Nope. We spend vast sums of money around the nation giving PCs to End users, and then even more vast sums of money training them on how to interact with the applications running on those PCs. Not only is the training and people cost associated with using these applications a large portion of all companies expenditure, but here in 2010, very little has ever been achieved in reducing this spend (at least without negatively impacting productivity or customer service).
Doesn't that sound mad? Not really! Your TV is digital, right? Maybe connected over a fiber backbone down the street to a satellite receiving digital signals at light speed so you can watch live television, right? But equally, you are also probably using one or more plain jane AA battery powered remote controls where you teach yourself, your spouse and maybe your kids on how to change channels, set the volume, record, skip, play etc., All that awesome technology underneath and you are still forced into these manual steps. Sometimes perhaps even having to get out of your chair to turn the amplifier on manually!
So where am I going with this blog rant? The User Interface (UI) of course.
You see, no matter how much money we invest in technology, we have still not cracked making the UI any easier. Users spend weeks being trained to perform steps that the computer is perfectly capable of doing for them. Deficiencies in UI design across multiple applications prevent this though. Manual processes costs our businesses vast sums of money in what I call AWT (Average Wasted Time). Life sucks for the end user - big time - because the UI leads to so much wasted time, on every single desktop. You can't blame the user for what the UI forces them to do - badly!
What if (drum rolls please), every application our users use, were written by the same programmer with the same goal; to simply enable those desktop apps to talk to each other so all manual steps could be eliminated. That would be nice... BUT... (sigh's please)... considering most applications were written by different people, some many years ago even, you don't see this ever being likely in your lifetime, do you?
But finally you will (trumpets please)... OpenSpan has perfected a technology which can get inside any application (without coding) and bring old and new applications alive so they can participate in being automated, for any of the tasks a user would perform manually in the past. Often said by early prospects "this is too good to be true" - OpenSpan is proud, not only to have close to 120,000 enterprise users using our desktop automation technology, but ALSO, changing the way software on the desktop (UI's) are written. Game changing. It's no wonder companies are saving $100's of millions using OpenSpan. Automating people / processes = massive ROI -
Download it for free to try it here... If you think your user would benefit from one of many automations, just try it, and see if it works for you. Nothing to lose... Download Free OpenSpan IDE here.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
OpenSpan Studio 4.5 - GA release candidate now available for free download
The OpenSpan Development team is pleased to make available OpenSpan Studio 4.5, Release Candidate 1 (RC1). This is the latest preview release of the next version of the OpenSpan Studio development platform. Our testing community and users who want to get a look at the next version of OpenSpan Studio should download and install this release candidate.
Our goal behind releasing 4.5 RC1 is to ensure that we get broad testing and feedback on the performance and stability enhancements we’ve made since the last public Beta 2 release. Over the last few months we’ve been releasing interim builds to a small number of users who have been helping us validate fixes and measure very large projects and solutions. The feedback from them has been extremely positive, which is why we are opening up today’s build to a much wider audience.
This release, which was initially released as Beta 1 in December, 2009 and Beta 2 in February, 2010, includes many new features and enhancements to improve both developers’ and users’ experiences. To learn about what’s new in OpenSpan Studio 4.5 RC1, read the OpenSpan Studio 4.5 RC1 Release Notes.
Your feedback in our forums is highly encouraged to help us decide what needs to be fixed for final release.
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Product v Services
Coming back from Oracle Collaboration 2010 show this week, it struck me what a difference having a product makes to our business. Talking to so many partners at this event, it is clear that the fact the OpenSpan technology is delivered as a product is key. That it can be installed in less than a minute enabling automation and integrations to be built with minimal training (online even), is a massive advantage.
On speaking with them, I found a large number had tried "competitive" products in the past but each time their business units got frustrated they had to build a complex services engagement around each deal that requires a lot of support once (and if) that customer went live. I pull out my laptop and show them a 3 minute demo and they get it - we are a true product! I can show them how to automate or integrate with an SAP activeX control grid in 10 seconds, or a Siebel app with embedded java applets or a custom windows app built over 10 years ago! It's so nice. I can even tell them where to go to download a free copy now. Now that's "putting your money where you mouth is" IMHO :) I don't know a single competitor that can do that!
I can tell these partners we have tons of live customers (that they can call for references), large and small that installed our "product" around or on top of competing products in the past (where our competitors failed to deliver before us, despite being in that account first). One such customer brought 2000 seats back about 4 years ago. They have since added approximately 1000 more seats each year, and now at 6000 users. Another customer, sold to over 3 years ago, is now at over 20,000 live seats. Now that's not just proof we work, but proof we stand the test of time in real accounts and use cases are being found all the time to keep building on the value.
For these partners, I can also tell them our product is also OEM'd or embedded into loads of other products as well. Like at IBM and Aspect. Sure these companies could have chosen to build their own solutions but we are good at what we do and can prove to our partners, we can deliver them what they need to help close deals with their customers. Again, tons of existing customers and partners that prove we can do it.
What a lot of people do not know when I joined OpenSpan, was that I told them, "unless you have a product, I am not interested in being involved". I had seen too many so called products fail at customer sites by frustrating them on being oversold on ease of use. There is no silver bullet for integration but I think OpenSpan is one of the closest you'll see. One example, I have seen a customer build a solution, installed into production, with 1 person in under 12 weeks and that solution saves that customer around $2m a month. I know it sounds unbelievable but before OpenSpan, they had no choice but to do everything manually. Another customer, looking at it another way, will save over $300m through automation over a 3 year period. Now that's an ROI :)
We at OpenSpan are also not standing still. Each time we deliver, not only will our "PRODUCT" be better at saving you more $money, but it'll get easier and easier to do each time.
On speaking with them, I found a large number had tried "competitive" products in the past but each time their business units got frustrated they had to build a complex services engagement around each deal that requires a lot of support once (and if) that customer went live. I pull out my laptop and show them a 3 minute demo and they get it - we are a true product! I can show them how to automate or integrate with an SAP activeX control grid in 10 seconds, or a Siebel app with embedded java applets or a custom windows app built over 10 years ago! It's so nice. I can even tell them where to go to download a free copy now. Now that's "putting your money where you mouth is" IMHO :) I don't know a single competitor that can do that!
I can tell these partners we have tons of live customers (that they can call for references), large and small that installed our "product" around or on top of competing products in the past (where our competitors failed to deliver before us, despite being in that account first). One such customer brought 2000 seats back about 4 years ago. They have since added approximately 1000 more seats each year, and now at 6000 users. Another customer, sold to over 3 years ago, is now at over 20,000 live seats. Now that's not just proof we work, but proof we stand the test of time in real accounts and use cases are being found all the time to keep building on the value.
For these partners, I can also tell them our product is also OEM'd or embedded into loads of other products as well. Like at IBM and Aspect. Sure these companies could have chosen to build their own solutions but we are good at what we do and can prove to our partners, we can deliver them what they need to help close deals with their customers. Again, tons of existing customers and partners that prove we can do it.
What a lot of people do not know when I joined OpenSpan, was that I told them, "unless you have a product, I am not interested in being involved". I had seen too many so called products fail at customer sites by frustrating them on being oversold on ease of use. There is no silver bullet for integration but I think OpenSpan is one of the closest you'll see. One example, I have seen a customer build a solution, installed into production, with 1 person in under 12 weeks and that solution saves that customer around $2m a month. I know it sounds unbelievable but before OpenSpan, they had no choice but to do everything manually. Another customer, looking at it another way, will save over $300m through automation over a 3 year period. Now that's an ROI :)
We at OpenSpan are also not standing still. Each time we deliver, not only will our "PRODUCT" be better at saving you more $money, but it'll get easier and easier to do each time.
Monday, April 12, 2010
Not using OpenSpan? You could be losing $millions
I couldn't believe the response we have been seeing to the new download program. The fact that you can now be your own superstar and save your company $100,000's or $Millions of dollars. Just by downloading our product, building some slick and quick automations in a few hours and see how much you can save - all without leaving your chair or spending a dime up front. Some real use cases;
Back office Automation - Finance. Process 500% more transactions a day with the same people by automating the end users manual navigations between mainframe, spreadsheets and web (Java) applications. The savings quite literally are over $15m a year. 10 weeks to build/QA/Pilot and go live!
Back Office Automation - Finance. Processing times cut by over 90% for opening new accounts whilst assuring compliancy with ever changing rules. Implemented in weeks.
Call Center Automation - Finance. Call times cut by 28% for managing customer account queries spread over multiple systems. Automated Process Guidance implemented to ensure ease of workflows.
Call Center Automation - Telecoms. Automated almost entire Caller verification process spread over multiple systems. Saved over $30m on first project in first year alone through reduced AHT.
Call Center Automation - Insurance. Reduced time to update multiple systems from 35 minutes to under 10 minutes.
We have hundreds of automation examples like this, hundreds. We have customers who use us where they have just 1 desktop user using it (even zero users in unattended mode) and we have organizations where we are installed, in production on over 20,000 user desktops.
The point is, by downloading the OpenSpan product you don't' have to wait months before you see the benefits. OpenSpan is a true product. Download it, build something big or small and if it's going to save you money, and lots of it, as it likely will, move it into production. Then, keep building and keep saving.
That's what I mean about being a true product. We can save you a ton of money, and start saving it for you, right now. It costs nothing to try. www.openspan.com/community
You don't even need to be a hard core developer, just have some basic "programatic" thinking skills and you'll be automating in minutes with the OpenSpan Studio product! But if you are a hardcore developer, that's OK too, you can run OpenSpan Plug-in for Visual Studio and write code, or mix and match between the visual workflow designer and your favorite programming language! You can choose.
Back office Automation - Finance. Process 500% more transactions a day with the same people by automating the end users manual navigations between mainframe, spreadsheets and web (Java) applications. The savings quite literally are over $15m a year. 10 weeks to build/QA/Pilot and go live!
Back Office Automation - Finance. Processing times cut by over 90% for opening new accounts whilst assuring compliancy with ever changing rules. Implemented in weeks.
Call Center Automation - Finance. Call times cut by 28% for managing customer account queries spread over multiple systems. Automated Process Guidance implemented to ensure ease of workflows.
Call Center Automation - Telecoms. Automated almost entire Caller verification process spread over multiple systems. Saved over $30m on first project in first year alone through reduced AHT.
Call Center Automation - Insurance. Reduced time to update multiple systems from 35 minutes to under 10 minutes.
We have hundreds of automation examples like this, hundreds. We have customers who use us where they have just 1 desktop user using it (even zero users in unattended mode) and we have organizations where we are installed, in production on over 20,000 user desktops.
The point is, by downloading the OpenSpan product you don't' have to wait months before you see the benefits. OpenSpan is a true product. Download it, build something big or small and if it's going to save you money, and lots of it, as it likely will, move it into production. Then, keep building and keep saving.
That's what I mean about being a true product. We can save you a ton of money, and start saving it for you, right now. It costs nothing to try. www.openspan.com/community
You don't even need to be a hard core developer, just have some basic "programatic" thinking skills and you'll be automating in minutes with the OpenSpan Studio product! But if you are a hardcore developer, that's OK too, you can run OpenSpan Plug-in for Visual Studio and write code, or mix and match between the visual workflow designer and your favorite programming language! You can choose.
Monday, April 5, 2010
OpenSpan Studio 4.5 is Now Available In Public Beta - for free
Well, the big day has arrived that I have been hinting at for some months now.
OpenSpan Studio is available for the first time as a public beta. More importantly, OpenSpan Studio is now available, at no cost, for anyone to download and evaluate from this day forward.
Yes, you heard that right. This is game changing stuff for desktop integration and automation. Our full IDE, OpenSpan Studio is now available at no cost. Few other companies are so confident in their integration platform that they are willing to open it up to anyone, anywhere, to try.
Anything you build in OpenSpan Studio can be fully tested within the IDE. A new subscription pricing model is available for the runtimes you move into a production environment for OpenSpan Enterprise and OpenSpan Events. Both of the runtimes will be available for purchase from our soon to be available online store, in time for the GA release.
We have nearly 400 OpenSpan Studio developers and partners whom have been through certified training at one of training centers and certification is now also available online. Learn the product yourselves in-house or work with our partners, the choice us yours.
The other big piece that brings all of this together is the OpenSpan Community. We are today announcing the community website at www.openspan.com/community. From here you will find the downloads, samples, help, blogs, feeds and forums etc., to get you started and more importantly, allow you to be part of a growing community of OpenSpan users, developers and partners.
OpenSpan Studio 4.5 is a major new release with literally hundreds of new features and capabilities so that is why this is being released as for the first time as a beta program. We encourage all of our new and existing community members to check this out and give us feedback through these forums. This will be a thriving wealth of knowledge so please take the time to check it out and participate.
Remember, there are over 100,000 users out there already, using OpenSpan on their desks, day in day out, in mission critical environments at contact centers, financial services, Government and healthcare organizations. They are running OpenSpan because it provides the most rapid and robust desktop integration solutions on the market and saving them collectively, $100’s of millions of dollars a year. One customer saved over $30m a year with their first desktop automation project. Another customer, saves over $1m a month through automating back-office processes. Another customer cut costs by over 50% by automating laborious end user manual steps. There are loads of customer users cases we can share. Saving money from automation is a no brainer, having a product like OpenSpan that enables you to do this quickly, with it’s visual designer is also, a no-brainer.
Our first customers, over 4 years ago are still using it today, 4 years on and adding more users each and every year. Plain and simple, OpenSpan projects save money, and lots of it, time and time again. Automations, mash-ups, integrations, monitoring and the many more use cases you'll think of too for our product, are all the reason you need to check it out and make yourself a super-star dynamic money saver in your own organization!
Check out Damons blog too here; http://doitonthedesktop.blogspot.com/ announcing the 4.5 product and the free download.
I have talked a little about the 4.5 features in previous posts and will cover them again in the next few blogs. Needless to say, OpenSpan can now be used within Visual Studio as well if you so wish. It’s optional. The OpenSpan Studio stand-alone version still supports the full visual design paradigm for the rapid drag-and-drop automations it’s existing customers know and love so well.
Enjoy. We'll enjoy your company in our community.
Monday, February 8, 2010
Next Generation Time and Motion (OpenSpan Events)
Contact Centers have for years realized the importance of monitoring everything they possibly can in their contact centers. From capturing handling times, recording screens, monitoring AHT, wait times, first call resolution rates, the $ cost per second on the phone, the $ cost of a lost customer and so very much more.
But what's missing I hear you say? I say, how can you possibly know what's missing? Especially if you don't know what other things can be measured.
So, since you don't know, let me tell you. Did you know, you can now monitor all activity, down to a granular level, of anything a user can do on their desktop? I'm not talking just what applications they started or stopped. That's easy. I am talking down to a granular level of monitoring every user interaction with every application and with each object inside that application. This computer generated "DNA" for each workflow has been the missing piece of enterprise analytics for years (unless you put a six sigma (time and motion) person at every desktop 24x7 with pencil, paper and a stopwatch!
Think of it, just pick one workflow in your organization. Say a mortgage refinance or to add a new device to a customers current plan. You know there are 6 or 10 applications involved in the workdlow. You know on average it takes a certain number of minutes to complete a task. You know you've trained everyone the same. BUT - what did each of your users REALLY do? in what applications? for how long? What buttons were pressed? what status was the customer in? How long before the agent went to the correct knowledge base article? Were the handling times of agents going to the knowledge base first, more or less than those agents who went there later in the workflow or not at all? What did the agents do in your Arizona contact center that made them 20% more productive than agents say in Georgia, except on Fridays after 3pm!
You see, when you really do see - into the heart of every workflow, on every desktop, with every application / human interaction, every field change, every button click. well, you get the point.
Desktop Analytics has been missing and it was a logical step for OpenSpan to takes it's Automation injection technology and have it monitor. Hence you have OpenSpan Events today. Run it on you users desktop and that's it. little to no configuration (unless you want to). I think Desktop Analytics is here and it's here to stay. Check it out. http://www.openspan.com/Products/OpenSpanEvents.php
But what's missing I hear you say? I say, how can you possibly know what's missing? Especially if you don't know what other things can be measured.
So, since you don't know, let me tell you. Did you know, you can now monitor all activity, down to a granular level, of anything a user can do on their desktop? I'm not talking just what applications they started or stopped. That's easy. I am talking down to a granular level of monitoring every user interaction with every application and with each object inside that application. This computer generated "DNA" for each workflow has been the missing piece of enterprise analytics for years (unless you put a six sigma (time and motion) person at every desktop 24x7 with pencil, paper and a stopwatch!
Think of it, just pick one workflow in your organization. Say a mortgage refinance or to add a new device to a customers current plan. You know there are 6 or 10 applications involved in the workdlow. You know on average it takes a certain number of minutes to complete a task. You know you've trained everyone the same. BUT - what did each of your users REALLY do? in what applications? for how long? What buttons were pressed? what status was the customer in? How long before the agent went to the correct knowledge base article? Were the handling times of agents going to the knowledge base first, more or less than those agents who went there later in the workflow or not at all? What did the agents do in your Arizona contact center that made them 20% more productive than agents say in Georgia, except on Fridays after 3pm!
You see, when you really do see - into the heart of every workflow, on every desktop, with every application / human interaction, every field change, every button click. well, you get the point.
Desktop Analytics has been missing and it was a logical step for OpenSpan to takes it's Automation injection technology and have it monitor. Hence you have OpenSpan Events today. Run it on you users desktop and that's it. little to no configuration (unless you want to). I think Desktop Analytics is here and it's here to stay. Check it out. http://www.openspan.com/Products/OpenSpanEvents.php
Thursday, November 5, 2009
OpenSpan - Smarter Contact Center Desktops
Yes, that's our new theme.
OpenSpan simply makes applications you already use, or have just brought - SMARTER. You don't even have to own the app to make it smarter.
Here's some early news on what's coming very very soon.
1. I still can't tell you the number one item yet, but in a few more weeks, you will find out - but it's BIG, VERY BIG, so keep watching :)
2. If you are a Microsoft Visual Studio developer, the next release of OpenSpan runs as a VSIP plug-in for Visual Studio. If you are not a Visual Studio developer, don't worry we still have a solution for you. As part of the download, we will bring down a free version of the Visual Studio shell which then enables VSIP plug-ins like OpenSpan Studio to run. It's very cool how we have integrated the best of OpenSpan Studio with the best of Visual Studio (you can now even design your own UI forms and dashboards in Visual Studio directly and have them be part of any automation!). OpenSpan Studio is easier to use than ever so feel free to ping me and I'll give you a link to an advanced pre-beta. Remember too, if you develop in IBM's Lotus expeditor, our Studio runs inside that too as an OWC plug-in for expeditor. Oh, so many design choices now :)
3. Oh, I love this. OpenSpan is exposing all of it's adapter elements and design time components for external developers to access directly from their own code. Whilst the visual drag-and-drap workflow/design paradigm of the OpenSpan studio is loved by developers and business analysts world-wide, die-hard programmers can now write say in C#, to interact in real-time with the objects created and exposed by OpenSpan. You will be able to write your own wrappers to 3rd party applications or even write code to wrap OpenSpan automations. Properties methods and events as well as automations are fully available through our Code Dom Serialization project (the tech term for this major feature). This is big and significant for die-hard developers and OEM partners.
4. OpenSpan Events has already been released but here is what's new;
..* Fully configurable to use MS-MQ, TIBCO, JMS, IBM-MQ or Web Services as per your preference
.. * Now support's generic events as well as custom events
Generic events will enable you to log all application activity, including all objects inside that application
without any interrogation of the objects in the application. OpenSpan Events automatically finds all
visibile and invisible objects and reports anything the application or user does with those objects to the
Analytics database for any drill-down graphical reporting and dash-boarding.
Custom Events then allows you to create your own events that get logged to the analytics database, so for
example, if you want to log a start transaction like, new account, change address, mortgage application, they
will all be sent to the analytics engine for advanced analytics around user activity on the desktop.
..* New Server-Side Components for Collection, Transformation and Loading of Events Data. Supports SQL
Server and Oracle databases
..* Developer mode to enable developers who license the OpenSpan Events to interact directly and/or bypass
messaging components so you can interact with OpenSpan events in any mode you desire.
As you can see, a lot is happening here at OpenSpan and there's a lot more to come. We continue to listen to our customers and partners and excited by our world-leading position in this space. Keep watching..
OpenSpan simply makes applications you already use, or have just brought - SMARTER. You don't even have to own the app to make it smarter.
Here's some early news on what's coming very very soon.
1. I still can't tell you the number one item yet, but in a few more weeks, you will find out - but it's BIG, VERY BIG, so keep watching :)
2. If you are a Microsoft Visual Studio developer, the next release of OpenSpan runs as a VSIP plug-in for Visual Studio. If you are not a Visual Studio developer, don't worry we still have a solution for you. As part of the download, we will bring down a free version of the Visual Studio shell which then enables VSIP plug-ins like OpenSpan Studio to run. It's very cool how we have integrated the best of OpenSpan Studio with the best of Visual Studio (you can now even design your own UI forms and dashboards in Visual Studio directly and have them be part of any automation!). OpenSpan Studio is easier to use than ever so feel free to ping me and I'll give you a link to an advanced pre-beta. Remember too, if you develop in IBM's Lotus expeditor, our Studio runs inside that too as an OWC plug-in for expeditor. Oh, so many design choices now :)
3. Oh, I love this. OpenSpan is exposing all of it's adapter elements and design time components for external developers to access directly from their own code. Whilst the visual drag-and-drap workflow/design paradigm of the OpenSpan studio is loved by developers and business analysts world-wide, die-hard programmers can now write say in C#, to interact in real-time with the objects created and exposed by OpenSpan. You will be able to write your own wrappers to 3rd party applications or even write code to wrap OpenSpan automations. Properties methods and events as well as automations are fully available through our Code Dom Serialization project (the tech term for this major feature). This is big and significant for die-hard developers and OEM partners.
4. OpenSpan Events has already been released but here is what's new;
..* Fully configurable to use MS-MQ, TIBCO, JMS, IBM-MQ or Web Services as per your preference
.. * Now support's generic events as well as custom events
Generic events will enable you to log all application activity, including all objects inside that application
without any interrogation of the objects in the application. OpenSpan Events automatically finds all
visibile and invisible objects and reports anything the application or user does with those objects to the
Analytics database for any drill-down graphical reporting and dash-boarding.
Custom Events then allows you to create your own events that get logged to the analytics database, so for
example, if you want to log a start transaction like, new account, change address, mortgage application, they
will all be sent to the analytics engine for advanced analytics around user activity on the desktop.
..* New Server-Side Components for Collection, Transformation and Loading of Events Data. Supports SQL
Server and Oracle databases
..* Developer mode to enable developers who license the OpenSpan Events to interact directly and/or bypass
messaging components so you can interact with OpenSpan events in any mode you desire.
As you can see, a lot is happening here at OpenSpan and there's a lot more to come. We continue to listen to our customers and partners and excited by our world-leading position in this space. Keep watching..
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