The Smarter Enterprise Desktop

OpenSpan - Smarter Contact Center Desktops

noreply@blogger.com (Francis Carden) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:44:00 +0000

Yes, that's our new theme.

OpenSpan simply makes applications you already use, or have just brought - SMARTER. You don't even have to own the app to make it smarter.

Here's some early news on what's coming very very soon.

1. I still can't tell you the number one item yet, but in a few more weeks, you will find out - but it's BIG, VERY BIG, so keep watching :)

2. If you are a Microsoft Visual Studio developer, the next release of OpenSpan runs as a VSIP plug-in for Visual Studio. If you are not a Visual Studio developer, don't worry we still have a solution for you. As part of the download, we will bring down a free version of the Visual Studio shell which then enables VSIP plug-ins like OpenSpan Studio to run. It's very cool how we have integrated the best of OpenSpan Studio with the best of Visual Studio (you can now even design your own UI forms and dashboards in Visual Studio directly and have them be part of any automation!). OpenSpan Studio is easier to use than ever so feel free to ping me and I'll give you a link to an advanced pre-beta. Remember too, if you develop in IBM's Lotus expeditor, our Studio runs inside that too as an OWC plug-in for expeditor. Oh, so many design choices now :)

3. Oh, I love this. OpenSpan is exposing all of it's adapter elements and design time components for external developers to access directly from their own code. Whilst the visual drag-and-drap workflow/design paradigm of the OpenSpan studio is loved by developers and business analysts world-wide, die-hard programmers can now write say in C#, to interact in real-time with the objects created and exposed by OpenSpan. You will be able to write your own wrappers to 3rd party applications or even write code to wrap OpenSpan automations. Properties methods and events as well as automations are fully available through our Code Dom Serialization project (the tech term for this major feature). This is big and significant for die-hard developers and OEM partners.

4. OpenSpan Events has already been released but here is what's new;

..* Fully configurable to use MS-MQ, TIBCO, JMS, IBM-MQ or Web Services as per your preference
.. * Now support's generic events as well as custom events
Generic events will enable you to log all application activity, including all objects inside that application
without any interrogation of the objects in the application. OpenSpan Events automatically finds all
visibile and invisible objects and reports anything the application or user does with those objects to the
Analytics database for any drill-down graphical reporting and dash-boarding.
Custom Events then allows you to create your own events that get logged to the analytics database, so for
example, if you want to log a start transaction like, new account, change address, mortgage application, they
will all be sent to the analytics engine for advanced analytics around user activity on the desktop.
..* New Server-Side Components for Collection, Transformation and Loading of Events Data. Supports SQL
Server and Oracle databases
..* Developer mode to enable developers who license the OpenSpan Events to interact directly and/or bypass
messaging components so you can interact with OpenSpan events in any mode you desire.

As you can see, a lot is happening here at OpenSpan and there's a lot more to come. We continue to listen to our customers and partners and excited by our world-leading position in this space. Keep watching..

OpenSpan on Salesforce.com at AppExchange

noreply@blogger.com (Francis Carden) — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 14:37:00 +0000

Cloud and/or SAAS applications are great but they tell only part of the integration story. How do you automate a workflow across two cloud applications? It's not easy. Fact. Then say, these web apps (Typically Cloud and SAAS run in a browser) need to work with other applications running on the desktop - other web apps, Java Apps, Mainframe apps, Windows Client Server/Rich Client apps. The announcement today with Salesforce.com highlights very clearly that OpenSpan is truly making it easy for users and parters alike to bridge their automated workflows across any kind of application. Cool. We are about the only desktop productivity tool that opens our product up to the full scrutiny of our customers, so you can see/try before you buy. Not only are our demonstrations now online as recordings, you can now go to our sand box evaluation environment to run your own trial, up in the Amazon cloud.

Believe it or not, this is NOT the big Game Changing Event I was talking about in the last blog post but this is still pretty darned big. So you can imagine, just how big the soon to be coming new announcement is going to be :) keep Watching...

OpenSpan Game Changing

noreply@blogger.com (Francis Carden) — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 14:12:00 +0000

A couple of snippets to end the week. First, if you didn't see this press release yesterday, I advise you go take a peak. Teletech to Implement, Resell OpenSpan. I am sure that many of you have realized by now, that OpenSpan has a product that not only enables its direct customers to optimize their desktops BUT extends to organizations that don't even own the software they use (BPO, SAAS, Cloud). Whether you are an OpenSpan customer, an SI, A reseller, an OEM or now even a BPO, our product is so agile, it fits all channels. That's the advantage of having a great product that does not requires massive services. Such is the ease of use and flexibility in the product, the solutions built in OpenSpan can adapt to changes that occur in the business at any pace.

Another note, I cannot say too much about. WATCH THIS SPACE. OpenSpan will be announcing a game changing event in the very near future. I won't say too much other than to wet your appetite :) So, keep watching..

Automation is key to an optimized work force

noreply@blogger.com (Francis Carden) — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 21:50:00 +0000

Without a doubt, many of our customers see significant benefits when they automate their end user tasks. Some customers have seen over $25m a year in time savings in their first automated solution rolled out to their users. This stands to reason though. Given the incredible manual steps needed to be undertaken by users to say, cancel a credit card, open a new account, initiate a wire transfer, open a new mortgage (the list goes on). Sometimes we see hundreds of manual steps across multiple applications and the user spends more time at the keyboard figuring out the next step than they do helping the customer get more from their organization.

Simple logic says, if you can automate these workflows, which for years have been mostly manual, the benefits are huge. Time saving, reduced training time, elimination of errors, happier customers, more up-sell opportunity and all the related "stuff".

But user applications up until now lack the ability to be automated. Even new web applications and portals lack the ability to take data out of or into other systems without heavy IT investment up front. Multiply that by the fact they are probably still running some mainframe, client server and java apps as well and it is easy to see why most users are manual users.

OpenSpan has really changed that. We have a vast number of users, now running automated workflows in large and small mission critical environments. Each day, I am constantly amazed by the types of use cases our users are using us for. There is now almost no limit to what end user tasks can be automated. Cool.

UI in the Cloud

noreply@blogger.com (Francis Carden) — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 12:41:00 +0000

How do you differentiate as to what is a cloud application and what is a client server application (thin client or fat client). Does it really matter?

There are so many plug ins for the browsers now, along with so many browser incompatibilities I feel nothing much has really changed. You could argue, and I will, browsers are just fat clients. Enterprises have to do so much QA before rolling any web app into production, it really is just a client server app in all sense of the word(s). Sure, the user perceives the application runs in the browser and nothing is installed on the client but that's really a mirage. Under the covers, all sorts of technology is loaded on demand to run client side. And all the browser vendors want to win the browser war...and break the standards - and we know how long this war will go on !

Not only that, but we are YET AGAIN confusing the users with so many different types of web applications that pretty much all behave differently in terms of UI consistency. Even the same applications behave differently in different browsers and the UI for each is pretty much all over the place. My wife is confused as to when and when not to hit backspace (you can lose everything you typed in many web apps if you are not careful), she can drag and drop in GMAIL now but in no other web app she uses but that doesn't stop her trying and getting tied in knots. UI standards are out the window now! Only one sad consistent remains - copy and paste (and even that was left out of the Iphone - for a while - LOL).

So, my opening question, does it really matter? I think it does. This is exactly HOW we created so many legacy applications that we are forced to support today so we have learnt very little. This is great for OpenSpan because we offer capabilities for normalizing and automating cross-application workflows across most application platforms (Fat, Thin, Web, Java, windows, Host or whatever) but thats not the point of this post. Where are we going wrong? I know applications that were written and then rewritten within just 5 years of each other and are now completely legacy today. i.e. no new development but no replacement being built (no IT budgets). I know, because we are bridging them to work with newer technologies. BTW - I said 5 years ago, but we have some users with 30 year old apps and 1 year old apps as well, in exactly the same boat!

I think my point is further validated when you look at the huge difference between web (cloud) applications and their user interfaces. They all seem so different. Take GMAIL. You could fairly argue, it's a terrific UI and Google have done a marvelous job making a dumb browser run what looks to be a very clever RICH client application. BUT - look at the resources GOOGLE has, few companies have the development / QA budgets that Google has (and Enterprises cannot afford to have applications 2-3 years in Beta to iron out bugs!). And to be fair, email is not as mission critical as losing a mortgage payment, medical diagnosis, wire transfer or interest calculation. We are used to losing emails like things get "lost in the post" (or junk folders).

I will write more on this subject I am passionate about (can you tell :) ).. But let me end with this for now. We all talk about how the pendulum swings, about every 10 years, right ? Well, in my view, the next pendulum is someone coming up with the next SUPER 4GL (RAD) development environment that allows cloud applications to be built quickly, full transaction roll-back-roll-forward, deploy anywhere, on-demand, run locally (and with core business logic when connection down) and all, so much more... it might be Silverlight, it might be Chrome or it might be something from nowhere (it might already be here and I missed it :)).. but it'll be here soon!

For me, whatever it's built on, I can guarantee, in a few months or a few years, it'll be another legacy app that'll need my help!

OpenSpan BPO Services Partner Program

noreply@blogger.com (Francis Carden) — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 14:51:00 +0000

One thing for sure, as a BPO, is that you are often running other people's applications. We all know it's hard to optimize what you own, let alone doing that with someone else's application. This is one of the key reasons we established the OpenSpan BPO Services partner Program.

OpenSpan can get inside nearly any application that runs on the desktop and expose all of it's UI elements as an extremely robust API you can do what you like with. Whether you own that application or not. We don't need the source code to do this!

That means, for any BPO running someone else's application, you can automate it to your hearts content. Cumbersome agent workflows can be made highly efficient using the OpenSpan Studio that we train the BPO development/IT teams how to use. Using the visual drag and drop designer you can optimize these agent workflows in short order and start rolling out to their desktops rapidly.

Game changing for any BPO - Robust Integration and automation on the desktop.

See this press release for STREAM GLOBAL SERVICES. A world class BPO on the OpenSpan program.

Injecting and Turkeys

noreply@blogger.com (Francis Carden) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 22:26:00 +0000

No, we are not talking about injecting beer into a turkey but we are talking about the latest blog post by our VP of Development, Damon Lockwood. I wouldn't do his post justice by paraphrasing any more of it. So, please enjoy..

Do it On the Desktop

I will be back shortly myself after a little absence of blogging! Hope you missed me!

BI tools, extended to the desktop

noreply@blogger.com (Francis Carden) — Wed, 27 May 2009 10:56:00 +0000

OpenSpan announces it's new tool that now enables all desktop applications to participate in the BI world. OpenSpan Events

More often than not, user desktops, where end users spend most of their time, are left out of any reporting or analytics. And yet, it is this very activity that drives most server, transactional and network activity. It could be argued, the correlation to what the end user is doing on the desktop, is a key metric that brings the big missing piece to BI reporting.

Sure, server side BI is important but imagine those BI reports showing up with detail too of the desktop applications and user activity, putting everything in context. Imagine spotting network slow-downs, or increases in transaction volume related to what users are doing within the applications on the desktop. Perhaps the users are spending more time in cloud applications that you have little control over and yet has a big impact on network performance. Perhaps a new discount or up-sell program means your users are spending 30% more time in different desktop applications than before or doing 3 mainframe searches instead of just 1. All of these things will effect the BI reporting on the server, but until now, you never really knew why,

I liken this to Google Analytics, but OpenSpan events is for any desktop application, not just web, and of course, for applications running on the desktop and for those running inside OR outside of the firewall.

Now, all user activity on the desktop, down to the click of a check box, the time an application is utilized, or even the monitoring of usage of applications you maybe didn't even know about, can be logged by OpenSpan desktop Events. There's a ton of use cases we are seeing for this and now it's here. Enjoy and feel free to comment.

OpenSpan Update

noreply@blogger.com (Francis Carden) — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 13:28:00 +0000

I have not blogged here in a while but promise to try better. For now, here's an update for everyone..

I am proud of the fact that OpenSpan has this year won, not one, but two finalists CODIE awards. Being placed alongside companies like Adobe and Salesforce in the finals is reward in itself. The awards were (I sound like someone from BAFTA or the Oscars) for the two categories, BEST BUSINESS PRODUCTIVITY SOLUTION and BEST WEB SERVICES SOLUTION.

OpenSpan also announced the doubling of it's revenue in 2008 and deployment to 100,000 desktops. Desktop Productivity solutions have never been more in demand than they are now. Enterprises have immediate needs to make their existing desktop applications more productive for their users and OpenSpan hits that sweet spot. Not forgetting all of the M&A activity in financial services, the demand for automating workflows across multiple silo'd applications is high.

If you have not seen our new Web site, please check it out. OPENSPAN - it's more than a makeover, it's putting clarity on our successes and our positioning. I love it. Good Job team.

Lots of exciting news happening in 2009 - and I mean LOTS so watch this space for more details. i will also try to wet your appetite on what is coming, over the next few weeks!

Wrapping Legacy Applications - IT JUST WORKS

noreply@blogger.com (Francis Carden) — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 13:50:00 +0000

A legacy application is not just an 80x24 green screen. It can be;

* A windows Client Server, fat client or thin client application
* A web application plain old HTML
* A web 2.0 Application, script, Java, ActiveX (with embedded widgets)
* A Java applet or Java Application
* A custom application (Salesforce.com, Oracle Forms, Lotus Notes)
* Packaged Applications

You get the point. If it’s deployed live, it’s legacy.

So, for years we have wrapped green screen applications successfully to enable their business functionality to be consumed by other technologies. Heck, many of your ATM transactions are just plain wrappers on mainframe applications and screens. The good thing about this approach is - IT JUST WORKS (my new motto). So, wouldn’t it be nice if we could “wrap” any application like this, not just 80x24 screens but all the "other" stuff. Well, now we truly can. OpenSpan Studio enables virtually anything that runs on the Windows O/S to be wrapped – exposing the deep UI elements, controls and transactions (robustly and securely) to any mid-tier technology. You can even take any of those legacy applications and move them to the server room (thanks to Virtualization) and run them completely without a user ever needing to see them again! SOA enablement of legacy applications - it's here now.

This approach is crucial is 2009 for delivering quick solutions to the business. IT JUST WORKS.

So, whether the application is 5 minutes old, or 30 years old, if it has a UI, there’s a good chance it will be part someone’s SOA / API strategy in the very near future. Thanks to OpenSpan :)

Look at this quote from an Article on SOA in the SDTIMES last year if you needed any further proof.

The survey found that a majority, or 58 percent, of SOA systems contain components that are not designed to be interoperable as Web services. These include components that use non-SOAP messaging, such as IBM WebSphere MQ and Java’s Remote Method Invocation. Further, mainframe applications show up in 47 percent of SOA applications, and packaged applications accounted for 68 percent of components.

OpenSpan partners with IBM

noreply@blogger.com (Francis Carden) — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 18:05:00 +0000

Had quite a few people ping me today since this great news hit the wire.

I was in Orlando this weekend and attended the IBM Lotusphere 2009 event. Whow, that was a big turnout. What we were demonstrating was interrogating components of Windows applications right within Lotus Expeditor and enabling you to wire any of these UI elements to any of the other Lotus API's, portlets and components within Expeditor.

OPENSPAN ANNOUNCES WINDOWS CONTAINER FOR LOTUS

Also, OpenSpan has achieved Advanced Level World-wide Business Partner status within IBM's PartnerWorld.

This continued expansion of the OpenSpan reach through partners like Software AG, Microsoft, IBM and Tibco is proof that the OpenSpan desktop integration technology is not only necessary, but in demand. Broad Integration techniques is key to successfully unifying user applications on the desktop and having them interact with other client applications and server components, regardless of underlying platform technology. We are pleased to have IBM on our team :) And of course, being on the IBM team.

Another useful link talking about the IBM Expeditor product can be found here : Using IBM Expeditor toolkit to extend IBM Lotus Sametime

Of course, I'd be amiss if I didn't point out this news story too : IBM bucks gloom with rosy outlook
.

Creating an API into any desktop application

noreply@blogger.com (Francis Carden) — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 19:18:00 +0000

I blogged today about what makes an application a legacy application (see link Below).

I am fanatical about Desktop Apps needing API's to increase productivity for users. You going to see me write a lot more about this in 2009 because I believe if there was ever a time for people to recognize that desktop API's can provide rapid and massive ROI, it's now.

I started questioning when and why developers stopped building API's into client (Fat or Thin) applications.

HLAPPI was created to enable mainframe applications to have an API and created significant productivity enhancements on the desktop. Around the same time, with similar benefits, Microsoft Office came out with DDE which was an API for Office apps. I am (was) a very experienced DDE programmer (eek). DDE was pretty bad and probably gave Desktop Application Integration a bad name (there was no error checking at all). MS OFfice came out a few years later with OLE which was a lot more robust. Then came Visual Basic Macro's for Office. DDE, OLE and VB are all desktop productivity API technologies that have been very widely used over the last 15+ years and there is no doubt, led the way in Office / Desktop Productivity.

Funny, all of these are in still in wide use today. However, enterprise users use more than just mainframe and office applications developed internally or packaged. Yet few of these other technologies support any other kind of API except POCAP (Plane Old Copy and Paste).

Imagine, any existing (old or new) desktop application being given it's own, "instant-on" API. Even if you don't own the application or have the source code to it! And better, unlike Visual Basic, you create the API yourself with a simple Drag and Drop Visual designer technology and better still, the API can be exposed as an SOA Web Service (REST or SOAP) so any other newer technology can consume and integrate it in minutes.

OpenSpan studio does just that. It opens up all of the 100's of 1000's of desktop applications running in the enterprise today, for integration. Once we give these applications their own API (which can be instantly), the power of integration and automation is yours for the taking. It might have taken over 15+ years to realize that API's in these applications are invaluable and key to productivity gains, but at least we are here now, finally with a working product that enables it.

What makes an application a legacy application?

2009 Predictions - this year is easy to predict!

noreply@blogger.com (Francis Carden) — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 15:50:00 +0000

Some of my 2009 prediction are picked up here...

A Perfect Storm for Cloud Computing and other IT Weather Predictions for 2009

The truth is, and we all know it, 2009 will be about survival and cost savings. The number one factor we are already seeing is that if you cannot show a quick ROI, forget it. Whereas for the last 5 or 6 years, ROI has often funded new architecture changes (even when the ROI is unproven), in 2009 the must-have-identifiable savings will go to the bottom line to show shareholders you have costs under control. Businesses that do not spend quickly, when the spend will save money, will have their shareholders and employees to answer to.

I know this will sound biased but OpenSpan has consistently shown, that automating user desktops can reap savings in months. And large $ savings at that.

Enterprise desktops are awash with too many unintegrated applications bringing back the long forgotten integration phrase known as "Swivel Chair Syndrome"

If your in IT, grab a coffee or cup of tea and watch over the shoulder of one of your enterprise users. Tell me, they wouldn't benefit, BIG TIME from desktop automation?

2009 will be the year of desktop optimization and automation - this year, my 2009 prediction is easy!

Desktop Optimization leads the way for cost savings!

noreply@blogger.com (Francis Carden) — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 15:31:00 +0000

I am also pleased to be blogging over at TMCnet on the subject of Desktop Productivity, something very close to my heart as you all know. You can find the link here http://blog.tmcnet.com/desktop-productivity/

But for now, I'll post the text here as well, just for y'all :)

There are 3 Priorities for IT and Business in 2009 for immediate and dramtic cost savings!

Optimize what your users already have and do
Optimize what your users already have and do
Optimize what your users already have and do

OK, a little tongue in cheek but it's TRUE.... Have you ever looked at a real user lately in your company? Really looked at their desktop and what they do with it? Please, stop what you are doing and go and look. This is really the only place you can see with your own eyes the results of your organizations labors for SOA, Integration, BPM, BAM, Mash-ups, Web 2.0 and what ever other technology you've been working on for the last 5 years! Your users are your consumers!

What do you think you your users will be looking at or doing on their desktops? I am not a mind reader but I'd be surprised if it isn't at least 4 of the 5 below;

Viewing more than 5 applications daily, possibly 10 or more. This will include completely different UI models such as Windows GUI apps, Web Apps, Java Apps, Mainframe apps and maybe even some DOS apps.
Entering common keystrokes 1000's of times a day to integrate the above applications which will include ALT-C, ALT-TAB, ALT-V and mouse clicks, Focus, double-click, right click, copy, Focus, right click, paste. Also typing in the same text twice (SSN, Phone etc.,)
Executing laborious repetitive workflows, like looking up in two or more systems to see if the customer exists in two or more of the systems, copying data out of spreadsheets to do a trade and moving the data back to another system
Logging in with user name and passwords repetitively to at least one of the applications, maybe all of them, even SAAS applications or ones you wrote a few years ago
Writing text on a notepad or post-it-note to be used later (to enter data back into a spreadsheet or notes log).

I could go on, but you get the point. Enterprise has spent a fortune on the server integration technologies but rarely do they focus on what business is demanding. That is, the optimization what our users already have and do. If you deliver your users yet another application, make sure it doesn't just sit there and add to the desktop conundrum of too many un-integrated applications. It kills desktop productivity and adds to your enterprise costs. Fact.

Optimizing the desktop allows enterprises to save hundreds of millions of dollars by automating even the simplest of workflows on their user's desktops. Think of the time wasted daily by your users and what you would save through automation. I have seen desktop automation be implemented in less than 4 weeks that saves over $500k a year by automating the tasks of less than 20 users. I've also seen companies save over $20m a year by pushing out just one small automation across 20,000 users.

The time has come. There are products out there today that can be rapidly implemented to integrate, automate and ultimately optimize all of the applications your users have on their desktops. IT can be trained in days and massive savings to the bottom line can be seen in weeks!

With automation and desktop productivity improvements comes better monitoring, compliance, less errors and elimination of duplication. 2009 - will be the year of desktop integration and dramatic productivity increases. Remember, I said it here first.

My company, OpenSpan has one such product and I encourage you to look at a demonstration that you can view on line. Do your own math? What would just 2% increase in user productivity mean to your CFO in 2009?

SOA - quick wins rule..

noreply@blogger.com (Francis Carden) — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 13:15:00 +0000

I read this blog today by Loraine Lawson (To SOA or Not to SOA During Economic Turmoil?) and it contains so much applicability around SOA in one place, that I had to comment.

I think this blog says a lot. No doubt at all I am seeing many IT budgets being slashed and no doubt most people think SOA means big IT budgets. So, how could you not conclude SOA is stalling? Easy, because we are seeing the opposite. What is different and is reflected in the article, is that we are clearly seeing people looking to more innovative approaches to SOA to match the depleting budgets. We see this because OpenSpan is a perfect fit. As the article makes clear and we all now know, there is real value from quick iterative approaches to SOA. However, since SOA often means a rewrite of working (for many years) business processes, or a lot of integration around existing processes, it’s hard to imagine the words quick, iterative and SOA all being used in the same article, let alone the same sentence!

But, that is exactly what OpenSpan is all about. Taking working legacy applications that users use every singe day and quickly wrapping them to expose their workflows as services. Real-world, working Web Services that can be consumed by other enterprise services or other automated workflows. Take the applications out of the users eyes and hands and have those existing application workflows become a set of services! Everyone gets to see quickly what services offer up the most ROI. The ROI (which can be big with quick wins) can go towards funding a long-term strategy of the re-architecture. Since many existing legacy applications are too hard to rewrite anyway, OpenSpan’s almost “instant-on” web service enablement of existing applications has never been more applicable in today’s’ economy. The continued OpenSpan growth says it all. Feel free to comment.

FInancial Services - a silver lining

noreply@blogger.com (Francis Carden) — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 12:49:00 +0000

There are a lot of things to come from this financial crises we are now in but most of what we hear is on the negative side. That doesn't always have to be the case. Therefore, I thought it was about time I blogged about why, for these financial companies, the right technology choices are even more critical to make the most of what is going on in their world.

Financial IT executives have to deal with the brunt of the fall-out around Acquisitions, Mergers, Layoffs, retraining etc., IT and business are expected to continue to build a consistent experience for their customers (existing and acquired) whilst bringing on significantly more applications and processes and doing so with tighter and tighter budgets. Business is expected to deliver improving customer service because M&A tends to mean customer loyalty is tested and they will start migrating to competitors after even just one bad customer service experience. Less people, dealing with more customers makes this a very challenging environment to say the least.

It's almost the perfect storm for IT and business because even without all this change, they were struggling to improve customer service because of the shear number of applications and manual processes in their front, middle and back offices. IT and business need to seek out technologies that can not only weather the storm, but can actually calm it. The big ol' "we need to do more, with less", whilst sounding like an old record sometimes, has never been more relevant than today.

At OpenSpan, it is no surprise that in this quarter alone, we will see sales of over 30,000 seats sold into financial services and contact centers globally. Companies that were feeling this pain even before this crises began are benefitting quickly from the unique OpenSpan integration approach. OpenSpan has shown over and over, that automating existing manual user processes reaps massive rewards for business and IT. It goes without saying, that this approach reduces costs, increases security, compliance, accuracy and just plain makes sense because customer satisfaction levels are raised . The whole customer experience is improved.

In the past, "doing more with less, quickly" has been difficult. That's where OpenSpan is unique. OpenSpan can, iteratively tackle the everyday burden of users manually navigating their way through a multitude of desktop applications and just automate them in the most robust and secure manner available. In the OpenSpan studio, as we build out those automations quickly, we can insert new business processes or controls, we can add new rules or ensure compliance on existing rules. In addition, OpenSpan does this in such a way that users may not even need to see or touch many of those applications again! This is not an all or nothing approach that most people think about integration, which would typically mean potentially years before any results or benefits are seen. OpenSpan does this so you can choose to automate the manual processes that cause the most pain immediately and roll automations quickly to users for immediate ROI. Then you can build on that, adding more and more benefits, so you see progress constantly (and ever increasing ROI).

With OpenSpan 4.0, taking those automated user processes and moving them (along with the applications) to the server side, means we can at last also start thinking about getting those applications off of the desktop. OpenSpan can take any automated process and expose it as a web service and access them from any mid-tier architecture technology. Game changing.

So, I did say, you need technologies that can not only weather, but calm the storm. That's exactly what OpenSpan is doing for it's customers and it's doing it every single day. Our growth and width and breath of our growing customers in the financial services sector, speaks for itself.

WOA or SOA or SO-A-WOT

noreply@blogger.com (Francis Carden) — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 18:27:00 +0000

Thought this was a neat snippet entitled;

WOA wins hand-down over SOA in popularity contest

I replied to the blog but upon reflection felt it was worth while adding a link here to see if anyone is inclined to comment further. I did.

To me, the aged ol' problem with SOA is not that there's anything wrong with it, but more, it really is nothing new. If anything, many people still fail to understand that SOA, like EDI or any "distance" API is really hard to implement and benefit from wide reuse. Heck, even a simple subroutine in a piece of code on the same system is hard to reuse and more often, is copied and modified. Welcome to "legacy" application support. SOA does not change that. IMHO.

If anyone tries to convince themselves that an SOA is not going to be a legacy problem a few months or years from now, perhaps they need to re-read the techno history books. The problem has never been how hard it is to write re-usable components, the problem always is, the legacy code needed to bring those components together. There's always something else someone wants to do with a component but you can't risk breaking it so you copy it instead. And/or as soon as you break this compatibility (which is a no-no), your break re-use.

So, is WOA any different? I think so as it really reminds me of the difference between solving the problem for the business or waiting forever for IT. You can have something that works right now or get in the back of the queue (read years) until I (maybe) write perfection. Businesses cannot wait, especially today.

At OpenSpan, we can quite literally turn any business user process into a Service and consume it from anywhere else - RIGHT NOW. It also helps IT, because they get time to do it right whilst not sacrificing what business needs - RIGHT NOW. Is that WOA?

Web 2.0 - "near its dreaded Trough of Disillusionment"

noreply@blogger.com (Francis Carden) — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 19:01:00 +0000

I found this article, it's implications and comments very interesting. Good News, Bad news for Web 2.0 (Gartner's Hype Cycle). In relation to enterprise Web 2.0 I have a few points of note;

You see, I had Web 2.0 down really as primarily asynchronous communications between browser and something else ( real time events). The Web 1.0 as was, led to mostly uninteresting web pages based on the mainframe synchronous concept (fill in a form, submit and get another form (page) of results). After the mainframe came the unix/dec mid-range systems that supported asynchronous applications - Enter a field, see real-time results/validation/events - All sounds like Web 2.0 to me ;)

I love all asynchronous applications, emulation, client server or web (2.0). The concept of instant event based communications is not only great, it's for the most part, the only right way. I remember building asynchronous web applications in 1998 (using a legacy host to activex as the "broker"). It was really cool and now it's Web 2.0. What's missing now, is how to take enterprise applications to the next level with it.

Sure with CSS/XML/DHMTL/JSCRIPT/VBSCRIPT (Ajax), you can get a web page (Web 2.0) looking good but it's a real lot of work. Did I hear someone say legacy applications were hard to support - good luck supporting web 2.0!

I can say I saw this coming - because I did - the hype description around web 2.0 is hardly surprising because it's wrapped around old thinking (The Browser legacy). New mash-up vendors are out there, competing to be the next 4GL (power builder) for the web and in my view, whomever REALLY gets that right, will have the killer Web 2.0 IDE on their hands. I can't wait, I feel someone is really really close. Will it be Adobe (Flex) or Microsoft (SilverLight).. Jackbe.. Wavemaker... We shall see. Let the fun begin.

OpenSpan has a new CEO

noreply@blogger.com (Francis Carden) — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 20:33:00 +0000

I am excited to announce the appointed of Eric Musser to CEO of OpenSpan. After an extensive search, we found an awesome candidate who is now at the helm to take OpenSpan to the next level. After 3 - 1/2 years as CEO of OpenSpan with an awesome team by my side, I am excited to now have Eric here. He shares the same passion as myself in the OpenSpan technology, it's customers and partners and the markets in which we serve. His track record (see Press release to the left) is second to none and there could be no more of a perfect match for his talents here. Welcome Eric.

I am very pleased to announce also, I will be moving into the role of Chief Evangelist, where I can continue to play a major role, well yes, continuing to Evangelize our unique approach to integration. The technology over the last 3 - 1/2 years has progressed beyond even my own expectations. The real problems we are solving right now for large customers, whom have been strangled by integration problems for many years, is personally rewarding to see. There's a clear reason OpenSpan saw 440% plus growth in 2007 and already exceeding that revenue in the first half of 2008 - the product solves real pain points and the product works. That my friends, is proof beyond doubt.

So, I am very excited about the future, as now with Eric on board, I'll have more time to devote to the technology and working with our customers, prospects and partners to share our joint visions for the future of the product and the company. I look forward to blogging more too.

Virtualization - bursting the bubbles

noreply@blogger.com (Francis Carden) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 01:15:00 +0000

Today apparently is the dawn of the end of XP. Microsoft no longer sells it from tomorrow.

If running your enterprise applications on Vista is giving you problems, you can always run them in a (win 2k or XP) Virtual Machine on Vista. The problem with that alone however, is that you would then have your enterprise applications running in a “Virtual bubble” and all you’d have integration wise is copy and paste (at best). Virtual bubbles are not good for inter-application communication. Not good at all.

Until now that is. OpenSpan can bridge XP and Vista environments and integrate the applications that run in each easily. Use OpenSpan to create a web service API to any of your desktop applications (including office) and from there, use OpenSpan to integrate these applications, across whatever virtual machine they run in, easily.

OpenSpan can even if you so desire, enable you to integrate Apple and Microsoft applications together using the same technique. We have examples of Apple Mac machines directly integrating with Microsoft applications running in a virtual session on the same Mac. Pretty cool. I'll post some screen shots soon of all the above examples.

Virtualization – in my view – is game changing. And with OpenSpan… even more so.

OpenSpan Enterprise Edition 4.0

noreply@blogger.com (Francis Carden) — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 13:08:00 +0000

There is a revolution here now in the integration space. I promised to update you all on some dramatic new functionality in the OpenSpan platform and now it is here. Sorry for the long post, but this is one of the most important ones for me today because I am proud of what the team here has built and we are already seeing high demand for it!

We all know the vast majority of enterprise users have to have way too many applications running and visible on their desktop. The goal has always been to try and move these applications off of the desktop and out of the users view but that has not happened, it’s just too difficult because all the applications have some process/information a user needs to do their job. A recent survey sponsored by OpenSpan in fact shows that the problem is getting worse, not better. Even virtualization of client applications only moves where the application physically runs and the users themselves see no real benefits because they still have to be trained to use all aspects of the applications.

That is about to change my friends. The OpenSpan technology, as you already know has been hugely successful in breaking up and exposing desktop applications as usable services for powerful integration and automation of user workflows on the desktop. However, what is new, is that now you can take those same desktop applications, move them off of the desktop to a virtualized server (farm or grid) and expose those automations as services to any other application in the mid-tier or client architecture. The journey towards moving the multitude of applications off the desktop and out of the users view altogether, whilst providing all of the same rich functionality to the user, has finally begun.

A simple example. Imagine just one of the many workflows a user has to run through uses just 2 applications (we know there’s usually a lot more). A CRM and a provisioning application to do a password reset for a customer when they phone into customer care. Today, every user who answers the phone in the customer care center has to have those application installed, running and logged in (and be trained in) to drive to the screens/security checks to do the password reset.

What the new OpenSpan 4.0 enterprise edition enables is for those desktop applications (and probably a lot less of them) to be installed and running on virtual machines in the enterprise, known as a Grid or Fabric or Farm of Virtual Clients (Citrix, VMware, Virtual PC). OpenSpan integrates these same desktop applications and exposes the automated business processes (in this case, the password reset) as methods through web services to be consumed by any technology that can consume a web service. 1 instance of a desktop application running on a server, could now also serve 10, 100 or more physical internal or external users depending upon load balancing and scalability. The ROI and other benefits are huge as you can imagine.

The original applications needed (CRM/Provisioning) for the password reset never need to run on the desktop again for this purpose. The user never needs to even see the applications if not necesary as the automation of that business process in now simply driven through a Web Service. That same web service could be called by a new portal application, a simple button say in a dashboard on the users desktop, or even be integrated directly into the PBX switch to enable the caller to do the reset themselves. Take the same password reset web service and call it from a consumer side web page, phone device or trigger by an automated text message. It’s the same application that’s running in all cases so you know it works, it’s just the new automated version of the business process is available to the enterprise architecture as a web service. Imagine doing this with the 5, 10 , 20 or even 100’s of business processes your users have to run today through lots of installed and running desktop applications. I think this is revolutionary. I don’t think there are many other companies doing this, if any, and certainly not with the breath of Technologies OpenSpan can integrate and automate, in an extremely robust manner. This includes Java Applications, Web Applications (with embedded Java and ActiveX or DHTML or AJAX), Lotus, Green Screen emulators, Windows Applications and yes, even DOS (and a mix of any and all of the above). If it run’s on the desktop, its highly likely OpenSpan will integrate with it out of the box and then it can be moved off of the desktop by simply and rapidly creating the integrations, automations and web services as you need them. The OpenSpan 4.0 Enterprise edition, with it’s virtual broker to manage the desktop applications in this server environment becomes the “new mainframe” of desktop applications, serving up the business functionality of robust desktop applications, as powerful web services.

Let me know what you think, we have 1000’s of use cases, what are yours? Questions? Fire away.

What float? What Bloat?

noreply@blogger.com (Francis Carden) — Sat, 03 May 2008 21:22:00 +0000

First, completely off topic (not like me eh?). Before any flight take-off, we’ve all sat and listened to the important rules of what to do in an emergency landing on water. Has anyone noticed this statement?;

“most seat cushions can be used as a floatation device”…

Shouldn’t it be “ALL seat cushions can be used as a floatation device…”. There’s only one way of knowing if you grabbed one that doesn’t float eh? Glug Glug !!

OK, so back on topic. I love my job. I get to meet some really interesting people and just as equally, I get to work with some awesome talent. For the last 3+ years (and longer in past lives), we the team at OpenSpan, have been striving to help companies solve a problem that really hasn’t been solved before.

Now there is a bold claim, OpenSpan having a unique technology that once and for all fixes a long overdue problem that effects almost every computer user. I know it’s true simply because enterprises would not put up with this huge problem if they didn’t have to. The idea that almost all users in all enterprises (Financial Services, telecommunications, Healthcare, Government the whole gambit), have to manually integrate the desktop applications they use is incredible. Billions of $dollars$ a year are wasted through users having to manually navigate through hoards of legacy application screens on their desktop. Rather than getting better, it’s actually getting worse. A new Web application is often un-integrated too and adds to the manual tasks a user has to deal with. When I first talk to enterprises, they often think they are the only organizations with 5, 10, 20 or more bloated applications that users have to deal with in any one day. Time for a wake-up call Ladies and Gentlemen – almost EVERY enterprise we talk to has the same problem. I think just maybe 2 in 100 companies we meet do not believe they have this problem. It’s an epidemic of massive proportions, of copy and paste, alt-tab, guesswork, over-training and manual processes around old and new unintegrated desktop applications.

So I say, ENOUGH. It's 2008. Let’s nail this 20+ year old problem once and for all. I love the fact that a quick demo of OpenSpan technology makes it clear to CIO’s, Business, IT, just about anyone, how easy it is to fix this problem. Your not alone, don’t be shy, the solution is here today, it works and it works fast.

Now if that sounds like an infomercial then so be it. If that’s what it takes to get people to understand that they do not have to put up with un-integrated applications any longer, then so be it. You are going to hear more loudly from me here, and in the press. We are taking a stand, to let people know, we are here with the solution, and our customers are really glad we are.

OpenSpan, Apple Mac, Virtualization and SOA (together in Harmony)

noreply@blogger.com (Francis Carden) — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 10:27:00 +0000

I am just about to set off on a weeks vacation and then to Europe so I thought I'd leave you with some of my musings.

So, my Apple Mac I got a couple of weeks back - I love it.

Running VMWARE on a mac is sweet. I have multiple VM machines and it truly creates a discipline of keeping "machines" loaded with software specific for those purposes so they are fast. I can honestly say, my VMWare sessions on my Mac are 2-3 times faster than my standalone Dell PC (My PC was probably more cluttered than it should have been but even so, it's incredibly responsive on the Mac).

Now what is really cool, is I have written a little Mac application that calls a Web Service that OpenSpan exposes in a VMWARE session running on the same machine. This means my "legacy" applications services can now be accessed by building portals/apps on the MAC as well as the PC - inside the same machine. Integrating virtualized applications together this way has been hard, to near impossible and this is no longer the case with OpenSpan. I'll post some screen shots in a few weeks so you can see. It's lightening fast and what it really demonstrates is that any Legacy Application is no longer tied to just one presentation interface and can be mashed up virtually anywhere. We released our OpenSpan SOA addition just a few weeks ago and the power of it in the enterprise is readily apparent. We have lived for years with limited or mostly in fact, zero API's for our desktop applications. No more. It's like legacy applications can finally come alive and participate in the new world of technologies (SOA, Web 2/3.0, Mashups, portals, virtualization). Combine that with the speed in which OpenSpan enables you to build integrations into virtually any legacy application and expose that as service, and what you have is pretty incredible. When we say our customers can be in production with solutions in weeks, we can really demonstrate it.

It's hard to get the stats but I'm willing to bet that OpenSpan now has more licensed customers than all of the desktop integration vendors combined. The number of new clients we are signing up each quarter is amazing. Well I guess it's not really amazing, we have a great product :)

We will also be announcing relationships with some of the core mash-up vendors shortly, so watch this space for that too.

On another important note before I depart on my cruise around the Caribbean in a few hours. Damon Lockwood, our VP of Development and one of the OpenSpan founders (btw - he really is a smart cookie and I have really enjoyed the pleasure of working with him now for 3+ years), has just started his own Blog at DO IT ON THE DESKTOP - The term "Do it on the Desktop" was always a funny term we bantered around now and again for Marketing but it never quite made it to the outside world - I wonder why ;) I can see the tee shirts now :)

Long time no see !

noreply@blogger.com (Francis Carden) — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 22:46:00 +0000

Well a few interesting updates from my last Blog!

First, I have turned over to the dark side and brought my self an Apple MacBook Pro (my first Apple since about 1985 !). Of course, I have VMWARE on it and running both XP and Leopard at the same time. My first integration problems were human (aghast, no mouse right-click). I also tried to move my Apple Itunes music from my XP but Apple assumes I am a thief and won’t let me migrate most of my music or even my pictures. My 16 year old son assures me there is a way to do it but likely it will not involve integrated Apple software :)

Second, I am finally hip as I have added a song to my verizon phone (which you'll hear when you call me!). Thick as Thieves. A little biased because the single of this track from the Dashboard confessional album is out next month and my son made the video (and is the star doing the magic – in one take…).

OK, so now onto business. This month saw OpenSpan release it’s version of Studio that enables existing and new automations to be turned into consumable web services with just approximately 10 clicks of a mouse and a few property settings. I show a Microsoft Excel function calling a web service to extract information out of an old VB billing system (hidden), on the fly. It is so fast and robust. What’s really cool too is that Excel and the automation are running in different virtual machines so it is fun to see MS Office and legacy applications work together over virtual machines. I’ve been tracking analysts who started to pass on that enterprises are finding the lack of Virtual-Virtual machine integration a stumbling block! Not any more!

I also have a server, running automations in VMWARE sessions exposing web services to the world. The VMWARE / OpenSpan sessions are integrating into previously closed applications and presenting a web service API (in this case as a REST function). Who would have thought some idiot (me) would web service enable the win32 windows calculator – just to prove a point – LOL – but wickedly cool.

Going to be announcing two other major enhancements in the next few weeks so watch this space. This technology gets more exciting by the minute and judging by the new customer and partner wins we are not alone in this excitement.

Signing off (next post will hopefully be from the Mac ;) ).

Desktop Integration and Virtualization

noreply@blogger.com (Francis Carden) — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 15:57:00 +0000

There is no doubt, the adoption and acceptance of Desktop Integration technologies is now a fundamental and crucial piece of ammunition in the integration arsenal - across the entire enterprise. More un-integrated applications are actually popping up on user’s desktops - not less! Virtualization is now just adding to the problem of complex integration issues of these desktop applications (yes, they are now less open for integration than before!). OpenSpan has approached this problem wisely as we believe virtualization has a phenomenal future. You can now integrate, not just desktop applications in physical machines, but also integrate applications across virtual machines too - even on remote virtual servers! This is game changing because it paves the way, not just for physical desktop application integration, but brings virtualized integrated applications into reality - even before some users had recognized there was going to be a problem!

A couple of news / items worthy of putting on my blog too. Be back soon.

Shepherd Chartered Surveyors Selects OpenSpan to Streamline Business Processes across Desktops

Serve Customers more Effectively with Microsoft CCF 2008 and OpenSpan Platform

.