Sydney (Australia) + Hong Kong, Friday 20th March... DocsCorp today announced the opening of a new office in Hong Kong to support increasing demand for its pdfDocs Solutions Suite software in Asia. George Lau has also been appointed to the role of Sales Director Asia. The addition of Lau means DocsCorp will be expanding its sales and channel sales development efforts in Hong Kong and other Asian centres and will be actively building distributor and reseller partner programs to further extend its reach.
"I am excited about joining the DocsCorp team particularly in the Asian market," says Lau. "Asia, especially the Greater China Region, may be the only region in the world that can still attain economic growth despite the current threat of a global recession. DocsCorp provides companies with a cost-effective solution to ensure document workflow productivity, security and efficiency in these tough economic times. My goal is to accelerate the growth of the pdfDocs Solutions Suite in Asia." Prior to joining DocsCorp, Lau was the sales director - Asia Pacific with Hummingbird/OpenText, BakBone Software and N-able Techologies Inc. He has extensive channel and major accounts management experience in the Asia region.
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Thursday, March 19
DocsCorp opens for business in Hong Kong
by
Charles Christian
on Thu 19 Mar 2009 19:00 GMT
Law Soc renews outsourcing deal with Logica
by
Charles Christian
on Thu 19 Mar 2009 11:04 GMT
Thursday 19th March... Logica today announced a new £12m five year outsourcing contract with The Law Society (for England & Wales). The outsourcing contract will enable The Law Society to benefit from a 25% reduction in outsourcing costs. This new contract builds on an existing four year relationship. The contract is based on a partnership approach, with Logica providing The Law Society with various IT outsourcing services, including remote infrastructure management, hosting, support and maintenance of the server estate, WAN management and blended applications management for core business systems.
Logica will deliver the outsourced support services through a blended onshore and offshore service delivery model offering The Law Society efficiency and quality improvements combined with significant cost savings, in line with its strategy of centralised delivery of IT Services. In addition to the outsourcing contract, Logica has been invited to participate in The Law Society’s IT Leadership Team. This partnership approach will allow for improved engagement in key IT and business issues, ensuring that The Law Society will have access to Logica’s breadth of technical and consulting expertise. Logica will also be given the opportunity to participate in other initiatives to further upgrade The Law Society’s infrastructure and business systems. Law Soc CEO Des Hudson said: “Our goal is to protect and promote solicitors across England and Wales and to build on important services to members. These annual savings will help the Society meet its IT investment plans, for example, the substantial spending on our regulatory arm's new systems. Working with a proven and trusted IT partner like Logica allows us to benefit from cost and efficiency savings, focus on our core business and crucially add value to our members.”
Happy birthday Mister Cameron
by
Charles Christian
on Thu 19 Mar 2009 08:44 GMT
So its happy birthday to leading UK legal IT consultant Neil Cameron, who clocks in at 54 years old today. Congratulations - we'd buy you lunch at Petrus - but you make money than us, so it'll have to be a packets of M&Ms next time we see you at Liverpool St Station.
Wednesday, March 18
Latest Asia-Pacific news
by
Charles Christian
on Wed 18 Mar 2009 18:25 GMT
Time for another round-up of Asia-Pacific news...
• Long Distance, Low Carbon selling The Singapore-based Kelvin Chia Partnership (KCP) has selected a Liberate debt recovery and case management systems from Linetime Limited, a vendor more traditionally associated with the UK domestic market. KCP are Microsoft users and, as Linetime’s products are all designed to operate in this familiar ‘international’ environment, implementation was straightforward. In addition, Singapore law is based upon the English system meaning so the solution supplied will need only minimal changes to meet local conditions. These will be carried out by KCP staff after training. An interesting aspect of this deal is that all activities, pre and post-sale, are being handled remotely, using the internet. Linetime sales manager Keith Hutton said: "We have been supporting UK and overseas customers remotely for a number of years and are making increasing use of the internet for product demonstrations. This method is cost-effective and convenient for ourselves, our prospects and our customers. To be topical it also has a very friendly carbon footprint, especially in our overseas dealings. With the co-operation of KCP we were able to extend our remote working capability to include product installation, user training and system administrator training. Having taken telephone references from within our UK user base KCP were happy to proceed without meeting anyone from Linetime face-to-face, a great testament to the reputation of our product and the level of post-sales customer service we offer." www.linetime.co.uk • Save the date The second annual Janders Dean Law Firm KM Conference will be held in Sydney on Thursday 28th May. Please mark your diaries and click here for pre-registration reservation requests. Matthew Parsons (former CKO Linklaters LLP & author of Effective Knowledge Management for Law Firms) has been confirmed as this year’s keynote speaker/facilitator. For more details visit www.jandersdean.com Tuesday, March 17
Guest article: Andrew Haslam reports on LegalTech NYC
by
Charles Christian
on Tue 17 Mar 2009 17:10 GMT
In this latest guest article, Andrew Haslam of Allvision Computing adds his perspective on LegalTech New York...
In 2008, as Charles Christian was unable to make the show, I sounded out the British (and others) contingent at LegalTech to prepare a report on the proceedings. Whilst both Charles (The Orange Rag) and another respected UK commentator Chris Dale (www.chrisdalelawyersupport.co.uk) were able to attend this year's exhibition, I thought it would add to the overall commentary in this area to reflect on last year's report and try to identify what predictions had come true, where the same themes applied and what was new for 2009. A sort of "something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue" approach. The one topic that did dominate the whole event was the proposed acquisition of Interwoven by Autonomy. Their lunchtime briefings were packed with people trying to ascertain what would be the outcome of the merger. Though heavy on food (a very nice sit-down lunch was provided, but mainly ignored by delegates) they were light on information. As the deal at that time had yet to be ratified, people were understandably constrained on what they could say, or even hint at but that didn't stop the many interpretations of what information was given out. Rumour and gossip swirled around the aisles of the exhibition, with each self-appointed expert adding their spins to the latest "fact" to emerged. If we are continuing with our wedding theme, then this was certainly a match that divided people into very definite camps of "for" and "against". The perennial "old" points are that the show is overly skewered towards litigation support and has too few meeting places, but remains the premier event in the legal technology world for squeezing a month's worth of appointments into three days, networking with key industry individuals and generally immersing yourself in this environment. As was predicted last year and is slowly coming to fruition, expect an increasing trend to suppliers booking off-floor suites or even off-site venues, (the Warwick hotel across the road being a particular favourite) and not bothering so much with booths on the main exhibition floors. The educational programme is starting to look very bloated and tired. With the exception of certain keynote speeches and the super sessions, the main presentations were apparently very sparsely attended. Whilst the likes of LDSI, Legal Inc and Trilantic had good sized audiences at their panel presentations/debates, particularly Legal Inc's Wednesday's "farewell for Brits" lunch, the main conference streams had under 10 delegates in some cases. A source within the LegalTech syllabus committee acknowledged that the point had come to try and trim the number of streams and their (at times) very repetitious content. Though there will remain a need for education for those entering into the various areas covered by the conferences, the emerging focus will be on new content and more specific trends. The keynotes were almost a perfect microcosm of the overall programme ranging from the sublime to the totally tedious. Day 1 saw the most stultifying boring opening day on Records Information Management I have ever had to endure, (there is photographic evidence of the author fast asleep at 10:30 in the morning). Yet Judge Facciola’s Day 3 Keynote had tremendous substance to it and was eagerly devoured by a wide awake audience. One of the many core issues he covered was that judicial pronouncements are driving the need for a skilled and proportionate approach to electronic disclosure (or discovery as our US cousins like to call it). This is causing an upturn in the use of technology, particularly the use of early case assessment tools (of which more in a minute). This drives the requirement for lawyers to be able to understand and cope with the changes within of this part of the lifecycle, which increases the requirement for capable professional advice. Will we see the same on this side of the Atlantic? There were certainly some UK commentators that thought the recent spate of judgements in the form of Digicel, Hedrich and Abela, coupled with Senior Master Whitaker's committee's imminent Practice Direction and Technology Questionnaire would trigger a similar situation within England and Wales. More than a few suppliers were certainly hoping this will be the case. In summary, the Keynotes and super sessions are excellent value, but the programme needs a revamp if it is to compete with the likes of the ILTA offerings. Some other "old" trends from last year, were also evident, with more evidence of their increasing importance. Larger organisations are continuing to bring information management and disclosure/discovery responsibilities in-house and reap the considerable cost saving and efficiency benefits such a move brings. The US migration towards Sharepoint based document management systems continued, given added impetus (in some people's eyes) by the Autonomy/Interwoven deal. That being said, there hasn't been much evidence of this approach making it across the Atlantic to the UK, though that position might change over the next 12 months. But enough of the old stuff, what was new? Like the curate's egg, there were some good things and some bad. The good news was that those delegates that attended, had far more purpose about them and knew what they wanted to get from the show. There was a distinct decrease in the hordes of freebie collecting exhibition attendees, identifiable by their Lexis Nexis conference bags stuffed full of pens, baseball caps and other such goodies. Though one UK exhibitor did take to hiding the stand's basket of M&M's whenever one such locust hove into sight. One new theme that permeated throughout the conference was the constant mantra of “move to the left". This wasn't some barn dance type instruction from a suitably dressed American "caller", but a shorthand phrase to do with focusing on the left hand side of the EDRM model. That is, put far more emphasis on sorting out your data and information processing, before you started feeding into the sausage machine that charges on a per/GB basis. This could be as formal as a litigation readiness project, but also included more tools and emphasis on Early Case Assessment (ECA) alongside culling data on-site or via per/hour professional services. As an example of the interest in this area, the Legal Inc super session on learning lessons on Litigation Readiness from large organisations and applying those to smaller firms was very well received. A depressing number of suppliers had appropriated the phrase of "getting your ducks in a row", with Autonomy being the main offenders. There were significant flocks of yellow plastic birds emphasising the point all over the exhibition hall, one only hoped they migrated to a recycling facility at the end of the show. A new phenomenon was paradoxically the lack of new technology. Whereas last year saw the real emergence and consolidation of early case assessment tools in the analytic capabilities of Clearwell, Nuix and others, this year was all about consolidation. There was very much a feeling that both the technology and the marketplace was going through a stage of "evolution not revolution". Just as the internal combustion engine in a Ford Model T used the same principles as today’s engines, but the performance is many fold improved because of a process of general improvement of the technology, so the technology pieces of the jigsaw underpinning the EDRM model are in place, and what will follow now is a set of incremental improvements, rather than a fundamental change in technology. This technology enhancement will be facilitated by an ongoing process of consolidation amongst the suppliers, with the rate of change being accelerated by the ongoing credit crunch and its aftermath. We had Onsite3 (a US based litigation support company) going into Chapter 11 and being bought by Integreon only days before the show. Another US vendor, SPI, weren't so lucky and went under, almost as the stands were being put up, with their employees learning of their fates over the weekend, by text messages giving them their one week's notice. Their booth was pre-paid and was duly erected, only to stand like some Marie Celeste amongst the others, unoccupied and desolate, without even a pen for the freebie gathers to collect. However, in a more positive reaction to tougher trading conditions, a number of UK companies were identifying technology that would allow them to expand the services they could offer to clients. As in previous years, we should expect a spate of announcements over the next month or two as suppliers try to grow out of their traditional market. There is an increasing trends towards companies claiming to offer "end to end" services, we will see this time in 2010 how many actually make it and are still around. A technical trend (in the spirit of evolution not revolution) was in the capture of search terms to show what you had and (most importantly) had not searched, and a resurgence in the understanding and knowledge of search techniques so as to get best value out of ECA. A final "new" point, though one that could just as well been categorised as "old", was the increasing adoption of Office 2007 by law firms, mainly driven by their clients demanding it. As well as using the core Office programs, there was a lot of focus on the use of Office tools and how to train people in the most cost-effective way. The educational stream on this area had substantive discussions on the use of elearning and strongly argued debates on the optimum manner to deploy the products. This will be trend that cross the Atlantic in a big way over the forthcoming months. The knowledge/information management conference sessions were, as always, dominated by West KM, but were also overshadowed by speculation on the potential impact of the Interwoven acquisition and how that would impact the searching functionality of the product. The "something borrowed" part of this article, sees an the possible adoption by the US of the UK/EU approach of “if you don’t need it, get rid of it”, driven by the escalating costs over the past few years of processing “junk” disclosure, sorry discovery. If last year the US acknowledged the existence of the rest of the world, this year they started talking to them and realised there were some good ideas out there that they might want to adopt. (See Chris Dale's website for more news on initiatives in the international arena.) Trilantic's annual review of international data protection regimes and the practicalities of carrying out collection exercises in the varying EU countries was another well received super session. As to what was making people "blue", other than "it's the economy, stupid", the exchange rate was a pale shadow of its two dollars to the pound of last year. We missed all the fun of building snowmen in central London, though also the travel chaos that came with snow in winter, who would have thought of such a thing! Even the basketball didn't go New York's way. On a serious note, the omens for next year's show are that it will be a slimmed down version of its former self, but that it will actually gain benefit from trimming down on the "fat" of; duplicative seminars, "here today, gone tomorrow" vendors and time wasting delegates. It will remain as the premier event of the legal technology calendar, and will continue to attract those individuals who need to keep abreast of both the infrastructure of the process, but, most importantly, the people who make it all happen. 2009 was less show and more business, we expect 2010 to continue the trend.
Autonomy completes Interwoven deal - usual suspects safe
by
Charles Christian
on Tue 17 Mar 2009 10:08 GMT
17 March... Autonomy today announced that it had completed the acquisition of legal sector DMS market leader Interwoven. Following the close of the transaction Anthony Bettencourt, formerly CEO of Verity at the time of its acquisition by Autonomy, will assume the role of divisional CEO of Autonomy Interwoven. Joe Cowan, formerly CEO of Interwoven, has joined Autonomy group management reporting directly to Autonomy's founder and group CEO Dr. Michael Lynch.
Autonomy’s Q1 results are expected to be announced in mid to late April 2009 when the company will provide an update on the progress of the integration of Interwoven. As at today’s date, Bloomberg consensus analysts’ estimates for stand alone Autonomy are revenues of $119.9 million with adjusted EPS of $0.14, and updated consensus analysts’ estimates for the period, including the contribution from Interwoven during the stub period under Autonomy’s ownership in the first quarter 2009 are revenues of $125-$128 million and EPS of $0.14 to $0.15. Inevitably the acquisition has prompted rumours that some of Interwoven's UK and European people have been despatched in the direction of the nearest dole-queue. Our sources confirm there has been "a bit of a clear out of chaps who have duplicate roles as a result of the takeover." These have mainly been in finance, HR, administration and marketing – the latter being on the Interwoven web side of the business, rather than the Worksite DMS side. However all the legal sales, partner managers, pre-sales, support, consultants, professional services and marketing team – lead by Geoff Hornsby in the UK – remain with the business. Monday, March 16
Orange Rag editor indulging in extra-curricular activities again
by
Charles Christian
on Mon 16 Mar 2009 21:17 GMT
 Orange Rag editor Charles Christian is going off on another of his extra-curricular jaunts. Tickets have just gone on sale his one-man, one-night only show during the Brighton Fringe Festival. The location is Fletch at St Andrews, Hove – the date is Tuesday 5th May – the time is 6:00pm. It's called Tales from the Digital Slow Lane and takes the form of a series stories about growing up in a seaside town in the 1960s, failing to find any sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll – and wondering what to do about the bomb (technically a cluster bomb) beneath his bed. Tickets cost from £8.00 - call 08444 771000 or online at http://www.fletchatstandre
Welcome to the blog they're trying to ban
by
Charles Christian
on Mon 16 Mar 2009 14:34 GMT
We've just heard, from what is normally a reliable source, that the Orange Rag blog has been effectively banned within the corridors of a certain large legal IT supplier (no names, because we can't believe anyone would be quite so stupid) because we've been found guilty of publishing too many inconvenient truths. Apparently no emails have been sent out for fear of them ending up on our desk but managers have been told to point out that any stats of browsing on the site will be ‘career limiting’.
Of course, if this story is true, what is probably the most worrying aspect is an IT supplier seems to have overlooked the fact that it is still possible to surf the web from outside of work. Home computers anyone?
SRC holding speech recognition seminar in April
by
Charles Christian
on Mon 16 Mar 2009 09:38 GMT
SRC is holding a half-day seminar (starts 9:30 for 10:00, ends with lunch) on Wednesday 1st April at the Law Society in Chancery Lane, London, on the subject of speech recognition. Along with Orange Rag editor Charles Christian, there will also be speakers from Field Fisher Waterhouse and Hammonds. Given the leaps and bounds speech recognition software has made in recent years (particularly the latest version - v10 - of Dragon from Nuance) this is definitely an event to attend. Forget having to read Alice in Wonderland into the system to get up to speed, the latest version offers pretty much out-of-the-box functionality. Admission is free but it is
essential to reserve a place. Call 020 7471
0100 or visit www.src.co.uk/morewithless.html
Friday, March 13
Aderant releases 'Golden Gate'
by
Charles Christian
on Fri 13 Mar 2009 08:00 GMT
Aderant has just announced its Aderant Expert “Golden Gate” Release. This next-generation version of Expert includes a new service-oriented architecture and advanced functionality that leverages Microsoft’s workflow technology platform, Windows Workflow Foundation. The release helps firms create consistency, improve efficiency, and streamline as well as automate critical business processes. At the core of Golden Gate is a powerful enterprise-capable workflow engine that is embedded in the application suite’s new underlying technology framework. This engine is used to workflow-enable a new file opening application, Expert File Opening. Aderant Expert Golden Gate Release also includes an innovative new application navigation metaphor, Expert Assistant, as well as a new intuitive time capture capability.
“As an early adopter of their new Expert File Opening workflow application, we are very excited about how Aderant is leveraging advanced Microsoft technologies to streamline and improve this essential business process,” said Mary Ann Hallemann, Chief Financial Officer for Thompson Coburn LLP. “Golden Gate represents a critical milestone in the evolution of Aderant Expert into a truly next-generation solution for law firms,” said Michael Kohlsdorf, President & CEO of ADERANT. “By embedding Microsoft’s powerful workflow technology into the core of our application suite, a first for the legal industry, we are able help our clients streamline critical business processes, improve management oversight, and minimise their exposure to risk.” • Next-Generation Technology Platform Aderant Expert Golden Gate Release is built on a new next-generation technology platform that leverages a Domain Specific Language (DSL), an advanced fourth-generation programming language. Aderant Expert’s new service-oriented architecture (SOA) improves application extensibility and integration and ensures longevity. DSL enables code and customisations to be generated more quickly while improving quality, reliability, and reusability. • Leverages Windows Workflow Foundation Aderant Expert Golden Gate Release leverages Microsoft’s Windows Workflow Foundation. Introduced in 2005 as an essential part of the .NET Framework, it is Microsoft’s architecture for building workflow-enabled applications. Aderant has incorporated Windows Workflow Foundation into the underlying technology platform of Aderant Expert, workflow enabling any application built on that infrastructure. “Aderant is taking advantage of Windows Workflow Foundation and other Microsoft .NET Framework technologies in the Golden Gate release, which can deliver strong business solutions to Microsoft customers around the world,” said Paul Andrew, Senior Product Manager for Microsoft. “We are confident that Aderant’s incorporation of Microsoft .NET technologies can provide organisations with even more cutting-edge functionality and capabilities while potentially lowering their costs.” “Windows Workflow Foundation allows our development team to stay focused on creating value-adding functionality and delivering it rapidly to law firms,” continued Kohlsdorf. “Instead of dedicating resources to maintain and enhance our underlying workflow engine, we are building on the efforts of Microsoft’s unrivalled development organisation. This allows us to concentrate our efforts on building workflow capabilities that meet the unique needs of law firms without diluting our resources on underlying technology infrastructure.” • Delivers Powerful Capabilities Aderant Expert Golden Gate Release delivers powerful capabilities to law firms, including Expert File Opening, Expert Assistant, and Timer: - Expert File Opening is a new workflow-enabled application that helps law firms automate their client and matter intake business processes. Firms can easily customise their file opening workflows using an intuitive workflow designer and a library of pre-defined workflow tasks and activities. The application includes accompanying services to better support the file opening workflow processes and allow for flexibility and customisation. - Expert Assistant will provide users with a new navigation metaphor for accessing Aderant Expert data and applications. Users can contextually access all Aderant Expert applications from their system trays, see what tasks and activities they have to complete with a workflow inbox, search for clients, matters, employees, and other information, and collaborate. - Golden Gate also includes a new intuitive time entry component that allows users to capture time even when they are disconnected from their firms’ networks or offline. Aderant Expert Golden Gate Release is generally available now. |
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