First, a news service notice:
Travelling by train all day Thursday and Saturday disrupted the flow of news to the editor. A normal service will be resumed today (Monday), as soon as emails are recovered from backup because some total idiot sent a virus which by-passed McAfee and wiped the hard drive.

SMOKING GUN?

When accessing a wi-fi service the signal strength may be inconsistent and change rapidly. This is particularly the case if travelling by train (or possibly bus too) as terrain. line of sight, tunnels, bridges, embankments etc. may cause temporary service disruption.

GSM's editor John Baker encountered a serious problem while travelling by train through the UK on Saturday of last week. Signal loss caused the wi-fi connection to drop during a McAfee update. Email was also running at the time, which rendered it unprotected for a period of time. When the wi-fi signal was restored the McAfee update was re-started. During the time the update was on-going, a virus attack took place on the laptop.

McAfee did kick in when it was updated, just in time to save the bulk of the data on the hard drive. However many files were corrupted in the malicious attack. Fortunately a temporary backup of all emails had taken place earlier in the day, as a scheduled process highlighted the fact that the normal USB back-up drive was not available to the system.

Although over 99% of the remaining files were recoverable from the USB back-up drive on return to the office, work already performed while travelling on the Thursday and Saturday was lost.

The message therefore is that when allowing your AV software to perform an update which takes the process down, at least shut down email to prevent loss. The chances of an attack during the time the AV is down for update is extremely remote, but in this case the loss was 2 days of magazine editing!

[CAVEAT TRAVELLER! Ed.] ■

Lighthouse Computer Services has been named winner of the 2008 IBM Business Partner Excellence Award for North America. This significant award is given to one business partner from each of IBM’s six geographies. Lighthouse was chosen from among all IBM Business Partner communities, including Resellers, Consultants and Integrators, and Independent Software Vendors. The selection was based upon Lighthouse’s impact on the marketplace, its innovative solutions using IBM offerings and proven customer satisfaction and value delivered.

This marks the first time IBM has given the award to a regionally-focused partner. A very high percentage of Lighthouse customers are in New England, New York and New Jersey, including more than 400 businesses and organizations.

Lighthouse is a leading IBM Premier Business Partner, with $114 million in sales of IBM offerings in 2007. Through a solutions-based business model that employs a wide range of IBM hardware, software and solutions, Lighthouse has made significant investments in its IBM business, including a state-of-the-art Business Partner Innovation Center (BPIC). Equipped with more than $2 million in hardware and software available for demonstration, Lighthouse’s BPIC is leveraged to stage both IBM events and customized events for its clients. ■

IBM Business Partner Excellence Awards

www.lighthousecs.com

Creators of electronic document management software DocuLex, has announced enhancements to its Professional Capture software, including enabling DocuLex PC-distributed, server-based Goby Capture integration for automated paper and native format electronic file capture ability (Microsoft Word, Excel, Outlook email, etc.) fostering knowledge management and workflow collaboration.

A component of DocuLex Archive Studio, Professional Capture solves the desire to convert large volumes of paper to searchable electronic files in corporate and service bureau environments. It is a productive software product that fulfills the demands of multiple, complex imaging projects, providing a wide variety of image processing and indexing capabilities that streamline and reduce the cost of document conversion projects, minimizing the labor component associated with document imaging, indexing, exporting and printing. Speed is enhanced, benefiting service bureaus and organizations of sizable document volumes, creating comprehensive, cost-effective production document imaging. All advantageous production tools are included, with an updated intuitive user layout, enabling both experienced and novice practitioners. ■

www.www.doculex.com

Accredited Sage Enterprise software developer, Defacto Solutions, has formed a strategic partnership with award-winning document management and imaging author Version One, to fulfill the increasing demand from Sage Line 500 and Sage 1000 users for document management functionality. Version One’s solutions enable the electronic creation, storage, retrieval, management, delivery and authorisation of business documents such as invoices, purchase orders and statements,.

Defacto provides robust solutions which extend the functionality of Sage Line 500 and Sage 1000. This partnership sees the adoption of Version One’s enhanced barcode printing system, DbForm, which produces barcode labels and barcoded documents for use with Defacto’s latest product, DefCapture. DefCapture provides barcoded data entry of a wide range of transactions within the Sage environment, including goods receipting, bin-to-bin transfers, stocktaking, order picking and despatch confirmation.

With Version One’s DbForm used in conjunction with DefCapture, Sage customers using DefCapture are able to capture data more quickly and accurately, improving efficiency whilst significantly reducing costs. ■

www.defactosolutions.co.uk

www.versionone.co.uk

A survey by Infosecurity Europe (www.infosec.co.uk) of 576 office workers have found that women are far more likely to give away their passwords to total strangers than their male counterparts, with 45% of women versus 10% of men prepared to give away their password, to strangers masquerading as market researchers with the lure of a chocolate bar as an incentive for filling in the survey. The survey was actually part of a social engineering exercise to raise awareness about information security. The survey was conducted outside Liverpool Street Station in the City of London.

This year’s survey results were significantly better than previous years. In 2007 64% of people were prepared to give away their passwords for a chocolate bar, this year it had dropped to just 21% so at last the message is getting through to be more infosecurity savvy. The researchers also asked the office workers for their dates of birth to validate that they had carried out the survey here the workers were very naïve with 61% revealing their date of birth. Another slightly worrying fact discovered by researchers is that over half of people questioned use the same password for everything (e.g. work, banking, web, etc.) ■

View Survey Results

Due to the high demand of its solutions, the U.S. based technology leader for automated data capture and document classification has expanded its presence in Europe with a concentration in developing a strong reseller channel.

AnyDoc Software is increasing its presence in Europe and has opened its first German branch with a location in Wiesbaden. This is in response to the great demand in Germany for AnyDoc solutions and the company to provide more local support to partners, particularly with large projects. The goal is to further develop its partner network in Germany.

The specialist for automated data capture and document classification, founded in 1989 in Tampa, Florida, USA, has achieved outstanding growth in Europe in the last five years. The branch office in Wiesbaden now supplements the European branches in England and Switzerland.

AnyDoc places a great value on being local to its German customers in order to be available at any time for questions and to provide responsive support to its partners. ■

www.anydocsoftware.com

DPCI, a provider of integrated technology solutions for organizations that need to publish content to Web, print, and mobile channels, today announced it supported Scientific American through the process of selecting a digital asset management system to centralize all of the organization's digital content. The leading publisher of scientific and technological news utilized DPCI's expertise and vendor selection process to refine its requirements, manage the request for proposals (RFP), and ultimately select Canto® Cumulus®.

Scientific American publishes 15 foreign language editions and has a total of more than 1,000,000 copies in circulation worldwide. Its website - www.SciAm.com - is viewed by 1.7 million visitors per month. DPCI worked with Scientific American to understand its business and workflow processes associated with centrally managing all of its editorial content, including text, illustrations and photographs. It also identified a strategy to manage digital rights, permissions, accessibility and repurposing of all content which includes years and volumes of magazine issues.

As part of the process, DPCI put together a matrix of questions which Scientific American presented to a number of vendors to determine how the products would address the publication's editorial and production needs. DPCI worked with Scientific American to manage the entire selection process, including product demonstrations and review of vendor legal agreements. ■

DPCI

www.sciam.com

www.canto.com

Leading UK law firm, Olswang, has deployed Solcara SolSearch to provide a comprehensive legal search tool to service the information management needs of its team of 600 staff. SolSearch creates a speedy one-stop search for all internal and internet based content, simultaneously accessing free-to-air and subscription-based Internet search sources.

Amanda Mckenzie, Information Services Manager at Olswang said, “At Olswang we have utilised SolSearch to search across our internal and external legal databases at the same time. This was a much needed tool. It saves time as users no longer need to know where to look for information as they have one point of contact, which can then lead them to the individual databases. Search in itself is not the answer to all of one's information needs but it is a cog in a wheel and this is an extremely effective cog in the wheel.”

Rob Martin, Solcara’s Managing Director added,“SolSearch is fast becoming the search solution of choice for UK & Irish law firms. Solcara has been serving the needs of information management professionals for nearly 10 years. As Olswang discovered, SolSearch provides a simple, effective solution that supports the information management process quickly and efficiently, whilst complementing the usefulness of existing information management systems.” ■

www.solcara.com

CREDANT Technologies, the market leader in endpoint data encryption solutions, today announced the integration of its CREDANT Mobile Guardian solution with Symantec’s Altiris endpoint management platform. For the first time ever, IT administrators can use the Altiris management console to encrypt, audit, and protect the data residing on enterprise endpoints. The integration of CREDANT encryption with Symantec endpoint management solutions allows IT administrators to seamlessly deploy and manage data protection and encryption enterprise-wide, to establish and change encryption policies, and to generate end user reports directly from the Altiris management console.

This partnership between CREDANT and Symantec and the integration of CREDANT encryption with the Altiris management console addresses the growing business imperative to protect sensitive data residing on PCs, laptops, removable media and smartphones. Additionally, it further simplifies the control of critical data by providing management and security within a single environment. CREDANT engineered its endpoint data security solution to “protect what matters” while ensuring that the security does not interfere with operational processes and is totally transparent to the end user.

The integration will also enable companies to quickly locate unprotected corporate notebook computers and automate the deployment and provisioning of encryption through a single management console. This helps protect vulnerable endpoints, safely encrypts lost or stolen data, and secures enterprise desktop computers, laptops, smartphones, and removable media, from emerging threats, both external and internal. ■

www.credant.com

Skywire Software, a leading global provider of software and services for the insurance industry, today announced the promotion of Ken Shapiro to vice president of strategic accounts for insurance. Shapiro will report directly to Mike McCurley, Skywire Software’s vice president of worldwide sales.
In his new role, Shapiro will focus on strengthening executive-level relationships with the company’s strategic accounts at top insurance carriers, ensuring they gain the maximum benefit from Skywire Software’s capabilities in rating, publishing, data movement and business intelligence.
“Ken understands the insurance market and the business challenges faced by our customers,” said McCurley. “His deep domain knowledge and expertise, combined with a strategic focus on their business requirements, will prove invaluable to our clients in delivering a return on their technology investments.”

Ken Shapiro New VP Strategic (Insurance)

Skywire Software is a leading provider of software and services to the insurance industry, serving more than 1,450 insurance companies worldwide. The company offers products and services spanning a range of key functions, from customer communications management (CCM) and document automation, to rating, rules and underwriting, to business intelligence and data movement. ■

www.skywiresoftware.com

Last week’s Business Continuity Expo– the definitive event for risk, resilience and recovery finished on a high note with 6% increase in numbers of visitors attending. The conference & exhibition attracted 2457 visitors (pre- ABC audit) from top level positions across a wide range of industries including local government, the forces, pharmaceutical, finance, telecoms and aerospace. The majority of these being directly responsible for their companies risk management and business continuity plans.

As a result of the high calibre and purchasing power of visitors, the exhibitors were delighted with the event, with many of them already re-booking for the 2009 event.

The on-floor seminars were especially popular this year, with standing room only in almost every session. The seminars gave visitors the opportunity to pick up the advice of other business continuity professionals and learn about the most cutting edge solutions and technologies available. One senior executive from a major retailer said “I scheduled my visit so that I could meet with the companies that I knew had the solutions I was looking for, but I also made the time to attend 4 of the sessions which turned out to be well worth the time and effort as they were incredibly informative and beneficial.”

The Conference, which runs alongside the exhibition also attracted a wide range of high level delegates and speakers drawn not only from the UK but also across Europe. The panel discussions were particularly well attended, and included speakers such as Bruce Mann CB, Director of Civil Contingencies Secretariat with Gerald Corbett, Chairman, SSL International and Brett Lovegrove, Head of Counter Terrorism, City of London Police, Stephan Shakespeare, CIO and Co-founder, YouGov and Gary Locker, Permanent Liaison, ACPO and The Cabinet Office. Of special interest were the end-user sessions which included speakers such as: Colin Clark, Head of Corporate Business Control, Somerfield Supermarkets and Jeremy Quick, Deputy Governor, Guernsey Financial Regulator.  ■

www.businesscontinuityexpo.co.uk

GoLightly, Inc., a market leader in delivering effective and easy-to-use Web 2.0 social enterprise networking and online community software solutions for corporations and membership organizations, is pleased to announce a number of industry-leading organizations addressing healthcare issues have become
GoLightly clients. These market leaders have turned to enterprise-level online networks powered by GoLightly, because of the importance of
many-to-many connections combined with the privacy needs surrounding healthcare issues.

The National Council on Aging helps older people remain healthy and independent, find jobs, increase access to benefits programs, and discover
meaningful ways to continue contributing to society. "We launched the MyRespectability.org continuous learning community to increase the
effectiveness of our partner network and committees. Based upon the success of that community, we decided to leverage GoLightly as our internal employee community and plan on launching several more over the next few months. The response has been overwhelmingly positive as we continue to engage our constituents, employees and partners throughout the country." Stuart Spector, Senior Vice President, NCOA. ■ www.golightly.com

Leading IT and business consultancy selects ImageNow document management suite for human resources and payroll.

Perceptive Software Ltd, provider of ImageNow® enterprise document management, imaging and workflow software, today announced that Capgemini UK plc has entered into an agreement to deploy ImageNow to increase efficiency in its human resources shared service centre.

With a payroll operation that currently handles in excess of 5,000 documents a month, managers at Capgemini, one of the world’s foremost providers of consultancy, technology and outsourcing services, needed to improve productivity without disturbing the continuity of existing software applications.

After short-listing a number of market leading systems, Capgemini selected ImageNow for its quick and simple installation, low cost of ownership and seamless integration. ■ www.capgemini.com

Having completed an initial trial, leading Irish law firm Matheson Ormsby Prentice has appointed Solcara to provide and integrated search solution across its business. The company is deploying Solcara SolSearch to simultaneously search internal and online legal content.

SolSearch introduces effective targeted searching, reducing the time to find information and improving productivity across the firm. The SolSearch integrated search solution is a favourite in Ireland, used by four of the top five legal firms.

John Furlong, Director of Legal Resources at Matheson Ormsby Prentice, is spearheading the firm’s use of SolSearch. Furlong chose SolSearch to improve the efficiency of searching in two ways: by allowing one composite search across different databases and by directing users to relevant databases. ■
www.solcara.com

A survey by Infosecurity Europe of 757 organisations has found that 75% think their applications contain security holes that can be exploited by criminals. Further, interviews conducted by Infosecurity Europe with a panel of 20 Chief Security Officers (CSOs) of large enterprises on the topic revealed that they are very concerned about the security of application code. They were especially concerned about the work carried out by developers working on mission critical web applications outsourced to third parties. Many of them said that they would welcome an initiative to raise awareness of security amongst the developer community and change their behaviour to make secure software applications a priority.

According to Professor Howard A. Schmidt, Director, Fortify Software and former Cyber Security Adviser to the White House, "this figure of three quarters of organisations having security holes based on application vulnerabilities, while dramatic, is unfortunately not that surprising. When organisations develop applications, quality is one of the highest priorities but security vulnerabilities are seldom recognized or fixed. Priority is often given to delivering application features and business benefits without the understanding of fundamental coding errors that lead to security issues. Cybercriminals are targeting applications to steal money and information, and they know all too well how to exploit vulnerabilities not only in commercial software but are also very adept in finding security holes in applications that are developed "in house". Business leaders need to set in place business software assurance processes including development practices designed to ensure that their applications are secure to protect the data of citizens, customers and shareholders from the new wave of threats from cybercriminals." ■
www.infosec.co.uk

Finjan Inc., a leader in secure web gateway products, today announced important findings by its Malicious Code Research Center (MCRC) identifying and analyzing the latest trends in the ongoing commercialization of cybercrime.

Criminals have started to use online cybercrime services instead of having to deal themselves with the technical challenges of running their own Crimeware server, installing Crimeware toolkits or compromising legitimate websites.

“Currently, we see the rise of the Crimeware-as-a-Service (CaaS) business model in the Crimeware-toolkit market. Cybercriminals and criminal organizations are getting better and better at protecting themselves from law enforcement by using the Crimeware services, especially since the operator does not necessarily conduct the criminal activities related to the data that is being compromised but only provides the infrastructure for it,” said Yuval Ben-Itzhak, CTO of Finjan. ■
www.finjan.com

In a new report released by European information technology analysis group, Quocirca, organisations that admitted to being frequently hacked, all outsource at least some of their coding practice, with 90 percent outsourcing more than 40 percent!

With this in mind the hacker’s future looks rosy as outsourcing applications is on the up, with 78 percent of organisations that say software development is business critical for them choosing to outsource their vital applications. But security is being left out in the cold—with companies failing to build security in when they outsource the development of their critical applications, according to a report released today by Quocirca and supported by Fortify Software.

The survey has found that over 60% of companies that outsource the coding of their critical applications do not mandate that security must be built into the applications. In fact, the study has uncovered the chilling statistic that 20 percent of UK companies do not even consider security when building their applications—thus potentially leaving a great big stable door open to the hacking community. Yet outsourcing is very much on the up. ■
Download Report

Green Sheet has discovered that Reed Exhibitions are to amalgamate the Documation UK show in to the co-hosted Storage Expo. Quite what the long term implications are, or if this also affects the other Documation/Storage Expo venues around the world, is yet to be investigated. It is GSM's opinion that this move by Reed sends totally the wrong message to the traditional 'document and information management industry.
 

The information came off what is now a single page Documation web site referring visitors to Storage Expo, but not actually providing a link! (The page is dated the 4th of May.)
 

GSM's John Baker comments "As with many mergers such as the one between BP and Amoco, it is only a matter of time before the latter is silent. Storage Expo and Documation UK will become simply Storage Expo. That is of course providing Reed actually acknowledges the existence of Documation with Storage Expo in the first place, which it certainly does not at present. If you visit the Storage Expo web site, there is no mention at all of Documation". ■

www.documation.uk.com

www.storage-expo.com 

[See further comment in The Third Column to the right of this page. Ed.]

Skywire Software, a leading global provider of software and services to the insurance, financial services, and legal and professional services industries, today announced the appointment of Kimberly Horner as director of business development for worldwide channel sales. Horner will report directly to Mike McCurley, Skywire Software’s vice president of worldwide sales.

In her new role, Horner will focus on building and expanding Skywire Software’s channel sales in support of the company’s domestic and international growth targets. Skywire Software is a rapidly expanding software company with a global presence, with 650 employees and more than 2,400 customers in 45 countries worldwide.
She says, “Skywire Software is a market leader in the verticals we serve, and our experience, expertise and penetration in these markets offer a compelling value proposition to channel partners,” said Horner. “Our partner program gives systems integrators, resellers, and consulting firms the opportunity to increase revenue with best-in-breed products and services that complement their own offerings. I look forward to working with our partners to grow revenue and strengthen market presence worldwide for the entire channel while serving the needs of our joint customers.” ■ www.skywiresoftware.com

Formscan, the information management solutions and services group led by well-known document management industry entrepreneur Chris Haden, has announced the acquisition of Digital Documents Ltd. This acquisition adds major capabilities to the Formscan service portfolio, to include: on-site and off-site document scanning services; secure online document hosting with indexing, storage and retrieval; and the development and provision of bureau management software.

The acquired company comes with a pedigree of eight years’ quality client service.
Through this latest acquisition, the investor group led by Haden brings Formscan’s turnover to £2.3 million, and creates a service portfolio offering clients true end-to-end document management and archiving solutions. This is the most recent in a series of moves planned by Haden to develop Formscan as a platform upon which to build a significant document solutions business throughout Europe.

From Haden’s acquisition of Formscan last year, it was his intention to extend its established data capture services to encompass outsourced hosted solutions, archive and retrieval services, along with compliance, and disaster recovery solutions; all based on Haden's successful track record and that of his new team. ■

www.formscan.com

In a flurry of activity this morning, including a phone call from a PR executive working for AOL UK, the Green Sheet sparked controversy by placing a spoof news item online at 00:00 on April 1st. Removed at 12:00 (which is the standard time that all April Fool jokes are supposed to extinguish,) the argument rages on as to why it is in order for radio, television and other parts of the media circus to place April Fool jokes but not an online news service for a B2B magazine.

"The whole thing was farcical" said John Baker, Managing Editor of Green Sheet MEDIA, "I even had a call from an irate AOL exec saying they were going to sue me. Well good luck to them. See you all in court" he finished.

There have been many famous jokes played on the public in the past. Even the BBC's Radio 1 got in on the act back in the 70's when they did a 'live broadcast' from Concorde which was supposed to be travelling the length and breadth of the country. Apparently thousands of people went outside as it allegedly flew over major towns and cities.

"Perhaps the article was too close for comfort for some.", says Baker, "Maybe corporations are all to aware of the power of the Chinese marketplace and the vast wealth they continue to amass, and this one was too close for comfort."

The offending (to some) article which set the whole thing off

I received a phone call from the PR company handling all things Documation a couple of weeks ago. I was advised at that time that further to my comments about Documation on this page* that Reed International would be in touch with me "next week".

* This was in relation to the fact that Documation was 'merging' with Storage Expo 2008, and the fact that everyone concerned with the show had been left with only a poorly worded single page web site with no link to Storage Expo site!

I have given Reed the benefit of time, and would also have given them space to redeem themselves, but week they were due to contact me (last week in fact) has now come and gone.

I did visit the Documation web site at the weekend, and found that they have at least had the good sense to update it with a link to the Storage Expo site.

A wait with bated breath! ■

Comments welcome to:

johnbaker@greensheetmedia.com

I have a $300,000 financial portfolio and I run a moderately successful Formula 1 Team. No it's not a 'guess who', this is run by Green Sheet. And it didn't cost us a penny.

One of the ways large sites like to keep you coming back, is by getting involved in something on-site which is virtually yours.

The F1 site is with Yahoo Sport (and currently we are 1,054th in the world, and within the top 4% of teams) and the financial portfolio is with CNN.

More subject to judgement than chance is a flutter on the US stock exchange. Having bought $300,000 worth of shares, the portfolio has a mix of major company shares from solid stocks (Microsoft, Apple, Cisco, General Electric, Exxon etc., as well as a few oddities just in case they go sputnik. So far the fund is down and sitting at $283,630, so I will not be retiring on the proceeds just yet. This comes as no surprise as the massive sub-prime property market is still wobbling along on crutches.

I feel that this folio gives me a great indicator of the overall state of health of the worldwide economy, and not just the USA. ■

Comments welcome to:

johnbaker@greensheetmedia.com

I got a cold shiver down my spine when I went on to the Documation site this morning. (www.documation.uk.com)
The SINGLE PAGE reads, "Following the increasing alignment of the data storage and information management markets – Reed Exhibitions is pleased to announce that elements of the previously co-located Documation UK event will now be incorporated into Storage Expo."

This may have been slightly palatable if:
- there was an HTML link to the Storage Expo site from what is now only a single page Documation site
- it didn't send the wrong message to the industry about the value of Documation as THE major UK show of its kind
- there was at least a mention of Documation on the Storage Expo site. (Only 1 irrelevant link came out of a search for the word 'documation' on the Storage Expo site)

My view is:
- Yes, Storage Expo was a bigger (and therefore more profitable!) show than Documation
- Yes, the number of visitors was higher for SE
- Yes it was cramped and uncomfortable in the Documation section last year

However:
- it will be more difficult for visitors to seek out the traditional Documation exhibitors from the Storage Expo ones (unless Reed use a 'zonal' approach as organisers do at other shows)
- there is a danger of Storage Expo becoming as unwieldy a show to visit as CeBIT is
- the one big show for what was the traditional EDMS market is now lost to us forever!

- the show title Storage Expo does little or nothing to promote the CRM, BPM, EDMS or whatever other acronyms we associate with the DOCUMENT aspect of IM ■

Comments welcome to:

johnbaker@greensheetmedia.com