INTRODUCTION BY CEO AKI RATNER
Hello and welcome to the July issue of InTune, our customer newsletter that keeps you informed of developments at Attunity and the latest thinking on the new exciting software area of Workplace Applications.
Have you noticed how life feels to have sped up since the rise of mobile communications and the Internet? We’ve become a world that doesn’t like to wait; we like the immediacy of being able to contact people wherever they are, or the convenience of being able to buy whatever we want, at any hour of the day.
We’ve become a world that lives in the ‘now’; we don’t want to wait to watch our favorite TV program or only book a holiday when the travel agencies are open for business. We willingly bypass third parties to buy direct online and forsake traditional news sources in order to receive up-to-the-minute news feeds from aggregators instead.
Indeed, as consumers we have become a world in which we demand – and often receive – everything we want now. But can the same be said of the business world? It’s certainly true that communications have enabled us to reach out to more people, but in some respects technology has fallen behind. Managers and knowledge workers still complain that they lack access and the immediacy to the right information that they need; that they lack the tools to act and take action on initiatives and the real-time events and everyday exceptions for which they are employed; and are frustrated with the absence of technologies to help them proactively exploit market opportunities quickly.
In this newsletter’s Next-Generation Workplace article, we examine the problem of information overload and how the ‘first pillar’ of workplace applications – the ability to assimilate, search and correlate information in context – can enable organizations to gain back their competitive edge.
Knowledge workers and other top talent are employed for their expertise, relationships and networks to manage the extraordinary, exceptional and non-routine activities within an organization. While technology has traditionally focused on automating process-centric and transactional activities, workplace applications bring the focus back to people-centric activities and tasks that require a high degree of interpretation, insight and manual intervention.
One such activity is managing operational risk, as we discuss in this issue’s ‘Interview Chair’ article with Mike Loginov, managing director of DNV IT global services. DNV is a new partner for Attunity and brings a wealth of experience in the financial services sector, particularly in operational risk management. Together, we will be delivering a unique offering combining their consultancy with our leading platform, Attunity InFocus, to help firms assess operational risks within their organization and establish consistent and effective means to monitor such risks, rapidly identify additional ones and take action to mitigate these risks.
In our ‘Focus on the Workplace’ article this issue we look at some of the improvements we’ve made to version 2.2. of Attunity InFocus. We’ve made these changes to make it even easier for knowledge workers to find the information they need, assist teamworking with support for instant messaging, and help managers capture and learn from past experience more effectively. There are more enhancements, but I’ll let you read about the rest.
The focus on workplace applications doesn’t mean we’ve abandoned the data integration side of our business. Indeed, in this issue’s ‘Data Integration’ article, we examine new developments in the Attunity Integration Suite (AIS) that deliver additional benefits to Windows users. We also look at the use of AIS in practice at the Police Mutual Assurance Society in our ‘Customer News’ article.
So as usual, we promise you another jam-packed read – whether you’re checking your emails while on vacation or still toiling away in the office! As ever, we welcome any comments you might have, which you can email to us at marketing@attunity.com.
Enjoy the final weeks of summer,
Aki Ratner, CEO.