Posts from ‘Interactions’
iPad vs. File Transfer
It’s been a while since I’ve seen “file transfer” as a headlining productivity problem for end users, but here it is making an appearance in an article about how hard it is to use the iPad in the context of an average end user’s collection of gear.
Prisoner of iTunes – the iPad file transfer horror
“The conflict between consumption and productivity”
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/06/07/ipad_file_transfer/
The growth and evolution of the managed file transfer industry continues to be a blessing for Ipswitch and our partners.
The acquisition of Sterling Commerce by IBM (article) presents an opportunity for both companies’ customers and prospects to reexamine their challenges around advanced file services. Proprietary technologies and protocols such as Connect: Direct and Network Data Mover (NDM) are inefficient, expensive and difficult to manage. Yet many companies continue to pay excessive licensing and maintenance fees because the cost and effort to replace these technologies have, until now, seemed as expensive. Furthermore, some partners and ecosystems insist on the usage of legacy file transfer technology because alternatives did not seem to be available.
PCI audit regulations around scope continue to drive the need for people to segment their networks, applications and often, their equipment. At Ipswitch, we often see new enterprise customers fed up with their monolithic legacy systems coming to us with a “tactical” need to segment.
Typically, these customers leave a large number of existing transfers on their legacy system to begin with (a 10-1 ratio of legacy to new connections is not uncommon), and some try-and-buy a MOVEit system at that point. However, others get hooked on the idea of a more flexible, more relevant system and end up with a strategy to migrate all partner connections to MOVEit over a period of 12-18 months, even as they use MOVEit to completely address their short-term PCI segmentation needs.
In the automated file transfer world there are two general user experiences.
Workflow #1: Inbox/Outbox – When an end user (or application) signs on, it sees either one or two folders: an “inbox” where it can drop files and an “outbox” where he/she/it can pick them up. Frequently when items are placed into the inbox they disappear into an internal system almost immediately. Frequently when items are downloaded from the outbox they also disappear immediately.
A common variation on this is the combined inbox/outbox where any items visible to the end user are “outbox” items and end users simply upload new items, which do disappear immediately, to the same folder.
A quick summary of key industry happenings:
A) The economic impact of piracy (including software) is *really* not understood: http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-423. See pages 15 – 19 of the full report in particular.
I’ve always been skeptical of the piracy claims, good to see someone actually reviewed them. I think it is better for the industry to focus on the valued real customer rather than to fabricate and fret about the unknown and unquantifiable pirate customer.
