In brief…so many technology briefings

The best part of my job as an IT industry analyst is that I get to learn about so many interesting products and solutions that are meant to address the needs of businesses and organizations of every shape and size.  It’s like going to the DEMO conference, but the event lasts all year.

I take numerous technology briefings every week, and I’m always on the watch for solutions that I believe would be of high interest to the readers of my Technology Executive newsletter sent out by Network World every week.  I don’t write about every product or company that I get briefed on, largely because the newsletter format doesn’t give me enough space to talk about every new discovery.  But now I have this additional forum, where I hope to tell you more about IT solutions worth your look.  And if you’ve tried those solutions at your own company, it would be great if you could comment about them on this blog to let others know what your experience has been.

Let me give you a short synopsis of some of the companies and products from my recent briefings:

Last week I met with David Pulaski, co-founder and president of IM-Age Software, Inc.  Pulaski is also a co-founder of BindView Software.  His new effort is secure instant messaging for the enterprise.  IM-PolicyManager automates the compliance of corporate IM policy, allowing you to control who is allowed to use IM, and how.  Messages can be encrypted and all messages are logged, removing the worry of “undocumented” business conversations.   I’ll be writing more about this soon because I think it’s a great productivity tool. 

Today I talked with people at Credant Technologies, a Texas-based company offering a mobile data security solution.  The premise behind what Credant offers is that you have to do more than simply secure the mobile device that data is on; you have to address the user, the device and the location.  So, you might have employees who are carrying your data on a laptop, or a consultant who downloads your data via a web portal, or a business partner who gets your data via email attachment.  Regardless of the access method or the device, Credant can assign security to the data file to make sure it adheres to your compliance policies.  Again, I’ll be digging into this for Tech Exec soon, as it is a problem that just about every organization has. 

A month or so ago, I talked with Ross Mayfield, CEO of SocialText, one of the premier wiki companies.  Wikis have been around for 10 years, but they are just now starting to reach critical mass.  I think they are becoming popular now because people are overloaded by email, and wikis are a way of having much more productive conversations than email allows.  And, compared to intranets – which are structured, static and top-down – wikis give a voice to every member of a workgroup.  If your company hasn’t explored the use of wikis for increasing collaboration, then you need to take the 30-day free trial offer from SocialText to get started!  Once you get hooked on it, you can have SocialText host your wiki or install a server in-house behind your firewall.

I’ll share more of my technology briefings with you next time.  Meanwhile, check out this article in the Houston Chronicle that could be the next great thing for television.  Move over TiVo!  Find out more about the Slingbox.