A new reality long in the making is now approaching fast for the education CIO, leading to three clear trends on this year's Hype Cycle and three clear options for the CIO. What we have described as the journey of the role of the CIO from the era of ERP to the era of consumerization, where CIOs had time to adapt, is now entering into a phase with potentially an exponential pace of change as we add the cloud effect. First, we have the previously identified trends of the proliferation of consumerized personal productivity tools (such as Web 2.0) and inexpensive hardware in a multitude of forms, which are now accelerating in the cloud era. Second, and more threatening, is the increasing viability of sourcing options that strike at the core of many education CIOs' perceived responsibilities. The central CIO's old argument that economies of scale could only be achieved at the institutional level is now, in many cases, moot on a cloud-computing scale, and the "new normal" aftermath of the financial crisis has cornered many CIOs in a position where they have no other option than to concede to cloud-enabled sourcing options (unless they can point to nonfinancial and nontechnical issues, such as intellectual property rights and privacy, to avoid outsourcing). Third, we see that in this new world of multisourcing and microsourcing, standards are gaining tremendous importance. Standards actually enable the flexibility the institution needs to stay agile and achieve its goals if the CIO is able to design the right enterprise architecture and implement SOA soundly. The career-defining question for the CIO remains: Will the CIO stay as the "professional supplier," or will the CIO develop into the trusted "business partner"? In this continued battle between the CIO as a mere chief infrastructure officer and a real chief information officer, the role of the CIO as the chief integration officer emerges in the middle ground, with strategic connotations of betting on the right standards for the future. However, the bottom line is that the CIO must contribute to the strategic balance between IT-enhanced organizational efficiency that is focused on cost containment and innovative, IT-enabled personal productivity that supports an institution's main missions. This year's education Hype Cycle displays three trends that can aid in finding the right balance, and is a tool that will help with timing decisions, as well as internal dialogue and communication that help the CIO stay relevant. 
In the 2010 Hype Cycle, we keep our broadened scope, which includes both K-12 and higher education. We do this because we continue to see an increase in the crossover of technologies, services and methodologies between the two. We see more vendors of services such as e-learning and ERP solutions that often originated in the higher education space adapt and expand their offerings into the K-12 space. We note the increasing need to define standards, such as grades and e-portfolio metadata, in the whole education community to enable the seamless mobility of students and their achievements. We also see an increasing need for higher education institutions to understand what skills and expectations the prospective students bring with them to their institutions. The 2010 Hype Cycle retains the two major trends from 2009 and highlight a third trend regarding the need for standards to enable easier integration in the emerging "consumerization in the cloud" era. Education technology leaders are facing increasingly new options for delivering established services, while they are being challenged by completely new technology-based demands and behaviors from their core end users. Students are still leading the change in many ways through the adoption of Internet-related phenomena, such as social software, user-generated media and the continued use of consumer IT devices. However, professors are catching up, and are increasingly using this technology in teaching and learning. The change among professors is marked by a decreased dependence on institutionally delivered technology and services, and an increased use of consumerized user-centric technology. This shift of power from the institution to the individual is similar to what has occurred in the media industry, where expensive production tools and highly controlled distribution channels have been challenged by a ubiquity of inexpensive personal production tools and channels able to generate a high volume of accessible, user-generated content. The mobility trend continues as a further extension of the personal infrastructure and the proliferation of devices (such as the iPad) that are used for education and research seems to accelerate. In addition, the growing trend of "industrializing" IT through new forms of sourcing options, such as cloud e-mail and business process outsourcing (BPO), continues to diminish the importance and relevance of the traditional institutional IT department. The CIO community is responding by continued development of open-source software (OSS) and community-source options to avoid total vendor dominance and also to use as a tool to force the development of standards. The last part, in particular, emerges as an increasingly important tool for the CIO to stay in control in a new world that is increasingly colored by multisourcing and microsourcing. Remember that change is an opportunity. The increasing dependence on IT and the opportunity to use IT in all areas of the institution put the CIO in a position to affect the future of the institution. However, CIOs need to develop their ability to optimize alignment (in general) and timing (in particular) to strengthen and demonstrate the value of the IT department to the core business of the institution. Since the 2009 Hype Cycle, several key technologies have made progress, one has disappeared, nine have been added, and five have changed names and/or been replaced with more education-aligned content. Several of the new entries are related to the industrialization of IT and the need for new controls for the CIO: These are new entries that emphasize the increasing needs for standards in the CIO toolbox. They complement the content in existing entries, such as SIS International Data Interoperability Standards and E-Portfolio, as well as the important identity and access management (IAM) suite of entries: Organization-Centric IAM, User-Centric IAM and Federated Identity Management. The latter two have been changed into more-education-related content that more precisely reflects their position in the education community. The continued impact of consumerization — now aligned with the cloud — on learning is illustrated by the new entries of: All these entries — together with old entries, such as Wikis and Virtual Environments/Virtual Worlds — represent established productivity tools and interesting potential game changers for the future. Further refinement of our position in this context has led us to change the names and definitions slightly for: We replaced Digital Rights Management — Higher Education with Intellectual Property Rights and Royalties Management Software, which we have identified as a more relevant Hype Cycle entry that better supports the issues related to content sharing in an online learning environment and also emphasizes the relationship between the issues faced by the media industry and education for content control and monetizing intellectual property. Figure 1. Hype Cycle for Education, 2010 
Source: Gartner (July 2010)
The Priority Matrix is more nuanced in a vertical context, because the benefit ratings can vary substantially, depending on the various types of institutions. Furthermore, we intentionally use some general Hype Cycle entries to relate to their overall standing in maturity and adoption. Both aspects are very important in the assessment of when these technologies are "ubiquitous" enough to build new services or curricula on top of them. This has the consequence that the benefit rating is not normalized to any specific type of institution and, more importantly, some technologies have benefit ratings that are relative to their niche technology category. The result can be seen in ratings such as high for Cloud E-Mail, while the E-Portfolios rating is only medium. In the first case, the rating is due to the relative benefit to an internally managed mail solution. In the second case, the rating is done relative to the original vision for e-portfolios and their importance for the core mission of education. In this context, the transformational rating of SOA relates to a new paradigm of service delivery for the IT-organization. Cloud HPC/CaaS is rated transformational because of its capability to be a resource equalizer among institutions, Unified Communications and Collaboration because of its promise to catalyze collaboration, Virtual Environments/Virtual Worlds because of its potential for great pedagogical enhancement and Quantuum Computing because of its promise to deliver virtually unlimited computing power. To help clients determine what key investments in IT will be most strategically important in positioning their institutions for long-term success in fulfilling their missions, we have experimented with a complementary tool to the Hype Cycle called The Strategic Technology Map. It has been used both in broader contexts, such as scenario planning, and in education Hype Cycle workshops with good results. Figure 2. Priority Matrix for Education, 2010 
Source: Gartner (July 2010)
Only one entry has been moved off our current Hype Cycle. Web Services for Administrative Applications has been moved off the 2010 Hype Cycle because this broadly defined ability is well into the Plateau of Productivity, and it is more or less impossible to sell an administrative application without a Web services interface.
Definition: In quantum computing, data is represented as qubits (quantum bits), which have the ability to represent all possible states simultaneously. This gives quantum computers the ability to operate exponentially faster than conventional computers as word length is increased. The data value held in a qubit is affected by the values of other qubits, even if they are physically separated. This effect is known as "entanglement" and gives the qubit the ability to hold all possible values simultaneously. Qubits must be held and linked in a closed quantum environment and must not be allowed to interact with the outside world because they are very susceptible to the effects of noise. Two stages are involved in quantum computation. Stage one involves execution of the algorithm and stage two is the measurement of the resulting data. Measurement is extremely difficult and typically destroys the quantum state as this involves interaction with the outside world. Some classes of problem would be executed extremely fast with quantum computers, but the technology is unsuited to general office tasks, such as word processing and spreadsheet analysis. Position and Adoption Speed Justification: To date, no true quantum computing has been demonstrated in a verifiable way. The technology is in the relatively early research stage, but a number of significant advances have been made during the past several years. Five-qubit computation using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) was demonstrated by the Technical University of Munich in 2000. This was followed by the first execution of Shor's algorithm using NMR techniques at IBM's Almaden Research Center and Stanford University in 2001. These demonstrations did not involve entanglement and were not, therefore, "true" quantum computing. In February 2007, D-Wave Systems demonstrated a purported 16-qubit quantum computer, based on a supercooled chip arranged as 4x4 elements. The company followed this with longer qubit demonstrations. The results of these demonstrations were inconclusive. However, the technology continues to attract significant funding, and a significant amount of research is being carried out. Considerable problems exist in increasing the number of linked qubits available for computation because of noise. The slightest amount of interference while computation is occurring will cause the system to drop out of the quantum state and generate random results. It is therefore necessary to enclose the system within an intense magnetic field (or a comparable shielding scheme) for isolation reasons. In practical quantum computers, total isolation would not be feasible, so error-correction schemes are being developed to compensate for small amounts of interference. Much of the current research on quantum computing is focused on these error-correction schemes. Averaging out errors through multiple computations is the most promising approach because it is not clear that fundamental quantum noise can be reduced. The amount of reported progress in quantum computing has stalled over the past 18 months or more, caused at least in part by the economic downturn. We have therefore held its position constant on the 2010 Hype Cycle. Breakthroughs in this topic will probably be based on a certain amount of serendipity; however, the likelihood of a breakthrough occurring will no doubt be increased with higher funding levels. User Advice: No concrete actions are needed at this time. Interested parties should monitor developments. Business Impact: Quantum computing could have a huge effect, especially in areas such as optimization, code breaking, DNA and other forms of molecular modeling, large database access, encryption, stress analysis for mechanical systems, pattern matching and, possibly, weather forecasting. Benefit Rating: Transformational Market Penetration: Less than 1% of target audience
Analysis By: Jan-Martin Lowendahl Definition: Affective computing technologies sense the emotional state of a user (via sensors, microphone, cameras and/or software logic) and respond by performing specific, predefined product/service features, such as changing a quiz or recommending a set of videos to fit the mood of the learner. Affective computing tries to address one of the major drawbacks of online learning versus in-classroom learning: the teacher's capability to immediately adapt the pedagogical situation to the emotional state of the student in the classroom. Position and Adoption Speed Justification: Affective computing technology is still at the proof-of-concept stage in education, but is gaining more interest as online learning is continuing to expand. Pure research-oriented interest (such as the University of Memphis' Institute for intelligent Systems with www.autotutor.org) is now expanded into more practical projects by some online learning universities such as the Open University of Catalonia. A major hindrance in its uptake is the lack of consumerization of the needed hardware and software involved, as it has to be inexpensively available for students as they use their personal devices. The automotive industry is more advanced, but even there, the technology has not yet found its way into actual vehicle production, even if addressing, for example, driver distraction is creating more awareness for mood sensing. Effective affective computing most likely will involve a complex architecture in order to combine sensor input and in real time provide an accurate response. Mobile learning via cloud services and handheld devices such as smartphones is likely to play a key role in the first generations with a larger market penetration due to the relatively controlled ecosystem it provides (high-capacity computing combined with a discrete device with many sensors). User Advice: Most institutions should only continue to follow the research and development of affective computing in education and other industries. However, in order to be prepared for the strategic tipping point of implementation, institutions should start estimating the potential impact in terms of possible pedagogical gains and financial impact such as increased retention for online learning. Institutions with a large online presence or ones that want to exploit the hype for brand recognition should get involved now. Partner with automotive suppliers, consumer electronics companies and universities (particularly online) to further explore this field. Business Impact: Affective computing is an exciting area with potential to bring back a bit of the lost pedagogical aspect of in-class learning and increase the personalization of online learning. One very important advantage of this technology is that, even if it always will be inferior to a face-to-face student-teacher interaction, it scales well beyond the more than 100 student lectures that even today offer limited individual pedagogical adaptivity. Potential complement or competition to remedy the scalability problem is the social-media-based peer mentoring approach as exemplified by www.livemocha.com. At least in the Livemocha example, it has been shown that a sufficient scale of the community of quality subject matter mentors can be reached by tapping the full Internet community of 1.8 billion users. In general, affective computing is part of a larger set of approaches to further personalize the educational experience online. Another example is adaptive "pedagogical paths" that depend on statistical data of learners in the same position. It is also related to context-aware computing in general. The ultimate aim of affective computing in education is to enhance the learning experience of the student, which should result in tangible results such as higher grades, faster throughput and higher retention. These results will benefit students, institutions and society. Market Penetration: Less than 1% of target audience Sample Vendors: Affective Media; IBM Recommended Reading: "Cool Vendors in Collaboration, 2009" "Consumer Electronics Show Highlights Demonstrate Vehicle ICT Evolution" "Cool Vendors in the Automotive Industry, 2008"
SIS International Data Interoperability Standards Analysis By: Jan-Martin Lowendahl Definition: Student Information Systems (SIS) International Data Interoperability Standards are about the data formats needed to facilitate and even automate global student mobility. Position and Adoption Speed Justification: Increasing political pressure, such as the Bologna process, a general focus on recruiting international students, and awareness of the cost associated with processing international applications have sparked activity in standardization. Earlier work, such as the eduCourse schema supported by the Shibboleth project, has been followed by several others, such as the Metadata for Learning Opportunities, and now we see momentum building by the involvement of the vendor community. This has been shown in the actions of IMS Global Learning Consortium and the Rome Student Systems and Standards Group (RS3G), which have initiated activities focused directly on SIS interoperability. Recent activity by the Postsecondary Electronic Standards Council (U.S. only) and the RS3G Mobility project (a three-country pilot) shows steady progress; however, they are still at an early stage. User Advice: Institutions that expect to recruit extensively from abroad need to monitor the developments closely to be ready to adopt as soon as possible. Work through your vendor or consortium to establish a road map for adoption. The window during which this can be a competitive advantage is likely to be relatively small, and institutions should anticipate that it can quickly turn into a competitive disadvantage to not have this capability. However, when considering this capability, it should be noted that standards usually take a longer time to maturity and be accepted than technologies on the Hype Cycle. Business Impact: This has a direct impact on the ability to recruit students, as well as the cost for recruiting students. Visibility and scrutiny of institutional course offerings will increase with the PriceRunner-type comparison sites that will likely develop, and it will be important to master the factors that lead to applications from the "right" student profiles. In particular, interoperability of student data will enable a higher degree of process optimization, driving down both cost and risk. Standardization at this level will also facilitate economies of scale of administration through shared services, which is something that the national or state education system will benefit from. Market Penetration: Less than 1% of target audience Recommended Reading: "Findings: Bologna Process Demands True International Student and Course Data Standards in Higher Education Throughout the EU"
Definition: Gartner defines "business process outsourcing" (BPO) as the delegation of an IT-enabled business process to a third party that owns, administers and manages the process, according to a defined set of metrics and interfaces. BPO offerings are categorized in two major categories: horizontal offerings (those that can be leveraged across specific industries) and vertical-specific offerings (those that demand specific industry vertical process knowledge). Here, we discuss the vertical-specific education BPO. Education BPO includes offerings such as grant management, institutional research (aka business intelligence) and online academic programs. Position and Adoption Speed Justification: Horizontal BPO is an established service in areas such as payroll, and although it is used by education institutions, it has still not penetrated the education market to the same degree that it has the general market. Gartner's latest survey shows that about a fifth of the respondents use traditional BPO. Vertical-specific BPO is still a relatively new phenomenon, at least as a commercial offering. Very few institutions have had the chance to try this new service, but there has been quite some interest among clients. However, because process maturity is generally low, and due to the traditional caution among education institutions, we believe this is a slow mover on the Hype Cycle. However, financial pressure and early successes can change that prediction. User Advice: Education BPO is an interesting offering that is well worth investigating for reasons of quality, cost and focus of core resources. However, institutions considering it need to have a good understanding of their processes in general and process interfaces in particular. Established skilled resources for vendor management are a must, and a clear understanding of intellectual property rights and their safeguarding, and basic metrics, must be in place before a contract can be signed. Business Impact: The effect on the institutions depends on the process chosen for BPO and the reasons for it. It is likely to assume that the effect will be mostly in the areas of efficiency and quality improvement. However, for areas such as institutional research (aka business intelligence), the effect can be strategic if it leads to more-timely access to higher-quality data. Market Penetration: Less than 1% of target audience Sample Vendors: Campus Management; Datatel; Oracle; SunGard Higher Education Recommended Reading: "Gartner Higher Education Sourcing Survey 2009: What, How, How Much and Attitudes?" "Higher Education 'Business Model' Scenarios: 'Everybody's U': Scale of Market" "Higher Education 'Business Model' Scenarios: 'All About U': Speed to Market"
Analysis By: Jan-Martin Lowendahl Definition: Open-source higher education student information systems (SISs) are developed via open-source or community source models. Position and Adoption Speed Justification: Open-source SISs have the potential to be part of a nonproprietary and highly customizable higher education administrative application suite or a best-of-breed solution. However, features, functionality, processes, integration and support issues are still undefined. The most promising open-source SIS is Kuali Student, which is supported by the Kuali Foundation. Release 1 of the Kuali Student System was due in the fourth quarter of 2009, and is now scheduled for September 2010; a "founders release" came out on 30 April 2010. Kuali Student and the Kuali Foundation have faced financial issues related to two setbacks: One university dropped out due to budget cuts, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation closed its open-source software (OSS)-specific grants program, thus increasing competition for funds. The recent reshuffle with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) dropping out as a founder of Kuali Foundation, and Indiana University replacing it, adds to the uncertainty of the situation. Positive trends include the move of several European national SIS consortia toward at least OSS or community source licensing, even if there is hardly a community of a critical mass of skills. However, there is the potential for collaboration among the different initiatives if the momentum builds for interoperability components, such as OSS higher education middleware suites and SIS international data interoperability standards. User Advice: Open-source solutions for SIS are in the early stages and should be monitored for future development. This part of Kuali Student should probably have fewer issues with national regulations, and, thus, it is more likely to be a candidate for internationalization than the Kuali Financial System. Business Impact: Student administration and, possibly, integration with e-learning platforms are areas that will be affected. Market Penetration: Less than 1% of target audience Sample Vendors: Kuali Foundation Recommended Reading: "Open Source in Higher Education, 2008"
Digital Preservation of Research Data Analysis By: Jan-Martin Lowendahl Definition: Digital preservation in the higher education community context is the issue of dealing with very long-term storage and retrieval of primarily research data. The objective of digital preservation is to attain the same or better standard of archiving and retrieval that was set by centuries of handling paper archives, which in some countries formally exceeds hundreds of years. Position and Adoption Speed Justification: Although the problem has been around for some time, the progress is rather slow due to the pace of change in IT, as well as the perceived high cost from a total cost of ownership (TCO) perspective and a lack of monetary return on investment (ROI). The strategies for addressing the problem in theory are well-developed, but the practical solutions are not as strong. Altogether, this results in an early position on the Hype Cycle and a potentially very long road to maturity. Last year's leap in activity, when two major open-source software (OSS) repository communities, Fedora Commons and DSpace Foundation, did join forces to create the DuraSpace organization and announced a "DuraCloud" Web-based service in their road map, is still the most promising move on the issue. But this consolidation of resources and the promise of a conveniently accessible preservation service with the potential for a better TCO merit are still in a pilot phase, with first delivery due in the autumn of 2010. The most promising road ahead is still dependent on maturing OSS governance and collaboration models, as well as in cloud-enabled economies of scale. User Advice: Digital preservation, in general, still does not get the attention it deserves. However, apart from the principal relevance to research, the increasing volumes of data and potential cost-benefits in tiered storage will force institutions to adopt an information storage and retrieval strategy that includes digital preservation of research data. The basic strategies available have to be evaluated and preferably tested in pilot projects. The most popular strategy today seems to be the migration of data with metadata attachment. OSS such as DSpace and Fedora is available. This area is well-suited for shared services or cloud-computing solutions due to the obvious economies of scale. Business Impact: Success in handling the digital preservation problem in higher education is crucial for future research, because more and more data exists only in the digital realm. It has the potential, in the long term, to be transformational for research, especially for the ability to revisit raw data for new interpretations and to access very long series of data. Market Penetration: 1% to 5% of target audience Sample Vendors: DSpace; Fedora
Analysis By: Jan-Martin Lowendahl Definition: Control Objectives for Information and Related Technology (CobiT) is an IT control framework used as part of IT governance to ensure that the IT organization meets enterprise requirements. Although originally an IT audit tool, CobiT is increasingly being used by business stakeholders and IT management to identify and create IT control objectives, and for high-level self-assessment. Using CobiT may be part of an enterprise-level compliance program or an IT process and quality program. CobiT considers four high-level domains (plan and organize, acquire and implement, deliver and support, and monitor and evaluate) and 34 high-level processes (high-level control objectives) across those four domains (for example, manage performance and capacity). The focus of this high-level framework is on what must be done, not how to do it. For example, the CobiT framework identifies a software release as a control objective, but it doesn't define the processes and procedures associated with the software release. Therefore, IT operations management typically uses CobiT as part of a mandated program in the IT organization, and to provide guidance regarding the kind of controls needed to meet the program's requirements. CobiT 4.1 was released in May 2007 to achieve greater consistency with the Information Systems Audit and Control Association's (ISACA's) Val IT program, and to clean up some of the work done for CobiT v.4.0. Tools consist primarily of spreadsheets and mappings to other frameworks, such as the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL). CobiT v.5 is currently on the drawing board, elements of which could make CobiT a little more directly relevant to infrastructure and operations. Position and Adoption Speed Justification: Interest in CobiT is growing slowly in education. Its main use is still as an audit and benchmarking framework rather than as a foundation for a governance framework. In this respect, education is lagging other industries. In education, the adoption of CobiT is often connected to the adoption of Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL), and, as these projects are now well under way in more advanced institutions, they also begin to explore CobiT more. As the ITIL projects start climbing the Slope of Enlightenment, we still expect more interest and focus on CobiT even if it has moved slower than expected last year. As with ITIL, we see regional differences that largely follow those of ITIL but following even further behind. Higher education as a whole seems to be ahead of K-12, and in Europe ahead of the U.S. User Advice: Institutions that are unfamiliar with CobiT should begin by examining the framework and the standard process framework used by CobiT. For most institutions today, CobiT is a good audit framework for motivating and monitoring change in institutional governance capabilities. However, if CobiT is used to guide process improvement, the institution must assess: (1) what the organizational scope of the improvement initiative is; and (2) whether the ultimate goal is operational process improvement or business transformation. If the goal is business transformation, then a more-strategic approach to change involving all of the institution's management will be required. In any case, a CobiT-based improvement effort works best when more practically oriented frameworks like Prince2, Capability Maturity Model (CMM) or ITIL are implemented alongside. All these frameworks help to improve different layers of governance maturity and have a synergistic effect if implemented wisely and not to the "letter." As with the case of ITIL, a tactical approach based on pain points and metrics will be the most secure way to success. Business Impact: Governance of IT is a problem area for many institutions, and CobiT can play a significant role in raising maturity — first by pointing out weak areas through auditing, then by identifying best practices, as well as by keeping change momentum by tracking progress through benchmarking. CobiT v.5 holds some promise to further mature the alignment of the institutional value of IT. Large and/or complex institutions will likely find greater financial and performance benefits through improved governance — especially if CobiT is used as one of several tools to identify and rectify weak links between "demand governance" and "supply governance" of IT services. Market Penetration: Less than 1% of target audience Recommended Reading: "Global Standards Can Reduce the Adverse Effects of 'Administrative Freedom' in Higher Education" "Case Study: The Seven-Year Journey From Chaos to Order at Chalmers University of Technology" "Combine CobiT and ITIL for Powerful IT Governance" "How to Start a CobiT Deployment" "Defining IT Governance: The Gartner IT Governance Demand/Supply Model"
Open-Source Middleware Suites Analysis By: Jan-Martin Lowendahl Definition: Open-source higher education middleware suites are collections of middleware needed to integrate software solutions on campus. They include functionality such as identity and access management, enterprise service bus, and workflow. Position and Adoption Speed Justification: A "plug and play" software integration foundation is something that institutions have strived for decades, leading to many more-or-less trendy approaches, of which service-oriented architecture (SOA) is the latest incarnation. Alongside commercial "closed source" options for the components of an SOA platform, the higher education community has run several high-profile open-source software (OSS) projects, of which the Jasig uPortal and the National Science Foundation (NSF) middleware project have been among the most visible. Both projects have affected the market in a positive way. uPortal did it mainly "trough pushing" the adoption of Web services standards and providing a neutral service delivery platform for vendors such as SunGard Higher Education. The NSF middleware project produces the Federated Identity and Access Management (FIAM) solution (Shibboleth), which is used by the majority of identity federations in the academic world. These single-purpose middleware OSS projects have now been complemented by an OSS middleware suite approach. This new suite approach has its roots in the community source foundation models represented by Sakai and Kuali. Both foundations decided early on to have an SOA design approach, and consequently, a number of middleware components have become crucial for their success — especially in the case of Kuali, where the seamless integration of a number of administrative applications is a major goal. It is, therefore, only a natural consequence of these needs, together with the Kuali Foundation's knack for marketing, that we saw the first release of the OSS higher education middleware package named Kuali Rice on 30 September 2009. Kuali Rice is composed of identity management, enterprise workflow, enterprise service bus, enterprise notification and an application development framework (Kuali Nervous System). The aggregation approach of several existing components, together with the community source model, merits a rather high entry and speed rating on the Hype Cycle. However, the complexity of middleware in itself adds a certain level of uncertainty to the project as well. User Advice: Middleware can be a complex business that takes careful consideration in designing. The simple fact that it sits in the middle of a lot of information streams makes it hard to exchange, and these solutions tend to be long-lived. Therefore, it is crucial to choose solutions that are as flexible as possible by adhering to standards (open as well as de facto) that are as future-safe as they can be. OSS projects have a good track record in implementing open standards, and as we saw above can even drive standards adoption. Therefore, open-source higher education middleware suites should, at least, be on the shortlist when comparing with commercial options in order to test vendor openness. Business Impact: Kuali Rice is still in its early days compared with older and more complete suites from vendors such as Oracle and IBM; however, the characteristics in terms of more general functionality and global need of middleware relative to, for example, learning management systems or enterprise resource planning platforms, make it a good candidate for the sustainable global OSS community. At the very least, it can help push open standards, which can be a foundation for a plug-and-play Web service approach that will promote the coexistence of many delivery modes, as well as business models, with its open and objective platform. There is already a precedent for creating a common platform or at least a reference platform the way Shibboleth did, working together with Liberty Alliance, influencing the development of the SAML2 standard. Market Penetration: Less than 1% of target audience Sample Vendors: Kuali Foundation Recommended Reading: "Open Source in Higher Education, 2008"
Analysis By: Jan-Martin Lowendahl Definition: User-centric IAM is fundamentally about letting the most relevant organization own and certify a claim. In its original form, it was designed to let a user aggregate and control its own identity attributes/claims with the relevant certifying parties, hence the name ''user-centric." However, experience of real-world access management situations has shown that many identity attributes (claims) cannot be fully controlled by the individual. The key traits of this IAM paradigm is "justifiable parties" with regard to a claim rather than "user-centric control and consent." In user-centric IAM, the service provider trusts several "justifiable parties" in order to collect the certified claims needed to grant access to a service. An example of a future role for higher education institutions in user-centric IAM is to certify the degree of its students in the "claims ecosystem." Position and Adoption Speed Justification: At the moment, user-centric IAM is the most hyped paradigm of the three IAM paradigms on this Hype Cycle; however, it is also the least understood by the institutions. There is a high level of confusion about what user-centric IAM is. Only one respondent in our most recent higher education IAM survey listed a technology that is specific to user-centric IAM. None mentioned OpenID or CardSpace-related frameworks. A benign interpretation of the data, such as that Shibboleth has connectors to both OpenID and Microsoft CardSpace, will give a penetration of at the most 10%, but the real number is probably well below 5%. User-centric IAM can be seen as a natural evolution of federated IAM, which would position it for quick adoption as soon as the legal issues in federations are ironed out. In user-centric IAM, a single external organization-centric IAM is exchanged for several organization-centric IAMs as the source for verifying the number of claims needed to establish the role that grants access to a service. However, user-centric IAM is still technologically immature and conceptually evolving. From a technological point of view, there are basically only two real contenders in this space today: OpenID and information card architectures (ICAs). These different technologies are covered in the IAM Hype Cycle 2010 as OpenID as well as Information Cards, and they show different trajectories. However, the technical issues are probably not the most prominent. From a legal and business case standpoint, there are many issues to consider before we have a full-fledge claims-ecosystem of "justifiable parties". User Advice: The reason user-centric IAM is so important is that, in the education community where many students and staff are exchanged every year, it is important to be prepared to open up IAM solutions beyond organization-centric IAM and federated IAM. New trends come quickly to education through new students, and expectations of being able to use already established personal identity attributes as well as provide verification for newly gained attributes in new contexts (such as with a vendor offering student discounts or employers offering internships) are likely to be high. Consumer-facing organizations should monitor user-centric IAM evolution for potential convergence among disparate frameworks, or the continued separate paths of information cards and OpenID. The emergence of identity providers supporting one or more of these frameworks for higher-risk transactions is a sign that these frameworks are gaining momentum and should be considered for institutional use. OpenID can be used for low-assurance applications. Enterprises with Microsoft-centric development shops should expect that their ICA (more specifically the current products Windows Identity Foundation, ADFS 2.0 and CardSpace) and the claims-based identity paradigm will be ingrained in future Microsoft products and online services. Business Impact: The promise of user-centric IAM is that, if a standardized ecosystem of claim assertions is established, there will be a quick, cost-efficient and trusted way to grant access to services. This then means that the complexity of "roles" can be expanded "indefinitely," providing more relevance and security for both consumers and providers of services. Market Penetration: 1% to 5% of target audience Sample Vendors: CA; IBM; Microsoft; Novell Recommended Reading: "Three Paradigms of IAM in Higher Education: Description, Trends and Lessons Learned" "Governments Need to and Can Play a Role in the Online Claims Ecosystem"
Mobile-Learning Low-Range/Midrange Handsets Analysis By: Nick Jones; Marti Harris Definition: This is mobile-learning (m-learning) or learning administration applications using basic and enhanced phones. Such handsets range from ultra-low-cost devices capable only of voice and Short Message Service (SMS), selling for under $20, to more-capable handsets supporting Web browsing and Java Platform, Micro Edition (Java ME) retailing at up to $150. M-learning encompasses a very broad range of applications, including, but not limited to, media delivery (e.g., audio and video), exploratory learning using augmented reality, educational games, collaboration and project work, e-books, surveys, tests, data gathering, real-time feedback and simulations. We separate m-learning on basic and enhanced handsets from m-learning on high-end smartphones, such as iPhones, because these will tend to be used in different ways, by different students and in different markets. Technologically low-end handsets can deliver m-learning in several ways. For example, this could be by using: (1) very simple technologies, such as SMS — e.g., for health education; (2) server-side technologies — e.g., the mobile Web or, in some cases, using the handset just as a voice channel to listen to lessons broadcast from a server; (3) more-capable handsets that support stored media such as podcasts or video; (4) native m-learning applications specially developed for low-end handsets and preloaded by the manufacturer — e.g., Nokia's Life Tools; and (5) simple applications developed using widely available tools, such as Java ME. One of the challenges that determines m-learning application architecture in emerging markets is that data communications to a handset are often weak (e.g., general packet radio service [GPRS] or SMS) and sometimes unavailable. Position and Adoption Speed Justification: Examples of low-end m-learning deployed in 2010 include simple tests and exams (e.g., vocabulary tests for students learning a new language) and health education. Some low-end m-learning is delivered as a service (for example, Nokia's Life Tools in India and China). Moore's law will benefit low-end m-learning during the next five years, because the handset capability available at a given price point will continue to rise, enabling low-end and midrange handsets to deliver more-sophisticated m-learning. Larger screens and the falling price of color screens will particularly benefit low-end m-learning. User Advice: Educational organizations whose students own primarily low-end and midrange handsets should experiment with m-learning technologies and systems that match these devices. M-learning on lower-capability devices will be particularly important in emerging markets. Business Impact: Organizations, such as network operators and handset manufacturers, in emerging markets, where few devices are smartphones, should explore the potential of educational services and applications delivered on low-range to midrange handsets. Organizations, such as agricultural cooperatives, that need to distribute information to large numbers of individuals owning low-end handsets should also explore m-learning techniques. Subscription m-learning services are a potentially interesting model for network operators and others in emerging markets, because the low price points are outweighed by the large potential number of learners. Market Penetration: 1% to 5% of target audience Sample Vendors: Bharti Airtel; McGraw-Hill; Nokia Recommended Reading: "M-Learning Opportunities and Applications"
Analysis By: Marti Harris Definition: A social learning platform is an extension of traditional systems for learning management and learning content management that incorporates social-software features to support structured social and informal, as well as formal, learning activities. Position and Adoption Speed Justification: As awareness of the impact of informal and structured social situations on learning grows, students, faculty members and researchers are expecting social-software features to support collaborative learning environments. Vendors are adopting product development strategies that are social-learner-centric, while educational institutions are exploring how best to use new social-software options. A social learning platform is emerging, as educational institutions want to tap into the collective knowledge of all members of the institution's community and to increase the organization's capacity to learn both formally and informally. The platform supports the desire of learners to receive learning as needed. It also acknowledges the importance of social networks and the requirement to access the expertise of colleagues both inside and outside the institution. User Advice: Institutions that have a single-purpose learning system installed should engage with their current vendors to understand the product development road map for enhancing systems with social-software features. If their current vendors do not have plans for adding these features, or the time frame for development is too long, institutions should look for solutions that can be easily integrated into the learning architecture. Solutions already in place, such as content management, collaboration and communication, should be considered for use as well as solutions procured specifically for learning purposes. Educational institutions that do not have systems for learning and content management, or that are looking to consolidate multiple learning applications, should add support for a social learning platform as an important evaluation criterion. Business Impact: The social learning platform gives learners the abilities to: establish a presence, or social profile, that reflects their expertise and interest; create, discuss, share and capture learning content as learning objects; organize and find learning objects from a variety of sources, such as search or peer ratings; interact with peers in their social network and be able to reach beyond their network to other trusted sources of information; engage in experience-based, learning exercises; and receive real-time, online coaching and support. Market Penetration: 5% to 20% of target audience Sample Vendors: Blackboard; Desire2Learn; Google; Microsoft; Moodle; Sakai Recommended Reading: "Gartner Higher Education E-Learning Survey 2008-2009: Poised for the Next Step?" "Gartner Higher Education E-Learning Survey, 2008-2009: OSS Momentum Continues, but Is Not Alone in Changing the Market"
Analysis By: Jan-Martin Lowendahl Definition: Computing as a service (CaaS) or cloud high-performance computing (HPC) in higher education deals primarily with on-demand delivery of moderate to massive computing power for education and/or research purposes. Position and Adoption Speed Justification: CaaS or cloud HPC is a natural extension of grid computing for many higher education institutions, and some grid-computing implementations border on the concept of the "private cloud" even today. Many institutions also collaborate in the HPC area and have already established a "shared-service model" today. This means that cultural acceptance for CaaS is likely to be high. Further advantages include the classic "cloudonomics" such as electricity and cooling savings, pay as you go, and rightsizing, as well as the usual drawbacks in issues around intellectual property (IP) protection, privacy, backup and so on. But the most interesting effect is how CaaS is increasing the availability of HPC to smaller institutions and even to students. Altogether, this merits a relatively advanced position on this year's Hype Cycle and a relatively quick adoption speed. A good example of the impact to the education community is North Carolina State University's use of an IBM cloud to extend its "virtual computing lab" concept (see vcl.ncsu.edu). This shows how a virtualization effort designed to meet students' and researchers' needs could easily be extended into the cloud, increase availability and decrease cost. Initial calculations based on 7 million HPC CPU hours and 300,000 non-HPC hours during 2008 indicated that a CPU hour cost of 27 cents could be reduced to 10 to 15 cents per CPU hour. Developments during the year include the U.S.-based National Science Foundation's partnership with Microsoft to make its newly launched Azure platform available for research projects. The fact that some of the grants available are used to "advance cloud computing itself" shows that we are still at near-peak behavior. User Advice: To move to CaaS, institutions need to understand their current total cost of ownership (TCO) and risk level, and they must conduct due diligence to check up on the intended provider (irrespective of it being a nonprofit shared-service consortium or a commercial vendor) on such issues as IP, privacy, storage and backup. CaaS options are most valuable for institutions that face special circumstances, such as short-term projects, variable computing demand and limitations in power grids (such as in downtown London). Institutions that are involved in CaaS often, but not always, need to combine it with storage as a service. Business Impact: The impact on higher education is potentially transformational, as it puts more computing power in the hands of more students and researchers. The convenience factor is high and will probably lead to increased collaboration around computing-intense research and education. If it can also be combined with subject-specific services, such as Gaussian as a service (for molecular calculations), and support from parallelization expertise for optimizing the code for the cloud, it has the potential of speeding up research cycles and increasing accessible data volumes tremendously. Benefit Rating: Transformational Market Penetration: 1% to 5% of target audience Sample Vendors: Amazon.com; Google; IBM; Microsoft
Analysis By: Van Baker; Angela McIntyre; Roberta Cozza Definition: A media tablet is a device based on a touchscreen display (typically with a multitouch interface) whose primary focus is the consumption of media. Examples of media include Web pages, music, video and games. The device can also facilitate content entry via an on-screen keyboard, a hardware-based slide-out keyboard, or one that is part of a clamshell design. The device has a screen with a diagonal dimension that is a minimum of five inches and may include screens that are as large as is practical for handheld use, roughly up to 15 inches. The media tablet runs an operating system that is more limited than, or a subset, of the traditional fully-featured operating systems, such as Windows 7. Alternatively, it may be a closed operating system under the control of the device manufacturer; examples include Android, Chrome and Apple's iOS 4. The media tablet features wireless connectivity with either Wi-Fi, WAN or both, a long battery life and lengthy standby times with instant-on access from a suspended state. Examples of media tablets are the Apple iPad and the Joo Joo tablet. Position and Adoption Speed Justification: It is tempting to assume that with the launch of the iPad and all the hype leading up to this launch that the media tablet is at or beyond the Peak of Inflated Expectations, but this is not the case. There are many products planned for launch later in 2010 and there seems to be focus building around Android in addition to Apple's iPad. In addition, at Computex, we saw tablets running Windows 7, Windows-Embedded and MeeGo. Due to the impending launch of platforms that are competitive to the iPad in the media tablet market, there is plenty more competition and hype for the platform to come. Additionally, this device category has the potential to be disruptive to handheld consumer electronics, especially e-readers and portable media players, as well as to the personal computer market. One criticism of media tablets is the issue of unintended touches but there are technologies that can address this problem and reduce their recognition. User Advice: The media tablet offers an attractive alternative to mini-notebooks and ultra-thin and light notebooks for consumers that are more focused on content consumption than content creation. In many cases as the technology improves, the media tablet should offer stronger capabilities for content creation such as photo and video editing. In the three year time frame, media tablets will be used in business mainly for customer-facing roles; for example, by sales to give presentations to clients, by realtors, and by executives. They will be managed by enterprise in a method similar to smartphones. The adoption of multitouch technology in both the smartphone and media tablet categories will bring multitouch adoption and frequent usage to two of the most popular devices that consumers carry. This should accelerate the adoption of both smartphones and media tablets. The proliferation of multitouch on consumer devices will put additional pressure on the PC industry to offer multitouch technologies in all-in-one desktops, mini-notebooks, notebooks, primary and secondary displays. This disruption could extend not only to multitouch controls, but also to the industrial design of all the product categories mentioned. The adoption of tablet PCs, which run a full version of an OS, such as Windows 7, and other PCs with touch will be stifled by the lack of productivity software that incorporates touch in ways that significantly enhance the user experience or improve productivity. Manufacturers in the consumer electronics, personal computing and communications industry should offer incentives for software developers to offer applications designed around touch that creates a superior user experience and makes content creation easier. Manufacturers can help drive forward standards for touch interfaces to ensure consistency across applications and platforms. They should move aggressively with new media tablet and consumer electronic product designs, but be cautious about offering PCs with touch for business use due to the lack of touch-based productivity software. Enterprise IT architects should prepare for media tablets to come into the enterprise with their consumer employees and apply the managed diversity model for these devices. Media tablets should also be considered for business-to-consumer applications for delivering content, providing high-quality graphics in a sales situation and/or where customer engagement is required for navigating through marketing materials. Business Impact: The adoption and use of multitouch media tablets in addition to smartphones has the potential to disrupt the overall computing industry including product design centers, software, controls and user interface design. If the most commonly used consumer devices are driven by simple user interfaces with touch controls, then there will be pressure on the traditional personal computing market to move away from the mouse and keyboard design center that has been the central control model since the graphical user interface arrived. Media tablets in conjunction with smartphones have the potential to fundamentally change the personal computer use model in the longer term. This impact extends to the user interface and performance expectations such as instant on. Media tablets will also impact handheld devices with applications where small screens are a serious constraint. Benefit Rating: Transformational Market Penetration: Less than 1% of target audience Sample Vendors: Apple; Dell; Lenovo
Analysis By: Brian Prentice Definition: Social-data portability encompasses the technology, semantic standards and intellectual property (IP) issues associated with data emanating from social-networking applications. It is important in establishing the mechanisms that allow individuals or organizations to control where their personal information is stored and how it is used, and greatly adds to the convenience of use, avoiding social-data duplication and managing multiple logins. Social-data portability is tied closely to persona management, also covered in the Hype Cycle on Social Software. There is a growing view that the data emanating from and flowing through social-networking applications should not be bound to proprietary social graphs — that is, the data models (or representational maps of the relationships among people in a specific context) implicit in social platforms and social-networking applications such as Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn. Social-data portability is an emerging set of standards to achieve that objective. Examples include OpenID (a framework for representing user-centric digital identification), Attention Profiling Mark-up Language (APML; used to consolidate and aggregate individual user's ranked interests), and Outline Processor Markup Language (OPML; used for the exchange of reading lists between Really Simple Syndication [RSS] and Atom news readers). Social-data portability should not be confused with social-network interoperability, which is focused on shared functional capabilities and data transfer between social-networking sites. Social-data portability involves data formats that should act as key enablers of more-effective interoperability. Critically, these control mechanisms must also evolve to support privacy (which will have global variances because of differing legal and cultural requirements). Individuals and organizations should be allowed to revoke access to a piece of data anytime after it has been transferred. Thus, social-data portability isn't just an issue of whether these standards are supported, but also whether the service-level agreements of social-networking sites support the broader spirit and objective of having these sites in the first place. Position and Adoption Speed Justification: At the center of social-data portability are the machinations of the social-networking vendor community. On the surface, the idea that the data resulting from an individual's association with, or contribution to, a social-networking environment should be controlled by that individual is hardly contentious. But for organizations whose commercialization model and corporate values are tied to hegemony over the social graph, such data is a distinct problem. The challenge for many social-software providers is to be seen as being open and interoperable, while maintaining a role as the people's central repository for personal information. Users did not see this balancing act as a problem until the high-profile misstep of Facebook's Beacon advertising strategy of 2007, and the related controversy in 2009 over Facebook's terms of service data ownership rights. Now, the risks associated with proprietary control of an ever-increasing social graph are more accurately understood. The result is more discussion of about how to scale social networking without creating longer-term dependencies on third parties for access to the underlying data. That discussion is being driven by groups such as the DataPortability Project (www.dataportability.org), and is being manifested in a range of open technologies, such as OpenID, OAuth, APML and OPML. How social-software sites accommodate these open standards is still an evolving issue. The case of OpenID is instructive of the challenges. Participating in the OpenID framework can be done either as an "issuing party," a "relying party" or, ideally, both. An issuing party just makes user accounts OpenID-compatible, while relying parties allow users to sign on to their sites with credentials from other issuing parties. Although there has been significant support for OpenID, many organizations only want to participate as issuers. Doing so allows their users to logon to all replying parties, while requiring newcomers to still register directly on their own environments. Social-networking vendors are applying a range of different approaches. Google brought two key technologies to market — OpenSocial (a set of APIs that any site can implement to create a common set of functional capabilities) and Friend Connect (a way to uniformly present and provide access to the repositories of social data). Facebook Connect is a set of APIs that allows authentication, identity management, friend access and privacy services. Because of Facebook's dominant position in social networking, many sites, such as Hulu, Digg and CBS.com, support Facebook Connect. MySpace has a similar strategy, called MySpaceID. Another interesting development is Diaspora. An alternative approach to sites like Facebook, Diaspora is based on the idea of independently owned data stores that exchange data using many of these protocols (OpenID, OAuth, APML and OPML, etc.). While a technically sophisticated strategy, it remains to be seen whether Diaspora will gel into a meaningful product or whether enough people will gravitate to it. User Advice: CIOs and IT leaders will need to determine how social networks could potentially integrate into their broader enterprise information management strategies. They will need to develop plans for social-data portability to complement their social-media policies. When it comes to social networking, enterprise IT still remains focused on whether access to external sites should be allowed, the impact of the sites on productivity and whether to consider social-networking solutions from enterprise technology providers like IBM, Microsoft or Oracle. Social-data portability has mostly been of interest to segments of the vendor community directly engaged in delivering social-networking solutions, along with advocacy groups such as the DataPortability Project. This exposes a common shortcoming of enterprise IT organizations — a penchant to focus on specific products and vendors, rather than on the opportunities and risks associated with disruptive technologies. In the case of social computing, the asset and, hence, the control point, is not the application or the site, but is the social map behind it. Products, therefore, are far less important than data. As enterprise IT organizations begin seeing social networking more as a set of collaboration patterns to exploit, rather than as just a set of products to manage, they will need to focus their attention on ensuring social-network integration into broader enterprise information management strategies. The ability to freely move social-networking data around will be critical to realizing those efforts. Business Impact: Social-data portability will enable organizations to explore the potential of new social-oriented solutions without having to be overly prescriptive about which sites end users can access. This is important, because organizations will likely have to embrace their employees' use of external social-networking sites and applications. Additionally, if there is a need to build intercompany or interorganizational social graphs, then enterprise IT organizations can avoid problems emanating from the efforts of walling off their social graphs. Market Penetration: 5% to 20% of target audience
Web-Based Office Productivity Suites Analysis By: Michael Silver; Tom Austin Definition: Office productivity suites are generally collections of basic productivity applications for tasks such as word processing, spreadsheet manipulation and presentation graphics. Traditionally, suites such as Microsoft Office, Corel WordPerfect and OpenOffice.org are fat-client applications that require millions of bytes of installed code maintained on users' PCs. The Web paradigm enables personal content creation and editing support services to be provided, using a rich-client experience that does not require explicit delivery and maintenance of the software by the enterprise. New features, such as real-time collaboration, may also be enabled. Real-time collaboration enables many people to simultaneously edit the same section(s) of a single document, typically keeping track of (and almost instantly showing) changes made by every contributor in the document. Position and Adoption Speed Justification: Here, we consider productivity functions, such as word processing and spreadsheets, although some of these products also offer hosted e-mail. Office productivity products have been available on the Web for more than four years. These applications generally do not approach the level of functionality of full-function, fat-client suites (such as Microsoft Office); however, they provide a relatively small, task-specific function set. Google Apps Premium Edition (GAPE) is being adopted, largely for Gmail, but customers are likely to experiment with Google Docs for certain users. Microsoft recently shipped Office 2010, which includes a Web version (Office Web Apps) that maintains good compatibility with Microsoft Office, but with a much smaller feature set than the installed fat-client version. Office Web Apps is free for consumers, but enterprises must purchase full Office 2010 Standard or Professional Plus licenses to get access to Office Web Apps. It is not available for purchase separately, although we predict it will eventually be available as part of Microsoft's Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS) for hosted Exchange and SharePoint. Individual users have been using free, consumer-grade versions to augment, rather than replace, functionality in traditional office suites (such as for real-time collaboration). Offline functionality and other features continue to be added by all vendors. At least 20 vendors offer some type of Web-based productivity suite, with Zoho and Adobe's Acrobat Online as additional examples. As functionality improves, Web-based office productivity applications will make the traditional versions of Microsoft Office relatively less important, as users rely on them for less time each week. User Advice: Web-based products are not an adequate replacement for Microsoft Office for all users and will not be anytime soon. However, some users will not need the richness of Microsoft Office. The critical issue is determining who can survive with Web-based tools, who requires installed Microsoft Office, and whether the complexities involved in supporting Web-based suites and locally installed versions of Microsoft Office simultaneously are worthwhile. Google Docs will challenge installed versions of Microsoft Office in those enterprises where a substantial proportion of users can get their jobs done without Microsoft Office. There are four areas to test regarding user segmentation. Web-based suites may suffer in comparison to installed versions of Microsoft Office in feature-richness, round-trip fidelity, extensibility and offline operation:
Feature richness — Users who require a large number of features or the more-advanced features of Microsoft Office may not be able to run an alternative product. Roundtrip fidelity — With any alternative product, every time a document is edited with a product other than the one in which it was created, inconsistencies are introduced, especially with visual fidelity. Extensibility — Many organizations run multiple applications that integrate with Microsoft Office. Office is a development platform, and few independent software vendors integrate with alternative office solutions. Offline operation — Web-based products offer varying degrees of offline capability. Google recently introduced a new version of Docs that removed offline capability. Users who are not deskbound will require offline capability (or ubiquitous network access) before a Web-based product can replace Microsoft Office. Audit the degree to which other applications (such as CRM and ERP) provide Microsoft Office macros to facilitate interacting or integrating with those applications via an Office tool. Determine what Office application user segments do not require the use of those macros. End-user experimentation with these tools is taking place. Give your users guidelines on practicing safe experimentation (whether at work or not). Encourage them to share their findings with you, including their best and worst practices. Appoint a champion of freeware (and software as a service) to track these trends and ensure that the enterprise experiments with and implements such software where appropriate. Business Impact: A new generation of productivity applications could significantly change how users collaborate on projects, and how organizations pay for, deploy and manage office productivity services. Web-based products provide access from a greater variety of devices, and organizations may be able to offload the maintenance of these applications. Market Penetration: Less than 1% of target audience Sample Vendors: Adobe; Google; Zoho Recommended Reading: "When to Consider Alternatives to Microsoft Office" "The State of Google Apps"
Lecture Capture and Retrieval Tools Definition: Lecture capture and retrieval tools are two sets of complementary tools often presented as a set. Lecture capture tools perform live recordings of a lecture, including voice and relevant visual material, in as complete a manner as possible. Lecture retrieval tools aid the student in retrieving the whole lecture, or the parts of the lecture relevant to their learning needs. Position and Adoption Speed Justification: Although several proven solutions are on the market and more institutions send out requests for proposals (RFPs), the breakthrough in adoption is not yet here. Teacher push-back is likely to be the main issue in speed of adoption. User Advice: User acceptance is key to deployment, in terms of functionality and teachers' acceptance of being recorded. Pilot implementations with thorough evaluation and stakeholder involvement are a must. Evaluation must include: (1) ease of use and convenience for teachers; and (2) ease of deployment, as well as search/indexing and "play-back" functionality for students. Beware of the social and behavioral issues with these solutions. Initially, there will most likely be some push-back from faculty not being accustomed to or not wanting to be recorded. This "people issue" has to be addressed seriously. However, it can be expected that younger generations (both teachers and students) will become increasingly accustomed to peer-created content and realize that recorded lectures should not be compared to Hollywood production standards. Expectations will then focus on the learning qualities rather than the production qualities. Consider statistical functions helping to monitor student usage coupled to, for example, student result and student retention. Consider software as a service (SaaS) solutions to minimize storage implications. Business Impact: Lecture capture and retrieval tools have tentatively been shown to have some effect on student grades and retention, and they promise to be important pedagogical tools. The ability to index lectures and the ability to offer playback of selected passages have proven key to these positive results. However, they are just two of many tools that are needed, and they can never replace good teaching. They can only extend its reach. Additional practical benefits include a new option for students to make up planned or unplanned absence. This is particularly important in K-12. Market Penetration: 1% to 5% of target audience Sample Vendors: Echo360; Panopto; Sonic Foundry; Tegrity; Winnov
Mobile-Learning Smartphone Analysis By: Nick Jones; Marti Harris Definition: This is mobile-learning (m-learning) or a learning administration application using smartphones (i.e., handsets with an identifiable operating system capable of supporting, installable applications). M-learning encompasses a very broad range of applications, including, but not limited to, media delivery (e.g., audio and video), exploratory learning using augmented reality, educational games, collaboration and project work, e-books, surveys, tests, data gathering, real-time feedback and simulations. Position and Adoption Speed Justification: In 2010, smartphones will constitute more than 40% of handset shipments in mature markets, such as Western Europe, growing to a range of 60% to 80% in mature markets in 2013. Advanced smartphones, such as the iPhone, have already been used for educational purposes. As smartphones become more capable and more numerous, their ubiquity, sophisticated features and flexibility will make them preferred m-learning tools in mature markets. Although a wide range of m-learning applications has been demonstrated, the domain is still the subject of active academic research — to understand what type of education is best delivered on mobile devices and how to integrate m-learning with traditional education. Through 2012, emerging smartphone applications, such as augmented reality viewers, smartphone e-book reader applications and scriptable mapping tools, will offer new delivery platforms for educational content. In the long term, technologies such as flexible screens will enable a wider range of portable m-learning devices. Inhibitors in 2010 include the immaturity of the domain, smartphone cost, device limitations, development of m-learning course material, lack of skills and the wide diversity of mobile devices. Through 2014, we expect that platform differences will impact m-learning delivery technologies on smartphones. Content delivery tools such as Flash or Silverlight may not be available on all platforms for example. Certain types of innovative applications may evolve more quickly on more-open platforms, such as Android, which impose less technical and commercial restrictions on developers. Higher education system providers for both administrative and learning systems are increasingly offering mobile applications, which is evidence of financial commitment from these providers to meet the requirements of the end users of higher education institutions. Android, iPhone and iPad applications from higher education providers are increasingly expected. User Advice: Many educational institutions have experimented successfully with some form of m-learning. Educators should look for simple applications that can deliver educational material or assist staff and students with administrative tasks, such as assignment reminders and booking resources. Educational institutions have the opportunity to increase the accessibility of learning content that not only better supports problem-based pedagogy, but also leads to better usage of "dead time" (for example, while commuting). The latter convenience is greatly appreciated by part-time learners, which tends to increase students' satisfaction and retention. Business Impact: Corporations and governments should explore the potential of m-learning for "just in time" training. Organizations and educational institutions creating or selling training and reference materials should explore the potential of mobile devices as delivery channels. Market Penetration: 1% to 5% of target audience Sample Vendors: Apple; Blackboard; OutStart; Tribal Software Recommended Reading: "M-Learning Opportunities and Applications" "Market Insight: Worldwide Opportunities for Consumer Mobile Applications in Education and Learning"
Analysis By: Jan-Martin Lowendahl Definition: Open-source higher education financial applications are developed via open-source or community source models. Position and Adoption Speed Justification: Open-source solution financial projects have the potential to be part of a nonproprietary and highly customizable higher education administrative application suite or a best-of-breed financial solution. Process, integration and support issues are beginning to find their form, but still need to prove themselves on a larger scale. The Kuali Financial System (KFS) is executing well on its road map, and a major milestone was reached with Colorado State University's and San Joaquin Delta College's successful implementations of KFS 3.0 in 2009. The traditional strong points of open-source software (OSS) with readily available support (provided there is critical mass of skill in the community) proved to be true. However, now that the initial hype and "new project enthusiasm" have subsided, it is crucial that the Kuali Foundation can maintain momentum and critical mass in relation to expected growth. This situation, together with the decision by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to close its OSS-specific grants program, leads us to position this technology as past the Peak of Inflated Expectations. The community source software movement keeps maturing, and the commercial support ecosystem (while not as developed) is slowly expanding. Interest in OSS in general continues to be high, and successful marketing from the Kuali Foundation, in particular, continues to draw interest and results in overall expansion of the modules in the Kuali suite. All are good indicators of continued progress toward a sustainable community. We are waiting for the inevitable implementation and/or maintenance failure that will bring that frustrating experience to the Kuali Foundation, but that will be crucial for maturing the OSS project and moving it past the Trough of Disillusionment. KFS and Kuali Coeus are still the most mature examples in this OSS administrative suite and are moving faster than other modules at the moment. Altogether, this results in another relative leap this year on the Hype Cycle for OSS Financial Systems, relative to OSS Student Information Systems (SISs), which have yet to go into production. User Advice: Open-source solutions for financials are still at an early stage, and they should be monitored as a possible fit only for institutions that are capable of supporting in-house application development, as well as those that have no pressing need to change their solutions. When this is the case and the institutions have homegrown systems, they might consider joining the open-source community to see if they can contribute and prolong the lives of their current systems or replace them with the OSS version altogether. Institutions outside the U.S. should observe how national regulation and local accounting best practices affect the need for customization and maintenance. Smaller institutions and institutions outside the U.S., in particular, should watch for signs of a sustainable market for commercial support providers if they contemplate an OSS financial solution. With this large and complex OSS undertaking, it is critical that institutions have development OSS culture, software development and maintenance experience to draw on in order to keep risk levels under control. Business Impact: The area of financial administration and the areas of financial integration with other administrative applications will be affected, but as a whole, they will have a limited effect on the core mission of the institution's education and research. However, the benefit may increase if the Kuali Foundation continues to collect functionality that is very higher education-specific, such as grant management, through Coeus and the Library Management project Open Library Environment. Most notably, the Kuali Foundation has yet to make a decision on an HR module and is, therefore, not an option for institutions that want a full suite at the moment. An interesting effect that the popular OSS and community source projects have is to put commercial vendors under pressure to increase openness toward standards and flexibility in their migration paths by just offering an alternative to the previously rather homogeneous market. Market Penetration: Less than 1% of target audience Sample Vendors: Kuali Foundation Recommended Reading: "Open Source in Higher Education, 2008" "Gartner Higher Education Sourcing Survey 2009: What, How, How Much and Attitudes?"
Analysis By: Philip Allega Definition: This entry covers the overall hype of enterprise architecture (EA) frameworks in the marketplace. It is not about a single EA framework or the concept of an EA framework but about EA frameworks that are on offer in the marketplace for use by EA practitioners and EA programs. The content and structure of specific EA frameworks vary significantly from one another. Based on client inquiries and discussions, we find that approximately 80% of our clients are using multiple EA frameworks for inspiration and guidance. No universal EA framework exists in the market, and the hype surrounding all EA frameworks has only recently passed its crescendo at the Peak of Inflated Expectations. Gartner is currently tracking 76 publicly known EA frameworks. Consultancies, consortiums, advocates, profession representatives, evangelists and pundits promote many of these as requisite bodies of knowledge that, some suggest, represent the best practices in the successful creation and implementation of an EA program. Our research indicates that each of these is best viewed as inspiration to EA programs rather than aspiration, to be followed in exacting detail. We find that most organizations leverage a combination of frameworks by picking and choosing the elements, artifacts and practices that are the most important to reflect their business, IT and cultural needs. An EA framework addresses the process of creating the artifacts that illustrate the structure of an enterprise; the interdependencies and interrelationships of viewpoints (for example, business, information, technological and solution); and their fitness level relative to the current, target or future, and transitional states in light of business objectives, requirements or capabilities. Not all EA frameworks include a process for the creation and implementation of the artifacts and their use; however, it is generally understood that, when an EA program engages in the creation and implementation of EA, the taxonomical model that represents the structure and relationships of the enterprise is to be complemented by a process that supports artifact creation and consumption. The use of the term "framework" to indicate both a process for creating, using and governing EA and a taxonomical structure for the artifacts it creates continues to confuse many EA practitioners today. The existence of so many EA frameworks reflects the state of understanding of what EA means to EA practitioners. Those involved in promoting the concept, profession and recognition of what EA should mean to practitioners are shaped by market forces seeking commoditization and standardization of a common language, approach and terms of art to reference the concept of "enterprise architecture." The "birth" of the first "EA framework" is generally accepted to have occurred in John Zachman's seminal IBM Systems Journal article in 1987 entitled, "A Framework for Information Systems Architecture." Although now more than 20 years later, the low barriers to entry in the creation of a framework are evidenced in, for example, the recent work of the Enterprise Architecture Center of Excellence (EACOE) and its introduction of "The Enterprise Framework" in 2009, the introduction of the Pragmatic EA Framework (PEAF) in 2008, and the even less well-known Nightingale-Rhodes Enterprise Architecture Framework in recent years. The diversity in EA frameworks today reflects the monetization of market participants as practitioners seek a recognizable common language, process and artifacts to support EA programs. The challenges to EA framework consolidation or universal adoption are exacerbated by the existence of EA certification efforts that acknowledge an understanding or demonstrated prowess in a particular body of knowledge that may include one or more EA frameworks. It is in the best commercial interests of those making money from certifying a particular framework to continue their claims that their particular EA framework is "best." Market participants are not yet rewarded by adhering to a commonly accepted language, process or artifacts to support EA. Gartner classifies EA frameworks in the following categories (note: these are only examples, not a list of all possible frameworks):
Academic: Academic frameworks seek to teach best practices associated with the use and deployment of an EA framework, but they are not expected to be widely adopted or implemented. The Nightingale-Rhodes Enterprise Architecture Framework is an example, as well as the notion of EA Management Patterns as supported by the Technical University of Munich. Public sector: These are government derivative frameworks designed for public-sector consumption. Examples include the U.S. government's Federal Enterprise Architecture Framework (FEAF), the European Interoperability Framework (EIF) and the Nederlandse Overheids Referentie Architectuur (NORA). Defense: Defense entities have created their own approach to creating and implementing EA. Such examples include the U.S. Department of Defense Architecture Framework (DODAF), the U.K. Ministry of Defence Architecture Framework (MODAF), and Délégation Générale pour l'Armement's Atelier de Gestion de l'Architecture des systèmes d'information et de communication (AGATE). Industry-specific: Outside of government or defense, a well-known industry-specific EA framework is the enhanced Telecom Operations Map (eTOM) for the telecommunications industry. Vendor-specific: Commercial vendors also support their own approaches to EA. The Oracle EA Framework (OEAF) and the SAP EA Framework are common examples. Consortium: A consortium is a cooperative arrangement between groups, individuals, businesses or institutions. Common examples include The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF) and the Enterprise Architecture Body of Knowledge (EABOK), a guide to enterprise architecture produced by Mitre's Center for Innovative Computing and Informatics. Consultancy: Many commercial consultancies create, maintain and use their own EA frameworks during EA engagements. Examples include Capgemini, Logica and Atos Origin. Homegrown: End-user organizations also create their own EA frameworks to guide the process of creating and categorizing EA artifacts and their use. Examples include General Motors, Intel, Allstate and the London Underground's TRAK. Position and Adoption Speed Justification: Although approximately 80% of EA programs use an EA framework — indeed, some use more than one — we must caution that the variability in content and advice within the body of knowledge in each EA framework indicates that this profile's maturity is deemed as adolescent because:
Uptake of different EA frameworks has grown beyond the early adopters of initial EA frameworks. New entrants into the marketplace illustrate different beliefs as to how the process of EA should evolve, and how EA artifacts should be defined and categorized. There continues to be customization of EA frameworks to support the needs of EA practitioners and their EA programs. We have placed this entry at post-peak 20%, with the expectation that the understanding and acceptance of a common language and recognized artifacts and processes to the creation and implementation of EA are more than 10 years away from the Plateau of Productivity. Our reasoning for this position and adoption speed is as follows:
The myth that there can be one EA framework to solve all the needs of an EA program has only recently been exposed as false. Use of multiple EA frameworks by our clients indicates that EA practitioners are beginning to get weary of the hype associated with individual EA framework claims of being "the one" that will deliver EA value. The speed of universal consolidation remains slow, given that barriers to entry remain low and market participants are rewarded commercially. Market participants who monetize the use of particular EA frameworks in the marketplace have little, or no, incentive to change their perspective. Market forces of commoditization have yet to shake out the universal elements of EA frameworks, yet commoditization is inevitable. User Advice: Gartner recognizes that the existence of EA frameworks has been helpful in the adoption and implementation of EA programs. The proliferation of EA frameworks and their vociferous supporters have, unfortunately, been a deterrence to successful EA programs that have a positive impact on their organization. Our advice continues to be:
Realize that any particular EA framework should provide a consistent organizing structure for architectural concepts and should not simply be followed as a rigid process or set of rules. Evaluate framework choices early in the EA process. Weight the criteria according to the priorities of your enterprise. Choose source frameworks quickly, recognizing which one is primary as an input to the development and categorization of your EA artifact and your EA program. Modify and enhance the framework, as required, to support your EA program. Review and modify your framework periodically to ensure that it continues to meet your needs. Do not attempt to follow a single framework rigidly. Its job is to provide a consistent organizing structure for architectural concepts, and it should be used pragmatically. Business Impact: EA frameworks aid in setting a baseline of understanding about what may be helpful in the creation and implementation of an EA program. By themselves, they do not significantly improve the existence of an EA program or deliver value. We continue to see about 20% of our EA clients demonstrate high maturity, impact and value for EA with their organizations without an EA framework; thus, we cannot attribute EA program success to the existence of an EA framework alone. Our observations and research indicate that the hype of the term "EA framework" is more prevalent than market adoption and penetration of specific EA frameworks as exact recipes to an EA program's success. EA programs should continue to use caution in the selection and use of any one particular EA framework, seeking those parts of EA frameworks that support the scope and focus for their EA program today. Market Penetration: More than 50% of target audience Sample Vendors: Accenture; Atos Origin; Capgemini; Enterprise Architecture Center of Excellence (EACOE); Logica; MIT; Sogeti; The Open Group; Zachman International Recommended Reading: "Ten Criteria for Choosing an External Service Provider for Your EA Effort" "Toolkit: Selection Matrix for an Enterprise Architecture Framework" "Enterprise Architecture Frameworks: Just Choose One and Use It" "Architecture Framework Debates Are Irrelevant" "Clarifying the Difference Between Engineering and Architecting"
Analysis By: Bill Rust IV Definition: "E-textbooks" are defined as content that is delivered electronically on user devices. Unlike traditional print materials, e-textbooks can be edited to include up-to-date information, be assembled or disassembled to rearrange the sequence or to include content from other sources, offer multimedia representation of information and instructional exercises, and allow users to insert personal notes or diagrams as study aids. Position and Adoption Speed Justification: The momentum toward the adoption of e-textbooks comes from: (1) educators' view of digital content as a means of staying current in content areas and of keeping students engaged in learning activities; and (2) an increasing number of relatively inexpensive, small form-factor devices (either personally or institutionally owned) that are available for deployment in educational settings. State education agencies, such as California in the United States, have mandated or are considering requirements to replace print with digital content, and publishers are racing to get to market first. Single-purpose devices that serve as content readers for digitized text were in the vanguard, but e-textbooks on multipurpose devices (that is, with productivity and communication/collaboration tools) are more attractive options in the eyes of education technology leaders and pave the way for accelerated adoption. User Advice: The business case for e-textbooks becomes stronger as the capital cost of user devices decreases; support and infrastructure resources are put in place; and current content providers offer economic licensing agreements or get pushed aside by content providers willing to do so. Primary and secondary technology leaders should partner with curriculum planners to develop a business case that includes replacing print with e-content deployed to personally owned or assigned student devices. Institutions of higher education are likely to see wider adoption first in the use of e-textbooks that are electronic forms of print versions, because of the wider availability of applications for user devices and because the content selection process will not require change. Business Impact: E-textbooks will become the preferred content delivery mechanism throughout public and private education agencies and institutions. School organizations that currently provide text resources to students will be relieved of the liabilities of physical inventory, storage, distribution, repair (rebinding) and replacement due to loss. The conflux of decreases in device cost, the availability of multiple device form factors that can put e-textbooks in the hands of users, and consumer adoption of similar technologies is driving adoption. Market Penetration: 1% to 5% of target audience Sample Vendors: Amazon.com; McGraw-Hill
Unified Communications and Collaboration Analysis By: Jeffrey Mann Definition: Unified communications and collaboration (UCC) describes the combination of communications capabilities with collaboration technologies. Until fairly recently, the technologies and vendors for enterprise communications and collaboration were fairly distinct, with telephony and networking product vendors comprising the former and software companies like Microsoft and IBM dominating the latter. That cozy distinction has eroded dramatically because Microsoft and IBM offer voice and telephony features and vendors like Cisco have moved aggressively into the collaboration market. In most organizations, those IT staff responsible for managing and defining the needs of collaboration tools are different to those managing and defining the needs of communications tools. Unified communications (UC) is a closely related term, describing a similar phenomenon, where communications technologies extend into some areas of collaboration, either by integration or by offering those capabilities directly. UCC is newer and less developed than UC, but has the potential to go much further toward realizing transformational changes. Mashups, portal consoles, application programming interfaces, Web services and packaged clients will enable communications and collaboration services to be blended into a mix that includes e-mail, Really Simple Syndication feeds, social networks, calendars, blogs, tasks, wikis, personal profiles and discussion forums. Position and Adoption Speed Justification: As UCC represents the merging of formerly fairly distinct marketplaces, there is a lot to work out before it can be considered well understood or mature. The current period sees vendors jockeying for position to gain influence over end users, leading former partners increasingly to become fierce competitors. Vendors add functionality to their product suites, which overlap or compete directly with other products brought in-house for completely different reasons. For example, Microsoft's Office Communications Server is used primarily as an instant messaging platform, but also includes voice, telephony and Web conferencing functionality, features that many organizations have already acquired from other vendors. They must decide whether to accept the overlap, drop the incumbent supplier or integrate them. Over the past decade, disparate organizational functions have been merged together in a sometimes turbulent mix, with either two disparate IT sub-departments or an IT department (typically charged with collaboration and end-user productivity) and the communications infrastructure group (responsible for telephony and networking) being restructured into a single operating unit. End-user organizations are coming under pressure as IT sub-departments responsible for communications increasingly conflict with the people responsible for collaboration. We regularly hear customers complaining, "Why are they bringing in new voice services when we already have that covered?" or conversely, "Why won't they let us use the cool facilities built into these tools?" These tensions will have to be resolved and new market "norms" will need to be established before it becomes clear what the balance will be between UC and UCC in the marketplace. Collaboration vendors will have a hard time meeting the quality and robustness of traditional communications vendors as they add these capabilities to their products, just as communications vendors are finding it a challenge to understand user interface issues and how people work. For the moment, seamless UCC remains an aspiration for most suppliers. However, the potential benefits of UCC make it a worthwhile exercise. Shifting seamlessly between a variety of communications and collaboration modalities increases productivity and end-user satisfaction. Consumerization is also driving user expectations in this area. Facebook, Skype and Yahoo can mix communications and collaboration, so why can't enterprise vendors? In 2010, the UCC concept has gained wider recognition, but its impact on buying behavior has been limited. Users see the potential benefits of combining these naturally related technologies, but hesitate to actually do so or to consolidate their offerings to one vendor. Cost, fear of complexity and lack of a compelling business case driving to act now have proven to be important inhibitors. User Advice: Ensure that the different IT sub-departments involved are aware of each others' plans and are communicating effectively. Creating a joint task force to develop a UCC strategy made up of communications, network and collaboration people, as well as representatives from management and lines of business, has proven to be effective in reducing interdepartmental friction. Evaluate whether users need or even want the new capabilities. UCC capabilities often sound fascinating, but sometimes can be a "solution looking for a problem." Ensure that the organization will benefit in concrete, preferably measurable ways from the new capabilities. Resist the temptation to deploy capabilities just because they are included in the next upgrade. Introducing UCC too quickly could outstrip the ability of end users to assimilate the changes in work processes and even simple tasks. Communicating and collaborating are fundamental to most business processes. Do not mess them up for end users with unwanted complexity and unnecessary change. To become more familiar with the possibilities and prove the value of UCC, look for groups of users who already understand the potential benefits and business cases which provide the clearest path to a measurable return to start with. These test cases can help build the case for more widespread deployment. Business Impact: Users expect to be able to employ an integrated set of collaboration tools, escalating to the highest value combination of interactive services — both inside and outside the firewall, and including fixed and wireless networks — for the business task at hand. Presence services will be a vital unifying tool, enabling users to "right-click" on a name and invoke a variety of collaboration mechanisms. Shared team spaces will provide temporary and persistent repositories for interactions. These capabilities will be available as a complete stack from several vendors, which currently only provide point solutions, as vendors expand their offerings. Standards-driven integration will make even more combinations possible, beyond relying on a single vendor product stack. The value to organizations will be realized in several ways. First will be the simplified and more effective use of the increasingly broad range of collaboration and communication options. Second will be the improved ability of individuals and groups to accelerate reactions to market events. Third will be the efficiency gains via the contextual embedding of communication services into applications at points where, for example, process disconnections occur and human intervention is necessary. Identifying the potential value of UCC is easy. What organizations will struggle with is quantifying the benefits and calculating returns on investment. Companies may need to eschew traditional return on investment mechanisms and look for alternative, less-quantifiable means to justify UCC investments, such as process cycle acceleration, faster problem remediation, increased information awareness and inclusion of more internal and external resources in planning processes. Benefit Rating: Transformational Market Penetration: 1% to 5% of target audience Sample Vendors: Cisco; Google; IBM (Lotus); Microsoft Recommended Reading: "The New Market for Unified Communications and Collaboration" "VoiceCon 2009 UCC Trends: IBM and Microsoft Emerge to Threaten Communications Titans" "Critical Capabilities for Enterprise Instant Messaging and Presence" "Key Issues for Unified Communications, 2010"
Analysis By: Jeffrey Mann Definition: "Microblogging" is the term given to a narrow-scope mode of social communication pioneered by the social network site Twitter.com and followed by similar services from Plurk, Yammer, Socialcast and Identi.ca. The concept is surprisingly simple: users publish a one-line status message to their contacts, who have decided to follow their activities on the service. Users can see the collected statuses of the people they choose to follow. Even those who do not want to follow many people can search through the microblogging stream for topics or tags they are interested in. Trending topics provide a condensed view of what everyone on the service is talking about. The content of status messages (called "tweets" on Twitter) ranges from the mundanely trivial ("I am eating eggs") to a random insight ("I think blogging is our online biography in prose, and Twitter is the punctuation") to a reaction to an event ("A passenger plane just landed on the Hudson River!"). Twitter's dominance has led to the practice being called "twittering" but it is also referred to as microblogging to broaden the focus from a single vendor, as well as to point out how this style of communication has augmented and partially replaced blogging. Even though it superficially resembles instant messaging (IM), tweets are published to a group of interested people, making it more similar to blogging than the person-to-person nature of IM. The trendsetting Twitter system intentionally constrains messages to 140 characters, which is what can be sent via a Short Message Service text message on a mobile phone. This simple constraint enhances the user experience of those who consume this information. Tweets are small tidbits of information, easily digested and just as easily ignored, as the moment dictates. Other intentional constraints are designed to provide a high-impact user experience through minimalist design: no categories, no attachments, no scheduled postings. These constraints are a matter of some debate among users, leading Twitter to add more functionality in the last year (groups or lists, trending topics and retweets). Competitors offer more full-featured alternatives (Plurk, FriendFeed) or open-source approaches (such as Identi.ca based on Status.Net), but have not been able to challenge the dominance of Twitter in the consumer market. One key factor behind Twitter's success over its competitors has been its early offering of an application programming interface to third-party developers. This has led to dozens of packages that enable users to access the Twitter service and post content, either through a mobile device or a more full-featured desktop client. Examples include Seesmic, TweetDeck, Twitterific and TwitterBerry. These third-party packages can provide offline capability, as well as features that fill in the gaps of Twitter's online offering. Twitter recently offered its own BlackBerry client as well. Twitter's open nature makes it largely unsuitable for internal use within enterprises or for confidential communications with partners, leaving an opportunity for new offerings. Services including salesforce.com's Chatter, Yammer, Socialcast and Present.ly provide microblogging services aimed at individual companies, with more control and security than the public services like Twitter provide. Microblogging is also quickly becoming a standard feature in enterprise social software platforms, such as Socialtext, Microsoft SharePoint 2010, IBM Lotus Connections and Jive SBS. By 2011, some form of enterprise microblogging will be a standard feature in 80% of the social software platforms on the market. Position and Adoption Speed Justification: Microblogging in general, and Twitter in particular, continue to gain in popularity, becoming a widely-recognized part of popular culture. A planned maintenance shutdown for Twitter became an international political issue when scheduled during an election crisis in Iran. The volume of Twitter traffic makes it valuable as a real-time news feed. Major events are almost always signaled first on Twitter before the traditional media can respond. This high profile has led many organizations to question whether they should be using Twitter or other microblogging platforms for communication between employees or to communicate with customers and the public. Many companies have expanded their Web participation guidelines for employees to include microblogging alongside the more traditional blogging and community participation. With wide adoption comes the inevitable backlash. Microblogging's superficiality and potential for time-wasting have led many to dismiss it as a passing fad, which is typical of a post-peak Hype Cycle position. Twitter has worked to stabilize its technology and reduced many (but by no means all) of the service interruptions that previously plagued the system. Twitter problems are announced by the appearance of the "fail whale" graphic on Twitter's home page, a term that has received wide public adoption. Twitter's dominance has made it difficult for competitors to gain a foothold, although enterprise suppliers such as Yammer and salesforce.com's Chatter have had some success. Several companies in the young microblogging space have already disappeared, including Quotably, Swurl and Pownce. Summize was acquired by Twitter, FriendFeed by FaceBook and Ping.fm by Seesmic.
Adopt social media sooner rather than later, because the greatest risk lies in failure to engage and being left mute in a debate in which your voice must be heard. Before using social media to communicate, listen to the channel, learn the language and become familiar with the social norms. Only then should you begin speaking. As with any other language, good results are achieved with regular, consistent practice, rather than with spotty participation. Remind employees that the policies already in place (for example, public blogging policies, protection of intellectual property and confidentiality) apply to microblogging as well. It is not always necessary to issue new guidelines. As Twitter is a public forum, employees should understand the limits of what is acceptable and desirable. Business Impact: Despite its popularity, microblogging will have moderate impact overall on how people in organizations communicate and collaborate. It has earned its place alongside other channels (for example, e-mail, blogging and wikis), enabling new kinds of fast, witty, easy-to-assimilate exchanges. But it remains only one of many channels available. Microblogging has greater potential to provide enterprise value than these other channels by coordinating large numbers of people and providing close to real-time insights into group activities. These mass-coordination and mass-awareness possibilities are being explored by some early adopters, but have not achieved wide adoption. Market Penetration: 5% to 20% of target audience Sample Vendors: Blogtronix; Identi.ca; Jaiku; salesforce.com; Seesmic; Socialcast; Socialtext; Tweet Scan; Twitter; Yammer Recommended Reading: "Four Ways in Which Enterprises are Using Twitter" "Twitter for Business: Activity Streams Are the Future of Enterprise Microblogging" "Case Study: Social Filtering of Real-Time Business Events at Stratus With Salesforce.com's Chatter" "Should Retailers Use Twitter?"
Virtual Environments/Virtual Worlds Analysis By: Marti Harris Definition: Virtual environments are online platforms in which participants are immersed in a three-dimensional representation of a virtual space. Position and Adoption Speed Justification: The current limitations of virtual environments — such as network and grid scalability; English-only language for the end-user interface; and relatively high-cost hardware components, such as processors, graphical boards and network access bandwidth for good performance — restrict the adoption to a niche audience. However, as the price of entry for those prerequisites decreases, the technology matures, and global-class consumers and enterprises access and realize the value of using them, the pace of adoption will accelerate, and the number of initiatives on virtual environments will rapidly increase. Inhibitors to adoption, specifically for institutions, are related to the lack of collaboration tools, 3D modeling tools and integration with real-world educational applications. Virtual worlds, particularly Second Life, have found a faithful albeit relatively small niche in higher education, and most cases are subject-, course-, or research-specific usage rather than institutional adoption. User Advice: Evaluate the alignment between virtual environments, consumerization of IT, and your institution's research, teaching and learning goals. Identify the early adopters and easily attainable objectives, such as increasing faculty and student communication, collaboration and learning activities, because they've been the focus of short-term benefits for a long time. Use the "try before buying" strategy, experimenting with proven virtual environment platforms such as Entropia Universe and Second Life. Emerging integration developments between e-learning platforms and virtual-world environments continue. Stand-alone development of Second Life will be worth watching by institutions that require a stand-alone deployment. Business Impact: There will be effects on analysis, student performance, productivity and agility for knowledge transfer processes, teaching/learning and research support, decision support, training, R&D, intellectual capital management, and innovation. Market Penetration: 1% to 5% of target audience Sample Vendors: Croquet Consortium; Entropia Universe; Linden Lab
Analysis By: Brian Gammage; Mark Margevicius; Ronni Colville Definition: A hosted virtual desktop (HVD) is a full, thick-client user environment, which is run as a virtual machine (VM) on a server and accessed remotely. HVD implementations comprise server virtualization software to host desktop software (as a server workload), brokering/session management software to connect users to their desktop environment, and tools for managing the provisioning and maintenance (e.g., updates and patches) of the virtual desktop software stack. Position and Adoption Speed Justification: An HVD involves the use of server virtualization to support the disaggregation of a thick-client desktop stack that can be accessed remotely by its user. By combining server virtualization software with a brokering/session manager that connects users to their desktop instances (that is, the operating system, applications and data), enterprises can centralize user data and applications, and manage personalized desktop instances centrally. Because only the presentation layer is sent to the accessing device, a thin-client terminal can be used. For most early adopters, the appeal of HVDs has been the ability to "thin" the accessing device without significant re-engineering at the application level (as is usually required for server-based computing). Early adoption was hindered by licensing compliance issues for the Windows client operating system, but that has been resolved through Microsoft's Windows Virtual Enterprise Centralized Desktop program. Beginning in mid-2010, Microsoft will reduce the license cost premium of the Windows operating system for HVD installations and expand roaming rights, enabling an HVD image to be accessed from multiple devices for a single license fee. However, other technical issues must still be resolved before mainstream viability is reached. Improvements in the complexity of brokering software and remote-access protocols will continue to occur through 2011, extending the range of desktop applications and users that HVDs can address. Through 2011, broader manageability of HVD VMs will improve, as techniques to reduce HVD storage volumes (introduced in late 2008) lead to new mechanisms for provisioning and managing HVD images by segmenting them into more-isolated components (including operating systems, applications, persistent personalization and data). These subsequent manageability improvements will extend the viability of HVD deployments significantly beyond the structured task worker community, first to desk-based knowledge workers and then later to mobile/offline users. Since late 2007, HVD deployments have grown steadily, reaching around 1.5 million at the end of 2009. Because of the constraints previously discussed, broad applicability of HVDs has been limited to specific scenarios, primarily structured task workers in call centers, and kiosks, trading floors and secure remote access; about 50 million endpoints is the current target population. These deployments will continue to expand through year-end 2010. General deployments should begin shortly thereafter, driven by the expansion of implementations to the broader user population. Inhibitors to general adoption involve the cost of the data center infrastructure that is required to host the desktop images (servers and storage, in particular), network constraints, availability of the skills necessary to manage virtual desktops and the limited potential for operational cost savings (the users to whom HVDs are currently most applicable are already those who cost least to manage). HVDs promise to deliver diminishing marginal per-user costs, due to the high level of standardization and automation required for successful implementation, but this is currently only achievable for persistent users where images remain intact. As other virtualization technologies mature (e.g., brokers and persistent personalization), this restraint will be reduced. This creates a business case for organizations that adopt HVDs to expand their deployments, as soon as the technology permits more users to be viably addressed. However, the rate at which HVD technologies and products are improving also imposes cost penalties for early adopters. Enterprises that adopt HVDs aggressively will see later adopters achieve superior results for less cost, but will also need to migrate to new broker and complementary management software as products mature and standards emerge. This phenomenon is set to push HVDs into the Trough of Disillusionment in late 2010. User Advice: Unless your organization has an urgent requirement to deploy HVDs immediately for securing your environment or centralizing data management, wait until late 2011 before initiating deployments for mainstream desktop user scenarios. Through 2011, all organizations should carefully assess the user types for which this technology is best suited. You will need to balance the benefits of centralized management with the additional overhead of the infrastructure and resource costs. Customers should recognize that HVDs may resolve some management issues, but they will not become panaceas for unmanaged desktops. In most cases, promised reductions in total cost of ownership will not be significant and will require initial capital expenditures to achieve. The best-case scenario for HVDs continues to be for securing and centralizing data management or for structured task users. Organizations must optimize desktop processes, IT staff responsibilities and best practices to fit HVDs, just as organizations did with traditional PCs. Leverage desktop management processes for lessons learned. The range of users and applications that can be viably addressed through HVDs will grow steadily through 2011. Although the user population is narrow, it will eventually include mobile/offline users as well. Organizations that deploy HVDs should plan for growing viability across their user populations, but they should be wary of rolling out deployments too quickly. Diligence should be employed in testing to ensure a good fit of HVD capabilities with management infrastructure and processes. Visibility into future product road maps from suppliers is essential. Business Impact: HVDs provide mechanisms for centralizing a thick-client desktop PC without re-engineering each application for centralized execution. This appeals to enterprises on the basis of manageability and data security. Market Penetration: 1% to 5% of target audience Sample Vendors: Citrix Systems; NEC; Parallels; Red Hat; VMware
Global Library Digitization Projects Analysis By: Marti Harris Definition: Global library digitization projects are massive organizational initiatives that make research library collections globally accessible. Position and Adoption Speed Justification: The massive size of such a project means that implementation could take a decade, and publishers are concerned that copyright interpretation of "fair use" could delay progress. In addition to the legal issues, the global financial problems continue to have a negative effect on funding for such large, long-term projects, slowing progress. However, the need for access online rather than through more traditional interlibrary loan or travel for on-site use of core collections makes projects of this type promote increased return on investment. User Advice: These projects will deliver great academic value, but the projects are so large that technological changes must be expected during the span of project life cycles. Commitments to specific technologies could prove shortsighted. Business Impact: Affected areas that will benefit from access to large digitalized libraries include instruction, research, library collection development and e-learning. Market Penetration: Less than 1% of target audience Sample Vendors: Google; Yahoo
Analysis By: Marti Harris; Ron Bonig Definition: E-learning repositories are digital repositories for institutional sharing of e-learning content. They include multiple formats of digital learning types and are available either by subscription or by the institution joining a consortium. Faculty can use the content on file, peer review content or submit content for consideration. Position and Adoption Speed Justification: A number of the e-learning repository leaders connect to the most prevalent e-learning systems and can be referenced by users of the e-learning systems when building course content or learning/studying. Progress on standards will cause the pace of adoption to pick up, but faculty culture is still not attuned to reusable, object-level content. Even sharing of traditional course content within a department is not as prevalent as it could be. Perhaps the competitiveness of the tenure process leads to the, in effect, copyrighting of the leaning content. The e-learning repositories will give way to digital content repositories that are not for the sole purpose of holding learning content as more and various types of content will be incorporated into learning. User Advice: Consider e-learning repositories to increase the performance of other course management system applications. Look for providers with a track record of higher education integration with course management systems. An open-source e-learning solution interfaced with a consortium-driven e-learning repository would be a powerful and economical solution for higher education institutions. Business Impact: Affected areas include instruction, learning space and library management. Market Penetration: 5% to 20% of target audience Sample Vendors: Alfresco; Blackboard; DSpace; Giunti Labs; MERLOT; Nuventive; The Learning Edge
Analysis By: Jan-Martin Lowendahl Definition: Mashup software in higher education is simply that which brings functionality and/or data together from more than one source. The more formal Gartner definition is that a mashup is a lightweight, tactical presentation-layer integration of multisourced applications or content in a single, browser-compatible offering. It is a lightweight variant of the older notion of a composite application and the heavier service-oriented architecture orchestration approach to composite applications. In the usual use of the term, mashups are composite applications that are built on enterprise platforms, are internal-facing and are not necessarily Web-based. In contrast, the usual notion of a mashup is a Web-based application that leverages consumer-oriented sites for external-facing audiences. These original notions are being blurred as mashups move onto enterprise platforms, and composite applications swivel to face outward. Even within the enterprise, mashups partly rely on data and services from public websites, such as Google Maps, craigslist, eBay, Amazon.com and others. Because mashups leverage content and logic from other websites and Web applications, they're lightweight in implementation and are built with a minimal amount of code (which can be client-side JavaScript or server-side scripting languages, such as PHP or Python). These are not fixed requirements, but reflect the original implementation of the mashup concept in Web 2.0 startup companies, which typically do not use enterprise-oriented platforms, such as Java or .NET. Mashups exploit lightweight mechanisms, such as representational state transfer (REST)-based application programming interfaces (APIs), to public Web services, as well as Ajax "snippets" and "widgets." Mashups aren't intended to be strategic, systematically built, industrial-strength enterprise applications; rather, they're created quickly or opportunistically to meet a focused tactical need. Position and Adoption Speed Justification: Higher education has embraced mashups, and many institutions have some applications and/or projects that use mashups. Academic and administrative applications are likely to include mashups of some form as a normal way to link data and functionality to the application. Faculty and students are comfortable with mashups from the public Web, including videos and shared content, and often are promoting the use of mashups. The use of social networking software has also increased interest and trials of mashups in higher education. This latter trend especially has meant that mashups are generally leveraged for personal productivity needs rather than the requirements of a long-standing corporate role. This suits the academic culture perfectly. The context of mashups involves the confluence of many innovations: Web APIs, lightweight client-side scripting, delivery of content via Really Simple Syndication (RSS), wikis, Ajax, social networking and the explosion of Web-based communities. For a long time, the closest thing to mashup creation tools for "civilians" (users who do not write code) was an RSS feed reader or podcasting client, which enabled them to "mash" content from more than one site. That situation has improved manifold, with more-powerful tools (such as Yahoo Pipes, Microsoft Popfly and Google Mashup Editor). Altogether, this means a rather quick adoption in higher education that is closer to two years than five. User Advice: Higher education institutions are naturally being drawn to the use of mashups through student portals, social-networking software and academic content posted from multiple sources to course management and content management systems. Institutions must regularly review policies and practices to ensure that decisions about what institutional data or content should be locked down are made at the institutional, not individual, level and that institutional digital rights management (DRM) policies are enforced. Institutions must be prepared to make changes in practices, policies and mind-sets, which may take time to change or to get people to engage in institutional discussions. It is important to note that mashups add another layer of complexity with regard to data or source validation. This is especially important to highlight when using external data sources and when using for educational purposes. Business Impact: Mashups can be used effectively to bring content and functionality together with a low level of IT skills, thus improving flexibility and the time from idea to service. Market Penetration: 5% to 20% of target audience Sample Vendors: Adobe; Google; IBM; Microsoft; Oracle; Yahoo; YouTube
Hosted PC Virtualization Software Analysis By: Brian Gammage Definition: Hosted PC virtualization software enables a user to run multiple operating systems simultaneously on top of a single, host PC operating system. Position and Adoption Speed Justification: Hosted PC virtualization software is primarily used in niche applications to consolidate multiple operating environments onto a single PC. The virtualization software runs as an application on top of the PC's primary (host) operating system and enables the definition of one or more virtual machines (VMs). Despite market interest in using this approach to create a contained and managed environment on PCs owned by someone other than the enterprise (for example, employees and partners), adoption was inhibited by restrictions in Microsoft's Windows operating system licensing policies until January 2009. With successive changes to Microsoft's Virtual Enterprise Centralized Desktop (VECD) program, the cost of running an enterprise Windows VM on PC hardware owned by somebody else is decreasing, but most organizations still regard it as too costly. Thus, adoption of this approach is expected to remain centered only on certain groups of knowledge workers through 2012. Until 2006, hosted PC virtualization software was primarily employed by technical users, including software developers (to write and test code in separate environments on the same PC), academic institutions (consolidating access to multiple and disparate systems on a single terminal) and help desk personnel (to store copies of software environments for faster fault diagnosis). Since 2006, these users have been augmented by home users looking to run the Windows operating system as a VM on Apple computers. Through 2012, some organizations will use hosted PC virtualization to support legacy applications during operating system migrations. Microsoft has embraced this approach for its Windows 7 client operating system, by providing all users of Windows 7 Professional with access to a basic Windows XP VM (called XP Mode). Where Windows 7 is covered by an enterprise agreement (EA) or Software Assurance (SA), organizations can access a more functionally rich virtualization option — Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization (MEDV) — through the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP), which is an optional add-on subscription. Despite this broad availability and support from Microsoft, Gartner expects organizations to deploy legacy VMs sparingly during their Windows 7 migrations, due to the additional management overhead this incurs. The legacy VM approach will also be useful to organizations running applications that contain 16-bit code when moving to 64-bit versions of the Windows operating system. User Advice: Use hosted PC virtualization software to enable Windows migrations and user lockdown, but monitor licensing implications carefully and evaluate the additional overhead of managing twice as many Windows instances. Consider hosted PC virtualization software for technical users consolidating multiple environments onto a single machine (thereby reducing the total number of PCs in use) and as a mechanism for creating a managed environment on the unmanageable devices that rogue knowledge workers use. Business Impact: Hosted PC virtualization software can remove obstacles to operating system migrations for some organizations, and facilitate total cost of ownership savings through image standardization, improved manageability and easier lockdown. However, these savings will be achieved only when the technology is used to take control of software running on a previously unmanageable PC. Enterprises should be cautious about increasing overall PC management costs through the addition of logical PCs to be managed. By 2014, hosted PC virtualization software will be rendered obsolete for most of these applications by developments in PC hypervisors. Market Penetration: 1% to 5% of target audience Sample Vendors: Microsoft; Parallels; Sun Microsystems; VMware Recommended Reading: "Forecast for PC Virtualization"
Emergency/Mass Notification Software Analysis By: Roberta Witty; John Girard; Jeff Vining Definition: An emergency or mass notification service (EMNS) is the automated call-out to notify groups or individuals — disaster recovery teams, employees, citizens, residents, students/parents, customers, suppliers or government officials — and is critical for managing a crisis. In other words, these tools automate manual call processes (aka call trees). Not everyone is on duty when the incident occurs, but they must be notified to take action. EMNS offerings are tools focused on the electronic activation and management of notification messages, thus streamlining an organization's mass communications capability. The software can be used to organize contacts into an unlimited number of groups or subgroups; to send emergency messages (for example, announcing fires, power outages, natural disasters, severe weather conditions, volcanic ash events, terrorist attacks, hostage crises, bridge collapses, child abductions or criminal activity); and then to track receipts or responses for message delivery confirmation. Activation can be accomplished by logging onto a Web portal; accessing the system by a telephone or by calling the vendor's call center; and then securely sending a custom or previously crafted voice or text message to multiple endpoint devices, such as phones, PDAs, desktops, e-mail systems, fax machines, physical security systems or public announcement systems. EMNS software can send thousands of messages to endpoint devices simultaneously. However, there is no guarantee that the person to whom the endpoint device belongs actually receives the message due to the telecommunications infrastructure being used, as well as recipient issues — for example, not being properly trained to use the service, information overload during an event, not wanting to participate in the service and so forth. Position and Adoption Speed Justification: Critical incidents today range from localized events such as a fire or power outage to regional and catastrophic disasters such as earthquakes (Haiti and Chile), hurricanes/tsunamis and terrorist attacks. They don't have to cause major physical damage in order to have a major business interruption — for example, the 2010 Iceland volcanic ash event and the 2009 and 2010 H1N1 virus. As a result, organizations are increasingly implementing EMNS, thereby building a stronger crisis management program. The EMNS market is growing fast: 2009 revenue is estimated at $570 million, with median revenue growth of 37% and 29% for 2008 and 2009, respectively. Many vendors exist, and barriers to entry are few. In fact, many vendors expressed their concern about the lack of barriers to entry and the competitive pricing tactics that follow. Our first EMNS MarketScope focuses on enterprise-level offerings and has an overall rating of Positive. Organizations are recognizing that they can use EMNS for more than emergency/mass notification purposes, with the following being the six main use cases:
Emergency/crisis events that require stakeholder notification (workforce, customers, partners and so forth) Business operations notifications, such as workforce management roll call or mustering, call-outs to parents for absentee students, upcoming and special event announcements, important meeting reminders, and so forth Business context-based alerting that gets triggered from another business process (for example, checking account overdraft, late payment, flight delays, work availability options by locale — "Send Work Now," grade delivery, incoming injured patient and so forth) IT service alerting Reverse and enhanced public emergency call numbers (for example, 911 and E-911 in the U.S.) Public safety (for example, student tracking on a college campus) Organizations will expand their use of these offerings, thereby driving down the cost, making these offerings feasible for the smallest of organizations. No vendor has an offering that supports all use cases. The EMNS market addresses the first, second and third messaging use cases, with emergency/crisis event alerting being the primary reason for the use of these tools. Given the business evolution of a few of the EMNS vendors, some have their use cases and associated message volume just the reverse — business operations and context-based alerting are the primary uses of their tool. At present, there is some vendor overlap between the EMNS and communications-enabled business process (CEBP) markets through an EMNS product API for integration to a triggering business application. Gartner forecasts a growing relationship between the EMNS and CEBP markets within the next five years as alerting and notification of all kinds become routine. Many firms use multiple products to address all their alerting/notification needs. In some cases, these firms are looking to consolidate their vendor portfolio; however, when it comes to alerting that is triggered from a business application, it is not always possible to consolidate because of the complexity of the integration between the business application and the EMNS tool. User Advice: Review Gartner's "MarketScope for Emergency and Mass Notification Services"to understand the EMNS market before you start your own implementation. Use Gartner's EMNS RFP template ("Toolkit: Emergency/Mass Notification RFP Template") to develop your own EMNS RFP. Vendors focus on the following main markets: higher education (K-12 vendors specific to this market are not covered in the MarketScope), healthcare, government and private enterprise — regulated and not. Choosing a vendor that has experience in your market will result in a more-aligned offering to your business operations. Customers prefer a subscription-based or hosted solution, which means that the software and hardware necessary to operate the EMNS system are located off-site and accessed via a Web portal, desktop API or handheld device. Decide which approach is best for your own operations and security/privacy needs. EMNS pricing is competitive, but pricing models vary. Most are based on the number of contacts in the contact database, plus additional charges for message volumes per endpoint. E-mail messages tend to be unlimited; phone messages are usually restricted to a certain volume and price point; and proprietary SMS messages are priced like a cell phone call. Review and examine the types of use cases for which you will be using EMNS. Knowing all of the usage can help in product selection, as well as understanding pricing quotes among the vendors. Some EMNS vendors use resellers, such as telecommunications companies, to resell their products. For customers looking to expand their use cases beyond emergency notification, these resellers might be of interest, because some have an EMNS offering with unlimited messaging for all endpoints. However, the price may be beyond what some firms are willing to pay. Government organizations should not, for the sake of redundancy, opt to use multiple EMNS vendor technologies, because, when activated in unison, they have the potential to overload servers. Some of these systems can be linked to a geographic information system map interface to develop a more-targeted approach, such as a certain postal code or a neighborhood within a certain radius of a chemical spill. Carefully plan your enrollment procedure to ensure that all people needing to be contacted are included in the service and that their contact information is current and complete. Carefully plan the types, number and content of notification messages because:
Recipients of notification messages may ignore notices if too many are sent about the same event. Carrier-based character restrictions on text messaging make the formation of a meaningful message a challenge. During a regional disaster, don't overload the telecommunications infrastructure with needless messages. No vendor can ensure or guarantee message delivery — all they can prove is that message volume levels are leaving their system. EMNS prospects and vendors need to set realistic expectations regarding message volume for each endpoint — phone call, e-mail, SMS and so forth — and in the aggregate. If you want 24/7 availability of a service — and if the vendor has a business interruption such as a disaster, scheduled maintenance that runs over time, unscheduled maintenance and so forth, and a documented service-level agreement to go along with it — then you must validate your needs against the EMNS vendor's capability and delivery of that capability. At times, you might have to contract for it in addition to what the vendor provides in its base offering. EMNS users should apply a holistic analysis to SLAs and look for potentially unrecognized factors. Business Impact: The interest in and need for EMNS tools continue to grow among governments, private enterprises (regulated or not), educational institutions and operators of critical infrastructures. The use of EMNS reduces overall costs by consolidating functions and improves the capability to deliver and update uniform message delivery to targeted and mass groups. The business benefits of using an EMNS tool include:
Many key personnel can be notified in minutes. Management can focus on critical decision making and exception handling, instead of message delivery. Human error, misinformation, rumors, emotion and distraction, so often found during a crisis, are eliminated from automated EMNS communications. A documented notification audit log can be provided for real-time and post-event management. Market Penetration: 20% to 50% of target audience Maturity: Early mainstream Sample Vendors: Amcom Software; Amtelco; AtHoc; Benbria; Blackboard; Cooper Industries; Dell; Emergin; Enera; Everbridge; Federal Signal; FirstCall; Global AlertLink; MIR3; Omnilert; PlantCML; Rave Mobile Safety; ReadyAlert Services; Send Word Now; SpectraRep; SunGard Availability Services; Transformyx; Twenty First Century Communications; Varolii Recommended Reading: "MarketScope for Emergency and Mass Notification Services" "Toolkit: Emergency/Mass Notification RFP Template" "Research Roundup: Business Continuity Management and IT Disaster Recovery Management, 3Q09" "Toolkit: Requirements for Crisis Command and Emergency Operations Centers" "New York Projects Show Critical Need for Unified Emergency Management" "Q&A: How Universities Can Notify Students of a Crisis" "Case Study: City of Chicago and ChicagoFIRST Public-Private Partnership"
Intellectual Property Rights and Royalties Management Software Analysis By: Michael McGuire Definition: Intellectual property rights and royalties (IPRR) systems — a class that includes intellectual property rights management (IPRM) — enable rights holders to index and associate specific business rules, including distribution rights information, for each piece of content under their control. These systems help the monetization of content via multiple distribution channels. They have various uses, such as exhibition or licensing in any number of ways, including use in other copyrighted works (for example, a song being used for a movie soundtrack) by, in effect, enforcing the multiple contractual requirements inherent in the creation and exploitation of copyrighted material. These platforms often run in parallel with or loosely tie into royalty tracking and settlement capabilities, because a royalty payment request must be generated for each licensed use of the content. These uses will include distribution to multiple online distribution providers, incorporation with advertising, use in consumer products, or display through traditional and digital means. Typically, the software is a component in a digital distribution value chain at a content company, and it is used in conjunction with digital asset management solutions. The IPRR/IPRM systems provide the content company with a way to track the authorization or "clearance" of the rights-in/rights-out of a given work. To be clear, the solutions covered in this Hype Cycle entry typically do not include content protection or digital rights management (DRM) technologies (DRM has its own Hype Cycle entry). Ultimately, solutions should incorporate analytics to determine the relative performance of properties and integrate with finance and accounting systems for calculating royalty payments. There will also be a need to integrate with or match up output with systems or services used to monitor compliance with the licenses that have been granted, and to identify the unauthorized use of IP. Position and Adoption Speed Justification: The shift from analog to digital assets has changed the nature of IP in the media industry. IP that used to consist of a single episode can be treated as literally hundreds of digital assets. As such, IP management systems have struggled to adapt to the changes in the nature of asset licensing. The media industry is in the early stages of digital IP management as many companies begin to convert from manual to automated processes. While recent economic turbulence might be an explanation for why there are not more dedicated IPRM upgrades happening in the media industry, the sheer complexity these systems have to contend with is probably the most likely cause. Conversations with vendors and end users in the media space have highlighted the fact that neither the inherent complexity of the IPRR challenge nor the economic conditions have undercut IPRM's importance to all sectors of the media industry. Many of the IPRR/IPRM solutions have grown out of custom consulting/integration engagements that used proprietary tools and attempted to adapt them to the unique needs of IP management. Another whole set of these platforms has come from established enterprise software platform providers such as RSG Systems and SAP. Given this history, the IPRR/IPRM space is characterized by studios and TV networks that are in the process of either updating legacy systems or integrating them with new platforms, as well as integrating other systems (such as finance or CRM) at content companies. However, the complexity of the contracts governing the creation and distribution of movies, TV shows, books and music albums has underscored a concern that shrink-wrapped, out-of-the-box solutions are not capable of managing the challenge. That said, at the core, the IPRR/IPRM market is about providing content companies with the tools needed to know their inventory — what they have a right to sell and where and when — and to monetize it. With the explosion of the online distribution market — from video on demand (VOD) and over-the-top video, to online distribution via online stores — demand for robust IPRR/IPRM solutions will only increase as content companies scramble to find the tools required to legally and profitably meet this new demand. User Advice: Media companies should evaluate IPRR/IPRM solutions carefully, paying particular attention to the integration level offered for core business applications and the potential for growth. As important is starting with a solid set of company-standard definitions for rights-in and rights-out systems. In many cases for media companies that own or control large libraries of content, this process will start with an intellectually simple but operationally challenging effort of entering in the information from the contracts of all their owned or controlled movies, TV shows, books, songs, etc. As content portfolios grow with the conversion to digital assets, and as business model alternatives proliferate, media companies need to drive for standardization of lower-level issues such as definitions and metadata requirements for tagging content — knowing that a single piece of content can now be distributed or exploited in multiple ways — which are important requirements to fully leveraging these IPRR/IPRM platforms. Business Impact: IPRR/IPRM affects IP management, sales, contract management and CRM. In contrast to businesses that are trying to protect their IP, media companies are trying to protect their assets while exploiting them across multiple distribution channels, which requires them to be able to track content usage, enforce distribution contracts and calculate royalty payments to myriad stakeholders involved in the creation and distribution of the assets. Market Penetration: 5% to 20% of target audience Sample Vendors: Counterpoint Systems; ImageSpan; Oracle; RSG Media Systems; SAP "Rights Management Bottleneck an Inventory Challenge for Movie Studios"
Analysis By: Jan-Martin Lowendahl Definition: The Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is a standard process framework for integrated IT service support and delivery processes used to manage an IT operations environment. Position and Adoption Speed Justification: ITIL is now a well-known alternative for IT service delivery quality improvement. The interest in ITIL is well into the action phase for many institutions — at least at a basic level — and institutions are regularly sending employees on commercially available training. Most early adopters have focused on implementing a basic level of "service desk" and "service support" capability with processes such as change, incident and problem management in the first round, and they are now planning to implement the next set of processes. In this, they have gained valuable insight and a more-realistic view of what ITIL can do for a higher education IT organization. ITIL is now seen as an established quality stamp, especially for centralized IT services. Still, full implementation of all ITIL processes in an institution is rare and expected to take time (indications are that it will take an institution three to seven years, depending on the initial maturity) and might not even be necessary to get "good enough" return on investment. There are some regional differences in interest, based on geopolitical pressures. For example, adoption seems to be higher in Australia and Northern Europe, but adoption has spread relatively faster in the U.S. in 2009, leading us to increase market penetration rate and change the time to plateau in 2010. In the case of ITIL, it also looks like the "Trough of Disillusionment" is relatively shallow and that the almost-ubiquitous commercial training and best practice make for a smooth adoption without fuss in many IT organizations. This has led to a relative leap for ITIL in education to just past the trough, where we expect a smooth move into the Plateau of Productivity. User Advice: Institutions that are unfamiliar with ITIL should begin by examining the standard process framework used by ITIL. Before the institution selects process improvement frameworks and models, it must assess: (1) what the organizational scope of the improvement initiative is, and (2) whether the ultimate goal is operational process improvement or business transformation. If the goal is business transformation, then a more-strategic approach to change will be required. It is also important to recognize that most higher education institutions do not have nor need to have the cultural prerequisites for attaining the highest levels of ITIL maturity. A proven tactical approach to ITIL implementation is to focus on the pain points (such as downtime) and to establish metrics that demonstrate tangible results of ITIL implementation. This approach builds momentum and credibility and will pay for itself through cost savings and improved productivity, if done well. The latest developments in ITIL v.3 include more demand governance, which is well-meaning and understandable, but institutions should be careful which framework they use for higher-level governance. ITIL is good for supply governance, while other frameworks, such as CobiT, have more experience in strategic alignment and demand governance. ITIL and CobiT are two excellent frameworks that work well together. Business Impact: Large and/or complex institutions will likely find greater return on investment. ITIL is particularly relevant to central IT operational services groups (running service desk, data center, campuswide networks and so on). ITIL also has a positive impact on multisourcing, where institutions and external service providers work according to ITIL. Market Penetration: 5% to 20% of target audience Recommended Reading: "Global Standards Can Reduce the Adverse Effects of 'Administrative Freedom' in Higher Education" "Understand How Methodologies Evolve Into Standards to Achieve Service Excellence" "ITIL and Process Improvement Key Initiative Overview" "Toolkit: ITIL and Process Improvement Are Key Initiatives for Infrastructure and Operations Leaders" "There's Gold at the End of the ITIL Rainbow" "Implementing ITIL v.3: Theory Versus Reality" "Leverage ITIL v.3 to Integrate Information Security With the IT Service Management Life Cycle" "Cost Optimization: Three ITIL Processes Can Play an Important Role" "Toolkit: ITIL and Process Improvement Are Key Initiatives for Infrastructure and Operations Leaders"
Analysis By: Timothy Zimmerman; Michael King Definition: 802.11n is the next-generation wireless LAN (WLAN) standard developed by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Improvements in the technology have expanded the throughput and range that can be implemented in 2.4GHz or 5GHz. A single spatial stream operating in a 20MHz channel width can achieve 75 Mbps in a single coverage area, compared with the 54 Mbps of a similar 802.11a or 802.11g solution. Theoretically, with 40MHz channel bonding, which is double the channel size of the previous standard, and with spatial streams increasing from only one to up to four, 802.11n is expected to deliver as much as 600 Mbps of networking performance using four spatial streams and expanded channels. However, actual performance will depend on each vendor's implementation of functionality, such as frame aggregation, which is not covered by the standard. 802.11n uses multiple input/multiple output antenna technology to create separate spatial streams that turn multipath conditions in the environment into an advantage, whereas previously they diminished 802.11a/b/g performance. Position and Adoption Speed Justification: Ratification of the standard in late 2009 unleashed a rapid movement of 802.11n as the de facto WLAN implementation. Dual soft radio access points, which are capable of providing 802.11n functionality as well as addressing 802.11a/b/g migration issues either in a dedicated or backward compatibility mode, have become a mainstay of WLAN RFPs. In most decisions, 802.1n access points are delivered as the rule, and 802.11a/b/g access points are implemented as an exception. The speed of adoption to a full four-stream 802.11n 600 Mbps will move ahead — but more slowly — as 300 Mbps dual radio two-stream products provide mobility and more flexibility than the 10/100 Mbps wired infrastructure that they are replacing. User Advice: Enterprises need to deploy 802.11n for their WLAN needs, but they must remember that 802.11n is a framework, not just a physical standard, which means it represents a wider set of implementation choices for manufacturers than previous 802.11 physical standards amendments (that is, for 802.11a/b/g). This will create vendor differentiation and technical competition that not only will improve wireless network performance in terms of capacity and robustness of communication, but also will create the need for use-case testing because vendor implementation choices will affect data, voice and video applications. Enterprises need to remember that the wireless communication from the client to the access point is only one part of a wireless solution. Network application services that work in conjunction with the physical radios are needed to implement a complete WLAN solution and will provide a better area of vendor differentiation. Gartner recommends that enterprises deploy 802.11n 2.4GHz radios for legacy connection as well as address migration issues and 802.11n at 5GHz solutions for clients that need higher throughput. Business Impact: 802.11n is the de facto standard for "greenfield" or expanded WLAN connectivity. It is becoming a requirement for conference rooms and reception areas for many enterprises as it expands to more coverage to increase the mobility in the enterprise. We believe that 802.11n will enable sufficient bandwidth, functionality and network application services for enterprises to consider moving not only data, but also voice and video for many enterprise applications to the WLAN. Market Penetration: 5% to 20% of target audience Sample Vendors: Aruba Networks; Cisco; HP; Motorola Recommended Reading: "Magic Quadrant for Wireless LAN Infrastructure" "Toolkit: Technology Section of a WLAN RFP" "Toolkit: Checklist for Building a Solid WLAN Access Layer" "Critical Components of Any WLAN Site Survey"
SaaS Administration Applications Analysis By: Bill Rust IV Definition: Software as a service (SaaS) for administration applications in education is software that is owned, delivered and managed remotely by one or more providers. It's based on a single set of common code and data definitions that are consumed in a one-to-many model by all contracted customers anytime, on a pay-for-use basis, or as a subscription based on use metrics. Application service provider (ASP) models differ from SaaS, in that the solutions are owned by the customers, but hosted and managed by vendors, using their experience and expertise. Educational administrative applications that may be delivered through SaaS include major solutions, such as student information systems, finance and HR software, as well as point solutions, such as substitute teacher notification and assignment systems. Position and Adoption Speed Justification: SaaS is still a relatively foreign solution strategy for education at all levels, but primary and secondary school agencies are attracted to the model by its economies of scale and speed of deployment, as well as the growing recognition that the business requirements schools once thought unique to their particular organizations can be met without a custom (or customized) solution. This is a general insight among higher education institutions, as levels of interest in SaaS are high, especially in the community college sector. However, research-intensive institutions still seem to consider the business requirements and their capacity to meet them to be unproven. SaaS deployment in its truest form has been slowed to some degree by consumer agencies and vendors that have confused SaaS with ASP opportunities, and by existing shared-service strategies. For example, a local education agency looking to meet ERP requirements through SaaS may find that the responding providers come back with an ASP proposal that is configured or customized for the customer and licensed as if hosted by the school agency. Barriers to adoption include cultural proclivities and legal concerns. The culture of education, especially K-12 education, shows a demonstrated preference for customized and/or self-built solutions. Legally, state, local and federal requirements for locating stored data or for the public disclosure of business practices that SaaS providers consider to be a competitive advantage can delay, if not stop, the implementation of a SaaS solution. However, adoption is expected to accelerate, especially in primary and secondary education, where common business requirements will be driven by accountability mandates from federal levels of government. The recognition of SaaS as a form of cloud computing also brings attention and a degrees of acceptance to SaaS solutions in this market. User Advice: Best practices in considering administrative suite requirements are re-examining needs and considering process change, as well as technology change, to meet business requirements. Build business cases for satisfying those business requirements that include the ongoing total cost of ownership for the range of solution models, including SaaS. The key decision will often be reduced to balancing calls for customized, highly enterprise-specific requirements — and the costs that accompany them — versus the opportunities that may be offered through SaaS or other shared deployment models. Keep in mind that SaaS applications are a form of cloud computing, and that the true test of deploying SaaS is the capacity to deliver your established performance indicators. Business Impact: SaaS offers school organizations the opportunity to identify and concentrate on analyzing and using essential data without saddling them with the hardware, software and staffing requirements that accompany enterprise-hosted solutions. Educational agencies and institutions that don't view their data requirements as unique will adopt SaaS. Those that do not see a common solution — and are willing to pay for the perceived critical differences between themselves and similar organizations — will not adopt SaaS. Market Penetration: 1% to 5% of target audience Sample Vendors: TopSchool
IT Infrastructure Utility Analysis By: Claudio Da Rold; Frank Ridder Definition: An IT infrastructure utility (IU) is a shared IT infrastructure architecture provided through on-demand services. Pricing is based on service use and proven, ongoing reductions in the fixed baseline (or subscription fees) and unit costs. The IU is open, flexible, predesigned and standardized, as well as virtualized, highly automated, secure and reliable. Position and Adoption Speed Justification: The industrialization of the IT services industry continues within a range of alternative delivery models. IUs are increasingly accepted on the market, and more organizations include them in their IT services value chain. Especially during tough economic times, organizations consider IUs as a fast way to achieve benefits. Almost half of client organizations use outsourced IU services in North America and 35% in Europe already use these services. Of these, more than 25% plan to implement IUs within 24 months. This confirms that IU has already crossed the Trough of Disillusionment, and started on the path toward maturity and broad adoption. Despite the challenging economic environment of 2009, the industrialization of the IT services industry actually accelerated. The evolution from traditional outsourcing delivery models toward cloud computing is driving innovation at an increased pace and is leading to significant investments at different service layers. Many of these investments are being made in the infrastructure layer, as this is an area where technology is mature, sharing is possible, willingness to outsource is high and knowledge is widely available. Most service providers have already incorporated or are currently adding IU solutions into their portfolios. They often start by delivering their traditional infrastructure services, in a usage-based model, before moving rapidly into standardization, virtualization, sharing and automation as they realize this as the only way to good economics. Most of the service providers position IU and cloud computing as two sequential or parallel steps toward industrialized, off-premises services. Seven attributes define an IU, creating unique value for organizations of all sizes (these are outlined in
"The Seven Golden Rules for Industrialized IU Services"). IUs are outcome-focused, ready-to-use and charged on a usage basis. Enterprises can scale their IU use up or down. IUs are also highly virtualized and shared, automated, lean, and standardized. The most basic IU style is utility hosting, which has evolved from traditional dedicated hosting. Providers added service elements, such as virtual servers and virtual storage, to traditional hosting to support flexible provisioning, which often still requires manual intervention to execute. Most vendors and traditional outsourcers have already added these virtualized utility services to their portfolios. Especially during 2009, new players from the telecom space entered the market with offerings that add a computing part to the network. This is quite visible in the already mentioned European Magic Quadrant, where a quarter of the main players are telecommunication companies. From a management content perspective, the most-developed IU offerings build on standard infrastructure blocks (such as computing, storage, networking) adding elements designed to support a specific application landscape, such as ERP, communication, collaboration or CRM. The client is still in full control of the customized applications, while the service provider controls and manages the operating platform up to a level underneath the logic of the application. The provider tailors the architecture/performance/price of the service to the application requirements — for example, billing on a per-user or per-SAP Application Performance Standard (SAPS) basis. Amazon.com (EC2 and S3 offerings); smaller providers such as GoGrid, Joyent, OpSource and Softlayer; and virtual data center hosting companies deliver IU services that leverage a cloud computing approach. Virtual data center hosting companies enable the implementation of complex virtual architectures in their physical data centers. Traditional outsourcers and small startups, such as ThinkGrid, are also introducing virtualized desktop utility services into the market. Pure public cloud solutions often do not give visibility to the structure, architecture, operations and security of the global data centers or computing environment, a fact that causes compliance issues for certain industries (such as banking, insurance and the public sector). IU solutions close the transparency gap and therefore enable regulated industries to leverage solutions based on the seven attributes as well. Most infrastructure service providers have delivered some financial flexibility to their clients — even in the traditional dedicated environments. However, under the competitive pressure of virtualized and shared IU offerings, service providers must move ahead with real IT service industrialization to deliver standardized, virtualized and shared environments that also enable additional layers of automation, while increasing the level of security of their environment. From a maturity perspective, we map the advancement of IU against our Infrastructure Utility Maturity Model
(IUMM). Leading IU providers are still delivering at Level 3 (virtualized) of the IUMM and are progressively implementing elements at Level 4, which is all about automation. What's stopping many service providers from running full speed into Level 4 is that an increased level of automation decreases the number of touchpoints with the client, something they currently rely on for upselling and relationship-improvement efforts. Although some IUs, like IU for SAP, are quite mature, and see high double digit growth rates, more complex and complete IU architectures will emerge within leading IU providers. These architectures offer basic IU services (virtual server and virtual storage) that are modular. Providers can group and combine these services to support more complex client requirements, aligned to specific application landscape or more broad vertical or segment-specific requirements. The contribution that IU solutions make to a client's ability to control and increase flexibility is the key factor accelerating these solutions in the market:
Price: Providers can spread costs across multiple clients because of the high use of virtualization technologies, standardization, and their investment in technology and tools. Process standardization and the use of automation also help to reduce cost. There is limited costly customization, and pricing for IUs decreased by between 10% and 20% in 2009 — driven by recession and competition — which is a great efficiency gain. Flexibility: Companies that grow through acquisitions or shrink due to restructuring, and other firms with dynamic resource needs can benefit significantly from an IU solution. Scaling the service up or down is easy, because providers offer usage flexibility of 50% and more, and thus very low baselines, which helps reduce costs quickly (by reducing volume). Quality: Providers invest a lot of money and brain power in process excellence and further automation. Client organizations we had discussions with — including references and case studies — seldom complained about failing service-level agreements, large downtimes or escalations with their IU service providers. This, over time, will lead to trust and acceptance of industrialized solutions. Traditional providers must accelerate their investment and further industrialize their IT infrastructure service delivery, because new and disruptive approaches — especially those based on cloud computing — and new providers will progressively threaten the status quo of every insourced or outsourced solution. In the next five years, IUs will drive consolidation, and large providers will end up winning the market share battle, growing organically or by acquisition. Overall, the outsourced services that are delivered through an infrastructure utility approach and fulfill the seven traits described above have been grouped into a subset of the IT services marketplace, defined as infrastructure utility services (IUS). These services represent the provision of outsourced, industrialized, asset-based IT infrastructure managed services (below the business application functional layer). IUS are defined by service outcomes, technical options and interfaces, and are paid based on resource usage, allocation, or number of users served. For this market, Gartner has created a formal market sizing and forecast. The forecast shows that the IUS market was worth $7,101 million in 2009. By 2013 it will grow to $23,501 million, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 34%. But this will represent only 11.8% of the combined infrastructure managed services market in 2013. This clearly underlines the huge potential impact associated with the development of IUS, both on traditional and cloud-based architectures. User Advice: IU is a maturing alternative delivery and acquisition model for infrastructure management services.
Gain an awareness and understanding of these offerings in order to leverage their value for their enterprise. Include IUs in the set of service options under evaluation as part of their sourcing strategy and enterprise architecture. Investigate critical areas, including pricing mechanisms and demand management, architectural specifications and limits, transition in and out, contract terms and conditions, security, compliance, auditing, and risk management. Use the Gartner IUMM as a road map to follow the evolution of infrastructure toward the real-time infrastructure concept. This evolution will affect most organizations, regardless of their decision to transform and run their infrastructure internally (insourced delivery) or externally (outsourced delivery or IU). Organizations delivering their IT infrastructure services in-house should:
Regularly check how IU offerings are advancing in the market. Increasingly, these offerings will become the external benchmark for price, efficiency and flexibility. Examples include an SAP production managed platform (excluding SAP licenses) at $15 per user per month (PUPM) or a Microsoft Exchange IU service at $5 PUPM. The entry level for IU for SAP has currently dropped below $10 PUPM. Organizations considering outsourcing deals or utility offerings should:
Concentrate on pricing units and pricing schema — and on the related tools for service requests, metering, billing, and financial and service reporting — to understand the maturity of offerings. The degree of flexibility must align to client requirements and the maturity of the offerings. Request references from other clients using these offerings and pricing units, and exercise due diligence in actively checking those references. Ask the provider to carefully describe the processes, automation tools and service-level agreements underpinning service delivery quality and efficiency, because a focus on unit definition and pricing alone is insufficient to achieve the best value for money. Request that providers communicate their service/architecture road map to understand how their offerings evolve over time and to judge the potential for lock-in into their specific architecture. Understand how their sourcing life cycle (sourcing strategy, vendor selection, contracting and ongoing management) will change when embracing highly standardized solutions. Start piloting or using infrastructure utilities as part of their IT value chain. Request proof regarding statements of regulatory compliance and verification of security and location transparency of data stores. Verify the impact of software licensing models when moving from dedicated to shared IU-based hosting solutions. Business Impact: IT IU can: optimize the cost-efficiency and service effectiveness of IT infrastructure; increase flexibility in response to business requirements; and deliver an open, predefined, automated platform for innovation. To benefit, clients must overcome significant cultural, financial and technical issues, such as standardization acceptance, independent software vendor pricing strategies, application portability, virtualization and policy-driven management on heterogeneous environments. The still uncertain economy and the further rise of cloud-enabled services solutions will accelerate the evolution toward industrialized IT services. Market Penetration: 5% to 20% of target audience Sample Vendors: Amazon.com; Atos Origin; AT&T; BT Global Services; Capgemini; CSC; HCL Technologies; HP; IBM; Logica; Rackspace; Savvis; Siemens IT Solutions and Services; T-Systems; Terremark; Unisys Recommended Reading: "Forecast: Infrastructure Utility Services, Worldwide, 2009-2013" "Magic Quadrant for Data Center Outsourcing and Utility Services, Europe" "Magic Quadrant for Web Hosting and Hosted Cloud System Infrastructure Services (On Demand)" "Infrastructure Utility Services: The Business Between Outsourcing and the Cloud" "Infrastructure Utility for SAP: Comparing Five Leading Offering" "Infrastructure Utility for SAP: Comparing Contract Terms and Service Levels" "Keiper: Adopting an Infrastructure Utility for Flexibility and Efficiency" "Case Study: Areva Gains IT Flexibility Through an Infrastructure Utility" "Oxea Shows How Infrastructure Utility Can Deliver Speed and Efficiency" "Case Study: How IT Utilities Support Rio Tinto's IT Dynamics and Company Moves" "Case Study: Nampac Adopts the IBM Infrastructure Utility for SAP Applications" "Comparing Cloud Computing and Infrastructure Utility" "Q&A on IT Services Industrialization" "Dataquest Insight: A Service Provider Road Map to the Cloud Infrastructure Transformation"
Game Consoles as Media Hubs Analysis By: Van Baker; Michael McGuire Definition: Game consoles have been increasing the services that they offer to include movies, television shows and other services. The positioning of game consoles as media hubs has expanded as an increasing number of consoles are connected to broadband. Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3 now offer a robust set of content. The content includes movies, TV shows, short-form videos and music, as well as news and weather information. This enables the game console to combine online media content with traditional gaming content that is increasingly being delivered by the same broadband service. The earlier focus on content streamed from PCs in the home has been reduced in importance; however, that functionality still exists for the mainstream consoles. Position and Adoption Speed Justification: Game consoles have transitioned to being connected consumer electronics, with the majority of the high-end consoles being connected to the Internet. Nonetheless, the gamer population is an avid consumer of content, including nongaming content, and they are not the only users in the household that are interested in the delivery of this nongaming content. The evolution of the media services that deliver content to the game console has led to additional interest in the game console as a media access device for movie rentals and television programming. The user interface has been improved on the high-end game consoles, and the variety of content that is available continues to grow, with the most recent addition being Sony's offering of HBO programming on the PlayStation 3. The installed base is large enough that the market is a viable one. The Wii consoles that are connected to broadband continue to lag, along with the profits of the Wii itself, which has seen its growth slow, losing share to both Sony and Microsoft. User Advice: Consumer electronics manufacturers of home entertainment devices such as DVD and Blu-ray players should take note of the threat and opportunity for digital downloads to living room devices, including over-the-top, set-top boxes and game consoles. They should target gaming households with alternative devices to prevent market erosion to game consoles. The opportunity for alternative delivery devices will continue to increase in the era of broadband-connected television. Game console manufacturers should continue to broaden the offerings for nongaming media services. It should also be noted that game console owners that use these devices as media hubs are likely to be early adopters of high-end electronics, such as 3D televisions. Business Impact: The business impacts are incremental distribution market opportunities and threats that target 18- to 38-year-old males. Market Penetration: 5% to 20% of target audience Maturity: Early mainstream Sample Vendors: Microsoft; Nintendo; Sony
Analysis By: Marti Harris Definition: Social media represents Web environments where individual information is aggregated, presented and shared. Typically, applications are provided to document and filter connections between individuals, present content on profiles, support various multimedia, and facilitate communications between people. Social network sites attract a critical mass of students to provide healthy communities and opportunities for people who are connected by events, products or demographics to develop contacts based on personal, professional and educational backgrounds or interests. Within the context of education, the rise of social networks in the student Internet marketplace has stimulated ideas on exploiting such capabilities for formal student groups, and faculty are engaging their students in social media. Position and Adoption Speed Justification: Student and alumni membership in social networks such as Facebook and MySpace are well-established as meeting places. Increasingly, faculty members are using social networks as the means to communicate with students. These types of networks continue to grow without any formal connection to higher education institutions. This informal use within student groups is far advanced compared with any formal institutional uses, and provides institutions with a window to future student user expectations of community and collaborative tools. Official university Facebook uses include communication for social purposes, academic announcements, marketing and emergency messages. According to a 2010 study by Pearson, more than 30% of surveyed faculty members use social networks to communicate with students; nearly one-third use social networks to communicate with peers. User Advice: Although it does not pay to chase after students in their social communities, it is essential that higher education IT decision makers monitor student expectations with regard to communicating and collaborating within networking environments. This information can be used for institutional strategic planning for user collaboration, communications and the future of e-learning platforms. Since faculty and students are using social media as a means of communication and collaboration with or without the institution's acknowledgement, institutional leaders must assume faculty and students are using social media at their institutions and plan accordingly. Business Impact: Social media may provide additional useful tools for recruiting, teaching, collaborating and marketing. Increasingly, higher education software providers will include social media as an additional communication channel. Market Penetration: More than 50% of target audience Maturity: Early mainstream Sample Vendors: Facebook; LinkedIn; MySpace
Definition: E-portfolios are Web-accessible repositories for student work, both graded and ungraded, which may be shared with authorized parties. Position and Adoption Speed Justification: E-portfolios have begun to move toward the mainstream as standards and security issues are resolved by institutional policies and improved technologies. E-portfolios in their current incarnation have a place in many institutions, but adoption is still hampered somewhat by interoperability issues. Besides the "standard" issue about what metadata standards to apply, there is also the more-deep-rooted problem of who owns and supports the portfolio, especially in the context of lifelong learning, multiple institutions and multiple employers. Until megavendors such as Microsoft and Google (or even Facebook) enter the market and offer lifelong services in the form of cloud e-portfolios (similar to their healthcare initiatives, but far less contentious), this issue is not likely to be solved, and e-portfolios will experience a limited uptake relative to the grand vision that started the movement. User Advice: E-portfolios are moving from limited-access projects to institutionwide applications. Security and reliability, as well as the validity of student-entered data, are still concerns. However, policies and flags are being established to define content that is certified by the institution as valid. In order to prepare for a future of greater interoperability and extended use cases of e-portfolios through either federated or cloud solutions, institutions need to evaluate the standards supported, especially from an import/export perspective. Business Impact: Affected areas inside the institution include instruction, collaboration, assessment and student services. Areas outside the institution are potentially many and affect student and faculty mobility, employee skill scouting, etc. Market Penetration: 5% to 20% of target audience Maturity: Early mainstream Sample Vendors: ePortaro; McGraw-Hill; Nuventive; Open Source Portfolio Initiative (OSPI); TrueOutcomes
Definition: The use of open-source horizontal portal frameworks continues to grow among higher education organizations. Position and Adoption Speed Justification: Many higher education organizations have turned to open-source portal frameworks to serve their staff, students and extended communities. Balking at the high cost of commercial portal software, they often rely on the academic community for support, services and best-practice advice. More than 250 higher education enterprises have used Jasig uPortal, or a solution based on uPortal, like SunGard's Luminis Platform. Commercially supported, open-source vendor Liferay appears to be gaining significant headway in the higher education market, by offering its software directly and by serving as the basis for third parties like Cisco, as well as cloud- and consortium-based providers like CampusEAI Consortium. Many higher education institutions are moving away from Java-based portals to lightweight portals based on Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP (LAMP)-based platforms, such as Drupal and Joomla. A renewed push into higher education among large commercial software companies may disrupt open-source growth in the portal space. Microsoft is offering portal capability as part of its broader SharePoint platform, which includes content management, collaboration and social-networking capabilities not normally included in portal software, and integrates readily with Microsoft Office and Exchange. Similarly, oft-incumbent Oracle is offering portal software as part of a much broader WebCenter Suite. Portal initiatives rooted in cloud-based collaboration, in the form of Microsoft's SharePoint Online and Business Productivity Online Standard Suite (BPOS) or Google Apps Premier Addition, may also hamper open-source growth in the space. User Advice: Higher education enterprises implementing a portal should consider open-source portal alternatives, but should carefully evaluate their long-term requirements and investments in adjacent spaces, like content management, search and collaboration. Frequently, solutions targeted at the higher education market, though based on open-source technology, are so highly customized that they become hard to extend or upgrade over time. Organizations should carefully evaluate the capabilities of open-source packages described as "portals," because many of these open-source alternatives are really lightweight Web content management or community publishing tools. Organizations considering open source should ensure that they are adequately equipped with development expertise for the chosen portal product and development platform. Business Impact: Relying on an open-source horizontal portal framework reduces the initial acquisition costs traditionally associated with a portal product. The trade-off may be less-than-leading-edge functionality in some areas, and an increased reliance on internal staff and peer organizations for technical support. Market Penetration: 20% to 50% of target audience Maturity: Early mainstream Sample Vendors: Drupal; Jasig; Liferay; Red Hat JBoss
Analysis By: Nikos Drakos Definition: A "wiki" is a collaborative authoring system for creating and maintaining linked collections of Web pages. A wiki enables users to add or change pages in a Web browser without having to worry about where and how the content is stored. A wiki simplifies the modification and reorganization of information and encourages what is often referred to as "wiki gardening." This is the process of incrementally editing a wiki to preserve continuity, make additional connections and links, and generally clean it up.
User-friendly "click to edit" features that make it easy to create, link, edit and reorganize the information users see on the screen, without having to understand the underlying file organization. The abilities to track changes, compare different versions and revert to a previous version, which make it easier to insert changes in the knowledge that any mistakes can be reversed easily. Static Web addresses for any wiki page, and even for any component of a wiki page (such as a paragraph), which makes it easy to link or refer to wiki content from other Web pages or Web-enabled systems and to integrate, search and access wiki content from elsewhere. The widespread use of wikis is influencing the way individuals and organizations think about creating and sharing information beyond simple text. "Wiki-style" is becoming synonymous with a collaborative way of working in which multiple participants directly modify a common resource (text, table, report, photo, video, model, form and so on) in the same environment in which it is consumed. Position and Adoption Speed Justification: Wiki products are available from many vendors, including established enterprise vendors. There are also open-source products. Wikipedia is the best-known publicly available wiki. It has raised awareness to the point where users often demand wiki-style collaboration support from their IT departments. Although wiki functionality is at the core of many social software products, it is beginning to resist simple categorization as it becomes part of larger social software suites that also support blogs, discussions, user profiles and tagging. Wikis are increasingly being offered by content management and portal vendors. User Advice: Understand that there are advantages to using a wiki, rather than a conventional repository-style collaboration system. Be receptive to users who argue that a wiki will improve team collaboration. Now is the time to broaden systematic deployments, as appropriate, and to evaluate the suitability of wikis in different collaboration scenarios (if this has not been done already). Caution is required when setting up stand-alone wikis, as although these may help to solve short-term problems, they could also create additional content silos. Other potential problems with wikis include the need to deal with the variability of content quality, especially when once-thriving wiki page collections fall into disrepair when abandoned by their main contributors. Also, where wikis are used to create or maintain formal content (for example, client communications, product descriptions and technical documentation), it may be necessary to introduce additional policies and management controls to ensure appropriate quality and governance. Business Impact: Wiki-style information creation and sharing has significant advantages over traditional collaboration environments in terms of improved transparency, usability and information reuse. It encourages the creation of a "Web of interrelated information," where it is just as easy to create internal cross-references as it is to reference external resources. Within businesses, wikis are used as informal repositories for maintaining technical documentation, client communication, issue tracking, e-learning and training, general information sharing and knowledge management. They are also used to support communities of practice or interest, product development and idea exploration. Market Penetration: 20% to 50% of target audience Maturity: Early mainstream Sample Vendors: Atlassian; CustomerVision; IBM; Jive Software; MediaWiki; Microsoft; MindTouch; Socialtext; TWiki; XWiki Recommended Reading: "Magic Quadrant for Social Software" "Moving Social Software Deployments Beyond Experimentation Project Overview 2009"
Analysis By: Daniel Sholler Definition: Service-oriented architecture (SOA) for applications exhibits five definitional characteristics:
It's modular. Its modules can be distributed across multiple computers. Software developers have written or generated interface metadata that specifies explicit contracts, so other developers can find and use the services. Service interfaces are separate from the implementations (code and data) of the service provider's components. Services can be shared — that is, they can be invoked successively in disparate consumer applications serving different business purposes. These characteristics collectively make the application loosely coupled, which is an essential characteristic for distributed applications that may have some components that are developed, owned and managed by different organizations. For example, cloud services and other software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings generally rely on the SOA style. As the practice of SOA has matured, patterns of use, or styles of SOA, have emerged. These styles include traditional request/reply, remote procedure call (RPC)-like SOA, sometimes called the component- or object-based SOA style; representational state transfer (REST)-based SOA, which is called Web-oriented architecture (WOA); and event-driven SOA. The technology and understanding of best practices for these styles continue to evolve. Alternate definitions of SOA have been used, but are fundamentally similar. Often, SOA is described in terms of three principles: service orientation, loose coupling, and separation of concerns. These various definitions are functionally equivalent, since applying the three principles will give you the characteristics described above. Position and Adoption Speed Justification: The long-term trend for SOA is very positive due to requirements for business agility and application flexibility, as well as the trend toward distributed computing, including cloud computing. The growing use of business process management (BPM) and business activity monitoring (BAM) is also causing companies to use more SOA, because BPM and BAM are more-effective and easier to develop by using SOA. However, as with many things, the investments and adoption were dramatically slowed as a result of the 2009 economic conditions. For this reason, this concept has not progressed measurably along the Hype Cycle, and its likely time to maturity has been extended somewhat. Vendors of middleware, development tools and packaged applications have delivered SOA capabilities in most of their products, although the implementation is still superficial in some cases. Most user organizations are attempting to use SOA concepts as part of their system designs. However, the usual "technology as silver bullet" thinking has largely been discredited. The near-term return on investment in some SOA projects has been difficult to quantify, mostly because the results are spread over the lifetime of the solution. Most organizations have been pleased with the improved flexibility and long-term results. Compared with traditional monolithic or client/server applications, SOA applications are more likely to be spread across multiple computers in far-flung locations; composed of parts that are developed and managed by disparate, semiautonomous IT groups (domains), often controlled by disparate business units inside and outside the company; running on a mix of heterogeneous application servers, programming languages and operating systems; and subject to frequent change, because of volatile business requirements. SOA is part of the solution to these problems, because it clarifies system design, isolates the modules from each other and increases the interface documentation. Some organizations have been disappointed by the low level of service sharing ("reuse") that they have achieved. In many cases where value is being measured, however, this value can be derived even with a modest quantity of shared services. Some SOA projects have encountered problems in governance, testing, configuration management, version control, metadata management, service-level monitoring, security and interoperability. This is to be expected, because changes in the fundamental structure of business processes and application architecture of this magnitude do not happen quickly or easily. User migration to SOA began in the mid-1990s and will continue, but we expect that the majority of organizations will have some commitment to SOA by 2013. User Advice: Use SOA to design large, new business applications, particularly those with life spans projected to be more than three years, and those that will undergo continuous refinement, maintenance or enlargement. SOA is especially well-suited to composite applications in which components are built or managed by separate teams in disparate locations. These components can also leverage pre-SOA applications by wrapping function and data with service interfaces. When buying packaged applications, rate those that implement SOA more highly than those that don't. Also, use SOA in application integration scenarios that involve composite applications that tie new logic to purchased packages, legacy applications or services offered by other business units — such as those found in SaaS and other types of cloud computing. However, do not discard non-SOA applications in favor of SOA applications solely on the basis of architecture. Discard non-SOA applications only if there are compelling business reasons why they have become unsatisfactory. Continue to use non-SOA architectures for some new, tactical applications of limited size and complexity, as well as for minor changes to installed, non-SOA applications. There are multiple patterns within SOA — including multichannel applications, composite applications, multistep process flows, REST and event-driven architecture (EDA) — and each pattern has its own best practices for design, deployment and management. Business Impact: Like the relational data model and the graphical user interface, SOA represents a durable change in application architecture. SOA's main benefit is that it reduces the time and effort required to change application systems to support changes in the business. Business functions are represented in the design of SOA software services, which help align business and technology models. The implementation of the first SOA application in a business domain will generally be as difficult as, or more difficult than, building the same application using non-SOA designs. Subsequent applications and changes to the initial SOA application will be easier, faster and less expensive, because they'll leverage the SOA infrastructure and previously built services. SOA is an essential ingredient in strategies that look to enhance a company's agility. SOA also reduces the cost of application integration, especially after enough applications have been converted or modernized to support an SOA model. The transition to SOA is a long-term, gradual trend, and it will not lead to a strategic realignment in vendor ranks or an immediate reduction in user companies' IT outlays. Benefit Rating: Transformational Market Penetration: More than 50% of target audience Maturity: Early mainstream Recommended Reading: "SOA Overview and Guide to SOA Research" "Q&A: Key Questions to Address Before Your Initial SOA Projects" "Toolkit: Building a Business Case Justification for SOA Projects" "Key Issues for SOA, 2010" "How to Approach Integration in Advanced SOA Projects" "The 13 Most Common SOA Mistakes and How to Avoid Them" "SOA and Application Architecture Key Initiative Overview"
Analysis By: Jan-Martin Lowendahl Definition: Organization-centric identity and access management (IAM) technologies enable institutions to manage user accounts and privileges that are under the direct control of the institution. The name was introduced last year and relates to the need to separate this entry from those on federated IAM and user-centric IAM and also to be able to more accurately position all three profiles. On the Education Hype Cycle, organization-centric IAM represents one general education view of a number of technologies that are described in more depth in
"Hype Cycle for Identity and Access Management Technologies, 2010." Position and Adoption Speed Justification: IAM overall is necessary to enable personalized, secure and auditable access to networks, systems and data, which has become a top priority in higher education. Although recognized as a strategic infrastructure capability, implementations have been hampered by the difficulties of finding a clear-cut financial return on investment (ROI). This has now been overcome by enlightened institutional leadership, or, more likely, peer pressure and implementation projects have been taking off on a large scale. The hurdle now is the inherent complexity in comprehensive organization-centric IAM solutions, especially in a demanding environment such as higher education, where at least 20% new user IDs are needed each year and where changes of roles are frequent. It also explains why organization-centric IAM as a whole in higher education lags the more mature area of federated IAM. Federated IAM solves a simpler process and technical problem where IDs and attributes are already assigned (by the organization-centric IAM), using well-established technological standards such as SAML, as well as metadata standards such as eduPerson to allow for interinstitutional sharing of services. The challenge in federated IAM is instead interorganizational trust. K-12 institutions have less of a hurdle in implementing organization-centric IAM due to their general centralized natures. In our most recent IAM survey, 58% of respondents had implemented basic IAM, leading us to position organization-centric IAM in education well up the Slope of Enlightenment. However, we are still retaining an early mainstream maturity rating since many institutions only implement the basic IAM functionality, leaving such things as role-based authorization for later iterations. Organization-centric IAM projects are likely to be long-term projects with incremental improvements in functionality. But here we rate basic functionality implementation, especially centralization of the user-ID management. User Advice: IAM should be considered as part of the institutional strategy for personal interaction with its stakeholders, and it should be included in the security plan. It is imperative that institutions obtain an IAM solution as quickly as possible. An organization-centric IAM solution, including well-designed user provisioning and deprovisioning processes, is also a prerequisite for the full exploitation of federated services. Due to the nature of the global academic community, there already exists today many federated services, and many more can be envisioned if sufficient access control can be implemented. For institutions that have significant student/faculty mobility, a federated approach using federated IAM technology can provide a significant collaborative advantage. Furthermore, since higher education institutions are such a large part of society, with many individuals passing through, user-centric IAM is also emerging as a future option and as an identity layer off the Internet with a potentially high impact. These initiatives should be closely watched. Business Impact: Identity and identity-related attributes used for personalized e-interaction with all the institution's stakeholders are a strategic asset. A wide community, including parents, students, faculty, staff and alumni, benefits from personalized communication with the institution. Well-designed IAM solutions that reach well outside the institution through standards-enabled interoperability promise returns in the form of more-effective and efficient core activities, such as recruitment, grant application and fundraising. Furthermore, it has direct implications on the cost of user provisioning and deprovisioning, as well as security and auditability. Additionally, IAM is a core capability in a service-oriented architecture (SOA) strategy. It is especially important to be able to benefit from the quickly increasing internal and external sourcing options such as Web services for administrative applications and "cloud" e-mail. Market Penetration: More than 50% of target audience Maturity: Early mainstream Sample Vendors: Cisco Systems; e-Security; EMC; IBM; Microsoft; netForensics; NetIQ; Novell; OpenID; Oracle; Sun Microsystems; Sxip Recommended Reading: "Gartner Higher Education IAM Survey, 2009: Progress in Organizational-Centric Identity and Access Management"
CRM for Enrollment Management Analysis By: Marti Harris; Ron Bonig Definition: Customer relationship management (CRM) systems in the higher education market are primarily used, at this time, for effectively and efficiently managing key portions of the enrollment management function. CRM in higher education is also referred to as "constituent relationship management" — a distinction without a difference. The importance of CRM in addressing institutional, market and constituent needs is now widely recognized in higher education. Successful CRM strategies include multichannel communications, business analytics, and agile reporting and management tools, which together allow for the establishment and maintenance of student/prospect relationships. The purpose and scope of CRM are necessarily unique to every institution of higher education, as are the meaning and uses of CRM analysis. Enrollment management analysis can be clearly and consistently identified as an integral part of any institution's CRM strategy. CRM for enrollment management involves systems that are verticalized for higher education student and prospect recruiting, as well as for enrollment management functionality. Considering that the purpose of any CRM is to establish and maintain a durable relationship with the customer/constituent, the most successful systems, whether in a corporate context or in a higher education context, must necessarily interface with those customers in the manner in which the customers prefer. In higher education CRM systems, the trend is toward increased use of social media. The integration of social media into their systems is becoming a critical differentiator among the providers as they strive to meet higher education end-user expectations. Position and Adoption Speed Justification: A key obstacle is showing the value of overcoming politically inspired constituent data stovepiping. Traditionally, the enrollment/admissions function in higher education has "owned" the early relationship with the customer/prospective student. However, the effectiveness of a CRM system is limited unless there are agreements and methods to collect all communications and exchanges between the client and the institution. These exchanges include communications with coaches, professors, advisors, housing staff and more. Traditional stovepipes of data must be abandoned and the integrated student life cycle CRM used in order for the institution to maximize its investment and increase client satisfaction. An effective CRM system can also help with student retention, which prevents the bleeding of revenue as students drop out or transfer. User Advice: CRM for enrollment management should be considered as a business unit strategy and as part of an institutional CRM strategy. Even when implemented first in a single unit or department, an institutionwide CRM strategy should be considered for any future expansion and in view of the potential savings in license, time and training. Not all enrollment and recruiting applications are CRM-based, and institutions should determine whether they seek a single-purpose enrollment management solution or enrollment management that is CRM-based. Institutions should review their SIS and ERP vendor road maps and evaluate whether the solutions that exist or are being developed or acquired will meet their future needs with capabilities that expand past the basic requirements of enrollment management. Business Impact: Affected areas include recruiting, enrollment community relations, advancement, student retention and alumni relationships. A fully developed student life cycle CRM system should track a student from the initial contact with the institution through enrollment, matriculation and entry into alumnus status. A tighter relationship between the student and the institution pays dividends in retention, future recruitment and ultimately advancement. Fully functional student life cycle CRM aims for decades of relationship management, not just the limited duration of traditional enrollment management solutions. Market Penetration: 20% to 50% of target audience Maturity: Early mainstream Sample Vendors: Intelliworks; Jenzabar; Oracle; RightNow Technologies; SunGard Higher Education; Talisma Recommended Reading: "Q&A: The Role of CRM in Higher Education Student Life Cycle Management"
Podcasting Learning Content Analysis By: Marti Harris Definition: Podcasting learning content involves the prerecorded, radiolike format delivery of content via Really Simple Syndication across a varied set of content themes. Position and Adoption Speed Justification: Podcasts are quietly being incorporated in other technologies, including social software tools, learning management tools, and other broadcasting tools that also incorporate video and whiteboard technologies, such as iTunes and YouTube University. User Advice: While podcasting is a relatively easy way to deliver lectures for distance learning, as well as for follow-up study access, other tools that include video, audio and whiteboard technologies are quietly incorporating or replacing podcasts (audio only) on some campuses. Social networks are also being used for posting of audio and video and are a growing preference for students. Eventually, podcasting will be part of a larger learning ecosystem to bring digital content to the users. See also the "Lecture Capture and Retrieval Tools" Hype Cycle entry. Business Impact: Podcasting is an extremely efficient method for delivering audio and spoken-word content to students, and it can be an important institutional communications tool. Market Penetration: 20% to 50% of target audience Maturity: Early mainstream Sample Vendors: Apple; NotePage; Softease
Federated Identity Management Analysis By: Jan-Martin Lowendahl; Gregg Kreizman Definition: Federated identity management (FIAM) enables identity information to be shared among several entities and across trust domains. Tools and standards permit identity and other information to be transferred from one trusted identifying and authenticating entity to another for authentication, authorization and other purposes. This entry is related to Federated Identity Management on the IAM Hype Cycle, 2010. Position and Adoption Speed Justification: The education community has been a forerunner in the implementation of IAM federations, and Gartner's latest survey showed a penetration of 33% worldwide for Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML)-based federations. However, the geographical spread is large, and Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) leads with 54% before Asia/Pacific at 31% and North America at 21%. National IAM federations usually originate in national research and education network organizations (aka NRENs) and are initiated to share resources nationally, such as high-performance computing (HPC), research databases and library (publisher) services. Today, the dominant design is based on SAML and derivatives of an early Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) schema called EduPerson (which has many commonly defined identity attributes such as student, staff and organization). EduPerson is important as it enables "role-centric" access management that is suitable for many different types of services. A "reference" implementation is the "SWITCHaai", which encompasses greater than 40 organizations, more than 95% of the students (users) and greater than 350 services in the higher education community in Switzerland. Federated IAM has also spread to the extended education community, including K-12, as shown by the Norwegian Feide and the U.K. Access Management Federation. This is mainly driven by an insight that the whole community shares students for many years and that several administrative processes can be simplified if federated IAM is implemented. However, the relatively high adoption rate in higher education is still mainly driven by IT interests focused on FIAM as an "obviously needed" infrastructure, not on the actual services that exploit it. This manifests itself in a rather thin service portfolio within many national IAM federations (with the exception of, for example, SWITCHaai, as mentioned above). Today, most services are internal and relatively low assurance such as e-learning platforms or "narrow" shared services such as HPC. The most advanced use of federation occurs within the libraries where FIAMs enable a convenient way of controlling access to content that especially publishers seem to appreciate. User Advice: Of the three paradigms; user-centric IAM, organization-centric IAM and federated IAM, federated is actually the most technologically mature. Having established SAML as a protocol, EduPerson as a format and with several OSS (Shibboleth, SimpleSAMLphp) and commercial federated IAM applications available, implementing a federated IAM capability is now a low-risk and relatively straightforward institutional decision. Furthermore, the higher education community is very advanced in its adoption of federated IAM relative to other sectors. Mainly this is due to being culturally very prepared for collaboration as well as having access to a highly skilled network of specialists as a result of the involvement in the development of the Internet. Specifically, the NRENs are a crucial platform for developing and harboring national IAM federations. However, greater emphasis is needed on bringing service providers into the federations and also investigations on shared services in the community. For effective federation identity management, greatest attention should be given to partner readiness, governance agreements and federation metadata management to ensure the fastest time to value. Federation startups can take longer when federation is new to one or both partners. Governance agreements stipulate requirements for each side — for example, time expectations for deprovisioning a user when that user leaves the organization, and who is liable for fraudulent authentications. Metadata management has to do with agreeing to the data types that will be transmitted across trust boundaries, performing the operational steps to map data syntax and format between federation partners, and managing that operation moving forward. Business Impact: Federated identity management is positioned to provide a foundation for student and institution or school identification, authentication and authorization across trust boundaries. The primary benefits are reduced identity administration for service providers, reduced authentication failures for users, and user convenience through single sign-on. In the public sector specifically, it can also act as a catalyst for shared services. Market Penetration: 20% to 50% of target audience Maturity: Early mainstream Sample Vendors: CA; EMC; Exostar; IBM; Liberty Alliance; Lighthouse Systems; Microsoft; Novell; Oracle; Ping Identity; Sun Microsystems; Symplified; TriCipher Recommended Reading: "Three Paradigms of IAM in Higher Education: Description, Trends and Lessons Learned" "Lessons Learned From Higher Education and Public-Sector Identity Federations"
Web and Application Hosting Analysis By: Ted Chamberlin Definition: Web hosting, which includes custom and packaged application hosting, is the outsourcing of some or all the infrastructure and management associated with Web-based content and applications. Customers are provided with Internet data center facilities, bandwidth, computing capacity, security and storage, as well as associated managed services. This infrastructure may be shared, dedicated, virtualized or provisioned on a utility basis. Typically, the Web hoster is responsible for the day-to-day operation of the infrastructure. In application hosting, the provider will provide day-to-day application management tasks, in addition to infrastructure management. The transfer of technical and staff assets is relatively rare, with customers tending to provide their own software licenses and hardware. Position and Adoption Speed Justification: Web and application hosters have mastered the basics of network, infrastructure and operational support in dedicated environments, and now must look to extend this level of competence to virtualized and cloud-centric environments. Although hosting providers have improved customer support processes, this area still continues to be problematic for some. This movement toward "hybrid" hosting environments, where applications are hosted on a combination of dedicated and virtualized platforms, will start to separate the leading providers from those that offer only partial solutions. The increased interest in cloud-computing and software-as-a-service (SaaS) models continues to push hosting providers to develop additional complimentary service stacks where compute, storage and network are provisioned in an elastic manner, and billing is based on consumption of resources. These usage-based services, commonly referred to as "utility or infrastructure as a service," focus heavily on server, storage and file-sharing capabilities; commercial enterprise application hosting continues to thrive on dedicated enterprise server platforms, but is starting to incorporate virtualization and utility compute for nonproduction architectures. As hybrid hosting offerings become more user-friendly, enterprises will start to divide applications and workloads between both dedicated and multitenant-based hosting services. This drive toward more-hybrid hosting will have financial implications for the hosters, in terms of capital investments needed to fund virtualized compute and storage estates, and in terms of advanced automation for fabric control and for metering/billing systems. User Advice: Most enterprises should consider external hosting in their tactical and strategic sourcing decisions, because the services and products have become standardized and mature. Not every service provider can deliver all levels of support (especially enterprise application management and utility/cloud services), so we recommend engaging in a competitive bid situation to ensure that the provider has the requisite processes, facilities, networks and service levels. Business Impact: Web and application hosting provides a greater reliability, scalability and technology expertise than in-house hosting for all but a few enterprises that have complex application integration needs, or whose IT operations are large enough to match the scale of a Web hoster. Web hosters typically also have higher-quality facilities, diverse carrier networks and deeper system support personnel than enterprises. However, the customer is restricted to the technologies supported by the Web hoster, and, as with all outsourcing, there may be some loss of control. Market Penetration: 20% to 50% of target audience Maturity: Mature mainstream Sample Vendors: AT&T; CSC; HP/EDS; IBM; Interoute; Macquarie Telecom; NaviSite; Orange Business Services; Quality Technology Services; Rackspace; Savvis; Secure-24; SingTel; SunGard Availability Services; Terremark Worldwide; The Planet; Verizon Business
Open-Source E-Learning Applications Analysis By: Jan-Martin Lowendahl Definition: Open-source e-learning applications are education e-learning systems developed via open-source or community source models. Position and Adoption Speed Justification: Open-source e-learning platforms such as Moodle and Sakai have had somewhat of a breakthrough in the past few years. Maturing community source management in the case of Sakai, and an increasing commercial support ecosystem for both Sakai and Moodle (see www.moodle.com for a listing of vendors), together with turbulence in the commercial e-learning platform market, have continued to increase the open-source software (OSS) "market share." OSS e-learning platforms now represent 38% of all installed platforms and are in 29% of institutions the platform designated as the "single official campuswide standard for the delivery of all e-learning courses," according to Gartner's latest e-learning survey for higher education. As anticipated, Sakai's developing road map toward version 3, commercially supported integration such as that of Moodle and Google Apps by Moodlerooms and Google, and turbulence concerning the acquisition of Angel Learning by Blackboard have enhanced the OSS trend. User Advice: Open-source solutions for e-learning are a particularly good fit for institutions capable of supporting in-house application development. However, the continued development of viable commercial ecosystems enables more institutions to adopt OSS e-learning platforms without internal development capabilities. CIOs need to be practical and not parochial when assessing OSS options. They need to consider all the standard factors such as the full life cycle total cost of ownership (TCO), as well as available skills, flexibility for the future, and community and commercial support for successful deployment of e-learning projects. Business Impact: The benefit of OSS e-learning platforms is potentially high because it directly affects the core process of education in the institution. Flexibility in changing the functionality and speed of change are potentially crucial factors for some institutions. Market Penetration: 20% to 50% of target audience Maturity: Early mainstream Sample Vendors: Claroline; ILIAS; Moodle; Sakai Recommended Reading: "Open Source in Higher Education, 2008" "Gartner Higher Education E-Learning Survey, 2008-2009: OSS Momentum Continues, but Is Not Alone in Changing the Market" "Gartner Higher Education E-Learning Survey 2008-2009: Poised for the Next Step?"
Analysis By: Matthew Cain Definition: Cloud e-mail for higher education refers to no-fee e-mail services made available to educational institutions from Google and Microsoft. It is a subset of the large cloud e-mail market. Position and Adoption Speed Justification: The services offered by Google and Microsoft are approximately five years old. There is significant interest in these services, and colleges and universities have begun to sign up in numbers. The biggest challenges that institutions face, in deploying cloud e-mail services for students, are in the contracting process and directory and portal integration. None of these problems have proved insurmountable, however, and vendors have gained valuable experience in handling institutions' more complex needs. Cloud e-mail for higher education has advanced rapidly though the Trough of Disillusionment as the vendors, spurred partly by intense competition, have worked hard to make these services work. User Advice: Organizations using older, functionally poor or unstable e-mail systems should consider using these no-fee services. Their first decision should be whether a premises-based, or a cloud-based, provisioning model is more appropriate. They also need to decide which constituencies — students, alumni, staff and parents — should be served by which systems. Institutions often choose a cloud-based system for their students, but a premises-based system for their staff. Business Impact: Many colleges and universities could save money by using a no-fee cloud e-mail service, compared with running their own premises-based system. However, no-fee does not mean free — institutions will still need to manage their supplier, integrate identity and access mechanisms (increasingly important for hybrid premises-and-cloud-based systems), expose services via the portal and manage the directory. Side benefits include access to much greater e-mail storage capacity plus collaboration and, in some cases, personal productivity applications. Market Penetration: 20% to 50% of target audience Maturity: Early mainstream Sample Vendors: Google; Microsoft Recommended Reading: "Yahoo Jumps Into .edu E-Mail Market Competition" "ACU Adopts Gmail for Students and Staff" "Q&A: Hosted Exchange Services for the Education Market"
Analysis By: Leslie Fiering; Ken Dulaney Definition: Pen-centric tablet PCs are differentiated from media tablets, such as Apple's iPad, because they are pen-centric and run full, user-controlled operating systems. These tablets are largely targeted at the business and education sectors. They meet all criteria for a notebook PC, are equipped with a pen and an on-screen digitizer, and run Windows XP Professional Tablet Edition, Windows Vista and Windows 7. There are two form factors: slates, which don't have a keyboard; and convertibles, which have attached keyboards and swivel screens that lie flat on the keyboard when in tablet mode. Slate adoption tends to be restricted to vertical applications with walking workers and "clipboard replacement." Position and Adoption Speed Justification: Despite the stability of the underlying tablet PC technology, the price premium (as much as $250) over similarly configured clamshell notebooks and lack of tablet-optimized applications have prevented broader mainstream adoption of pen-centric tablets. In some cases, hardware OEMs are adding high-end features (such as Intel Core i7 processors and solid-state drive) to drive the price premium even higher. Pen-centric tablet PCs have long been a staple for certain vertical applications like healthcare, law enforcement, field service and military. Ruggedized models make pen-centric tablets particularly attractive for emergency services and field applications. Sales — which Gartner considers a "semivertical" market — is showing a strong return on investment from the use of pen-centric tablets in some scenarios where it is critical to maintain eye contact and customer intimacy, while collecting sales information. Smaller-form-factor tablets are especially attractive to this segment. The ability to do nontext entries (such as diagrams and formulas) makes pen-centric tablets attractive for higher education students; The K-12 education market has found pen-centric tablet PCs attractive, since many younger children find direct screen manipulation an aid to learning. In an effort to improve affordability for this market, Intel has dropped the price premium between the Classmate 2's clamshell and convertible pen-/touch-enabled models to $100. The greater ease of use of touch in media tablets (which are largely focused on content consumption, rather than on content creation) is likely to limit the growth of pen-centric tablet PCs beyond the markets where they are already established. User Advice: Consider a pen-centric tablet PC as a solid and mature option for vertical applications in which it solves a specific problem. Do not consider pen-centric tablet PCs for broad, mainstream deployment because of the price premium. Consider pen-centric tablet PCs when the user must wear gloves that would prohibit the use of capacitive touch input tablets. Business Impact: Pen-centric tablet PCs are useful in vertical applications for clipboard replacement. Semivertical applications for sales include note-taking in social settings. University students find pen-centric tablet PCs useful where nontext entry is required. Market Penetration: 1% to 5% of target audience Maturity: Early mainstream Sample Vendors: Acer; Dell; Fujitsu; HP; Lenovo; Toshiba Recommended Reading: "Case Study: Model One-to-One Technology Support: Klein Forest High School, Texas" "Notebook PCs: Technology Overview"
Analysis By: Jan-Martin Lowendahl Definition: Grid computing in higher education refers to using computers owned by more than one organization to collectively accomplish large tasks, such as theoretical chemistry calculations, Large Hadron Collider data analysis or complex simulations. Position and Adoption Speed Justification: While grid computing in higher education is largely a research university activity, regional grids and research-related grids have become common, and they are quietly becoming a norm for research-intensive universities. We have set the maturity level to Mature Mainstream and expect to move grid computing off the Hype Cycle in 2011. User Advice: Grid computing provides a way to bring more computing and storage resources to the institution and researcher than could be afforded by each institution or individual research project. It offers opportunities for service, support, software and storage from universities, as well as national, regional, and corporate laboratories and computing centers, to be shared in a common grid. In addition, grid computing can help universities meet changing demands, as well as provide a means for archiving and recovery. A crucial skill to get full advantage of grid computing is parallel programming skills. Business Impact: Grid computing provides increased computing power and greater opportunities for collaboration across different geographies and needs. It also provides a cost-effective way for universities to manage changing computing and research requirements. A potentially disrupting trend is the emergence of "cloud computing," where computing power can be bought "on demand." Market Penetration: More than 50% of target audience Maturity: Mature mainstream Sample Vendors: Appistry; Digipede; HP; IBM; Platform Computing; Sun Microsystems; Univa UD
Analysis By: Michael McGuire Definition: A blog, which derives from the term "weblog," is a website designed to make it easy for users to create entries in chronological order. The entries are then displayed in reverse chronological order (most recent entry first) and are generally archived on a periodic basis. Blogs are mostly used to express opinions on topical events such as sports, music, fashion or politics, but in the past two years, they have emerged as established communication channels for businesses as well as individuals. "Microblogging" has emerged via a platform such as Twitter, which not only allows users to write 140-character posts and share them with humanity, but also serves as an impressive news- and taste-sharing too, because a blog author or journalist can use it to drive awareness of new posts, articles and so on. Position and Adoption Speed Justification: Blogs are pervasive. Google, Yahoo, Six Apart and MSN, among others, have blogging platforms, and publishers have begun to monetize blogs. New users are coming onto the Internet every day, more than a few of whom are or will be utilizing blogs. Enterprise- and CEO-authored blogs are commonplace, with some company executives regularly posting. Companies such as Yahoo or Google frequently announce new-product betas on their blogs. Those who promulgate the "blogs have peaked" position also ignore the real trend toward extending the blogging phenomenon to mobile devices, with companies such as Nokia spearheading this effort. Twitter's emergence as a very popular mobile phone application is a great example of how the blog platform has continued to evolve. Gartner believes this will be blogs' last year on the Hype Cycle, as they have become a permanent part of the communication ecosystem for individuals, media companies and enterprises. In business, blogs from executives or prominent employees are often the primary form of communications with customers, investors, partners and the public. (Gartner believes that, at some point, financial regulators may examine how blogs can, or cannot, be viewed as "official" communications for publicly traded companies. If company blogs for publicly traded companies do come under some form of regulation, such as how press releases on significant news must be reviewed by the SEC prior to release, Gartner does not believe it will curtail or hinder their continued use.) User Advice: As a mainstream platform for content distribution, blogs are forcing the alignment of IT and business forces, resulting in things such as blogging policies for public-facing divisions of companies, not to mention the use of internal blogs to keep teams apprised of developments and more. It's generally a best practice to involve the company's public relations group in the review of an enterprise's blog and, if it is a public company, to involve investor relations. Companies should fully disclose the provenance of their blogs and eschew temptations to create false or deceptive "fan" blogs, often called "flogs," which almost invariably backfire into public relations disasters. Business Impact: Print content companies — from magazines to newspapers — have added blogs to the list of established content streams. Public-facing media companies and enterprises have or are establishing blogging strategies and policies, including Gartner. A need for better blogging tools will continue to drive developer and hosting business opportunities. By lowering the barrier to online publishing, blogs have also increased the business pressure on mainstream media outlets. For example, in June 2008, The Associated Press (AP) let it be known that it would be cracking down on bloggers who engaged in very liberal citation and quotation of AP content. This disagreement hinges on the copyright principle known as "fair use" — as do many things in a media market where consumers exert tremendous control over content distribution. How bloggers use copyrighted material and the blogger's role in the dissemination of information are challenges to incumbent media companies and underscore the disruptive nature of blogging technology. As a result, media companies and brand marketers have to invest in monitoring tools in order to protect syndication policies in the case of media companies, and brand integrity in the case of marketers. Several tools support the monitoring of brand mentions in blogs, and at least one tool — Attributor — can identify specific instances of copyrighted text in blogs. Market Penetration: 20% to 50% of target audience Maturity: Mature mainstream Sample Vendors: Blogger; Six Apart; Traction Software; WordPress
Figure 3. Hype Cycle for Education, 2009 
Source: Gartner (July 2009)
Hype Cycle Phases, Benefit Ratings and Maturity Levels
Table 1. Hype Cycle Phases
Technology Trigger |
A breakthrough, public demonstration, product launch or other event generates significant press and industry interest. |
Peak of Inflated Expectations |
During this phase of overenthusiasm and unrealistic projections, a flurry of well-publicized activity by technology leaders results in some successes, but more failures, as the technology is pushed to its limits. The only enterprises making money are conference organizers and magazine publishers. |
Trough of Disillusionment |
Because the technology does not live up to its overinflated expectations, it rapidly becomes unfashionable. Media interest wanes, except for a few cautionary tales. |
Slope of Enlightenment |
Focused experimentation and solid hard work by an increasingly diverse range of organizations lead to a true understanding of the technology's applicability, risks and benefits. Commercial off-the-shelf methodologies and tools ease the development process. |
Plateau of Productivity |
The real-world benefits of the technology are demonstrated and accepted. Tools and methodologies are increasingly stable as they enter their second and third generations. Growing numbers of organizations feel comfortable with the reduced level of risk; the rapid growth phase of adoption begins. Approximately 20% of the technology's target audience has adopted or is adopting the technology as it enters this phase. |
Years to Mainstream Adoption |
The time required for the technology to reach the Plateau of Productivity. |
Source: Gartner (July 2010)
Table 2. Benefit Ratings
Transformational |
Enables new ways of doing business across industries that will result in major shifts in industry dynamics |
High |
Enables new ways of performing horizontal or vertical processes that will result in significantly increased revenue or cost savings for an enterprise |
Moderate |
Provides incremental improvements to established processes that will result in increased revenue or cost savings for an enterprise |
Low |
Slightly improves processes (for example, improved user experience) that will be difficult to translate into increased revenue or cost savings |
Source: Gartner (July 2010)
Table 3. Maturity Levels
Embryonic |
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Emerging |
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Adolescent |
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Early mainstream |
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Mature mainstream |
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Legacy |
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Obsolete |
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Source: Gartner (July 2010)
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