A new era of e-discovery service delivery is upon us. The goals of the e-discovery process remain relatively constant: win the case at the least possible cost while mitigating risk. The change will be in how corporations and law firms procure services. Until recently, the e-discovery battle has been primarily a “feature war.” Service companies built their own software and competed based on the notion that “our tool can do something other tools can’t.” Buyers spent their time evaluating software capabilities. Robust, market-leading software is now ubiquitous and freely available – and more is coming. Now the game is: “Who can build the most effective, defensible process around best-in-class software?” – in order to maximize the potential efficiencies. The winning service companies are going to be the ones who best define processes and who invest intelligently in people and infrastructure. Just as with ERP implementation and management, it will generally not make sense for law firms and corporations to make these investments – though of course some will try, and most will fail. Rather, the current market conditions and trends suggest the next three to five years will be characterized by both corporations and law firms outsourcing the e-discovery function via managed services and retaining relatively lean teams in-house to provide oversight. The e-discovery equivalents of Accenture, EDS and Perot Systems will be born.
With more information, U.S. law firms may opt for the cloud | CenterBeam
A new study from CompTIA indicates that only 14 percent of U.S. law firms are looking to invest in cloud technology next year, however, the study suggested the number may rise.
The low percentage of law firms considering a move to cloud technology may be low because only 30 percent said they were familiar with the concept. In addition, the survey found that only 45 percent said they understood how managed services worked.
“This next wave of IT investment by legal services firms will require more education and assistance from the IT solution providers serving them,” said Tim Herbert, vice president of research at CompTIA, adding there were many “knowledge gaps” that cloud providers may be able to fill.
With 73 percent of law firms citing growth as their top business priority, and nearly 50 percent saying they want to explore new methods of reducing and managing their IT cost, cloud vendors may have a new market in need of their management services.
via CenterBeam, Inc News: With more information, U.S. law firms may opt for the cloud.
5 Reasons for Legal SaaS Acceptance | Lawyerist
5 Reasons for SaaS Acceptance
Most of the reasons for the surge in SaaS popularity have to do with the inherent benefits of its delivery model such as anywhere access, real-time collaboration, zero upfront costs and lower total cost of ownership, but there were also a number of external factors that boosted its acceptance.
1. SaaSonomics
Web hosted applications like Facebook and Google have become a way of life. In today’s society, it is much easier for the average person to know what their junior high school sweetheart is doing and communicate with him or her, than to communicate and collaborate with their co-workers on business critical tasks. Over the last decade, web sharing, collaboration and instant communication became a way of life for most of us in our personal lives, and people began to want the same freedom in their work life. Just as it has in the past, consumer demands were a key driving force behind business innovation and the demand for legal tools accessible from anywhere with the power to collaborate with clients, opposing parties, etc., forced businesses and technology vendors to innovate and create those tools for law firms.
2. Economics
With the economic downturn, cost cutting became trendy and law firms of all sizes were looking for ways to reduce costs while remaining competitive. Many firms saw SaaS as the way to do that. Legal Software-as-a-Service tools not only gave law firms a competitive advantage by providing innovative technology, but the lower cost of ownership and pay as you go pricing model enabled firms to lower technology expenses as well.
3. Mobile
The rise of SaaS technology perfectly coincided with the proliferation of internet ready mobile devices. It gave lawyers the ability to access the same technology they used at the office, or from their laptop, directly from their mobile devices through the browser or an app without any extra cost or IT headache.
4. Innovation
It would be easy to look back and wonder why the old guard in legal technology did not recognize this changing business climate and figure out a way to deliver their own legacy products over the web, but then again, the old model was lucrative and the vendor had total control of the customer, and has history has demonstrated, control and power are hard to give up. It took a new breed of legal technology companies, especially in the practice management area, to build quality products that provided lawyers with the tools they were accustomed to, coupled with the tools of the new web for Software-as-a-Service to gain universal acceptance. Over the past three years, numerous companies such as Advologix, Clio, and RocketMatter have done a lot to promote awareness and adoption of SaaS for law firms.
5. SaaS Evangelists
Along with the growth new legal SaaS companies, there were a whole slew of lawyers who didn’t just enjoy the benefits of the technologies in their own practice, but took it upon themselves to promote it to others. People like Steph Kimbro, Seth Rowland and Niki Black didn’t just make terms like “Cloud Computing,” “multi-tenancy” and “SaaS” household terminology, but made sure we understood their meanings and ethical implications.
Twitter Settles U.S. Charges Over Hacker Attacks – BusinessWeek
Twitter Inc., the microblogging service with about 190 million visitors per month, agreed to settle a U.S. government complaint that security lapses allowed hackers to view private messages and send “tweets” from other people’s accounts.
Failures in the company’s data security allowed hackers to gain administrative control of Twitter, the Federal Trade Commission said in a statement today announcing its complaint and settlement. One hacker sent a bogus tweet in January 2009 from the account of then-President-elect Barack Obama offering his followers a chance to win $500 in free gasoline.
San Francisco-based Twitter, which is closely held, allows users to send tweets, or messages of up to 140 characters. Privacy settings allow users to designate some tweets as private.
“When a company promises consumers that their personal information is secure, it must live up to that promise,” said David Vladeck, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, in the statement. “Likewise, a company that allows consumers to designate their information as private must use reasonable security to uphold such designations.”
The company said in a blog posting that the attacks on the site resulted in 45 accounts being accessed in January 2009 and 10 in April last year. The company said it moved quickly to address the security issues then.
via Twitter Settles U.S. Charges Over Hacker Attacks – BusinessWeek.
Google’s YouTube Didn’t Infringe Viacom Copyrights, Judge Says – BusinessWeek
Google Inc.’s YouTube didn’t violate Viacom Inc. copyrights when content including clips from its MTV and Comedy Central cable television channels were posted on the video-sharing website, a judge ruled.
U.S. District Judge Louis Stanton in New York yesterday said YouTube wasn’t liable for infringement. Viacom, controlled by Sumner Redstone, had sought at least $1 billion in damages, according to a revised complaint filed in April 2008.
Stanton agreed with YouTube that it was protected by the safe-harbor provision of the federal Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which says a service provider isn’t liable for infringement if it removes material from its site when notified by the copyright owner.
“The provider must know of the particular case before he can control it,” Stanton said in the ruling. “The provider need not monitor or seek out facts indicating such activity.”
More than 24 hours worth of video is uploaded to the YouTube site every minute, the judge said. YouTube had a policy of removing infringing content from its site and banning users after three such offenses, according to the ruling.
Both companies asked Stanton in March to decide the case in their favor without a trial. Viacom said YouTube benefited financially by allowing users to post and share programs including “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” and “South Park” on its website without authorization.
via Google’s YouTube Didn’t Infringe Viacom Copyrights, Judge Says – BusinessWeek.
Some iPhone 4 models dropping calls when held left-handed, including ours (video) — Engadget
What’s more annoying than spending hours lining up for a shiny new gadget? Learning that your precious phone can’t actually connect to the network. Well, depending on how you hold it — word has it that the iPhone 4′s bottom-left corner isn’t playing nice with your skin. If you recall from the keynote, that’s where the Bluetooth / WiFi / GPS antenna meets its GSM / UMTS counterpart. So we decided to test on two brand new iPhone 4 handsets purchased today in the UK.
One iPhone 4 demonstrated the issue everytime it was held in our left hand (as a right-handed person is apt to do) so that our palm was essentially bridging the two antennas. You can see that in the video after the break. Bridging the two with a finger tip, however, didn’t cause any issues with the reported reception. If we had to guess, we’d say that our conductive skin was acting to detune the antenna — in fact, we’ve already managed to slowly kill two calls that way so it’s not just an issue with the software erroneously reporting an incorrect signal strength. That said, we had no issues when Apple’s $29 rubber bumper accessory (given to us free for standing in line) was attached, creating a buffer between our palm and the antennas. Our second UK-purchased iPhone 4 was fine, showing none of these handling symptoms. See the video evidence after the break including Insanely Great Mac’s version which got us to worrying in the first place.
via Some iPhone 4 models dropping calls when held left-handed, including ours (video) — Engadget.
BBC News – Google under investigation by Met police
The UK’s Metropolitan Police is to investigate Google over its capture of data from unsecured wi-fi networks, following a complaint from human rights group Privacy International.
The data, scooped up by Google’s Street View cars, may put the firm in breach of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (Ripa).
It is likely that the police will interview Google staff in the UK.
It is one of many ongoing global investigations into Google.
Police say the initial investigation will take around 10 days, after which it will be passed to a specialist team if it is established that Google was in breach of Ripa or the Wireless Telegraphy Act.
The firm has admitted it collected data from unsecured wi-fi networks, although it said this was accidental.
Google Gives Small Businesses a Big Voice – PCWorld Business Center
After just over a year as a coveted, invitation-only beta, Google has officially launched Google Voice as a free service for all. Google Voice adds another component to the suite of tools available from Google providing small and medium businesses with cost-effective tools enabling them to conduct business like their much larger enterprise counterparts.
Large enterprises have the budget to invest in a robust networking, communication, and productivity infrastructure. Enterprise businesses also have the personnel resources to dedicate the expertise necessary to implement, maintain, and administer the tools. Small and medium businesses? Not so much.
Unfortunately for the small and medium businesses (SMB), though, they still have the same needs and similar business processes. They still need to communicate and collaborate in real-time with peers, partners, and customers.
Fortunately for SMBs, Google provides a diverse portfolio of tools that are free, or at least reasonably cost-effective, which allow them to appear much larger than they are, and compete on a level playing field with much larger competitors. Just look at the suite of tools available from Google:
- Google Voice
- Gmail
- Google Docs
- Google Buzz
- Google Wave
- Gdrive
Combining these tools together, SMBs can create a comprehensive messaging, communication, and collaboration infrastructure comparable to enterprise-grade unified communications solutions requiring significant investment of financial and personnel resources. Google has a diverse and comprehensive portfolio to meet the needs of most SMBs.
via Google Gives Small Businesses a Big Voice – PCWorld Business Center.
Toshiba Libretto W100 Looks Promising for Mobile Workers – PCWorld Business Center
The new Toshiba Libretto W100 looks like an impressive system that will appeal to companies with workers in the field and on the road. It’s a handy little device (7.95 x 4.84 x 1.2 inches weighing in at 1.8 pounds) that could easily replace many organizations’ proprietary, custom-designed, hand-held systems.
And although Android is the new kid on the block for smartphones–and now, apparently, for ultra-mobile PCs (UMPC) as well–there are always compatibility issues and a learning curve to consider. It seems like every time we get proficient in one program or on one system, something bigger and better (or smaller and faster) hits the market, then lands our desk, and once again our efficiency rating takes a nose dive. Don’t get me wrong, I am all for newer and better technology, but there are some benefits to the more familiar Windows 7 operating system and its compatible Microsoft Office applications, which run on the Libretto.
Android offers a number of free and paid applications, but currently the majority are designed for the smartphone.
And although the Libretto has many custom applications as well, it can interact with Microsoft Office apps and even launch Skype video calling. Custom apps include File Browser to access folders and other applications; ReelTime, a visual history of recently opened documents; and Bulletin Board, a sort of visual project and task manager that lets you pin images, notes, reminders, and other widgets to virtual cork boards.
via Toshiba Libretto W100 Looks Promising for Mobile Workers – PCWorld Business Center.
U.S. meets with industry reps over broadband authority | Reuters
Representatives from broadband providers including AT&T Inc, Verizon Communications Inc and Internet companies met on Monday with Edward Lazarus, chief of staff for Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski.
A similar meeting was also held Friday, one day after the FCC voted to collect public comments on whether the agency should reclassify broadband regulation under existing phone rules — typically considered a stricter regulatory regime.
In April, a U.S. appeals court ruled the FCC had failed to show it had the authority to stop Comcast Corp from blocking online applications that distributed television shows and other bandwidth-hogging files.
Genachowski and his two fellow Democrats want the FCC to regulate broadband access to ensure the free flow of information and implement recommendations in its National Broadband Plan, which seeks to increase speeds and the number of users in the United States.
The FCC has tried to calm market fears, saying it will tread lightly by not enforcing rate regulation and line-sharing requirements under existing phone rules.
Despite the assurances, the formal move by the FCC on Thursday could lead to legal challenges by broadband providers.
“The FCC is hosting discussions seeking a consensus on Internet-access rules and that they plan to have a whole series of stakeholder meetings,” the FCC senior official said.
Monday’s 2.5-hour meeting was also attended by several FCC staff including Paul De Sa, head of the FCC’s Office of Strategic Planning & Policy Analysis, according to a source familiar with the meeting.
via U.S. meets with industry reps over broadband authority | Reuters.
