Gartner Magic Quadrant for IT Project and Portfolio Management, 2007 - June 2007

Update 2009/08/19: Apparently the newly redesigned http://www.itanalystreports.com/ no longer provides the link to the 6/07 Gartner update mentioned below.
However, an excellent post entitled Project Management Online for Small Teams does provide a link. That article is well worth reading in any case and highly recommended :)

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31July2007: Thanks to itanalystreports.com , an update from similar Gartner Magic Quadrant last year regarding the PPM vendor space:

"Gartner Magic Quadrant for IT Project and Portfolio Management, 2007 - June 2007, 11 pages"

Xirrus Wi-Fi Array: 7th Annual eWEEK Excellence Awards

The 7th Annual eWEEK Excellence Awards: The Winners: Networking Infrastructure:

The 7th Annual eWEEK Excellence Awards: The Winners


CATEGORY: NETWORKING INFRASTRUCTURE

WINNER:

Xirrus Wi-Fi Array

Software Release 2.0 for the Wi-Fi Array further enhanced and provided increased functionality to the Xirrus Wi-Fi Array platform. With this release, the Wi-Fi Array can use some its IAPs (integrated access points) to create up to four independent, 162M-bps wireless mesh backhaul links by bonding three of its IAPs together for each link.

Additionally, the multiradio backhaul capabilities of the Wi-Fi Array eliminate the need to run cabled uplink connections in areas where it may be impractical or cost-prohibitive to run Ethernet cable. All security and WLAN (wireless LAN) policies are enforced across the backhaul links, and radio bonding provides load balancing and failover capabilities, allowing for a uniform and fault-tolerant deployment across an entire campus.

Also in this release is increased security functionality, including intrusion detection and prevention features augmented by Xirrus' partnership with Network Chemistry. The duo can manage to protect Wi-Fi networks from more than 100 threats, including rogue access points. The Wi-Fi arrays, Wi-Fi filtering, firewall functionality and time-of-day access controls can be tied to a specific SSID (service set identifier) for fine-grained control over various security settings. These robust security features provide IT administrators with the most powerful and secure Wi-Fi network available without needing a separate Wi-Fi intrusion detection and prevention network of sensor access points.

Microsoft Reaches ERP Milestone

Microsoft Reaches ERP Milestone: "Microsoft has reached the halfway point in its three-year march to converge four enterprise resource planning suites into a common technology platform.
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But it's still an open question whether the campaign will deliver a fully converged suite that will hold its own in the midmarket that SAP and Oracle also covet, and whether customers still care...

Project Green, the early code name for the suite's convergence, was originally a two-step plan to rewrite Microsoft's four ERP suites—GP, NAV, SL and AX—into a single code base.

But at their Convergence user conference in March, Microsoft officials confirmed that the company will likely not move to a single code base but, rather, converge the suites through a common underlying technology stack, including SQL Server, Visual Studio .Net, BizTalk Server and Workflow Foundation..."

Formula for Success in New product Development

QUOTED VIA:

Project Portfolio Management Today:
Product v. Project Portfolio
Demian Entrekin (Founder & CTO, Innotas) Posted 7/10/2007

"...As an example of some of the best practices they have surfaced, they urge what they call an "idea-to-launch process" which is driven by clear, meaningful gates from stage to stage.

Their use of research quantifies how these kinds of gate-driven processes pay off. Using studies by American Productivity & Quality Center (APQC), they have extrapolated how top performing organizations follow these kinds of portfolio techniques. In the words of the authors, these organizations "make the gates work."

In a primer called "Ten ways to make better portfolio and project selection decisions," the authors lay out concrete steps that can be taken to drive greater value from their project investments. In one example, they describe an effective approach called "incremental commitment." ....

PRIMARY SOURCE:

Stage Gate Articles, Research, Knowledge and Working Papers: "Formula for Success in New Product Development
Dr. Robert G. Cooper

Many businesses use the Stage-Gate® process to conceive, develop, and launch new products. As proficient companies have implemented, modified, adapted, and improved methodology, it has morphed into a faster, leaner, and more effective tool. The next generation process, or NexGen Stage-Gate® builds in seven principles of lean, rapid, and profitable new-product development to maximize productivity in product innovation."

IT and GIS--A Complementary Technology Blend - ESRI - Professional Papers

ESRI - Professional Papers: "IT and GIS--A Complementary Technology Blend

Author(s): G. Rao, Ajita Kini, Anwar Hassan, Saumyajit Roy

GIS, integrated with DMS, CRM, GPS/RFID and ERP, has proven to deliver immense benefits to organizations like municipal bodies and utilities where work revolves around spatial information. This is what LAVASA - a privately developed lake city spread over 40 sq kms in western India, is trying to achieve....

ESRI technology is being harnessed to augment the mammoth design, planning and construction challenges presently underway. The paper describes how RMSI and LAVASA are putting into place various best practices in GIS technology from 3D visualization, CAD standards, data modelling, GPS updates, linear referencing, map publishing, etc... to ensure that this city gets maximum advantage from an integrated enterprise GIS tomorrow."

Skype Enters the Enterprise - Enterprise VoIPPlanet Feb. 23, 2007

Skype Enters the Enterprise:

"...with traditional voice over IP equipment, you need infrastructure at each location where you want to make in-network calls. 'If you're a big multinational company, you have to have an IP-PBX at each location to get free calls between them all.' With the VoSKY Exchange, however you can get pretty much the same benefit with just one unit, installed at a key office. Workers in small remote offices—or on the road—can dial in with their Skype IDs, and the calls are still free.

While companies can, theoretically use Skype to their hearts' content—without added infrastructure like the VoSKY Exchange, David Tang pointed out that the Actiontec product gives IT managers 'a little bit more peace of mind, taking Skype off the desktop and isolating it in a centralized server. They can put it behind their firewall, they can put it in a separate subnet, or whatever. Basically, you're taking Skype off of the LAN,' Tang said...."

The Drive for Data Protection - eWeek April 16, 2007

The Drive for Data Protection:

"... the operating system is not the place to look for the current utmost in protection against accidental data loss, and oversight over and privacy for data that is permitted to be copied to devices, and proof of action for audit and compliance purposes. For these types and levels of protection, companies need to look to third-party solutions.

Indeed, the security market for products that protect against data loss from the endpoint is white-hot right now, with dozens of companies vying for a place on the corporate desktop. And it's a market that an increasing number of organizations are tapping into as a pre-emptive strike.

'We put something in place with [Microsoft] Active Directory that would block the use of USB ports, CDs or floppy disks, but it was not easily administered,' said Miriam Neal, vice president of IS at South Western Federal Credit Union in California. Neal eventually settled on SecureWave's Sanctuary 4.1, which we have reviewed. We also reviewed Secuware Security Framework 4.0.

Both products offer policy settings to deny read or write actions to removable storage devices, approve the use of standard devices and enable the use of encryption.

Security Framework's strength lies in its ability to easily enable encryption on the enterprise..."