Open Collaboration Services Initiative OCSI

1
Open Collaboration ServicesInitiative (OCSI)
The Object Management Groups
http//ocsi.r-objects.com

• Johannes Ernst
• R-Objects Inc.

Joaquin Miller X-Change Technologies
(contact info at end of presentation)
2
Outline

• Business Problem virtual work group productivity
• Technical Problem technology fragmentation
• Industry Analysts
• Potential Work in the OMG
• Discussion Next Steps

20 min
40 min
3
Collaboration Business Problem
Partner
Customer
Company
VirtualWork Group 1 Extension
Virtual WorkGroup 1
Virtual WorkGroup 2

• Collaborative Business
• Lower cost
• Faster, more agile
• Better cooperation, quality
• More effective use of IT

4
Collaboration Technical Problem
Partner
Customer
Company
?
webapp
legacyapp
PCapp
contentmgmt.
WiFi
e-mail
wireless
AIM
OracleDB
contentmgmt.
legacyapp
webapp
AIM

• Collaborative Business
• Lower cost
• Faster, more agile
• Better cooperation, quality
• More effective use of IT

webservices
PCapp
OracleDB
G3phones
SQLserver
J2EE
.NET
Obstacle Fragmentation!
5
Collaboration High-level Solution
Partner
Customer
Company
webapp
legacyapp
PCapp
contentmgmt.
WiFi
e-mail
wireless
AIM
OracleDB
contentmgmt.
legacyapp
webapp
AIM

• Collaborative Business
• Lower cost
• Faster, more agile
• Better cooperation, quality
• More effective use of IT

webservices
PCapp
OracleDB
G3phones
SQLserver
J2EE
.NET
Obstacle Fragmentation!
Solution Interface Stds!
6
Ovum
Thecollaborativeenterprise
Communitiesof Practice
bottom-up/ practice-driven/ informalcollaboration
next-generationenterprisecollaborationplatforms
team rooms
desktopdocumentmanagement
expertiselocation
Processmanagement
TheIsolatedKnowledgeWorker
synchronous/asynchronousmessaging
productiondocumentmanagement/workflow
enterpriseportals
Quoted/paraphrazed Eric Woods, OvumKM World
July/August 2003
top-down / process-driven / formal collaboration
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Gartner

• Virtual teaming is rapidly becoming the
  fundamental work unit for knowledge-centric work
  in Global 2000
• By 2006, in 75 percent of enterprises, project
  teams will have virtual membership
• In more than half of these enterprises, some
  project team members will be non-employees.
• Currently difficulty of choosing between bundled
  suites, portal frameworks and point solutions.
• Collaboration support functions will become
  componentized and delivered as Web services.

Source Hayward/Jacobs, Gartner
8
META

• Contextual Collaboration
• collaboration not in a bulky suite of
  collaboration applications butcollaboration
  services are invoked within a business
  application
• enable customers, employees, and partners to
  plan, share, negotiate, coordinate, build
  community, and exchange information within
  applications and enterprise portals
• Organizations need to develop a strategic
  collaboration plan
• 1) oversupply of collaboration resources
• 2) insistent demand by users for collaboration
  services
• 3) long-term opportunity for contextual
  collaboration to create process efficiencies
• by 2004 30 of Global 2000 companies will have
  strategic plan by 2007 70
• by 2007 collaboration spending 4x current
  spending
• recommends creating a collaboration
  center-of-excellence in enterprises
• Bottom LineEnormous opportunities for creating
  business efficiencies and extreme market
  confusion mandate the creation of a strategic
  collaboration planning document to guide
  investment.

Source Matt Cain, META
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The Five Dimensions

• distributed
• multi-organizational
• zero effort forbase functionality
• specific functionalityfor specific problem

• All enterpriseserver platforms
• Windows, Linux,MacOSX etc.
• WiFi, cell,bluetooth etc.
• WinCE, Symbian,Palm etc.

People
Formal/informal process
OpenEnterpriseCollaboration

• distributed
• regardless of vendor
• server-based,PC-based and mobile

Devices
Applications

• browser, rich client
• e-mail
• instant messaging
• video conferencing
• shared whiteboards
• application sharing
• voice
• web logs

• distributed
• regardless of format
• schema/semantics-aware
• server-based,PC-based and mobile
• DBMS or file

CommunicationModes
Information
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The Collaboration Connector
Facets
Standards
Video Voice

• H.26x, MPEG, G.7xx, VoiceML, 

Application sharing

• T.128,

ExistingApplication
Real-time Collaboration (e.g. shared spaces,
whiteboards)

• ?

Contextual Notification/ Messaging/Presence

• XMPP, SIMPLE, SMTP, 

Cross-references annotation

• WiKi,

InformationSchema Semantics

• UML/XMI, XML-S, RDF-S, Ontologies,

Information Access

• RSS, CORBA, SOAP, ftp, http, WebDAV,

Security

• HTTPS, SSL/TLS,

(probably an incomplete list)
Identity

• Liberty, LDAP,

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Potential Outcomes of this Initiative

• Architecture blueprint for collaborative business
• can be referenced by enterprises
• helps enterprises to make their businesses more
  collaborative
• full business context across heterogeneous
  technologies
• addresses all five dimensionspeople,
  applications, information, communication modes,
  devices
• process-driven and/or free-form
• Specification for a universal Collaboration
  Connector
• plug-and-play heterogeneous collaboration
• common collaboration (web) services interface
  definitions
• full enterprise integration and context
• reduces business friction, increases business
  results
• Conformance profiles for different domains
• different requirements, different industries,
• defines solutions to specific needs

12
WIIFY (whats in it for you)

• For enterprises (users)
• reduce collaboration chaos
• standardize and unify formal and informal
  collaboration support technologies
• develop blueprint for collaborative business
• provide higher business value
• For service companies(e.g. systems integrators)
• more projects with higher business value
• leverage projects (collaboration has network
  effect)

• For product vendors
• address long-standing user requirements
• leverage (for you) non-core technologies that
  provide high business value to your customers
• increase active users of your technology
• For collaboration companies
• grow collaboration software market
• ingrain collaboration into enterprise IT
• increase utilization of your product

13
Discussion and Next Steps

• Questions / To Be Discussed
• A good match for the OMG? Yes. Should be TF (SIG
  initially?)
• Platform or Domain? Has both aspects platform TF
  with domain-specific WGs(Manufacturing and
  Finance have started collaboration WGs already)
• Next Steps
• Reach out beyond current OMG membership
• Open invitation to present views at next two (?)
  OMG meetings
• user organizations needs
• Analysts, pundits, insights
• vendors needs and possible solutions

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You are invited!

• If you are a user, vendor, analyst, pundit,
  Tell us about
• Your companys, or your customers collaboration
  requirements, and the collaborative business
  problems that you are facing!
• Tell us about specific usage scenarios youd like
  to see supported.
• Tell us either in private (see contact info
  below), or better, prepare to give a 10-20 min
  presentation to OCSI with your views at one of
  the following events

London, UK, November 17-21, 2003 Anaheim, CA, US,
February 2-6, 2004
This is an open initiative. We want you to be
heard!
Questions? Contact us!
15
Contacts
Websites http//ocsi.r-objects.com
http//www.omg.org

• Johannes Ernst
• R-Objects Inc.

Joaquin Miller X-Change Technologies
Due to the internet spam problem, we do not
provide e-mail addresses orphone numbers in this
copy of the document that has been posted on the
internet. To contact either of us, go to
http//ocsi.r-objects.com, click on Usersand
send us e-mail from there. We apologize for the
inconvenience, and appreciate your understanding.