Sharing Large Documents with Office 2.0

File storage, sharing and publishing is one of the first things you want to get right with Office 2.0. As described in a previous post, you want to use the right tool for the right file. Currently, I use Salesforce.com to store most of my documents, but this approach is not really adapted for documents that I would like to share with others and happen to be large in size (over 1MB). First, because Salesforce.com does not support document sharing with users who do not use the same corporate account. Second, because Salesforce.com only offers a meager 1GB of storage per user. Note to Marc: please increase storage capacity to at least 10GB.

Web 2.0 meets BPM 2.0

As part of yesterday’s release of Intalio|BPMS 4.0, we have included the first AJAX-powered implementation of the XForms standard developed by the W3C. This technology was created by Orbeon, an Open Source company headquartered in San Mateo, CA. Our partnership with Orbeon was announced today and follows the announcement of our embedding of Celequest’s BAM technology. Similar announcements related to the inclusion of a business rule engine, a meta-data repository, and a content management system will follow in the coming weeks.

Intalio|BPMS 4.0 Released

Tonight, Intalio shipped Intalio|BPMS 4.0 to a first group of early adopters. This shipment marks Intalio’s return to its Open Source roots, a landmark in the development of the BPM 2.0 concept we introduced last week, and the most significant release we’ve ever made: BPMN process designer in Eclipse, BPEL 2.0 server deployed on top of Apache Geronimo, and BPEL4People workflow interface built with an AJAX implementation of the XForms specification.

Getting Started with Blogs

IT|Redux has been live for two months now, and several readers have expressed their desire to start a blog of their own. If you are one of those, here is a list of tools that I have been using and have mostly good things to say about.

Office 2.0 Alternative to Photoshop

One of the bugs currently recorded onto the Office 2.0 Bug Tracker is that there is no Office 2.0 alternative to Photoshop. While this remains true so far, a temporary fix is now available. It’s called PXN8 (pronounce ‘PIX-EN-ATE’), it’s free, it’s fast, and it’s very impressive. It does not come even close to any […]

The Next Step in Process Modeling

This is my latest BPMS Watch column on BPM Institute.

One of the fundamental promises of BPMS was supposed to be improved business-IT alignment through model-driven implementation. We’re headed in the right direction but the tools and standards don’t completely support it yet. In preparation for the upcoming 2006 BPM Think Tank, a gathering of BPM poo-bahs contemplating the next round of process standards, I have a modest proposal for review.

Another View on BPM 2.0

Since Ismael gives me credit for coining the term BPM 2.0 two or three years back, I hope he doesn’t mind me adding my two cents now to the new version. First of all, I agree with most of the underlying premises: 1) BPM as a concept means something different to every vendor and as a result, users are confused. 2) BPM is not just modeling; without an integrated process design and runtime environment — a BPMS — you don’t get the benefits. 3) Building the implementation should not require real “coding skills,” as in Java, and ideally zero code; but it’s still an IT function, not business. And 4) The BPMS should be based on SOA and industry standards. The last is the hardest one for me to go for completely, since BPEL in its current form (even BPEL 2.0) is a major source of the problem. But we’re about drawing bright lines here, so let’s go with it.

BPM 2.0

Six years ago, I wrote the first white paper on BPMS. It was one of the seminal publications that helped define the concept for BPM and start a new industry. The three letter acronym, which we borrowed from musicians, became an instant sensation, successful beyond any expectations we could have had at the time. Too successful some would say.

Today, the BPM moniker is used to describe anything from legacy workflow products to business rule engines, flowchart diagramming tools, Java code generators, or even business process reengineering consultancy services. This confusion, perpetuated by software vendors and industry analysts alike, serves two main purposes: it allows any vendor who can show boxes and arrows in its product to keep selling its gear, while letting any analyst who can compile a list of the aforementioned vendors to sell its luminary services to herds of utterly confused end users.

Customers I talk to are asking for a change. They’ve tried the first version of BPM, did not find what they were looking for, and are wondering if there is anything else worth trying out. The good news: there is, I call it BPM 2.0 — a term originally coined by my good friend Bruce Silver, and it’s available now. The bad news: the definition I give for BPM 2.0 is a radical one, it leaves no place to hide, and most vendors won’t like it. But guess what? I am more interested in making customers happy than letting other vendors sleep well at night, especially when they happen to be my competitors. So here we go, welcome to BPM 2.0!