Microsoft’s Underlying Platform Parts for Enterprise Applications: Somewhat Explained – Part 1

I can partly understand analysts’ temptation to beat up on Microsoft’s forays into the enterprise applications space. To be fair, ”the empire” has had its share of strategic and tactical miscues, as if it had wanted to give these naysayers some ammunition. For one, many analysts and market observers first criticized the giant for not having a unified enterprise resource planning (ERP) product line, but rather several diverse ones, coming from acquisitions of former Great Plains Software and Navision Software a/s.

Today, we are talking about the following four Microsoft Dynamics ERP product lines:

1. Microsoft Dynamics GP (formerly Great Plains) [evaluate this product];
2. Microsoft Dynamics NAV (formerly Navision) [evaluate this product];
3. Microsoft Dynamics SL (formerly Solomon) [evaluate this product] ; and
4. Microsoft Dynamics AX (formerly Axapta) [evaluate this product] .

Additionally, in the early 2000s, Microsoft developed its own customer relationship management (CRM) product, today called Microsoft Dynamics CRM [evaluate this product]. Last but not least, the Dynamics product family includes two retail management applications, which are a combination of an acquisition and in-house development. These are:

* Microsoft Dynamics RMS (Retail Management System) (formerly QuickSell); and
* Microsoft Dynamics POS (Point of Sale) [evaluate this product].

Good and Bad “Green”

Perhaps as a knee-jerk reaction or a temptation (who on earth wouldn’t be tempted to manage a single code base and technology set instead of multiple ones?), in the mid 2000s, Microsoft espoused the ill-fated “Project Green.” When the serious concerns of existing individual ERP products’ users, partners, and even Microsoft developers surfaced about the products’ full-blown convergence into a single “uber-product” (a la SAP), the project was first backpedaled, reduced in scope, phased (via Wave 1, Wave 2, etc.), and than fully scrapped.

It was a waste of a good name at an inopportune time, given the public’s infatuation today with anything that is environmentally-friendly, i.e., “green.” In any case, with the Project Green frenzy subsided, the analysts can always resort to picking apart the Microsoft Business Solution’s (MBS, part of Microsoft Business Division) profit and loss (P&L) statement.

In other words, is it growing faster than the market and is it profitable? Well, having recently attended some of Microsoft’s applications user conference (Convergence 2008) and partner events (Worldwide Partner Conference [WWPC] 2008), at least I think I got some answers and clarifications for myself to both the Project Green and P&L issues.

Once and for all, Microsoft has given up on the lofty idea of building an entirely new ERP system to replace all existing code lines. The daunting “new code line from scratch” effort was admittedly stopped a year ago or so for lack of platform readiness to realize vision (since it was too hard to catch up on the applications breadth and depth), and because it would cause immediate channel disruptions in all ERP product lines.

In other words, each individual product still has its own areas of strengths in terms of vertical industry fit, partners’ geographic coverage, and so on. The more appealing direction was thus to “incubate the vision for a business application suite for the future.” A successful incubation is based on sharing the following research & development (R&D) principles across all the products:

* Role-tailored user experience (UX) with embedded and contextual business intelligence (BI);
* Service oriented architecture (SOA);
* Process-centric and model-driven product design (architecture); and
* Continuous delivery through an evolutionary (rather than revolutionary) product roadmap.

Share (if not SharePoint) is the Key Word Here

In other words, rather than converging (or “fusing”) all products into a next-generation one (which Epicor Software might miraculously pull off with the upcoming Epicor 9 product), Microsoft has opted for the following design principles:

* To natively build on the core Microsoft platform, as much as possible;
* To leverage standard Dynamics tools for high productivity, and proprietary platform tools for specialized requirements (with an 80/20 percent or Pareto approach);
* To share technology across the Dynamics portfolio whenever appropriate, whereby the idea is to develop assets shared by design, to develop for one product to then adopt across the portfolio; and
* Information scenarios and user requirements will be driving future platform innovation.

The best example of sharing (synergy) would be with the single UX design team. The role-based user interface (UI) was implemented with shared controls and gadgets, and delivered for all the Dynamics ERP products after introducing it and testing first in Dynamics GP. With such an ability to share future innovation, Microsoft will continue to look for opportunities to innovate in one product and then share (roll out) across the entire portfolio.

The “Better Together” Themes

Given that all of the acquired and developed products have always been on the Microsoft Windows operating system (OS), it is a no-brainer that they will continue to leverage this platform. Some of the potential future benefits of all the Dynamics application products being “better together with Windows” could come from the following: being certified with virtualization capabilities, integration with Windows Essential Business Server (that is suited for mid-size businesses), and from integration with Windows System Resource Management (WSRM) Management Pack.

Microsoft’s Underlying Platform Parts for Enterprise Applications: Somewhat Explained – Part 2

Reporting, Analytics & Collaboration Enablers

To expand further on the use of the Microsoft SQL Server database that was discussed at the end of Part 1, all Microsoft Dynamics reporting capabilities will in the future come natively (which also means without new license fees) through SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) and associated tools. This was first developed within Microsoft Dynamics GP 9 and Microsoft Dynamics AX [evaluate this product], and will be adopted more broadly across other Dynamics products. In the Microsoft Dynamics AX 4 release, there was the capability of creating ad hoc reports, whereas most recently released Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 also uses SSRS for all production reports.

Innovation is now surfacing as a result of integration between the Microsoft Visual Studio.NET (VS.NET) development platform and SQL Server. Namely, there is now the ability to launch Precision Report Designer and maintain the Dynamics AX semantic models in VS.NET and to pass the data in a closed-loop manner to and from Dynamic AX logic models. These models can in turn look into the Dynamics AX database (SQL Server) via database secure views. The future development will make these currently static models dynamic for report-customization purposes.

Along similar lines will be the use of Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS), whereby all Dynamics role centers within the user experience (UX) project (mentioned in Part 1) will feature embedded contextual business intelligence (BI). Currently, Dynamics AX 2009 has the cube generation capability, whereby analytics perspectives have been added to the business logic model, and which can generate Data Source Views (DSV’s) and Online Analytic Processing (OLAP) cubes. The future research and development (R&D) forays will likely enable the round-trip (between VS.NET and SQL Server) advanced features that will require similar features to the abovementioned reporting tools.

As a little caveat, these native reporting and analytics features will not be automatically available to the users of the proprietary Microsoft Dynamics NAV C/Side database (about half of the install base) and Dynamics AX Oracle instances. For Dynamics NAV customers using the older C/Side database, most of them upgrade to SQL Server when they move to a new NAV version anyway, while Dynamics AX users on Oracle can access the new reporting and analytics features by adding SSRS and SSAS to their deployment. Still, Microsoft will, for the foreseeable future, honor the ongoing support for these databases alongside its SQL Server.

Sharing SharePoint and Unified Communications

Microsoft SharePoint is the platform for portal-based collaboration and document management/enterprise content management (ECM). The product also works tightly with Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) and Unified Communications (UC), both Microsoft technologies that will be described in detail later on. This integration provides great visibility for workflows related to documents and document libraries, and improving collaboration through the “presence” and “click to communicate” features.

Today, SharePoint is the universal portal technology for the Dynamics portfolio; for example, in Dynamics AX 2009, the AX Enterprise Portal (formerly Axapta Enterprise Portal) is now based on SharePoint. The portal was devised from the standard SharePoint design experience, whereby a gallery of Dynamics AX Web parts is now available, making it very simple to bring to the surface Dynamics AX data (with the inherent AX security model enforced) on SharePoint portal pages.

In addition to Web parts, other strategies for SharePoint integration are its Business Data Catalog (BDC) Web Services feature (currently used within Microsoft Dynamics GP [evaluate this product] and Dynamics CRM [evaluate this product]), and data binding (within Dynamics AX). It is likely that BDC services will grow further in importance, and we should expect a broad Microsoft Dynamics consistency around this feature.

The abovementioned UC technology provides the ability for applications to identify users’ “presence” and enable “click to communicate” capabilities. Via Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007, Dynamics AX 2009 and Dynamics CRM 4.0 currently work with UC (which is envisioned for the upcoming Dynamics ERP releases too). For example, whenever a user sees a person in the application screen, he/she can also see a presence indicator showing if they are “out of the office”, “in a meeting”, “on a call”, or “available”. By clicking on the indicator, a user gets to pick the preferred method to communicate with them with a single click, whether it might be via email, instant messenger (IM), or phone, if the company has the computer telephony integration (CTI) capabilities.

The Microsoft Dynamics team is working together with the UC team to develop even more advanced scenarios that bring people closer to the processes represented in their applications. One such possible scenario, “Call Center of the Future”, was showed at Convergence 2008 during Steve Ballmer’s keynote speech. Expected scenarios for the next version of UC platform will revolve around how to factor in application embedding, advanced in-context collaboration scenarios, and blending UC and business process management (BPM).

What About the Microsoft .NET Framework Parts?

The situation is much less “crystal clear” when it comes to leveraging components of the Microsoft .NET Framework. Namely, on the programming and development platform side, only Microsoft Dynamics SL [evaluate this product] is leveraging Visual Basic.NET (VB.NET), one of the languages embraced by .NET. Having already abandoned the gut-wrenching route of a single code base, as noted in Part 1, Microsoft now has to live with the proprietary platforms within Dynamics GP (i.e., Dexterity) , Dynamics NAV (i.e., C/Side AL), and Dynamics AX (i.e., X++/MorphX).

But, on the upside, the abovementioned Windows WF technology, which is an application-hosted workflow orchestration engine, and with a VS.NET design experience, is much more pervasively used throughout Dynamics. WF tools are VS.NET-based tools for developers that add simplified analyst (information worker) experiences.

The technology originated in the Microsoft BizTalk Server team (to be described later on), and in a future major release of BizTalk, WF will become the orchestration engine for BizTalk. WF is used in SharePoint and within Dynamics applications (i.e., Dynamics GP 10, Dynamics AX 2009, and Dynamics CRM 4.0) as the workflow engine. A distinct feature is its Tracking Provider architectural design (Dynamics AX 2009 implements this) that allows users to capture process execution information in the same database as the transaction data.

There is the ability here to track and record data about WF instances as they execute, such as the current status of long running processes, time spent across parts of/the whole process, exception paths taken, etc. This enables an analysis like, for example, how much time or how many escalations is it taking the user to approve Purchase Orders (PO) for his/her preferred suppliers with PO’s value under US$25,000.

Furthermore, Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), formerly called Indigo and WinFX, is an application web services inter-communication framework, and can be used to access Dynamics AX 4 and 2009 business logic through web service interfaces. This provides a higher level document interface to the application for integration, complementing the .NET Business Connector which offers more granular, lower level component interfaces to the Dynamics AX business logic. Microsoft’s .NET Business Connector replaces the older Microsoft Component Object Model (COM)-based COM Business Connector.

Personal lessons for living with techno overdose

Are they real needs or just wants? It sounds like a simple platitude, but most of us fail this logic test. Think about why you are willing to spend the money and add the burden of this new technology to your daily regimen, and whether it will really make your life easier, more efficient or even more fun (emotional needs do qualify!). If you're anal enough, then take the time to write your needs down.

Search, Research, and Countersearch.

Technology overload is matched equally by information overload. Unless you are a persevering researcher with lots of time, you need filters to reduce the avalanche of available data down to an examination of the product features that really matter to you (refer back to item #1). The Internet provides a fire-hose worth of information via a simple Google search, but I routinely go to CNET.com as one of the better consumer electronics reviewers with well-organized, distilled information. Or better yet, I often use the Delphi method by consulting with a couple of techno savvy friends who can quickly give me the scoop on the latest and greatest products.

Compare Cost versus Benefit to Compute Value.

Assuming that you could compellingly define why you needed this new technology, compare the cost and overhead to use and maintain your new purchase. Will this purchase really improve my life or just add another burdensome feature? The key objective should be that it provides greater freedom. Figure 2 graphically depicts that combination of price point and product usefulness where value is achieved, which will vary for each of us,

3Pe

A crass plug for ChainLink's methodology you say! No, you can really apply some of it even to your personal circumstances. This new technology may require behavioral changes on your part to realize the benefits, so consider whether you're up for it. Technology is not in itself a solution but only an enabler. How many techno devices are laying around your house unused or underutilized?

Take the Deal!

If you made the decision to buy the core functionality, then sometimes the more troublesome decision may be to determine what other features to take through bundled offerings or up-sells. Don't be a sucker, but there are good deals to be had, so take the ones that provide features that might be useful and are marginally priced.

Buy for the Future.

One thing's for sure, whatever you are buying will become obsolete in the not too distant future, if it's not already. Only research can help you avoid buying on the obsolescence end of the curve and instead buy the right technology that will last awhile. Beware the lurking technology transition!

On a more serious note, here are some ideas on how to survive the avalanche of technology, avoid the lure of its pitfalls, and hopefully succeed with it as the enabler to true process innovation.

3Pe. Long before you've reached the point of considering a technology acquisition, you should have performed the necessary policy and process analysis and exhausted all actions to climb the improvement curve before you need technology innovation to stimulate a new curve. The old adage which still resonates today is "simplify, integrate, and then automate." Furthermore, only by designing new policies, processes, and people requirements can you assure that you will achieve the benefits of the new technology. Many of us have experience with software implementation failures, never achieving projected benefits or "islands of automation" created in factory processes whose benefit is constrained by the unexamined limitations of the upstream or downstream process. In my experience at Dell, we initially worried that software providers or the competition would imitate our much prized configure-to-order IT functionality, until we finally came to the realization that we could give it to them, and it would make little difference, as most were not willing or able to make the fundamental changes in their business model and processes to successfully utilize it.

When the improvement curve flattens, then can innovation spur a new one?

Document Requirements.

Amazingly, even in the corporate environs, many still fail to perform due diligence with this important first step. Without completing the important analysis and determination of critical core requirements, technology acquisition decisions will be based on emotion, intuition, or some unspoken logic. Once you have decided that you need a technology enabler, distill the requirements list down as much as possible, notating critical needs versus "nice to haves". Get external consulting help if needed, as there are specialists in this field who can provide assistance in focusing and accelerating your technology search (e.g., TechnologyEvaluation.com).

Technology Partnerships are a Marriage.

Don't view this as a one-time purchase, but more of a long-term relationship where you will continue to depend on them for not only technical support, but also future development. Check out the potential partner's financial viability, install base, industry reputation, etc. to ensure that your new partner will be there when you need them.

From whence did all this technology come

So how and why did we get ourselves into this techno dilemma, or should we even be worried? Why concern ourselves with a personal analysis of consumer technology purchases? Consumer transactions drive over 60 percent of GDP and subsequently heavily influence the development and adoption of new technologies even by the business community. A study underway by Computer Sciences Corp. (CSC) titled "Consumer Technology Will Drive Corporate IT Agenda" (csc.com/features/2005/index) makes this point (e.g., text messaging). Maybe we can learn something from my not so unique consumer technology experience, whether we are consumers or provider/sellers. Regardless, these dynamics apply equally to either set of players. Here are some technology facts that I've personally deduced.

Technology gets cheaper and cheaper per unit of performance. By any measure, in whatever technology, performance per dollar increases exponentially as the technology matures, markets grow, and production costs decrease. I bought my first 20 mghz PC in 1991 for $1500. Thanks to the successful fruition of Moore's Law, I can now buy a 2.8ghz PC with 140X the processing power and many more accompanying features for $500.

High tech companies are "pushers". I worked for high tech companies for many years, so do not think me ungrateful in my assessment here. These companies prosper by developing and pushing technology into the marketplace, thus attempting to find or create markets for their products. Sometimes, innovative technologies begin without an obvious market or use and serendipitously become vital (xerography). Almost always, the performance curve of the technology advances faster than the performance needs of the market, which creates a market dilemma for these companies—how to get the market to buy more.

Again, the PC industry demonstrates this dilemma aptly. In the 90s, not only did many people buy their first PC, but major technological events such as the introduction of Windows or the advent of Internet usage stimulated necessary hardware upgrades by the marketplace—much like Stephen Jay Gould's concept of "punctuated equilibrium" in describing significant geological events that stimulated accelerated spurts of evolution, these technological events motivated technological leaps in development which the marketplace proved willing to absorb. However, as the frequency and impact of these previously significant PC technological events have decreased, reasons for buying a new machine have lessened. The latest consumer drivers, such as the connectivity between digital entertainment and PCs (photography, audio/video, etc) have helped, but have done more to stimulate purchases of these other digital devices than PCs. Thus, the industry growth rate has declined by 50 percent since the year 2000. Indeed, PC acceptance plateaued at about 60 percent market penetration among consumers compared to products like phones at over 90 percent and DVD players at 70 percent (after only seven years when most consumer technologies have only reached about half that rate).

Rejoice or beware disruptive technologies! Read Clayton Christensen's book, The innovator's Dilemma, to understand how new or initially lesser performing technologies overtake the needs of the marketplace for higher technologies and steal their customers. If you are on the customer end of this phenomenon, then rejoice. If you are a technology provider, then remember Andrew Grove's well spoken adage that "only the paranoid survive".

You get more than you bargained for. Because of the sometimes growing disparity between performance offered and performance required, product features are bundled to entice you to buy other capabilities not on your core list of needs, and thus you get the cell phone that photographs, e/mails, and web surfs when all you really wanted to do was make a phone call. Most technology sellers gain additional commissions, margin and profits when they "up-sell" or bundle other product features beyond the standard offering.

Confessions of a Techno Junkie

The first step towards solving a problem rests with admitting that you have one. I am writing today to confess that I have a technology problem, although I feel some comfort in the knowledge that I must not be alone. I'm of above average intelligence, college educated, have held executive positions with high tech companies, am not necessarily an early adopter, and pride myself on making logical, rational decisions, even when it involves acquisition decisions. OK, so I read David Taber's article in the February Parallax, ("The Taber Report: Customer Behavior"), which suggests that personal purchase decisions are 80 percent emotional, but still I can aspire, right? Before you read on, understand that this is no anti-technology polemic, but rather a statement on our collective struggle to absorb the technology streaming at us.

Anyway, my problem is best described as technology overdose. Specifically, I currently own more electronics technology than I can personally absorb in five lifetimes, and yet technology and I are far from finished. In my corporate life, although I always tried to make fiscally responsible technology decisions that improved competitiveness and delivered shareholder value, I must admit to being part of more than one attempted technology transition that ended with less than expected results. Scientific studies suggest that Man only uses 8 percent of his effective brainpower, so perhaps there is some direct correlation between our inefficiencies in neurological and technological utilization. I estimate that I effectively use 20 percent of the technological capability that I own, so hey, I'm way ahead of the curve! In a desperate attempt to improve my technological competence, I've even taken a subscription to Wired magazine to keep abreast of the latest in technological trends. It remains to be seen if this will really increase my utilization of currently owned technology or conversely just inspire me to buy more (digital radio, ipod, etc.).

Besides just the simple fact that I own more technology than I apparently need, I have deduced several other themes in my technology ownership. First, the devices that I use most effectively fulfill core needs in my life and somehow deliver lifestyle freedom. Second, because they are increasingly useful or even vital to my daily regimen, I use them more frequently which has concurrently motivated me to learn to take greater advantage of their technological offerings. Indeed, the lifecycle of technology evolves for me from interesting to useful to vital to replacement or obsolescence. My techno devices all fall somewhere in the useful to vital category, since I do generally manage to avoid buying at the interesting stage. The not so evident conclusion is hidden in those devices which I own (e.g., cell phone) with low utilization rates where I may have a vital need in buying that device, but received a lot more concomitant technology than I needed. For example, my state-of-the-art cell phone represents the best example of this. No mere phone, I can take pictures and instantly e-mail them, manage e-mail, peruse the Internet, send text messages, and use it anywhere in the world, except of course, in my home in Texas which is officially located in a "no coverage zone"!

Figure 2: When do you buy technology?

Technology as a business antidote

Now that I've made light of my personal experiences as a technology consumer, let's leap to the arena of corporate technology acquisition and discuss any parallels. Without the benefit of scientific analysis, most of us would probably agree that businesses do an equally poor job of purchasing and assimilating technology into the workplace to achieve intended benefits. We all have war stories of failed software and hardware implementations, and significant technology investments gone awry. Early in my career, I once worked for a company where we sadly joked that we owned more software licenses for applications that we had not implemented than for applications that were implemented. During the heyday of the dot-com era, "supply chain software" seemed to take a parallel maniacal trajectory and proliferated at a high rate. The difficulty as a practitioner rested in ferreting out what the core functionality of any of these packages actually contained and how they might fit into an overall supply chain IT infrastructure. Talk about techno confusion!

Many reasons contribute to the struggles which businesses have in assimilating new technology including poor technology or partner selection, lack of structured 3Pe analysis and redesign, incompetent project management, etc. But more fundamental than any of these, I believe, lies in the delusion that so many companies have suffered so much that they will buy a technological solution to their business problems. Yes, corporate entities, just like consumers, can get "drunk" on technology in their quest for success and mistake enabler for total solution. Corporations, much like we techno junkies, could probably stand some version of a 12-step program to right themselves in the battle for techno sanity.

Microsoft’s Underlying Platform Parts for Enterprise Applications: Somewhat Explained – Part 3

What About Visualization and User Interface (UI) Technologies?

However, what has somewhat intrigued me is Microsoft’s not-so-vocal touting and promoting of Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), although it is an intrinsic part of the .NET Framework. In fact, to the best of my knowledge, the tool has not yet been used within the Dynamics set in earnest, although Lawson Software and Verticent would be the two independent software vendors (ISV) that I am aware of deploying it.

Both vendors tout WPF’s rich UIs that support virtually infinite customizations and business process compositions using Microsoft applications. Other Microsoft-centric ISVs either support only a limited number of specific and prescriptive business scenarios, or use a combination of technology products (for example, Microsoft Office Business Applications (OBAs), Visual Studio.NET, and proprietary interfaces and UI tools) to come up with similar custom scenarios. Again, Microsoft currently uses WPF very selectively in Dynamics UIs, for example, in the Dynamics AX graphical view of the organization structure of the business.

With its Smart Office offering, Lawson is not the first to leverage Microsoft Office to deliver not only manager and employee self-service, but much more as well. In fact, I could think of the joint SAP and Microsoft Duet product, Epicor Productivity Pyramid, QAD .NET UI, SYSPRO Office Integration [SOI]), IFS Business Analytics, and so on.

However, by leveraging WPF, Lawson embeds manager and employee self-service functionality more directly into Microsoft Outlook than Duet (which is more of an add-on launched from Outlook as an integrated pane) and most other vendors’ OBA solutions. Fore more details on Lawson Smart Office, see my earlier blog post on the vendor’s CUE 2008 conference and the Gartner Dataquest Insight report by Bob Anderson entitled “Lawson Raises the Bar With Differentiating ERP User Interface.”

Curiously, Lawson has deployed another non-mainstream Microsoft technology, Microsoft Office Groove. It is a peer-to-peer (P2P) collaboration platform, providing an outstanding base for collaboration (document exchange) scenarios that involve teams with sometimes disconnected participants. Microsoft claims that future product releases will improve the alignment for collaboration between Groove and SharePoint.

Lawson’s technology decision was likely owing to Groove’s concept of “shared workspaces” and Lawson’s view that individuals live in a “space” where they do most of their work. For example, a manager really “lives in” Microsoft Outlook, and should be able to do all his/her work from there. An accountant lives in Microsoft Excel and should be able to work from there. A mobile technician lives in the cell phone/personal data assistant (PDA) metaphor, where the Apple iPhone or Palm Treo similarity of UI can come in handy.

Some Other Vendors’ UI Approaches

Still, although WPF provides a visually appealing, familiar and intuitive UI, it comes with some trade-offs, specifically in memory utilization (being hardware intensive), the need to be hooked to the network, and a much greater dependency on Microsoft software. For instance, IFS doesn’t use WPF today for IFS Applications’ UI simply because of hardware needs: running WPF requires quite a hefty PC in terms of memory, and preferably the (possibly still unstable) Windows Vista platform.

We are talking here about IFS’ upcoming next-generation UI, which had for some time been called Aurora, but is now called IFS Enterprise Explorer (IEE). Namely, to prevent any confusion about Aurora being a separate product from IFS Applications, IFS has recently clarified its naming conventions.

Aurora is now a development project that will yield several enhancements to IFS Applications, all with a focus on ease-of-use and user productivity. The first deliverable as part of the Aurora project is IEE, the new graphical user interface (GUI) for IFS Applications. It is important to note that after IEE is released, the Aurora project will continue, yielding future enhancements.

In any case, IEE is interesting, to say the least, for leveraging Microsoft UI technology to create a look (albeit not yet the multi-touch touch screen, handgestures, etc. feel) of Apple iPhone (on top of Oracle database and Java-based application servers on the back end: some mix of technologies from adversaries, indeed). It is becoming quite obvious that the iPod and iPhone generation is our future workforce, who require well designed tools that they “love” to interact with. At the same time, they accept no excuses for “Why can’t I…?” questions, such as, for instance, “Why can’t I search in the enterprise application in the same way that I search on Google?”

At the end of the day, the design goal is to achieve more with fewer staff members, who thus have broader responsibilities, are able to handle the unexpected, collaborate with colleagues, and be more productive. In other words, the market drivers are the new and engaging design and user productivity. Consumer information technology (IT) and the web are leading the way, and are also becoming quite important for business applications.

To that end, prior to the IEE undertaking, IFS developed a pervasive enterprise search engine that attempts to think the way people think (e.g., “I need that fault report about the fire alarm not working”), and not the way enterprise systems think (i.e., “I want go into the preventive maintenance module where, in the service request folder, I will start the fault report screen, in which I shall then make a query on the description field containing any words followed by the words ‘fire alarm’ followed by any other words again”).