: Here is a little chuckle for a Friday. Currently, the planet Mercury is in retrograde, an optical illusion that makes it look like the planet has reversed direction in the sky. For astrologers, this is a bad time of year as accidents happen, things go pear-shaped. So when Yahoo! Messenger went down on Wednesday, the culprit was not bad code or human error, but the zigzagging planet.

In the past week, the first reviews of the IPhone have come in and Apple has released videos, FAQs,and press releases almost daily. So the days of speculating about its features and functionality are finally over. Only wild speculation and misinformation has matched the mammoth hype, especially when in it comes to how the iPhone may fit into business. So here is our balanced opinion on the iPhone in a business setting (we have Mac and PC fans here who work together quite peaceably).

Why Should We Care? In the past few years, consumer technology has been the primary driver of new technology into the workplace. While the iPhone is primarily aimed at the consumer, there are a number of compelling features appealing to business users: ability to select a voice mail rather than listen to all in sequence; ease of use; and full web browser with wi-fi, to name a few. Throw in the iPod features and don’t be surprised a partner walks in with one.

Following are issues where the iPhone is not quite ready for business. The caveat is that Apple is treating the iPhone as a software system and has vowed to push out software updates upgrading its features and functionality. Just because it doesn’t have it now, doesn’t mean it won’t in the future.

Email. Push Me, Pull Me. The killer app for business in mobile phones is e-mail, and to a lesser extent calendaring, which is why Blackberry rules the roost. Blackberry, Good, and Microsoft’s ActiveSync are “push” technologies, sending the e-mail to the mobile device when it is received on the e-mail servers. The iPhone has push e-mail, but only from Yahoo! mail because it uses “push-IMAP,” a protocol MS Exchange server doesn’t support. Otherwise, the iPhone “pulls” e-mails using IMAP, where the iPhone periodically checks in with the e-mail server to see if there are new messages.

Rumor has it that Apple has licensed ActiveSync from Microsoft, meaning it would have push e-mail compatibility with MS Exchange. If so, the iPhone would be on par with Blackberry and Good.

Control Issues and Remote Erasure. Blackberry and Good are corporate darlings because of configuration, control, and the ability to remotely erase the data on handhelds. So far, the iPhone lacks these features. Controlling the configuration allows the IT department to ensure quality service because they do not have a myriad of different handhelds with different software and settings configurations. And the ability to remotely wipe data on a smartphone is priceless when the employee leaves the phone with confidential e-mails in the taxi or the plane.

The Slippery Slope of iTunes. iTunes is required to sync not only songs, photos, and video to the iPhone, but also contacts and calendars as well. This raises the question of whether putting iTunes on business computers will invite streaming music over the Internet, which iTunes allows, or employees putting personal music files and videos on firm equipment. Who is then responsible for backing up their personal music? These issues may be resolved with an “Acceptable Use” policy and disclaimer, but the implications should be thoroughly considered.

So, if you need justification for turning away iPhone toting members of your staff, these are:

• no "push" e-mail functionality compatible with our e-mail infrastructure.
• no ability to wipe data remotely to protect sensitive data in the case of a lost iPhone; and
  
• iTunes is not sanctioned software for a computer that IT will manage.

Remember, however, that the iPhone is in its infancy. Should Apple repeat its runaway success with the iPod or merely match Blackberry’s initial acceptance, it may be a wave that IT departments can’t resist. If that is the case, IT will be tasked with figuring out how to accommodate it rather than dismissing it.

This Wednesday, June 27, 2007, SAGE and the Information Systems and Technology Section of the ALA Capital Chapter kick off  a series of presentations on the ins-and-outs of Microsoft’s Office 2007. The first meeting covers the basics about Office 2007: what is new, what has changed; and what it all means.

SAGE’s Director of Consulting, David Carns, will cut through the confusion over the many versions of the office suite, the “ribbon,”, the new file formats, and other changes for which your firm should prepare. This session sets the stage for more in-depth reviews of each application: Word, Outlook, Excel, and PowerPoint. The focus will be on preparing your staff and firm for the transition to Office 2007.

The session will be from Noon to 1:30 p.m. at the offices of Hobbs, Straus, Dean & Walker, LLP, located in downtown, Washington, DC at 2120 L St. NW - Suite 700. To register, please contact Kenny Mitchell at 202-383-3402.

How many times have you heard about the next great collaboration technology? We have done it before in touting out MindPort collaboration application for documents. But wikis are getting hard to ignore since they make so much sense for business. Why? They overcome the “inbox” problem. E-mail communication is great, but having multiple copies distributed throughout a dozen people’s inboxes is inefficient to say the least when those e-mails need to be referenced at a later date. A wiki provides a single, highly accessible place to coordinate activities and share information.

For the uninitiated, the Common Craft blog has a great video (a bit “campy” though) that explains what a wiki is and how it works. Applications we are seeing clients (and ourselves) implement are knowledge bases, client information, operations manuals, and project planning. There are a number of legal specific wikis covering circuit courts, tax law, IP and more. And in case you haven’t already made the connection, the online encyclopedia Wikipedia is one big wiki.

There are some challenges, mostly changing the culture of writing on the wiki rather than an e-mail. Getting the right wiki software and ensuring that it is widely accessible but also secure requires some thought.

Adobe’s “Acrobat for Legal Professionals” blog announced that they will be conducting a webinar on May 24 on document security that may be worthwhile. They will cover discerning whether PDFs have been tampered with, revoking PDFs and other security features. Many of the basics like restricting printing and copying will be covered as well. Registration is through Adobe’s web site.

Surprise, Microsoft if pushing integration among its products!  The latest kick is “business intelligence” the idea that databases serve data and content throughout an organization through Intranets, web sites, documents, and mobile devices. Microsoft’s take: publish everything through Excel spreadsheets, because the average Joe knows that if they don’t know SQL server. Otherwise, it is the common refrain from Microsoft that the combination of SQL Server, SharePoint 2007, and Office 2007 will send your users into blissful states of productivity and profits to stratospheric levels. But this time the dream includes a new application PerformancePoint Server 2007 that will provide dashboards, scorecarding, and other analytic tools.

Next SQL Server Goes Unstructured (sorta) . MS also announced the next version of SQL Server, codenamed “Katmai” will allow data integration with Office apps, allow unstructured data, and be released next year. (Bets are now being taken in Vegas whether it will be late). Unstructured data includes documents, XML, and geographic data.

Here's another helpful tip from the great folks at our OnSight Support Center. You need to search a bunch of documents a client sent you. You figure it will be a breeze because they are sending PDFs probably generated from the original electronic documents. When you open them, they are not text based PDFs at all but images! Now the unceremonious task of running OCR, spell check, and clean-up awaits you.

The new Standard and Pro versions of Acrobat 8 make that workflow a little less tedious. Acrobat has had the ability to OCR documents for some time, (once referred to as “Paper Capture” but now the more-straight-forward-if-less-elegant-sounding “OCR Text Recognition”), but it has boosted the exporting capability to Word, text, XML, HTML and image formats. Best yet, you can batch process selected files or a folder of documents using "Tools>Document Processing>Batch Processing." That just leaves the inevitable spell check and touch-up of the OCR results.

This provides a valuable stop gap when clients provide sets of PDFs that need to be full-text searchable, but are not so large as to warrant sending out to an EDD or similar vendor for processing.

This article on CIO Insight’s web site recounts how a small web hosting firm used virtualization technology to compete against its far larger rivals. How?

Flexibility. Virtualization allowed the company to dynamically allocating resources, devoting its (virtual) servers to H&R Block during tax season, then moving them to other clients when it was over. Virtualization also allowed them to offer utility computing solutions.

Reducing Power Consumption and Cooling Costs. The lesson everyone quickly learned as data was moved to the Cloud (a geeky way of hosting information on servers rather than desktops) was that electricity is expensive, for both the processors and the equipment to keep them cool. While chip manufacturers now see the light with lower consumption chips, there were still underutilized servers eating watts and requiring AC. Consolidating servers saved the company 50-70 percent in cooling and power costs.

While the interface is still maddening, SharePoint 2007 is a quick way to build collaborative tools like blogs, wikis, and discussion forums inside your firm. Built into SharePoint 2007 are a variety or collaborative features that can be up and running with just a few clicks. While each individual app may not be best in breed, it does provide your organization an opportunity to flirt with these “web 2.0” collaborative features to see if employees will participate on the content they generate increases everyone's knowledge and awareness.

• Blogs: create internal blogs to share firm news, client personnel changes, or developments on projects so the entire firm is “in the know.”
• Wikis: have everyone in the firm become contributors and build your knowledge base or reference library organically from the ground up.
• Discussion Forums: let the conversation happen online rather than in e-mail. It is easier for others who came to the discussion late to catch up and non participants get the benefits too.

The jury is still out, however, regarding SharePoint's "document workspaces." These collaborative sites within SharePoint are fully searchable, but the real sleeper feature is that almost everything has a newsfeed associated with it. So as content is added or updated, everyone in the firm will know.

CNet yesterday ran a helpful FAQ on virtualization technologies covering what it is, why it’s catching on now, and who are the players in the virtual arena. The article is a handy primer on the technology that is gaining significant steam in IT these days.

If that whets your appetite, we do a little roadshow here at SAGE called “Exploring the Virtual Computing Frontier” on virtualization technologies going mainstream.  The roadshow is going to the Mid-Atlantic Chapter of ILTA this Wednesday, April 25 in downtown Washington, DC. Our uber-engineer Doug Daniel provides a run down of the technology and delves into the costs and benefits, addressing the often touted myth of large cost savings. Based on his experience, Doug will also share the pitfalls to avoid when going virtual, and where virtual environments are heading in the near future.

The seminar is open to ILTA members and the general public. Sign up on ILTA’s web site. You even get a free lunch!

No More XP on New Computers in 2008. News is filtering through blogosphere that Microsoft will end OEM sales of Windows XP come January 2008. This shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone, as Microsoft is in the business of selling software. Developing it is just a step in the process. What it means to law and professional firms who tend to be behind the tech curve, is to start thinking about transitioning to Vista in the next couple of years. New equipment will only come with Vista, and soon licenses and then support will disappear. The X Factor in this equation is Exchange 12 and Office 2007, which take advantage of many Vista features.

Law.com Starts Its Quest. Google got into the legal research game in a tangential way with Patents and Trademarks search, now Law.com gets into the legal search arena with Quest (via Robert Ambrogi's Lawsites) Quest searches Law.com's own extensive network of web sites, publications, and blogs, and adds in a number of law firm web sites and other legal blogs.  If anything, it provides a more narrow scope to a search, but we will wait for the reviews to see if it has value for practitioners or just a way to bolster Law.com's advertising revenue.

Lessons from the Eye of the Storm. Since it's Friday the 13th, of course we come across a disaster recovery story. This article has some practical business continuity advice from law firms that have faced hurricanes in Miami. Their formula: a bunker(!), lots of laptops, and satellite office space for lawyers. Also on display is both sides of human nature, from managers instructed to call employees and ask them what they need in the wake of disaster, to clients who call to inquire about the condition of their documents without care for the attorneys or staff.

As we all gear up our mojo for another work week, here are a few places to check on the web that are actually work-related.

Holes in Vista’s Sandbox. From the “Devil is in the details” department, Vista’s new sandbox feature “Protected Mode” turns off in a number of instances leaving machines vulnerable to hacks like the recent animated cursor attack. Trusted Sites and turning off the highly annoying User Account Control are just two instances. Webware’s article highlights all the scenarios where Microsoft kicks the user out of the sandbox and leaves open some vulnerabilities.

Dreams of a Web Operating System. Web applications are becoming more a part of our daily work activities—think GMail and Outlook Web Access—leading many to dream of an operating system based entirely in a web browser. (Never mind that an OS is still required to run the browser). This CNet article has a rundown on current developments and the technical and market challenges any web-based OS faces. Either way, look for webware to force an evolution into the staid thinking about operating systems.

Blackberries To Keep up With Home, Too. While many spouses and significant others have bemoaned the corporate tether that is the Blackberry (and its brethren), a new poll suggests that the workers are revolting and using their company-provided smart phones and laptops for personal reasons as well. We guess that turnabout is fair-play.

The newest engineer to join the crack troops here at SAGE is Colin Marks, who as a certified Cisco Network Engineer brings a wealth of networking and WAN experience. One appliance he has found that can help large firms is PacketShaper. It allows companies to easily manage their bandwidth to maximize performance and ensure quality of service. PacketShaper and other like applications let you prioritize, segregate, and otherwise manage your bandwidth. For example, dedicate a certain percentage for the VOIP system and give priority to Citrix applications over web surfing, especially on draft days for fantasy sports.

Another advantage to this class of network appliance is the easy management, bypassing the arduous task of manually configuring your routers. A GUI (Graphical user Interface) to set priorities or limits, monitor performance and get reports makes optimizing performance a much easier endeavor.

...Would you really need that laptop?  As more applications go to the web browser, this question isn’t so crazy anymore, especially since we await the Apple iPhone and now Microsoft’s—well, not answer but suggestion—called Deepfish. (Before you moan, it’s much better than “everything.NET” and “WPF/E”). Both Apple and Microsoft’s approach aim to put a web browser that displays complete web pages on a mobile device instead of the crippled, downsized offerings presently available. Both rely on zooming on parts of the web page, while Apple’s forthcoming iPhone allows widescreen viewing and a high resolution screen.

E-mail is the original killer app for mobile devices. With advances in screen and sensing technologies, can the web browser be that far behind? It greatly expands the information available while mobile in a much smaller package. Research information, directions, e-commerce (making travel reservations, anyone) and more becomes easier from a handheld device. The downside is that a full-featured browser, if it lives up to the potential, only adds to the mobile addiction some of us are trying to break.

Posting a title like that invites the cynical among us to insert terms like “cost” and “expense.” But let’s look beyond the budget line to the business value of IT. This post at ZDNet’s Between The Lines gives a few measures and ideas for defining, calculating, and getting the maximum value of IT. We couldn’t agree with the post more when they state that there is “no such thing as an IT project. They are all business projects.”

IT Projects should not be defined by whether something was simply installed, or deployed, but whether the installed application or system creates leverage that creates efficiencies or opportunities. Value comes from impact: are processes faster and smoother because of the IT project, saving time and money; or does it generate value for the customers which translates into sales or fees?

How do you know? Use metrics such as cost reductions and increased revenue. Time savings is often a gold standard in law and professional services since it invariably directly equates to billable hours or overhead. You will have to be creative in finding metrics for returns because the generated value aren’t easily quantified, unlike the upfront investments that are measured in cold, hard cash.

They also echoed something we have mentioned many times before, the value of marketing your successes. So while every project may be a “business project,” blame for poor projects becomes easily assignable. “Every time it’s wrong it’s and IT project.”

So many of you are pondering whether to make the jump to Exchange 2007 and all it entails, like the fact that there is no upgrade path since it requires a 64 bit server. You are weighing the pros and cons, deciding whether it’s worth precious budget dollars or trying to justify it to upper management. We already mentioned that the new Outlook Web Access (OWA) is one in Exchange 2007’s favor, but here are a few more if you are looking for justifications, or even rationalizations.

Replication and Disaster Recovery. Exchange 2007 allows the duplication of information stores for offsite clustered servers making replication and disaster recovery easier. Also, users can have mailbox functionality while database recovery is occurring, getting people back to work faster.

Different roles in a clustered environment. Different servers in an Exchange 2007 cluster can take on various roles, such as one sitting in the DMZ as an Edge Transport Server. Other roles include Mailbox, Hub Transport, Client Access and …

Unified Messaging. Integration with your VOIP system to allow voice mails to be stored in mailboxes and the ability to listen to e-mail messages on a mobile phone.

We will be featuring more useful features that make the upgrade worthwhile in upcoming blog posts. A full list of the new features in Exchange 2007 and other propaganda is available on Microsoft’s Exchange 2007 evaluation site.

Remember in The Graduate where Dustin Hoffman’s character was told to get into plastics?  Today, we’re telling you “Newsfeeds” are where you want to be.

Need intelligence for clients? The scoop on competitors, or information by industry? Soon, newsfeeds will be the focus of any organization’s business intelligence and operations, providing unprecedented access and control over information. Once there was the photocopied news clippings distributed throughout the company, supplanted by e-mail subscriptions to a number of web sites and Google News Search. Now newsfeeds--XML files broadcasting the latest news, developments, or information straight to Google Reader or a similar newsreader--will be the channel through which business intelligence comes into your firm.

Soon every website, blog, and search engine will have a newsfeed. Most already have at least one (we have two and growing). Want to know what the client is up to? Subscribe to their newsfeed of press releases and news stories. What about the competition? Create a custom search on Google News or Technorati and get a newsfeed on any stories about your competitors. What are co-workers bookmarking on the Web? The newsfeed from the firm’s Del.ic.ious account will let you know. Want to be informed of updates to the client matter folder or extranet? A newsfeed could keep you informed.

Newsfeeds promise your organization access to vast amounts of information that can be funneled to departments, practice groups, and even individuals. What newsfeeds deliver is also the promise of targeted personalized information that have been the Holy Grail of Intranets and portals since their inception, but be far easier to manage. Stay tuned for more about this exciting technology.

We could fill volumes in this blog about everything that went wrong with creating a workable technology solution for the change in Daylight Savings Time, but less than a week out here is the harsh reality: any technology fix at this point will be a cure that is worse than the disease. For the three week span between the new and old DST, the best fix will be a decidedly low tech approach, calling or emailing your meeting attendees to confirm the time of the appointment.

This is not to say that network administrators will get a free ride. There are still servers to patch and workstations to upgrade so that each computer will recognize the time change. But each of us must not rely on a technology solution to make sure your calendar appointments will display the correct time.

Changing the date is a surprisingly complicated problem given all the ways calendar events are created and shared. What device created the event? In what time zone is the person who created the message? What state is the person in who created the event (like Arizona that doesn’t do daylight time)? How many people inside and outside the organization are on the appointment. Changing the correct time in one platform like Exchange could lead to a myriad of meeting update requests that are readily ignored by users deluged by update requests.

One suggestion is to include the start and end times for appointments in the subject lines. We would add picking up the phone to confirm the time. That has the added benefit of the personal touch.

We get our fair share of Acrobat PDF questions in our OnSight Support Center. Some of the most asked questions we receive also seem to be on Adobe’s priority list for Acrobat 8. From Adobe’s Blog Acrobat for Legal Professionals are a couple of valuable how-tos:

Creating a Transparent Signature Stamp: since many documents never touch paper these days, knowing how to place your “John Hancock” on an electronic document is valuable. This post walks through the steps for creating a stamp in PDF that is transparent so it will fit in boxes and on lines in forms.

How to insert an image into a PDF document. Why this wasn’t easier to do before floors us, but the process has been streamlined in version 8.

When Congress changed the date for Daylight Savings Time last year, few could foresee the problems, hyperbole, and misinformation it would produce in tech circles. In its infinite wisdom, the IT world couldn’t fathom the possibility that Congress could ever change the date for Daylight Savings Time, even though it is convention among humans and not a fundamental law of nature. Thus followed the very faint echoes of fear and loathing we heard during Y2K.

Here is the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly about updating computers for the new date for Daylight Savings Time:

The Good: The available patches work and are stable.  Do not fear using them.

The Bad: The patches aren’t a 100 percent fix. Some calendar entries will be off during the interim period between the new date and the old. Plan accordingly.

The Ugly: In a head-scratching move, Microsoft decided to make a big deal about not supporting Windows 2000 Server and older operating systems. So they made a patch available for the older OS’s, but charged thousands of dollars rather than make it freely available. Needless to say, this caused a brouhaha in the tech world, with many looking outside Microsoft for a fix for the older operating systems.

Here is one for your long term radar. Google’s nascent office suite is going to a paid model called Google Apps Premier Edition and is in testing with corporate players like GE. While challenges to Microsoft’s hegemony in office suites have come and gone, Google’s challenge is qualitatively different because it comes through the web browser rather than sitting on the desktop.

The advantages of this method are:

• Google can control the user experience while maintaining most of the code on their servers.
• This means a subscription model rather than licensing (reportedly around $50/year), that could undercut Microsoft's pricing.
• Goodbye to the days of large refresh projects upgrading everyone’s workstations to the latest version and less maintenance for individual computers.
• Updates won't be every three-five years, but will be added whenever Google rolls them out.

While other professional services firms may be interested in this model, we don’t see law firms rushing out to adopt Google’s approach until security and confidentiality concerns can be met. Not to mention the fact that functionality on web-based office applications will need a couple of years to mature. As we mentioned before, a hybrid model where firms can host the office applications on their own servers for delivery through web browsers would be the best method.

While we won't like seeing our technology refresh and upgrading business go away, web-based applications will likely play a very large role in IT in the next few years. Even Microsoft is in the game with the new version of Outlook Web Access and their Live web-based applications.

Last week, Microsoft matched its record of fixes in its monthly security update.  With all the updates coming from Microsoft, “Patch Tuesday” is getting up there with “Hump Day,” but still lagging way behind “Manic Monday” and “TGIF.”

With all these patches, here is a corollary to the law of unintended consequences: test any patches before deploying them to servers and workstations on the network. This is now become one of cardinal rules of IT. Don’t expect Microsoft or any other vendor to have exhaustedly tested any patches they have released. Patches themselves are often rushed fixes to vulnerabilities and exploits, where speed is generally more prized than quality or stability. To be fair, accounting for every possible computing environment is impossible. Microsoft will even push the envelope on what is considered a “critical patch”: like releasing Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) as a critical patch. IE7 broke many web applications due to changes in its architecture.

As part of our SAGE OnSight service, we test all patches before deploying them to the networks we manage for our clients. This practice has been instrumental in the high degree of up-time, stability and reliability our clients enjoy.

The web has been inundated recently with articles about whether or not you should upgrade to Microsoft’s new Vista operating system, and/or Office 2007. After all the recommendations, are you any closer to making an upgrade decision? When it comes to updating to Office 2007, the new Outlook (and Exchange 12 server on the backend) will likely drive most firms and companies to upgrade. Outlook 2007 and its online doppelganger, Outlook Web Access (OWA), have a number of features that make the switch well worth the investment, most of all because it simplifies tasks in the applications many of us live in.

Time savers like a better search, dragging e-mails into the calendar to create appointments, and tasks appearing in the calendar should help everyone stay focused on their work. Another feature is message classifications that allow actions to be performed based on message type. For instance, messages classified as “Attorney-Client privilege” can have be “stamp” with a privileged label and a copy automatically sent to the firm's compliance officer. The web version, Outlook Web Access, closely mirrors the look and functionality of its desktop brethren (provided you are using Internet Explorer 6+), making it easy to check your email from anywhere and begs the question whether the desktop version is necessary at all.

While the new Ribbon user interface in Office 2007 may turn users on or off, we feel that Outlook 2007’s features will drive many to do the upgrade. Note that Exchange 12—that makes this all happen—has some pretty steep requirements. We will have more in future posts.

When Interwoven updated its WorkSite 8.2 Resource Kit late last year, they made some enhancements to the WorkSpace Generator that are real time-savers for people administering Interwoven DMS. We only wish we had these tools earlier for a few prickly projects.

• Greater flexibility in creating or modifying workspaces from templates, such as creating or deleting certain folders to tailor the workspace – this is really if you initially set up the workspace incorrectly or the requirements change. Before there was no easy/low cost way to change existing workspaces before this. Now, you can change the template, then go back and adjust workspaces based on that template
• Additional wildcard fields in folder meta data that permits dynamically building different types of workspaces. For instance, if the folder structure is the same for different practice area workspaces, but the names of some folders is different, you now only need one template and the wildcard fields can be used to customize the name
• Repopulating the content of existing workspaces: important in rebuilding corrupted or accidentally deleted workspaces. The catch is that the original workspace needs to be created by the 8.2 version of the WorkSpace Generator.
• Use existing workspaces as a template for new workspaces.

These improvements make managing and administering workspaces in Interwoven much easier and address some very tough problems we have encountered in implementations for many of our clients.

The good folks at ALISM have invited us to talk about virtual computing for their 2/21 Luncheon in Washington, DC. SAGE's own Doug Daniel will be surveying the landscape, exploding some myths, and discussing the real advantages virtual computing has for law and professional services firms.

Be sure to sign-up over at ALISM's web site, ALISM.org.  Registration is $25 for members, $45 for non-members.  It's a real deal when you figure in that lunch is included!

Virtual computing has been around for a long time, but only recently has it become one of the most exciting areas of IT. Below are just some of the virtual computing news on the Web in the past few days:

• The virtualization market is very real and growing;
• You may be just getting into virtualization, but others are already pushing "Virtualization 2.0";
• Leading virtualization software developed VMware has released with a small and medium business (SMB) bundle;

We will be touching on those news items and more.  We hope to see you at the February 21, 2007 ALSIM Luncheon.

With the official release of Windows Vista and Office 2007 today, here is our round-up of news you should know from around the Web:

• The new Office Ribbon user interface that debuts in Office 2007 will be heading to other MS Office applications such as Project and Visio.
• In case you like a lot of opinions, here is a round-up of all the Vista reviews.
• More details are emerging on the first Service Pack (SP1) for Vista, which will be security updates and hot fixes, but no improvements like the WinFS file system.
• Stories are already appearing on how to disable Vista's User Account Control (UAC). They don’t mention the bad things that will happen if users do this, just lots of fuss about how annoying UAC is.

And now for something completely different…

An effective search is all about using the right keywords. This article focuses on e-discovery but the great searching strategies—frm knowing your synonyms to checking for misspellings—will work in any search environment.

We have mentioned Acrobat for Legal Professionals (ALP) blog that Adobe runs about using Acrobat in the legal arena. Two recent posts discussing archiving documents and e-mails for the long hail that are worth a look.

PDF/A is an internationally-recognized standard for archiving documents based on the Acrobat 5 format. It is designed so that even if you need to open a file created today 20 years from now, you can. The trade off is a more limited feature set. If you have archival documents or want to create ones using PDF/A, ALP has a couple of articles and resources to get you started.

• Background and overview of PDF/A; and
  
• Creating PDF/A documents and conforming them to the standard, complete with step-by-step instructions.

Also, archiving e-mails is a huge issue these days (or not archiving them so they are not discoverable!). The new version of Acrobat introduces "e-mail packages" for archiving e-mail. Adobe's e-mail packages boast a number of nice features, such as the inclusion of all attachments and full-text searching. ALP discusses potential uses and limitations, as well as instructions for creating an e-mail package.

The question surrounding the impending release of Microsoft’s Office 2007 is whether it is worth the price of upgrading. The “old” version makes documents, spreadsheets and presentations just fine, and the documents are compatible. Office 2007’s most compelling feature is the “Ribbon,” an new interface that replaces the menu system that has become unwieldy from years of plugging in features that few people used.

The new interface alone is worth the upgrade, but only after you get over the learning curve. Other benefits include some cool integration between Outlook and Exchange, and an overall streamlining of what had become badly bloated software. (If you want a second opinion, check out this review.) Learning the new interface means investment in training on the front end, which will get returned in greater productivity on the back end.

Also be aware that customizing toolbars in Office 2007 will require a higher level of technical expertise than in previous versions. Customizing the ribbon interface will require knowledge of XML and/or COM add-ins. This means that getting a developer involved may be necessary, but certainly will help speed the process along. If you have a highly tailored Office installation, development time and costs should weigh in the upgrade decision, but not if your setup is largely out-of-the-box.

Are the days of classifying knowledge over? Are the days of the once might taxonomy numbered? Upstarts like desktop and enterprise search, folksonomies and tagging are gaining the limelight, and overturning old ideas about ways to classify data. When Microsoft Vista’s becomes widespread and everyone has desktop search, will we really care about a myriad folders and subfolders? Given the proper meta data, a folder for just the client-matter may not even be necessary.

Zappos, the online shoe-retailer, is embracing search and taxonomic messiness in the physical world: their warehouse. Instead of complex organization schemes, Zappos is just filling in the next empty rack and recording where the merchandise is located in a database. The warehouse employee fulfilling an order simply queries the database and grabs the shoes wherever they are.

If Zappos can make it work in a warehouse, then with maturing search tools, the proper metadata and new ideas like tagging, certainly a little messiness in the file server can actually be an advantage.

So who will speak up for old-fashioned taxonomies? Let us know in the comments.

Did you know you can view the conversation threads in Outlook? Many of us here at SAGE didn't either, but our great application support folks on the OnSight Support Center did. As always, they were nice enough to share.

Outlook 2003 lets you view messages by thread, which is a convenient way to scan your in-box much faster. To accomplish this:

Select View … Arrange By … Conversation to see your mail arranged this way.

If you have the reading pane on the right, you can get to this setting faster by clicking on Arranged by at the top of the message list. You'll find that if each message contains the earlier messages, you can read just the latest message in the thread instead of working through each one, so you can easily clean out your in-box by deleting earlier notes and keeping only the latest one.

Here are few items that peaked our interest on the web today (including one that sucked us into Apple hype machine).

• Inside Legal Opinions has a great post about innovative lawyers and law firms that is well worth a read. Industry pressures, technology, and plain old unconventional thinking are pushing these law firms and lawyers in new directions, even proposing to get rid of the partner-associate structure.
• Say what you will about Apple in corporate (or business) environments, you have to give them credit for pushing the envelope. Today they unveiled the much anticipated iPhone and appear to have exceeded people's unrealistic expectations for the device. Sporting a new “multi-touch” interface that does away with physical buttons, the iPhone rethinks the whole mobile phone/mobile computing experience. Plus you get an iPod. We’ll watch the initial previews of the new interface, but if the phone lives up to its promise, Apple and Cingular could find people clamoring for these phones in June.
• Microsoft’s new Office 2007 releasing Jan. 30 also comes with a new document format, the clumsily named Office Open XML (or OOXML for smooth-sounding acronyms.) Problem is, it will not be backward compatible with earlier versions of Office unless an upgrade pack is applied to those pre-2007 versions. Still it remains unclear how the document conversion will happen between Office 2007 documents and older versions of the software.

Although Washington, DC usually shuts down around the holidays, we're unusually busy around here at SAGE. We have been a little light on posts, but the effort will pick up into the New Year. In the meantime, here is what is happening out there on the web:

• Does your head spin trying to keep up with all the Electronic Document Discovery (EDD) tools out there? Us too. Here is a handy little round-up.
• Still want to learn more about Windows Vista.  Wired brings you a screenshot gallery with commentary.
• NY Times tech reviewer David Pogue has provided his insight into Vista with this review.
• If you are still confused about the different versions of Vista, ExtremeTech posted this handy chart to help.
• Tired of meaningless jargon and "action words" thrown around to solve a problem, Kathy Sierra has some good advice on how to be better at anything. Hint, stop using the jargon to look smart.

As always, these links can be found at del.icio.us at our "sagesol" network account. Add "sagesol" to your del.icio.us network and share your links on technology management with us!

Today brings a number of thoughtful blog posts from around the Matrix. Each probably deserves some commentary—but since we can’t decide which—today we will just point you to them. Hint: Look for these topics in upcoming posts.

People Search for Yahoo using Google. Many users don’t know the difference between the browser address bar and the Google search box, so they get to Yahoo by typing it in Google’s search box and clicking on a result. This is emblematic of IT’s inattention to users work habits and failure to guide and instruct them properly.

Following up on that thought, little things make a big difference in people’s perceptions. Malcolm Gladwell first popularized the “Broken Windows” theory of crime enforcement, where importance was placed on cleaning up small details (like broken windows) before they contribute to larger ills and everything spirals out of control. This post equates that approach to web site and software development, and stresses the importance of momentum. We would suggest that in applying “broken windows” to IT, such as fixing quirks like slow login scripts that annoy users, is about improving user and management perception of performance. Not to cover up bad performance or quality, but combat negative perceptions when performance and quality are really quite good.

A grassroots movement of using personal e-mail and IM accounts like GMail and AIM rather than corporate accounts appears to be gaining momentum. The boon for the user, not having to learn new software or deal with bugs each time a new client or back-end server is changed, plus more storage.

Finally comes this report that small and medium enterprises down under are balking at the high price of Windows Vista and Office 2007. Evidently the Australians believe “they got all they really needed from earlier versions…” What say us Yanks?

All these links are saved on the del.icio.us/sagesol network open to all our readers.

Virtual computing environments are one of the most exciting developments in IT in years. Recently, SAGE hosted a seminar on virtual computing with the Capital Chapter of ALA.  The seminar was a big success, and now we are taking that seminar to you.

The session starts with an overview of the technology and its applications, and provide a survey of configurations, products, and platforms. We share our insights into the best applications for virtualization, and the various platforms and software currently in the market. The session delves into the costs and benefits of the technology, addressing the often touted myth of large cost savings. Based on our experience, We will also share the pitfalls to avoid when going virtual, and where virtual environments are heading in the near future.

The seminar covers:

• What is virtualization? Common configurations, products, hardware platforms and system requirements.
• Uses for virtualization, including development, consolidation, disaster recovery, etc.
• Pros and cons of virtual server environments.
• Maximizing performance in virtual computing.
• Myths and realities regarding the economics of virtualization.
• Real costs of going virtual for firms of various sizes.
• Complementary technologies for virtual server rooms like SANs, and remote power control.

If your firm is interested in learning more virtual computing, please contact Karin Magness at SAGE and we will bring the roadshow to your company.

Looking to learn a new application or upgrade your skills but can’t afford the latest version? The latest version will cost you, but with a little searching, the previous version can be had at a cut rate price or even free. Our troglodytic explorers of the Internet’s dark caves mined another nugget of gold in this list of free software. Many are great system tools like Registry Mechanic. For techs who want to play with partitioning or imaging software but don't have a valid license and don't want to use a questionable copy of the software, earlier versions are a great way to learn. However, if these will be the primary tools for your firm, it is worth investing in current software.

Anyone else have good sources of cheap, last generation software?

The outgoing head of Microsoft’s software division, Jim Allchin, made a bold claim last week that MS’s upcoming Vista operating system would not need additional antivirus software to protect it. Just as quickly as the tech press jumped on his statement did did he start backtracking. Writing on his blog, Allchin says: “Wow, you describe a specific situation and suddenly people extrapolate something completely different!” Allchin really has no one to blame but himself, because the reason why he was using a very specific situation is that he was trying to spin Vista’s security measures to make them appear in a more positive light. That’s one way to create spin: don't be false, but craft a situation that puts your point in the best light.

More positive and surprising news is that Britain’s The Inquirer says the release version is “polished, speedy, and looks good on the eye.” They had been panning the release candidate versions of Vista, and the buzz around the earlier version was less than enthusiastic, to say the least.

Program note, all these links are saved on the del.icio.us/sagesol network open to all our readers.

Adobe is seeking to capitalize on the movement towards PDF and native document formats in the legal world with new features in Acrobat 8.  The latest version includes legal-focused features like redaction, metadata removal, and bates numbering. Acrobat 8 also sports better integration for e-mails with Outlook and Notes.

Adobe is also backing up their push into the legal market with support/marketing resources. Adobe now hosts an "Acrobat for Legal Professions" blog which has great resources like in-depth review of new features and best practices. For instance, posts on the new redaction feature covers workflow, limitations, and best practices. The blog also provides tutorials on converting deposition transcripts into PDF and using Acrobat with various equipment.

While single-page TIFs still dominate in most litigation settings because of speed of review, the addition of bates numbering and redaction should send Acrobat to the forefront on the production side. Do you see new uses for Acrobat 8 in your firms because of these new features?

Windows Vista has gone “gold,” meaning it has been released to manufacturing. So Microsoft will make a deadline and have it in PC manufacturers hands at the end of the month and on retail shelves at the end of January. However, there seems to be a funny vibe surrounding it. Don’t expect lines of geeks waiting for a midnight release to snap up copies; the sense out there is that mostly people will be holding their breath hoping it isn’t a debacle. Check out this quote from Ray Ozzie, Microsoft’s CTO:

"It's released to manufacturing. That means it went through an immense amount of testing. When it goes out, it will not be perfect and there will be updates. But at the point it's at now, it feels really good. Is it perfect? No, it's software and it will have flaws. But it's fulfilling the roles that an operating system must fulfill in this day and age."

There is someone who is pumped up about their product: “it’s fulfilling the roles.” Wow. To see what could have been, check out Microsoft’s promotional video for Vista from back when it was codenamed “Longhorn.”

So, anyone excited about the impending release of Vista?

For Election Day, the great folks in our OnSight Support Center have two tips for you... but having nothing to do with elections. Anyway, here is a way to format cells in Excel quickly and how to save all open Word documents at once.

Format Excel Cells Fast

If you want quick access to the Format Cells dialog box in Microsoft Excel to modify items like type style, alignment or borders, select the cell you want to format and press CTRL+1.

Save All Your Word Documents at Once

If you know the "secret" key, you can save or close all of your open documents in one step.

• Hold down SHIFT and click the "File" menu. When you hold down the SHIFT key, two new options appear on the File menu: "Close All and Save All."
• To save all open documents at once, select "Save All." Or to close all your open documents, click "Close All." Word will prompt you to save your changes before closing any documents.

Note: Some document management systems may not allow you to use this trick.

In our post on “Musing on the Coming Web Desktop,” we mentioned one hybrid scenario where web apps with desktop functionality reside on the firm Intranet, rather than the Internet itself. John Milan’s post yesterday over at Read/Write Web discussed another type of hybrid, a cross between a web app and a desktop application.

That got us thinking: we have done precisely that! MindPort+Review, our online document review and collaboration tool that integrates with our MindPort extranet solution, is indeed that sort of hybrid. With MindPort+Review, the data—in this case, documents and their metadata—reside in a MindPort project, which is an online repository. The MindPort+Review tool is a desktop application that provides enhanced functionality for searching, sorting, filtering, and grouping documents. The desktop app also has tools for creating and maintaining custom coding (metadata) and advanced retrieval tools like pick lists, saved searches, and search folders. Since the data is online, people can collaborate on the documents anywhere they have an Internet connection.

When we created MindPort+Review, we just thought that was the best method to provide collaboration and the functionality of a desktop. Because the solution worked, we didn’t consider that it is pretty far out there on the leading edge of web technology.

Here is an application that we are keeping an eye on: VMware Converter. Currently in beta, VMware Converter turns physical machines into virtual machines for consolidation, disaster recovery, or any other reason you would want a physical Windows OS machine to go virtual. Best yet, it will convert a number of physical machines on the fly, or even from other vendor’s VM products like Microsoft’s Virtual Server. Here is another scenario: thinking of upgrading to Vista? Convert your current Windows XP image into a virtual machine for safekeeping in case you need access to apps that are incompatible with Vista.

VMware Converter is certainly an app to watch, and we’ll be putting it into our lab to give it a thorough ringing out to see if it lives up to its promise.

Innovation is back in web browsers!  With the release of Firefox 2 and Internet Explorer 7 in the past couple of weeks, there has been more new ideas in browsers since IE and Netscape squared off "back in the day."

Here is what is being said out in cyberspace about the latest contenders:

• Wired's "A Tale of Two Browsers" is a good comparison article without the fan-boy hype on other side.
• CNet has text and video reviews of both Firefox 2 and Internet Explorer 7

The press hasn't been all that favorable for IE7 with complaints about security, standards compliance, and installation. Microsoft has also followed Mozilla's lead and created a site for add-ons to IE7.

We would also like to get your take on a statement made in the Wired article:

"...fact is that Firefox 2 and Microsoft IE7 both have support for web standards that is good enough for the vast majority of web content out there."

Are you looking for "good enough" in browsers, or does security or compatibility with enterprise software or custom applications sway your choice of browser in your firm?

Today, Doug Daniel and George Nicholson are giving a seminar on the maturation of virtual computing technologies for the ALA Capital Chapter's Information Services and Technology section. Server rooms of the future will be incorporating virtual machines in addition to physical servers. From the presentation, here are some of the uses for virtual computing:

• Test and development
• Server consolidation
• Production servers
• Remote office
• Disaster recovery
• No more “desktop” servers
• IT agility and responsiveness

Doug and George make the point that forget the hype of huge savings that many virtual computing vendors tout, the real payoff is in the agility and responsiveness that virtual computing affords the IT department.

We will be posting with more from the seminar, so keep checking this blog.

The hype-o-meter is twitching recently over porting common desktop apps like word processing and spreadsheets onto the web. EWeek and others have been declaring that web-based applications are coming of age. Google appears to be taking up the standard, leading a host of smaller developers in pushing the envelope of online applications. In fact, I am writing the first draft of this post on Google's "Docs & Spreadsheets ."

So should law and professional services firms head online for word processing?

Not quite yet. But for e-mail, many firms are already using Outlook Web Access (OWA), a web-based application. In fact, e-mail went web way back with Hotmail, Gmail, and Yahoo! Mail. Web-based apps tend to be more focused and have less features, largely because of the technical hurdles they face being online. Inline spell checking, drag and drop, and tracking changes are there, but forget mail-merging, if you care. This simplicity has won many adherents frustrated by how complicated desktop word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation applications have become. Online apps play to their strength--collaboration--where anyone with a web browser and the right privileges can edit, update, or otherwise provide feedback on a document. That same opennes, however, should scare the briefs off of any lawyer worth her salt.

But the road ahead holds a lot of promise. We envision a hyrbid scenario where apps reside on a firm's intranet, rather than the big-bad World Wide Web. Some of the advantages of online apps include:

• Easier deployment and seamless upgrades.
• Less expensive equipment on the desktop.
  
• Simpler licensing.
• Less configuration for managed environments.
• Built-in DMS: the documents are natively on the network rather than a local drive.
• RSS integration for new documents, updates, and document revisions.
  
• Microformats to reuse chunks of information rather than whole documents.

Under such an environment, the servers and connection speeds become critical. What is interesting, if web-based applications take off, it will mean that the pendulum will  have swung back toward a variant of the mainframe/terminal model of old.

With the upcoming launch of Windows Vista, the operating system replacement for XP, here is a sampling of news and opinion from around the web.

• Vista will reportedly have highly restrictive, some say draconian, licensing restrictions: a one-time, and one time only, transfer of the license to another device, but you can run the same copy virtually on the same machine.
• MS will also be taking a hard line against piracy, reportedly crippling machines with unauthorized versions of Vista. This presents a problem, since there are complaints that its watchdog program, Windows Genuine Advantage, produces too many false positives
• A few people have put together a wiki of third-party applications that are not working or have significant issues in Vista RC2; Although Microsoft’s Application Compatibility Toolkit 5.0 may be a workaround for legacy systems, if you are brave enough or have mad skillz.
• Then there are the many existential musings about whether Vista is worth the upgrade, including Great Britain's The Inquirier, and from Windows evangelist Paul Thurrott. That leaves some to ponder where is the business case is for upgrading?

We will weigh in on the Vista upgrade issue soon, but give us your thoughts in the comments.

We are still ironing out some of the details so the formal announcement hasn't gone out yet, but we can let you know of a new seminar. SAGE’s Doug Daniel will be giving an overview of virtualization technologies for the Information Services and Technology Section of the ALA Capital Chapter on October 25 from Noon to 2:00 PM. 

Doug will guide attendees through the virtual computing landscape. He will provide an overview of the technology and its applications, and provide a survey of configurations, products, and platforms. Furthermore, he will share his insights into the best applications of virtualization, and the various platforms and software currently in the market. Doug will delve into the costs and benefits of the technology, addressing the often touted myth of large cost savings. Based on his experience, Doug will also share the pitfalls to avoid when going virtual, and where virtual environments are heading in the near future.

The seminar will cover:

• What is virtualization? Common configurations, products, hardware platforms and system requirements.
• Uses for virtualization, including development, consolidation, disaster recovery, etc.
• Pros and cons of virtual server environments
• Maximizing performance in virtual computing
• Myths and realities regarding the economics of virtualization
• Real costs of going virtual for firms of various sizes
• Complementary technologies for virtual server rooms like SANs, and remote power control.

The venue is still not set, but will likely be hosted at Wilkinson Barker Knauer, LLP office in Washington, DC. For more information, or if you are interested in registering, e-mail Peter von Elling at SAGE, or Kenny Mitchell at Wilkinson Barker Knauer.

Here is our inaugural entry into weekly survey of web sites: Surf's up. We start off this week with a community driven anti-phishing site, Phish Tank (http://www.phishtank.com/). Phish Tank is an online database of phishing sites that allows readers to submit entries and verify other readers entries. Best of all, they provide an API so developers and programmers can build applications using their database.

For those trying to tweak as much performance out of Windows XP to avoid an upgrade to Vista, this blog has a list of XP performance tweaks. Word of caution, some of those tweaks may not be advisable in a managed environment.  And speaking of avoiding an upgrade to Vista, XP Myths explodes some common myths about Windows XP concerning performance, reliability, minimum system requirements, and more. The best part of the page, however, is the section on bad tweaks that are supposed to improve performance but actually don't.

A number of articles recently have discussed the shift in innovation in corporate IT departments from being led by IT professionals to users who bring their home tech into the office. With the freewheeling experimentation and innovation happening on the Internet these days (mostly under the far-too-generic rubric of “Web 2.0”) and the widespread consumer adoption of WiFi at home before the office, are your users bringing new ideas and technologies to you, or are you still leading them?

Law and professional service firms tend to be even more conservative than corporations in adopting technology, so such an infusion of new ideas is more limited. Younger associates and new hires, however, have pushed web collaboration and handheld adoption into firms. There is nothing wrong with getting ideas from your users as they experiment with tech at home. This idea exchange often leads to thought-provoking discussions, like what can a web-based application like Netvibes give me for a portal solution that more traditional and entrenched players like BEA/Plumtree and SharePoint can’t? IT departments shouldn’t feel threatened that they are not bringing all the technology ideas to the table, but should embrace them. IT is better able to discern which ideas will work and provide value in the organization.

Microsoft’s SharePoint 2007 received a fair amount of buzz at last month’s ILTA conference, with many firms declaring that they are forging ahead with new intranets and portal projects based on the software by year’s end. These plans are even more bold considering that the software isn’t expected to get out of beta until next year. Here at SAGE, we have been helping a number of clients with their SharePoint 2007 projects. One lesson coming out of these projects is: if you don’t have developers and engineers that are experts in SQL, ASP.NET, and web development, make sure you get someone to back you up.

Fact is, SharePoint 2007 is easy to break at this point. This isn’t surprising since it is still in beta. We have seen instances where simply changing a setting causes it to fail. The application’s saving grace is that it is mostly built on ASP.NET, so an able ASP.NET programmer can often fix SharePoint controls and web parts that even Microsoft gets wrong or are currently incomplete. SharePoint 2007’s deep integration with SQL Server also requires in-depth knowledge of the database program to fix faulty group pages or lists. We have found that these problems can often be resolved with good web developers to trouble-shoot the problem and write the necessary code or queries to fix it.

One of the dirty little secrets of IT is that anyone worth their salt knows that daily server checks are critical in avoiding crashes, outages, and poor network performance, but hardly anyone ever does it. There are only a handful of core items to check (memory, disk space, logs, antivirus signatures, and uptime), but either remoting to the server or physically checking it require a fair amount of time that is compounded by the number of servers. Logging in, opening the appropriate apps and recording the information for each server wouldn’t be so bad, were it not that there are users to support, ongoing projects, and a myriad other matters that require IT’s attention. So in the end, we “satisfice”: the servers are running, so nothing that bad could be wrong… um, right?

We’ve been there too, especially since client needs come before our internal firm needs. We looked into sophisticated monitoring software, but decided that all we needed was a quick way to check core items and log who did the check, when and what issues were found if any. In the end, we came up with Sentinel, which allows us to perform daily checks remotely in one “spot.” Sentinel has helped us shave at least 50% of the time we used to spend on server checks, and that savings increases with more servers. Best yet, the checks get done, which has significantly reduced operational issues overall.

If you are interested in how Sentinel works, we will be having an upcoming webinar next Wednesday, September 13, 2006 at 2 p.m. Follow the link to sign-up on the SAGE web site. We also posted screenshots of the Sentinal interface for viewing.

Oh, the allure of the sales pitch. That attractive male or female salesperson running through a carefully orchestrated script, artfully demonstrating that their software will solve every difficulty you can possibly imagine. And that’s the problem. But don’t just blame the vendors, according to a new study your users and technology committees are just as much to blame.

The study found that users are equally guilty of valuing capability over usability when choosing software. Sure, vendors try to justify upgrades by packing niche or highly specialized features into software versions, which then distract and overload users. When making purchasing decisions, however, users equate more capabilities to a better product. But when using the software, they complain about its usability because they are overwhelmed by the features and the overall complexity. So they are Dr. Jekyll during the sale, but Mr. Hyde when it comes to using it. This is apparently true for novices and experts alike.

One conclusion we draw is that IT needs to take a greater role in educating and focusing users (and technology committees) on the core functionality they are looking to meet. What the study didn’t mention was that the users won’t blame themselves for the purchase decision, they will blame IT. Ultimately, the software becomes IT’s responsibility anyway, so IT managers better manage the purchasing decision from the start.

There is an ongoing debate in SAGE about the value of SharePoint. For years, the platform has held tremendous promise, but mid-course changes by Microsoft and the complexity of the product has meant its promise has gone largely unfulfilled. Now there is tremendous buzz around the latest version in Sharepoint 2007 (still in beta), where every software vendor seems to be jumping on the bandwagon and praising it as the backbone of their systems. While we have always been cautious about SharePoint in the past because of Microsoft's continuing fiddling with the source code and deficiencies in the feature set, the new version has won some champions inside SAGE. They point to its ability to connect disparate information sources and content management features. Others, however, still feel its complexity and lack of a clear business problem that it solves means that it will still sit unused in legal IT departments.

Where do you stand on SharePoint? Do you see SharePoint 2007 solving real problems you have in IT or is it just more hype? Let us know in the comments.