Five Predictions for 2011
1 Social Networking to be viable CRM solution - law firms to embrace key sites such as LinkedIn forcing current industry solutions to integrate
2 End of hype surrounding ‘Cloud Computing’ – SAAS however has a bright future as more services become hosted particularly where data confidentiality is not in question.
3 First serious ‘Law PLC’ offering – Lawyers to be poached from magic circle to create new boutique with a genuine corporate structure inc shareholders.
4 Office 2010 – to be the major technology project in majority of law firms
5 Intelligence – Too often a shortage of this around in our industry but this is the year of BI and workflow. Now is the time for technology to finally provide the answers to questions relating to how profitable the work we do is, how useful our Knowhow really is and who we really know or should know.
Shooting Stars - 10 to watch in 2011.
Toris isn’t a gambler but if he could buy shares in the following he probably would.
FWBS (great products, great people)
NovaPlex (no one knows Word better)
Workshare (recovery has been slow but calculated – product line and customer attitude both refreshed)
Mimecast (today the leading email services provider, tomorrow the end of MS Exchange as we know it)
Phoenix (long been the dark horse coming up on the outside and now about to let the field see its tail)
Lexis & Dynamics (the cocktail of the infiltration of Lexis Nexis, Bob Hadingham’s superior legal accounting knowledge and Microsoft’s product strength will change the face of legal accounting both as a standalone and a new generation of SAAS offerings)
Liam Flanagan (always one to watch)
Esselar (Next generation wireless and security solutions that have the potential to make a big impact)
Rekoop (These guys have taken a leaf out of the Apple ‘focus on the user interface’ book)
CPA Global (Clever combination of technology and expertise has the potential to take legal process outsourcing to a new level)
And five headlines we aren’t likely to see…..
‘Autonomy get record customer satisfaction ratings following renewed interest in legal’
‘Tikit acquire Phoenix- Tikit MD states admiration for previous rivals’
‘Apple’s iPad sales take over laptops – now regarded as serious business tool’
‘Law Firms compete with banks in staff bonuses’
‘Janet Day wins nothing – first time a year goes by without an award for the statesperson of legal technology.’
Happy New Year to you all – TORIS
