No option for Law Firm

I was reading an article yesterday, from an interview with Steve Balmer. It was about Microsoft’s direction and its competitors (in particular FireFox, Google and Linux). One comment stood out:

Yeah, we’re right now about 74 percent overall with the browser market, roughly speaking. But we’re having to compete like heck with IE 8, with great new features.

This to me showed how “off the ball” Microsoft are!

Now before I go on let me say the following. I hate seeing Micro$oft. I am not an Apple or Linux fanboy, in fact I would go as far to say I really don’t care of MacOS that much. Yes I really like the iPhone interface, but would never buy one thanks to having to have iTunes to activate the thing. So I use a Windows Mobile device. I’ve used Ubuntu and think it’s alright, but actually I honestly prefer Windows. I love the xbox. So I’m not Microsoft bashing here.

There now I’ve said that, back to the quote. In particular this sentence “But we’re having to compete like heck with IE 8, with great new features.”

My response as per the title, no, no, no, who asked for that? I don’t want more features, in fact I want less. I want my browser to be small and very fast and just let me browse. If IE8 had come out and was barebones fast as you like, I would probably have switched back from FireFox!

This got me thinking about lawyers and legal software and the same applies. Just give them the features they require. Make the next release of the Document Management System, the CRM system, the finance system, the template management system, the digital dictation system leaner.

Take Word or any Word Processor. How much functionality does the average lawyer need? Most law firms will also have multiple add ins to provide more functionality. The integration with the add ins should be slicker and removing of the unnecessary proprietary options easier.

Most people want to get on with the task in hand, the software should help that both quickly and easily. So with the browser, it should help me browse, end of! The DMS should help be file and retrieve my documents. Outlook should let me manage my email. etc etc 

So no more new features please unless it’s going to make the task I’m using the software for easier and faster!

It might not be with products that directly relate to law firms, but Microsoft does seem to be positioning itself for a fight back against Google and Apple. There have been three stories in the last few weeks that I think point to this:

1. Announcement of Google Chrome OS. Now this one is an odd one to point out as on the face of it it seems to be a Google pulling away story. But it’s been the subsequent “what ifs” that caught my eye. Particularly the ones like this “Free Windows 7 Internet Edition To Tackle Google Chrome OS?“. If Microsoft offer Windows 7 free, even for a limited period, they could and probably would get such a foothold in netbooks as to kill Chrome before it launches.
2. Microsoft is to launch a music streaming service. If they can get this right then this may be the service to seriously challenge iTunes. A Spotify type service allowing free music streaming supported by adverts. If integrated into the xbox would put it right in the centre of home entertainment and if they could somehow hook it into the Zune then finally the iPod may get competition (one off cost for a Zune and then free music!)
3. Finally the announcement of a free online version of Office! A real challenge to Google Docs. Yes, Google may have the head start but Microsoft have the trusted brand here, Microsoft Office. I mean wouldn’t you rather use Word? This last one may be of interest to law firms!

Microsoft are starting to join the “Free” business model in the consumer market and could really start to fight back in the battle against Apple and Google. I think this is a good thing, competition makes better products and if Microsoft really can bring ideas from the excellent xbox division into their business offerings we may get some real improvements in usability over endless extra functionality.

From a law firm perspective it will be interesting how the development of the web based Office goes and how the consumer model of a “cloud” for all my documents and emails evolves in the business environment.

After all if I’ve unlimited email capacity with no performance drop off (e.g. GMail/Hotmail) and access to my documents and word processor anywhere (e.g. Google Docs/Office online) at home, will I accept the storage constraints and performance constraints of the desktop products at work?

The legal core technologies (DMS, CRM etc) – where next?

So what about those core technologies (the key IT systems)? Well most law firms now cannot function without IT (who could have said that even 10 years ago!). email, the DMS and the global finance applications are now ingrained in most law firms as not just core, but key technologies.

Take a look at Legal Technology Insiders list of software used by the UK top 250 and you’ll see that all firms pretty much use a common set of key technologies. But mention web 2.0 (or whatever you like to call it) and my guess is there will be very few firms who have this type of software as a key system. Is this because it is considered a technology fad or is it inappropriate for corporate use? I don’t think either is true, in fact I suspect that there are a number of firms are already using Wikis, blogs etc in small niche areas.

I think law firms though are like any other firm, find embracing these technologies is difficult. To implement them you almost need to just put them out there and let people use them how they want to (which is why facebook, twitter, you tube etc have succeeded, no one told people how they should use them). This method of implementing new software I think is alien to most firms period, it’ll take time to change attitudes, procedures etc<

But we need to start to expect people to be IT savvy, just as we expect to have people employed that can read and write. Being proud of “not understanding computers” is no longer an option! I think firms with these type of people will start to push web 2.0 products in 2009.

What about MS Office?

This is probably the one piece of software that is on 100% of all legal desktops. And I suspect almost everyone has Office 2003, some brave soles may have jumped to 2007 but I bet the percentage is very small. The big question though is, will people ever move to Office 2007 or Office 14? I starting to think that not many will, do you really want any more functionality out of office? Office 2003 does the job, so unless Microsoft force you to do it through some licencing or support agreement there is little incentive to move.

However the one thing that could change this is if the desktop footprint in Office 14 gets much smaller and the application gets much much quicker, then we may see people switch in vast number! This is not as far fetched as it sounds, from performance results of the leaked Windows 7 beta it may be that MS now get this is a key issue!

Mobility

Honestly I don’t think law firms are ready to embrace the “80% office space”. Letting staff  hot desk their staff, saving on the usual daily empty 20% of desks. Sure BlackBerrys will thrive, remote desktop access or web based access will see more take up and messaging (Office Communication Server) will take off, but only if these were implemented in 2008 or before. I can’t see anyone getting budgets for doing initiatives like this from scratch in 2009.

Summary

So in summary I think most legal IT depts will still be around in a guise that we will identify as being roughly as they are now. I think in the current climate they will have been trimmed through cost cutting, but on the whole it won’t be fully outsourced. The IT dept of January 2010 will probably be smaller and it will probably have spent less in 2009 than in previous years. I think there may be a move in 2009 to some small scale outsourcing of specific functions taken up by a fair few firms, but which part and how much will depend on the firm. I also think there will be a firm in 2009 that will go for a large scale attempt at cost saving and outsource the lot, but personally I bet they will relive the last recessions outsourcing blunders and fail.

Overall though I think most depts will take a real look at how to make what they’ve got work more effectively. As well as looking to improve performance, reliability of the current services (the key issue I bet almost all firms will tackle!) I think there will be a switch from constantly upgrading and implementing the core technologies (DMS, CRM, Office etc) to more web 2.0 applications, either social type sites or mashups of their main systems.