General IT

The Eagle has Landed – Microsoft launch “Apollo” aka Windows phone 8

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I know this is another “mobile phone” blog post from me, but I make no apologies. I think mobile and BYOD (bring your own device) is one of the biggest changes that will happen in Legal IT in the next few years.

I also think this weeks announcement from Microsoft will be the start of a turning point for Legal IT mobile technology. The slow shift from BlackBerry to other platforms will start to gather pace with Windows Phone 8. There are a few features that have been announced in Windows Phone 8 that allow this platform to be considered as a real corporate alternative to the BlackBerry.

The first couple are already available on other platforms but they fill a hole that Windows Phone 7.5 had, which are on-device encryption and over the air updates. The former is critical to safeguard data in law firms. I’ve not seen the exact specs for this, but one can hope that the enterprise can manage this along side encryption provided in Windows 7 and 8 on the desktop (ie effectively will be the same Bitlocker technology). Over the air updates are a must for a large law firm, can you imagine the need to tether 1000+ devices to Zune to update??

A new feature which differentiates Windows Phone 8 is the OS integration with VoIP technology. By default Microsofts Skype will be integrated (although later reports indicate this may be allowed to be removed by carriers wanting to protect their phone call revenue!), but it is available for developers so you can pretty safety assume that Lync will get fully integrated! By integrating at the OS it’ll link with contacts and phone as if it was the native interface and will work with all Bluetooth attached devices etc.

Also the kernel of Windows Phone 8 is shared with Windows 8. Now it may be a while before law firms switch to desktop 8 but Legal IT firms that move their platforms to be Windows 8 compliant should find it much easier to leverage those apps in WP8 too. There will also be the ability to set up corporate app stores to manage the delivery of apps internally.

For consumers the Microsoft Phone Wallet sounds interesting, combining NFC technology (near field communication) and an account manager for credit cards, frequent flyer cards etc. Not sure of the benefits directly for Legal IT, but for a travelling lawyer maybe. Again these are available in the latest Android devices and rumoured to be in the next generation of Apple devices.

There is a “split” in the OS as you’re trusty “old” Lumia 800/900 look like they won’t get an 8 update, but MS will introduce a 7.8 release for older devices. There are few details yet, but it sounds like the kind of split iOS does with newer devices, ie you’ll get all the features that the old hardware can manage (ie you won’t get the higher res features as the older phones don’t have the display etc).

Whether we like it or not, in law firms Microsoft technology is king. And this won’t change anytime soon, much to the annoyance of those who still persist with the Microsoft is buggy/poor mantra. So if i was a betting man i would say the natural successor to RIM devices will be Windows Phone 8, but this will bring Android and iOS into the law firm more and more as the management of devices will be less linked to one device.

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General IT

Two simple steps for RIM to get back in the game

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This month has seen the release of Blackberry 10, at least to the developer community. If that’s what RIM intend to release later in 2012 then I’m afraid we may be all bidding adieu to the familiar sight of Blackberry in Legal and beyond.There is no way that a touch screen OS from Blackberry will break the Android and iOS dominance, nor keep Windows Phone from being the #1 challenger to the top 2! These other three are slowly chipping away at the “risks” that ActiveSync technology supposedly brings compared to the BES infrastructure and a copycat OS isn’t going to save RIM.

The Blackberry wasn’t a successful business device because of a touchscreen, a big colour display, a large app store, browsing ability etc. No, the Blackberry was a success because it did two things very well. One, allowed me to make phonecalls and two, allowed me simple and quick access to my email. If RIM had stuck to what it did very well rather than chase the success of Apple then it could still be a player in the corporate world.

My business plan for RIM would have been:

One : The new Blackberry should have gone back to basics. Simple old style Blackberry handset with the keyboard that made composing and replying to emails so easy. Then replace the full colour display with a a Kindlesque e-ink display. This would allow the device to have a battery life that blitzed everything on the market (ever seen how long a WiFi Kindle can last!!). A lot of lawyers would love the basic functional aspect and being able to leave weeks without charging! It would be the perfect successor to the Nokia 6210 for a lot of lawyers.

An e-ink BlackBerry
An e-ink BlackBerry

Two: Focus BES on a management console for ALL smartphone devices. Embrace the security and risk fears of the personal device brigade and control it. There will always be those that want to use their iPhone or Windows Phone, they’ll never switch to a BlackBerry but from a corporate point of view you allow it and control it using the BES software. That way you’re in place to be the device provider for all those that want a functional device with outstanding battery life!

Two simple steps to get back in the game. Yes, for the smartphone loving crowd they’d never go basic e-ink device. But then they’d never swap their iOS, Android, WP7 handset for a Blackberry 10 handset either! Go colour touch screen RIM and we’ll be talking three players in the market in 2013.

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General IT

Good, is it any good? Corporate email, personal devices

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This last week Good for enterprise was released onto the Windows Phone 7 platform. As I’ve a Windows Phone device and we’ve had Good in place for email in our firm for a while (for those on iOS and Android at least), I decided to download the app and take it for a test drive.

So what were my thoughts?

First off for those unfamiliar with Good, it “is a suite of powerful mobile device management tools that bring military-grade security, end-to-end data loss prevention”. Basically for me as an end user, this means the firm can deliver my work email to my own personal device, knowing that its fully encrypted at all times and can be remotely removed if required. So from a control point of view, firms IT and risk depts don’t lose control of the data even though it’s not on a firms device.

And from an end user point of view, I do get access to all my work emails, contacts and calendar on my own personal device.

But…..

The downside for me was that I’d already experienced Exchange email being linked natively to a Windows Phone via Acticesync. And the experience of that from an end user point of view was SO much better. I have my phone setup with 3 personal email accounts already (don’t ask!!) and Windows Phone like most smartphones combines these into one set of contacts, one calendar and (if I want) one inbox. So using Activesync my work email just blended into this environment (I ended up keeping a separate inbox for email, but the joined calendar and contacts was perfect). All my world in one joined up interface. The Good experience wasn’t, well, as good!

At the end of the week I had an excellent twitter discussion with Simon Dandy, Jeffrey Brandt, Charles Christian and Ryan Alban about BYOD (bring your own device) and the balance between security and usability. We concluded “So it’s simple. All we need is a native interface, feature rich, data bifurcating Good on steroids :)”. Basically what you’d want is a separate store of data that’s encrypted (what Good does well) but delivered through the devices integrated native interface.

As I can’t utilise the Activesync option at work I’ve stuck with the Good app. And to be fair it does work well. I takes a while to get everything set up (on start up it has to synchronise the encrypted store with my inbox at work, which can take a while if I haven’t launched Good for some time), but once things are up and running it works as you’d expect any email/calendar app to work. But I can’t help feeling that the need to go into a separate app to look at my emails seems a bit clunky (I mean in Windows Phone I don’t even have to do that for Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn, all this is integrated into the UI!). Overall it just isn’t quite as usable as having the emails pushed straight into the devices native email interface!

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General Legal IT

Simple, obvious and exactly what the lawyer ordered. Legal IT software shocker!

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It’s taken me a while to write this up but a number of weeks back I saw a product demoed, that for the first time in ages had me thinking “Yes!”. Actually I originally saw this product months before at Tikit’s Word Excellence day, Jan Durant was demoing it and saying how fantastic it was, but at that point I didn’t see what the fuss was about. But in the recent demo I did, the idea is simple if not a bit boring, but it just seems exactly right!

The product is gDoc Binder and it is just that, a document binder. You select a number of electronic documents, put them in an electronic binder and that’s it. See told you it was simple and boring!

But the things that excite are as follows:

  • Each document can be linked to an original in SharePoint, a DMS, a File Server etc. Each time you “sync” the binder the latest version of the document is collated into it. So you’ve always got the latest document.
  • It works like a paper binder, flicking through pages is easy. You can tab sections, add bookmarks, post notes etc
  • You can add web pages, so a lawyer can take a snap shot from the firms intranet. A page of directions from the client web site etc
  • You can take the binder with you on an iPad. And this is where the real “Yes!” comes from. The complaints we get against e-filing rather than paper filing is the lawyer can’t flick through documents/emails whilst on the phone or with the client to find the right information or communication, they can’t read through them easily on the train/plane etc, they can’t make notes. Well the binder on an iPad they can, pretty much like it were a real binder!

This simple product may be a huge lever to allow law firms to shift from paper to electronic for the vast majority of documents. I’m not naive enough to think we’ll get to the full paperless office, but it could allow us to rid ourselves of a huge chunk of that paper (and gain the cost savings that go with all that paper, ink, printing and storage).

From what I understand the product isn’t available direct from Global Graphics but will be resold by others (who can add connectors etc for the linked of documents to, say, a legal DMS), they include at least a couple of Legal IT vendors as far as I’m aware. It’s definitely worth a look.

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General Legal IT, Legal

LawTech Futures 2012 – UK’s answer to the annual ILTA event?

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Well it’s a couple of weeks now since LawTechFutures 2012 and I have to say it was a good event for Legal IT in the UK. I’ve not been to a any general Legal IT events in the UK for a number of years. I’ve been to some good specific events (Interwoven’s old Gear Up events were usually very good and Tikit’s Word Excellence days have been good too), but the old Legal IT shows were more “trade shows” that allowed vendors to show and talk about their wares. They certainly weren’t the kind of show that allowed you to both see products and also hear about key topics affecting the industry. I attended ILTA in 2010 and there was an example of how good a Legal IT event can be!

So what about LawTechFutures? Well it isn’t quite ILTA yet, but it’s certainly a great start in the right direction (it is after all only lawtechfutures event number one!). A few more tracks of speakers with better platforms for those tracks off the main track (the lounge and demo stages weren’t perfect for either speaker or audience really) and it could be an excellent regular annual event. This is just a minor point though and should not detract from the fact that the event was a huge success both in numbers attending and the quality.

For a good write up of the event have a read at the post on the excellent “The Time Blawg”.

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WorkSite Tips & Tricks

Upgrading to WorkSite Communications Server 8.5SP2

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I first saw a demo of WorkSite Communication Server 8.5SP2 when it was introduced a year or so ago. Since then its had some missed deadlines but finally was released in GA a couple of weeks ago. Partly the reason for its delay however was because of the many architectural changes in the software. The underlying code has been completely overhauled and the operation of WCS 8.5SP2 has been changed in a number of ways.

WCS 8.5SP2 has a number of key features all rolled up into one release

  • Greater integration with Exchange 2010 CAS
  • Load Balancing across multiple WorkSite Communication Servers
  • Mailbox Sync/Mailbox Agent
  • Numerous bug fixes

 

If you are moving to Exchange 2010 and currently have WCS SP1 installed you may want to check my earlier post for further information.

In this post I’ll focus on a couple of the features that come with SP2 and share with you some of the useful tips I picked up along the way.

Exchange 2010
One of the eagerly anticipated feature of this release, especially for larger firms, is the deeper integration with Exchange 2010. In SP1 EFS configuration was based around filtering on the WorkSite database/Exchange server pair; which was fine until the number of filing folders in a single database increases to unmanageable levels (how much time have we all spent waiting for that EFS pane to refresh praying it won’t crash??). Even then you could have explicitly list your Exchange 2003 mailbox stores (until of course the number of folders per database per mailstore got too large!) to filter further.

In Exchange 2010 Microsoft recommend you use the CAS alias for all external apps, meaning you were confined to using just one server if you couldn’t split your WorkSite database config down further. Autonomy still allow you to filter Exchange 2010 mailbox/database, however with the introduction of Load Balancing, this is less of a necessity.

Load Balancing using iManage Clustering
The core problem with running multiple WCS SP1 servers was that they all ran independently and it was up to the WorkSite Administrator to set up each of their functions according to infrastructure resources and business requirements. If one of the servers failed there was no mechanism for the processing to fail over to another server. In SP2, Autonomy require an installation of iManage Clustering, the same service that clusters middle-tier servers together. This works pretty well, you can now have multiple servers processing the same setup together by the efficient Clustering service.

I would advise you spend time to get to know how Load Balancing works. The recommended setting is to enable Automatic Load Balancing and let the system run on auto-pilot. This works well, on the whole, the users are split evenly across each server with the ValidUsers.urs file dynamically updated whenever there is a change in one of the nodes across the WCS cluster. Bear in mind once you click on Connect, all the options are greyed out and you will no longer be able to make any config changes. Just as well really, I agree with Autonomy this is necessary to prevent any unintended user action that may disrupt the process.

You may choose to run the manual Load Balancing, which is mandatory when filtering users according to WorkSite group. This is definitely a gem in the release; as a WorkSite Administrator I’ve come across a situation many times where users complain folders have not been processed for filing or some other problem. In SP1, to troubleshoot the problem meant to let MarkingWork complete a run and then trawl through the logs. However the logs can get chatty (in SP2 unfortunately the situation has gotten worse) and it is difficult to filter threads for a particular user. In SP2 all you have to do is add the user(s) into any WorkSite group, add the name of your group under User Group Name and away you go, MarkingWorker now only targets the users you want. Simple, but brilliant.

SP2 Tips

  • Use the new functions available to SP2 to go through your infrastructure again and see if it needs to be tuned. Especially if your firm is over the intial period of introducing 8.5 client, you may want to re-evaluate whether you still need to have an aggressive polling interval.
  • It also might be an opportunity to do some housekeeping & go through the EFS console to remove some of the folders marked Failed as a result of the user filing and then deleting them from Outlook. If in doubt, reset the folder and attempt to process again so you can be sure its ready to be deleted. Alternatively, you may want to check the status of the folder from Outlook.
  • Consider using User Group Name, should you want align your EFS configuration to target particular users more than others.
  • Be aware of how big the logs can get. Currently there is no way to tone down the logs from Verbose. The available setting only allows to tone down to Information or Error in the EFS console view.
  • Although you may not be using Mailbox Sync and have it set to Manual or Disabled; you still need to review the settings you have set in this node in EFS. In particular, notice how any WorkSite/Exchange settings change you make also get replicated into this window (under the Exchange Servers/WorkSite DMS area). If it hasn’t replicated, click away and then back again.
  • Clustering the EFS servers will require a DNS alias first, so get these in place before you begin your upgrade. If you aren’t using clustering, you are still required to input the hostname in the Cluster Name field.
  • When using Load Balancing, note how EFS generates files in the (hidden) ProgramDataAutonomy folder until LoadBalancer has finished at which point the ValidUsers file is placed in the Config folder. This file is the heart of the Load Balancing operation and initiates & controls the process.
  • Using Automatic Load Balancing means each node in the cluster has a number of users held in the ValidUsers file for that node to process. This will not get refreshed until there is a connect/disconnect on that or other nodes within the cluster. Which is fine, until the time you have new users added into your WorkSite databases who will soon start to create Filing Folders. These new users will not get added until there is a refresh and the ValidUsers file is reloaded.

 

What do you think of WCS SP2 so far?

 

Mubashir Mian is the Lead System Specialist at a major international law firm. His LinkedIn profile can be viewed here (http://uk.linkedin.com/in/mubashirmian)

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General Legal IT

Been gone for a while….

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I realised I haven’t blogged for a while. Reason is that as well as the rather hectic home and work life, I’ve a few other Legal IT projects on the go. First up I’ve been working on an article for “Managing Partner” magazine. I finished writing this at the weekend, so hopefully it will see publication in one of the upcoming issues. The topic is on WorkSite in a law firm, looking at the challenges of running a WorkSite setup, lessons learnt etc. The article is from experience of using WorkSite but would really apply to any legal DMS. The author terms means I can’t publish on here just yet, but will be able to in the future so if you can’t get hold of a copy I’ll post on here eventually.

Next up is a talk I’ll be doing at LawTech Futures 2012 in March on mobile technology (smartphones and tablets mainly) in law firms. Rather than a product review, it’ll be more on how lawyers can and do use them and where the tech is going that will be useful to lawyers. I’m talking at 13:40, so if you’re at the conference come and say hello!

And finally I’ve been asked to speak to the British Columbia Legal Management Association in Canada. This one is still in planning stages, but looks like will now be scheduled in May. Unfortunately this is a webex and telcon talk rather than a visit to Vancouver. But the topic on Technology – what’s new? should allow for a pretty interesting subject.

More regular blogging will resume once I’ve finished up the slides for my talk for LawTech Futures which from the email I’ve just received as a very strict deadline…..

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General Legal IT

ABS on ABS (or another blummin’ story on alternative business structures!)

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The move in the legal world to alternative business structures has generated a great deal of interest over the past few years. For a while it’s seemed a lot of talk and little action, but it now seems there are some interesting developments happening. Following Irwin Mitchell, Hill Dickinson and Kennedys are the latest UK Top 50 to confirm plans to move to ABS. And then this week Australia’s Slater & Gordon, the world’s first publicly listed law firm, moves for Russell Jones & Walker.

I’ve been a little sceptical of how revolutionary “Tesco Law” will be. Sure I can see it in the personal injury and clinical negligence arena, for example, where there is a lot of standardised legal work. But outside that, I’m not sure. For existing businesses I can’t see beyond the move being like an IPO for the partners, what’s the incentive to grow that business after the “float”? Most entrepreneurs after an IPO of their business leave with their money and start again. In a law firm though the product of the business is the lawyer (unless it’s standardised legal work where processes and standard documents have been be created, but then we’re back to my first point!).

However, I read with interest the story of Liverpool’s Silverbeck Rymer which is set to be acquired by software and outsourcing firm Quindell Portfolio. As a Legal IT professional this move kind of excites me, a company with the technology and the processes taking over a law firm to get the legal expertise? The business process and IT systems being front and centre in building and growing that business!

The other interesting possible development could be for new entrants to gain the access to capital from investors. This could allow those partners from big firms to setup new firms or maybe entrepreneurs who see the opportunities that then work with some young lawyers to build the next generation of law firm?

It’s an interesting time to be in legal and could lead to some very exciting opportunities in legal IT. Maybe I’ll try and persuade a couple of friends who work in the IT dept of one of the aforementioned UK Top 50 to guest blog post in a years time on what changes ABS has brought to their dept!

 

If you want some further reading on “Tesco Law” there’s a good in depth commentary on Legal Week entitled “Reverberations and revolutions – change grips the market as ‘Tesco law’ finally launches”

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General IT

And the gold medal goes to Windows Phone

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The following was one of my 2012 predictions.

Windows Phone/Android/iPhone : Or more to the point, the death of the blackberry in Legal. After years of being the corporate tool of choice (remember when having a BB was a bit of a status symbol!!), RIM through major failure of service and also taking their eye off what they were really good at (email access) have gone the way of the fax machine. As for the replacement? Well the last two on the list are obvious, but I’m sticking my neck on the line and predicting the order as written! I’ll post up why I think this in an future post.

So Windows Phone as lead candidate to replace BlackBerry as the corporate smartphone of choice, am I mad?

Well no, I honestly think the new OS from Microsoft will make significant roads this year and shock the other two a little. Below are some of the reasons I think that it will position itself to be the enterprise device of choice:

  • Nokia – yes they may have fallen behind a little in recent years, but people still talk about them and they know how to build a phone. Regardless of the OS the new Lumia 800 is a extremely well built piece of kit! Plus they can market phones in a way that is second only to Apple.
  • Skype – sure this is available as an app for Android and the iPhone, but over the next year I expect to see closer integration with Windows Phone and more importantly closer integration with Lync. This will start to glue corporate telephony into Windows Phone and as Lync becomes the internal telephony platform of choice, Windows Phone becomes the natural choice for a law firms Unified Communications plan.
  • The enterprise marketplace – rumoured to be coming in the Apollo release of Windows Phone (due later in 2012) is the ability to create a private, secure private app marketplace. Allowing controlled distribution of applications to corporate devices or access to corporate applications to specific personal devices.
  • An obvious one, it’s Microsoft! And so is your corporate email (Exchange), your corporate intranet (SharePoint), your corporate engine room in legal (Office) and your corporate messaging/telephony (Lync). Do you not think they will all just work together seamlessly? Try using Windows Phone now with OneNote, SkyDrive and OneNote in Office 2010 to see how well this can work.
  • The original xbox case study – when the xbox was first released all the “gaming experts” said it was too late to the party and stood no chance against Sony and Nintendos offerings (PS2 and Gamecube). Ten years later and the xbox is THE games console and dominates the market. Sure Sony and Nintendo are still there with a healthy market share, but the 360 is the market leader. History has a tendency to repeat itself, what I saw in the original xbox I see now in Windows Phone.

And finally a bit of wild speculation?

Overall I don’t think Windows Phone will overtake Android or iPhone in market share in 2012, but I think by the end of the year it will be looking like a definite player in the market. And in the corporate world the knowledge and foothold that Microsoft has will give it prime position to take the crown from RIM.

Blackberry running Windows Phone OS?
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