I've quoted Shakespeare's Henry V above. (That's "Henry the Fifth" for the apparently increasing number of you who have never received instruction about Roman numerals.) The king went on to say this to encourage his troops into spirited battle.
"In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood…"
Now, I of course know that there's nothing about BPM and related subjects that's anything like war. However, I do fervently believe there are Things Going On that will require IT and business decision-makers at user and vendor companies to similarly gird themselves in preparation for an unknown, but likely turbulent future.
Some of that turbulence is already evident, as users and vendors struggle to integrate and consolidate their efforts and thinking around business analytics, intelligence, and the capture, discovery, mapping, management, and optimization of business activities and processes. But a very interesting element of this has to do specifically with the combination of search and analysis/intelligence functionality.
I've written here previously about how unstructured data can both challenge and inform BPM efforts. The thing is, a lot of useful information – almost all truly useful information, according to some – is captured and stored as what computers, at least, think of as unstructured data. And of course, unstructured data, being, well, unstructured, is much harder to search through and extract from than neat little columns and rows of known, consistent characters.
So IBM has devoted a fair amount of effort into developing and encouraging development of technologies that make searching unstructured data less onerous and more useful. That effort has led to offerings and initiatives such as LanguageWare, a "human language technology" platform intended to ease and speed multi-lingual (or, as IBM calls it, "language-neutral") analysis and management of unstructured data such as what businesspeople often call "content" and "documents." Also OmniFind, the search and text analytics technology that is a key component of IBM's content management portfolio. And the Unstructured Information Management Architecture (UIMA) project. And, of course, IBM's acquisition of FileNet, one of the first content management solution vendors to focus on the intersections between business content and process management.
And now, IBM is partnering with BI and analytics solution vendor Business Objects SA. As reported at ebizQ, IBM has announced a new "dynamic warehousing" strategy, and some new data warehousing solutions. One of these includes Business Objects Crystal Reports Server; another supports tight integration with Business Objects' Crystal Decisions BI suite.
This is separate from yet another IBM announcement of BI integration with IBM enterprise computing solutions. Also as reported at ebizQ, IBM announced integration into its System i "all-in-one" business computing platform a special edition of the WebFOCUS BI suite from Information Builders.
What does all of this mean? Broader and deeper abilities to unearth clues and facts about how real people use real information to do real work. Information that can greatly inform efforts to discover, map, and optimize business processes and workflows, for systems and users. More powerful features for searching for – and actually finding – actionable information about the processes governing IT resource and infrastructure management and business alignment. And a wide range of options, for a broad and growing range of enterprise sizes and types.
At least, that's what I hope and believe. What about you? Do let me know.
Michael Dortch has been an analyst, 'information entrepreneur,' speaker, and writer about IT and 'the real world" for the past 30 years. After almost 10 years at the Robert Frances Group (RFG), Michael begins a new position with Aberdeen Group in September.
Dennis Byron is an analyst with ebizQ, focusing on Open Source Software as well as Business Process Management technologies.
