Ovum Butler Research

The UK Chancellor George Osborne is said to be reviving a version of the medieval star chamber to review and determine departmental spending. The use of star chamber, historically associated with arbitrary justice, in the language of budget cuts in the 21st century is unfortunate but is designed to convey ... read more..

Ovums 2010 enterprise architecture survey revealed that there is some way to go before an architectural approach is relevant outside the IT function for many organizations. Involving all stakeholders in an enterprise architecture initiative is an essential objective for all organizations. To be effective, an architectural approach needs to be ... read more..

This week, the US government confirmed that it will open its database with information on federal contractors a development consistent with the Obama administrations goal to increase transparency and accountability. The new database will certainly provide the public with more information on companies being hired for government contracts. However, ... read more..

For many students starting college, roommates have been the result of random, or near-random, pairings conducted by the institution, based on loosely defined criteria such as gender and academic major. Today, social networks are helping students arrive on campus as informed acquaintances or perhaps even friends. A growing number ... read more..

SAP and Sybase held a briefing for press and analysts last Thursday to describe plans developed since Mays announcement that SAP would acquire Sybase. Ovum believes that the companies technologies are highly complementary; together, they can offer a powerful platform for mobile business and e-commerce applications that could open significant ... read more..

In July, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) became the latest federal agency to join the Tox21 collaboration, a program whose primary objective is to develop computer models that will help to better predict how chemicals will affect humans and the environment. This testing system, which drugmakers will have ... read more..

During the past two years, Stream Global Services has grown in prominence in the CRM outsourcing community under the stewardship of Scott Murray, who recently announced his departure from the company as its CEO. Indeed, under Murrays direction, Stream grew via acquisition, expanded its global footprint, and began providing new ... read more..

The announcement that the giant chip manufacturer Intel is buying leading security company McAfee will have made everyone with an interest in technology stop and think about the potential industry-changing consequences of taking core security down to device or even chip level. Intels headline comment that security is about to ... read more..

The National Library of Australia recently launched a website focused on Australia and Australians. Described as a new discovery experience, Trove applies federated search technology to extend the reach of traditional web search engines. Trove is able to federate a search across 90 million items from over 1,000 libraries and ... read more..

The recent news that Logica has partnered with Starview Technology to create the Real-Time Demand Automator (RTDA) is further evidence of Logicas commitment to lead in the development of technologies to support smart energy functionality. Logica is developing a number of point solutions to help with current and future issues ... read more..

According to one school of thought, infrastructure- and platform-as-a-service (IaaS/PaaS) are just trying to emulate what mainframes do already: flex up and down seamlessly to provide capacity in line with business needs. That may be true, but Unisys is breaking with tradition and offering its mainframe customers capacity in a ... read more..

Ovum has observed what might be the start of an interesting trend in IT management (ITM) software. Traditionally, there have been IT service management (ITSM) and infrastructure management vendors, plus mega-vendors with operations in both camps. ITSM vendors have already moved into the infrastructure management space with discovery, event monitoring, ... read more..

Adobe Systems has announced a definitive agreement to acquire all of the publicly held registered shares of web content management (WCM) vendor Day Software in a transaction valued at approximately $240 million. The acquisition will enable Adobe to combine its Omniture online marketing suite, which provides web analytics, with Day ... read more..

DataArt, a provider of outsourced software-development services, is targeting buy-side participants in the capital markets, and it has a prestigious list of customers on the sell side to underpin its marketing. Ovum sees a niche in the market for software-development service providers with more specialist knowledge than generalist service providers ... read more..

After a slow start to 2010 the second quarter of the year was the best for 12 months in terms of the number of IT services deals announced. However, concerns remain about the scale of outsourcing in the private sector where the total contract value (TCV) in the quarter slipped ... read more..

Ovum has observed what might be the start of an interesting trend in IT management (ITM) software. Traditionally, there have been IT service management (ITSM) and infrastructure management vendors, plus mega-vendors with operations in both camps. ITSM vendors have already moved into the infrastructure management space with discovery, event monitoring, ... read more..

Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (OBIEE) 11g is the biggest business intelligence (BI) announcement of the year to date, packing in a raft of features and providing best-of-breed tool alignment. Some of the main enhancements are focused on plugging previous functional gaps, notably greater report and dashboard interactivity courtesy of: ... read more..

Last week Rackspace open sourced part of its infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) platform in partnership with NASA. Though it is early days yet, this promising project, called OpenStack, already has the backing of 29 other companies including AMD, Intel, Dell, and Citrix.GOOD TIMING BETWEEN RACKSPACE AND NASA LEADS TO OPENSTACKAs Rackspace was ... read more..

Metro Bank threw open its doors in the UK on 29 July with all the razzamatazz expected of a new entrant hoping to make an impact on both the media and prospective customers on its first day of trading. However, for all the glitz and gimmickry, new account holders might ... read more..

Several countries in the Middle East have threatened to ban the BlackBerry service because it enables citizens to have secret conversations and peruse the web with privacy. This will be the start of a test of RIMs commitment to maintaining a global secure email service. However, governments should be careful ... read more..

The multiplicity of operating systems, devices, network carriers, and pricing plans for end users makes it complex for software developers to enter the smartphone and tablet market. The market attracts carriers, enterprises, games developers, and others with the promise of high rewards and productivity benefits for users. It is currently ... read more..

HP began the summer by announcing a massive services investment and an organizational restructuring that will cut around 9,000 positions. But heading into the dog days of the season, HP is standing on a string of recent contract wins, including renewals with two high-profile customers it picked up through its ... read more..

In what seemed to be a moment of self-reflection at its BbWorld conference last week, Blackboard admitted that the company has not lived up to its potential, and stated that it will attempt to remedy this by going back to the basics: improve client support, and increase product and corporate ... read more..

Case management is the new term for what was previously called transactional content management (TCM) by enterprise content management (ECM) vendors. This change of name is important because case management is also the term used to describe the way in which employees handle their workloads in particular industries, for example ... read more..

Wireless communications infrastructure provider Arqiva has been busy stamping out its credentials in the UK smart metering space. A month ago, Arqiva announced the participation of npower in a smart meter proof of concept in Reading. The proof of concept also involves US-based smart metering communications expert Sensus, which Arqiva ... read more..

CRM platforms contain only some of the information pertaining to business contacts and customers prospects, and so those tasked with business development spend an inordinate amount of time searching for information that will give them the big picture. Can social search and analytics come to the rescue? We believe it ... read more..

Microsoft has finally, and unsurprisingly, bowed to customer and partner pressure to make its Windows Azure platform-as-a-service (PaaS) offering available outside of its own data centers via the Windows Azure Platform Appliance (WAPA). This is a good, but at present still very tentative, move in the right direction. MORE THAN AN ... read more..

Analysis of the presentations at the upcoming IT Service Management Forum (itSMF) UK Conference reveals three hot topics coming to the fore. Last years emphasis on people is continued, while the oft-neglected ITIL v3 disciplines of service design and continual service improvement get significant coverage. All three need greater exposure ... read more..

Server monitoring and power management vendor 1E has announced version 2.0 of its NightWatchman product, enhancing its support for the management of virtual servers. Independent research in 2009 suggested that 15% of servers in data centers were not doing any useful work, and were costing $25 billion per year. Organizations ... read more..

Ovum is witnessing what is hopefully the start of an interesting go-to-market trend for IT service management (ITSM) software vendors a change of product markitecture, from ITIL alignment to addressing key IT challenges in better meeting business needs and demonstrating IT-delivered value. While ITIL is still and will continue ... read more..